I stood there in the center of the tent belonging to Caesar with The blade of the east against my neck as the entire tent tensed up unsure what to do. As the man holding the blade to my neck was Lanius It couldn't be anyone else.

"Lanius! stand down!" Caesar yelled causing his guards the praetorians to spring into action and surround Lanius in case he tried anything.

Lanius put it on his back before walking to Caesar and bowing, "My apologies Lord Caesar, I was only letting him know what our relationship was and that if he crossed us he would die."

"I understand that but giving him the wrong idea and making an enemy of him is foolish."

"I understand Lord Caesar please forgive me."

I wasn't sure how sincere he was considering during fallout New Vegas My character only ever encounter him face to face one time serving as a final boss battle of sorts however he seemed to be the type of person who was stubborn as hell and only did what he was told indicated by during that encounter you had to have an 80 speech check to convince him to back off without fighting. The fact that he acted on his own there knowing Caesar would likely be angry with him said that this might not be as close to the game as I would like. If there were even subtle differences between the game and obviously this real life version of that world then making too many decisions quickly would be bad for me so Even though it goes against the grain it's probably better that I just play along for now.

"It's all good." I said causing every set of eyes to fall on me which made me uncomfortable as hell because everyone in that tent was stupidly powerful in the game Wait does RPG logic still stand considering this to my knowledge is real life, "Tell me why you summoned me."

Caesar quickly explained that two weeks ago every man, woman, and child all experienced a vision of a large hourglass appearing and with it waves of monsters and a ritual to summon four heroes which sounded familiar to me considering there was another series that did the same thing except in a fantasy setting although I never watched it I remember Maria telling me how good it was. As I listened to Caesar give the explanation he said that at first there was much skepticism however after the first wave appeared and wiped out an entire region of NCR territory a place called vault City and with the appearance of the hourglass from the vision within legion territory and with the fact that the NCR had summoned two heroes already and Mr House having summoned a third Caesar wasted no time in summoning me. Caesar informed me of the appearance of what could be called magic namely in the form of status magic which allowed you to see how powerful you were and what weapons and items you had on you without the need to stop and assess things yourself.

I noticed the small tab in the corner of my vision and after focusing on it, it expanded and there was a screen in front of me like there would be in some RPG or I guess this would be more like an MMO given that everything still moved while it was up. Aside from my own stats and HP and SP which I guess meant spirit points I moved over a tab and saw that it said weapon upgrade, but the pages were blank like seriously how the hell am I supposed to get stronger so I tried brainstorming for a second and remembered that fallout 4 implemented a full customization system where you could optimize performance of your weapons and armor for whatever your build was and one of the pages was made readable which featured the customization option. I also checked out the help menu which did provide some useful info like the fact that the four heroes if they remain in close proximity cannot gain any experience points so they had to journey separately and that the four heroes can only use a weapon of the type they are assigned which came with an example indicating that I was the melee hero and can utilize any melee weapon. There was also a tab called the weapon tree which was kind of like a skill tree that you would see in an RPG and a weapon menu, if I read it right then I would unlock new weapons by meeting certain conditions. It also indicated that the standard weapon I had was also changeable to a degree however they would be standard weapons with no real buff so I guess that all depended on my particular favoritism.

"Is something wrong." Caesar asked snapping me out of my examinations, "You've been standing there for a time and It was taking you a while to look through your status that should only be one or two pages."

Instead of going over every detail of the conversation I'll go ahead and sum it up quickly I explained the weapon tree and the help menu along with the fact that the upgrade methods for the weapon were locked except for the one that I knew so I would likely have to meet the other heroes at some point to discuss that. Lanius didn't like the idea of course which even I couldn't fault him for that saying that I'm going to have a meeting with the people who are likely their enemies was in fact capable of leading to a disaster. Then I held up my weapon and changed it from the switchblade into a club right in front of them which caused several of even the pretorians to jump a little as it looked like I had just performed some amazing feat of magic with a flick of my wrist. After looking at the help menu again I determine that I would need to go and scavenge materials and feed them to the weapon which that panel even came with a diagram showing me how to do it which was helpful cuz I was lost when I read that.

Even though they would be effective More or less being a switchblade, a club, and a sledgehammer they were improv weapons at best. If I was playing New Vegas I would likely just collect them to sell at the next possible chance or even just ignore them late game because they're pretty useless at that point even for selling. I examine the weapons closely and found that the crystal even when the weapons were drastically different size was always positioned right where the handle met the business end of the weapon whether it was a blade or a blunt end be it wood or metal. I would need more examples later after I began upgrading it but that was a conclusion I came to for Caesar and lanius at the time.

"So all you have to do is feed items to the holy weapon and you'll unlock more weapons." Caesar asked clearly in a bit of disbelief, "If that's true then what items will work?"

"I don't know I guess I'll just have to try a little bit of everything to see..." I suddenly felt like a dumbass and stopped talking mid-sentence because I remembered one important fact about the weapons in that other series that Maria had told me about, "Hey could I see somebody's weapon."

