Text = System notification
[Text] = System function

Chapter 2

Does This Mean I Have Two Dead Names?

Last Time:

What I saw confirmed my fears. In the mirror was the face of Thorum.

"What the fuck"

-«(=)»-

"You okay man?" Motoyasu asked. "And can I get my mirror back?"

"Not sure" I replied, handing Motoyasu his pocket mirror.

"So are you gonna introduce yourself, or not?" Ren questioned.

"Yeah, I will, just let me try and get some facts straight"

Okay, I'm somehow in Thorum's body, but I retained my memories, or I guess I should say Thor's memories. Although I feel like I also have Thorum's as well? I don't feel 100% like Thor or Thorum, so maybe the summoning somehow fused the two? This is too confusing for me.

"Okay, I think I have enough facts to explain. What do you guys know about TTRPG's?" I asked.

Seeing both Motoyasu and Ren confused, Itsuki explained the term. "TTRPG stands for Table Top Role Playing Game. They're a type of game where you assume the role of a character you create, usually they're played in person, but can be played online as well"

"Yeah, that's the premise of it. The one that I played is called Dungeons and Dragons, or DND for short. To keep this as simple as possible, I'm not going to use first person when talking about the character and the player. The character is Thorum Trollbleeder, a paladin of Deep Sashelas, and the player is a 14 year old high school freshman named Thor Pandarider. However, it seems that the summoning ritual has fused them to create me, as I have Thorum's body, Thor's mind and the memories of both. Since I'm no longer either of them as far as I can tell, please call me by my codename, Tank"

"It's nice to meet you Tank!" Itsuki said.

"Feeling's mutual" I agreed. "Speaking of games, doesn't this world remind you guys of one of those cliche fantasy rpg's?"

"You mean it is one" Motoyasu pitched in. "It's exactly like Emerald Online!"

"Never heard about that one, is it popular?" I asked

"You bet! Kinda weird that you haven't heard about it though" Motoyasu said.

"What are you talking about?" Itsuki butted in. "This world is from the console game, Dimension Web, not some random online game"

"No it's not. It's basically the exact same as the VRMMO, Brave Star Online" Ren argued.

"Okay, let's compare knowledge" Motoyasu suggested.

-«(=)»-

As it turns out, the four of us are from different worlds, or at least different versions of the same one. It was pretty obvious in in my case, since I pretty much come from two. Somehow, the topic of discussion returned to the other three heroes' video game versions of this world.

"Man, you guys got lucky. All I got was a rather tall slab of stone that described the general scenario, and was for some reason called a tablet" I complained. They all just looked at me. "What?"

"It's probably because you're the Shield Hero" Itsuki offered.

"Huh, you too?" Motoyasu asked.

"It's only natural" Ren agreed.

"The fuck are you guys talking about?" I asked.

"I'll level with you," Motoyasu offered. "At least in my experience, the Shielder class is for losers and no one plays it. Hell, even the developers abandoned it"

"Same here" Ren agreed.

"Likewise" Itsuki said.

"Then it's a good thing I'm a paladin, huh?"

"What's the difference?" Motoyasu questioned.

"In DND, there's no Shielder class, or equivalent, unless you count Rangers, but that's only because barely anyone is good enough to use the class effectively. Paladins can be a shielder, but it's more accurate to call them the 'kind of a tank class', rather than the shield. Basically, we are close to mid range fighters that use a combination of weapons and spells" I explained. "Anyway, any of you got any plans for tomorrow?"

"Pretty much just looking around and getting used to fighting. With any luck, I'll go up a couple of levels" Itsuki responded.

"I'm going to turn in for the night, guys" I told the rest.

"How come? It's not even that late" Motoyasu asked

"Elves have a weird way of sleeping, and there's some things I wanna mess around with" I explained, walking to my room. "Good night!"

-«(=)»-

Sitting down on my bed, I opened my status to double check everything. At the top of the "screen" there were two tabs, one said "[Character Sheet]", and the other said "[Shield Tree]". Opening the [Shield Tree], a single circle popped up, titled "Small Shield", followed by the words, "Otherworldly Branch" and two more circles below it. Before I could really investigate, a prompt appeared.

[Shield Tree]
This is where you can see and equip any shield you have unlocked. Each shield will belong to a branch, these being combat, utility, support, etc. Each shield can be be a part of multiple branches, but will appear under the branch that corresponds with its intended use.

Huh, that's cool. Pulling up the two available options in the Otherworldly Branch, I found that they were my two +3 shields, titled "Dual +3 Shields", and the Spellguard Shield that brought me here.

Dual +3 Shields
Branch: Otherworldly
Tags: Otherworldly, Combat
Equip Bonus: +5 AC
Skills: N/A
Description: Two metal shields, each humming with an unseen energy which boosts their defensive capabilities

Spellguard Shield
Branch: Otherworldly
Tags: Otherworldly, Combat
Equip Bonus: +2 AC
Skills: Magical Resistance (Equip) ^
Advantage against spells and magical effects, Spells have disadvantage against you
Description: An ornate golden shield adorned with many valuable gems.

Noticing and focusing on the "?" in the corner, a new prompt appeared.

[Shield Profiles]
Each shield that is unlocked will gain a "Profile", or a breakdown of their capabilities. Below is the standard format for a Shield Profile

Name
Branch: The branch that a shield best fits, or is best described by.
Tags: All branches that a shield falls into. ("Tags" category will not appear if a shield only fits into one branch)
Equip Bonus: Any temporary stat changes that are given when the shield is equipped.
Perm. Bonus: Any permanent bonus given by unlocking a shield. Will not appear if a shield does not give any
Skills: Any magical effect given by the shield. (Resistances, spells, counter attacks, special effects, etc.)
Description: A physical description of the shield.

Going back to my [Character Sheet], I find that there's no option to unequip gear, so it looks like I'll have to do that manually. Not that it's even remotely close to hard work, since my body's used to it doing it.

Letting muscle memory take the lead, I took off my cloak, backpack, plate armor, and my boots to reveal a grey shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of hella comfy grey socks. I think I spent about 17 gold on them, but it was so worth it.

Speaking of money, what would happen if I feed my shield some? Can I even feed it anything? I'm pretty sure one of the others mentioned a similar mechanic.

To sate my curiosity, I pressed a copper coin against the gem of the shield. The coin sunk into the shield with a faint green light and a prompt appeared.

[Utility Branch Discovered!]

[New Shield Unlocked: Bronze Piece Shield]

Bronze Piece Shield
Branch: Utility
Tags: Utility, otherworldly
Equip Bonus: None
Skills: Money Storage (Passive) ^
Automatically stores up to 50 cp's worth of coins
Description: A rather small shield that would barely cover a hand. Its is made entirely of copper with a a single line encircling the gem in the center.

That's… not what I expected to happen. As far as this world's concerned, a copper piece is just a coin-sized chunk of copper, not a currency. But then why did I get a currency centered shield? Is it because I view it as a currency? If so, I'm not sure how much I trust this shield, since it could probably read my mind to an extent.

Alright, if a copper piece gives that good of a shield, then what would a silver or gold piece give me? Or a platinum piece?

Pushing one of each into the shield's gem rewarded me with three more money centered shields

[New Shields Unlocked: Silver Piece Shield, Gold Piece Shield, Platinum Piece Shield]

Silver Piece Shield
Branch: Utility
Tags: Utility, otherworldly
Equip Bonus: +1 AC
Skills: Money Storage II (Passive) ^
Automatically stores up to 40 sp's worth of coins
Description: A silver, oval-shaped shield shield that covers the forearm, but not much else. The edge is decorated with simple patterns.

Gold Piece Shield
Branch: Utility
Tags: Utility, otherworldly
Equip Bonus: +1 AC
Skills: Money Storage III (Passive)^
Automatically stores up to 30 gp's worth of coins
Description: A golden, circular shield that covers the forearm. The edge is decorated with simple patterns, while around the gem in the center is decorated with wave designs.

Platinum Piece Shield
Branch: Utility
Tags: Utility, otherworldly
Equip Bonus: +2 AC
Skills: Money Storage IV (Passive)^
Automatically stores up to 15 pp's worth of coins
Description: A reflective, curved shield decorated with complex designs throughout the shield. It is a little lighter in color than silver.

I can't believe I just used a platinum piece of this. Either way, I should probably put the rest of my coins in these shields.

Digging my coin purse out of my bag, I inserted the coins into the gem, and watched as my shields filled up. First, the Copper Piece Shield filled up, then my Silver Piece Shield, then my Gold Piece Shield, and finally my Platinum Piece Shield with only 22 silver pieces's worth of space left. Holy shit.

Where did I get all this money again? Oh yeah, when Lorana had a mood swing and decided to play Robin Hood by killing a corrupt noble. We ended up taking some for ourselves, hence pretty much all of my money, and then we anonymously redistributed the wealth evenly among the locals.

Finished with my moment of nostalgia, I switched back over to the [Character Sheet] tab, and took stock of what I have right now. I checked the status and then checked my backpack and my bag of holding to make sure I had everything.

Camping supplies? Check.
Page that somehow counts as holy scripture for spellcasting? Check.
Fish canons? Check.
Lute? Check.
Egg? Check.

Yup that's everything.

Although, I feel like I should explain the "fish canons". Sometime when we were all level 3, we stumbled upon a fishing village which apparently had a skilled artificer. Upon meeting said artificer, he told us he could only make bags of holding, and would only make them to better store fish. Long story short, we bought three of them filled to the brim with fish and left.

A session or two later, we encountered a young White Dragon, who had been causing a nearby town's crops to freeze and die. I ended up blowing its head off when it tried to Breath Attack us by turning one of the bags of holding inside out, right up in its face.

It feels rather weird remembering events from two different perspectives. From one perspective, I panicked, and it was the only thing I could think of doing. However from the other, I did it because I thought it was funny to kill a dragon with what was essentially, a fish shotgun.

Welp, it's getting pretty late, I should go to sleep. Or at least whatever trance elves go through when they "sleep".

"Goodnight Drekken" I said before falling into the semiconscious trance state of elven sleep.

Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I realize that it's pretty short, but I unfortunately do not have the time to make long chapters with AP tests coming up.

Anyways, if you have any tips, suggestions, ideas or constructive criticisms, please leave them in the reviews.

Replies to Anons:

It's so sad that Motoyasu carries a hand mirror on him!
Motoyasu just seems like the kinda dude to have on on him at all times. I like to imagine he also has/had a foldable hair brush as well.