Although confused Caesar looked to Lanius and gave him a nod and he reluctantly handed the blade of the east to me which caused me to damn your fall backwards due to how heavy that thing was. After going to the status menu the option to copy the weapon appeared and I'm not going to deny it I had a wicked grin as I copied the weapon and transformed my legendary weapon into the blade of the east.

"It worked." I said a little surprised myself.

"Worked! like hell it worked!" Lanius roared as he grabbed me by the collar, "You just made a mockery of my symbol of power the blade of the east has always been mine and mine alone."

"Well you could have just handed me a knife you didn't have to hand me the blade of the east." Lanius grunted as in his back pocket there was a knife that he used to skin animals when he went out hunting however he himself did not think of it and only focus on the weapon in his hand.

"Amazing it's exact in every detail." Caesar said marveling at the two identical weapons which if lanias didn't have me by the collar they would have likely made me hit the ground due to their weight, "and you can do this with any weapon?!"

"As long as it's a melee weapon it should be fine." I said giving the sword back to Lanius and changing the one in my hand back to a club, "Unfortunately it does seem that there are some restrictions like I have to be a high enough level and have the right stats to use it because the blade of the east was too heavy for my current strength and I need to be level 45 at least."

After I thought about it that means Lanius was still stupidly powerful even if this was real life if this world actually did go by a level system and if this world did follow some video game logic that would mean that he could still probably kill me without any effort given that I am level one right now.

"Has the world always gone by this level system where all your attributes are determined by your level and how you allocate them?" I asked Caesar.

"No, in fact it changed that very day everyone received the vision." He said somewhat irritably, "It's not been a better change let me assure you, at once raiders could be dealt with easily however when levels at times mean more than actual skill and tactics It is a lot harder to subdue them."

Lanius agreed and said, "There have also been several incidents where slaves have been stronger than their captors and even stronger than soldiers based solely on the fact that their levels were higher and there have been many escapes since then."

"Tell me one last question." I said and to which Caesar nodded, "I assume you did not call me here just to deal with New Vegas or the NCR's problem You're going to have a wave in legion territory aren't you."

"Yes, it will come in 3 weeks however we do not know where it will hit." Caesar said.

"All right then I guess show me the hourglass at the very least I can see if something will happen to give me a clue." I say looking down at it, "Also if you have any extra items around camp anything from knives and sharpening stones to bits of animals and other mutated creatures."

"That we can most certainly assist you with, we don't have many resources given that we are preparing to take the dam, but we can certainly supply you with something to get you started." Caesar said getting up and walking into his tent which sat behind his throne.

I follow him and see a large contraption that looks almost medical with needles and arms and scalpels if I remembered right they were called Auto docs and they could treat most injuries. I think the problem with his in the game was that his auto doc was only partially functional only able to treat minor injuries. Was there a way to repair that maybe I should have actually played more into the legion character I made but I really don't like the legion, but here I am summoned by the legion and I'm going to help them out well I guess it's not so bad if I look at it like I'm saving the civilians that are in the legion territory plus I'm going to a place I could never visit in the game and that's pretty cool.

Caesar pulled out a piece of parchment paper and stamped a seal on it and gave me an insignia that had an image of Caesar himself holding a blade in his right hand. It was only after handing it to me that I could tell what it was It was a pass that would let me not only traverse legion territory but even use some chems with limitations such as no recreational chems like jet or alcohol only things like stimpacks and radaway. You had to reread that given how strictly they considered this in fallout New Vegas the use of recreational chems could get the perpetrator beaten and crucified.

"You should be honored, after all only myself and Lanius and a few governors within the legion are permitted the use of life saving chems like this." Caesar said sounding a little bit more arrogant now that I've agreed to help only a little but to someone observant they could see it, "and this insignia will give you some authority when dealing with legionnaires although there is a limit to that."

I'm sure I didn't let my feelings on that comment shine through I can't tell if he understood or not but that line was why on a logical level I couldn't see eye to eye with the legion in my opinion they weren't rational wanting to avoid any and all chems no matter if they could save lives or not was just irrational, not to mention I'm against them fundamentally as an equalist so the very notion of any kind of discrimination based on things like ethnicity or gender was completely ridiculous in my eyes. I did put it in my jacket pocket although now that I paid attention I can see that the sun was already setting by the dimming light so during the midday I would likely need some lighter clothes as I am technically in the desert as is most of everything from NCR territory to the legion territory and everything in between like New Vegas. Wait a sec does it even matter considering I should have been cooking in my leather jacket even at this time of day well I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Caesar walked back out and began walking towards the entrance of his tent followed by myself and Lanius as well as the rest of his praetorian guards. In hindsight I know an emperor needs bodyguards but if this guy actually bothered learning a damn thing about ancient Rome this guy would have known having praetorian guard was generally a stupid idea considering they were participants in many assassinations of emperors back then. We walked down to the armory where looked around for melee weapons which surprisingly there weren't that many I can't say surprisingly given the fact that this is not hundreds of years in the past but still the legion was always meant to be more crude and rustic in New Vegas. I grabbed a spear but couldn't copy it due to the fact that it was a throwing spear so I absorbed it into my weapon instead and unlocked two different weapon trees along with two different weapons

tribal spear unlocked

melee damage:4

armor piercing:10

active ability: airstrike thrust

accessory slot=1

Lance unlocked

armor piercing:20

passive skills: riding bonus

active ability: piercing strike

accessory slot=0

I just stared at the notifications that popped up seeing that the one called a tribal spear had aside from stat boosts and a new skill It had something called an accessory slot which to my knowledge an accessory meant that it was just that an item meant to make it look different however in some games occasionally accessories had powers that they granted weapons or armor. I figure that coming back to that later would be a better option and I changed my weapon to the tribal spear which to my surprise looked somewhat different from the legions, strangely the tribal spear that I was holding was actually well put together and if anything far less crude than the ones in the legions possession. The second one was a Lance that doesn't have an accessory slot however It came with a passive skill called riding bonus which alluded to the idea of riding animals. To my knowledge none of the fallout games ever had a mechanic where you could ride on the back of an animal like a horse due to the fact that radiation exposure causing mutation and time away from humans made most animals ornery and difficult to tame all accept for a few examples like Brahmin and Big horner.

I switched to the lance next and sure enough it was pretty standard like something you'd see a knight at a Renaissance fair using in a jousting match. I was interested in the riding bonus and seeing what it did I figured it was best to wait on that considering that I'm still learning the ins and outs of this holy weapon. I walk over and take a bullet out of a small ammo can and as I put it into the weapon I saw a screen come up saying recipe unlocked to see that the recipe for 22 caliber bullets and gunpowder has been unlocked which let's be real is incredibly useful considering even if I can't use guns if I have a party member down the line they'll need bullets for sure, so I walked around and took a bullet out of every can in the armory getting as many kinds of bullets as I could for the recipes.

I found an old broken sharpening wheel which was a useful find because I didn't want to overstep and ask to deconstruct one when they definitely need them for the upcoming battle. After putting a piece of the broken wheel into the weapon I acquired another weapon.

Sharpening fan

All stats:1

Equip ability: blade sharpening

Active ability: imbue

Accessory slots=3

I kept my cool earlier but this one got me really interested and It damn near made me fall backwards having three accessory slots on something that to my understanding only sharpened blades there had to be more to it than that after all my gamers intuition told me so. I switched to the sharpening fan which garnered some looks from the praetorians and Caesar and Lanius. Until now they had been quiet letting me figure things out however when one of the praetorians busted out laughing the others quickly joined in until Caesar shushed them.

"Is something funny gentleman." I asked them, "Being able to sharpen a blade when on the trail or out in the wilderness without proper equipment is pretty useful wouldn't you say."

"My apologies hero I meant no offense it's just that the idea of a man walking around with a fan out like a woman was funny." The guy who laughed first said nervously try not to anger Caesar any further, "I mean even if it serves a purpose no man of the legion would be caught dead with a fan like that."

These guys were really the worst hell if there's a dress out there that makes someone bulletproof I would damn well wear the dress if it meant I didn't get shot. although now that I look at the fan it had intricate designs running up the sides and in the very center it had a beautiful woman taking care of what looks to be her husband's sword while he slept peacefully so they're definitely was a femininity to it.

I quickly looked through the help menu but couldn't find anything about these accessory slots.

I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask so I just asked Caesar, "Do you know about something called accessory slots?"

"I don't think so, do you have an idea of what they could be used for?"

"Well in some stories accessories gave unique functions or power to otherwise mundane items, I don't know if you have anything like that in this world even if all this levels and magic and stuff is new I figured it never hurts to ask." explaining that where I came from his life and every other life in this whole world was nothing but a game to be played would probably have sent the wrong message so I just kind of told a half truth, I figured it would be the better option.

"Sir there are those things we found." It was Lanius that spoke up, "Recently we found a crate of useless trinkets I think they were called keychains I believe those were also called accessories."

The entire group was looking at Lanius I mean I guess he's not wrong but could it really be as simple as putting a keychain onto my weapon? Either way I figured it wouldn't hurt to try so Lanius led me out to the kitchen tent that was set up near the entrance the slave girls that attended that area were shocked and if I have to put it one way terrified when they saw not just the praetorian guard walking their way but Lanius and Caesar and probably me as well although comparatively I'm not all that intimidating. The women backed against the wall of the tent and proceeded to bow their heads not looking at any of us in the eyes.

As our group came to the corner of the tent where the box was supposed to be only to find that it was gone and he turned to the slave girl next to him a petite and thin girl probably only a teenager causing her tense up just under his gaze, "Tell me girl where is the box that I left here."

As the girl tried to find her words I was busy trying to think why the hell he would leave it here of all places in a kitchen where it all likelihood keychains would serve no purpose.

After the girl composed herself she looked up and said and a meek voice, "T...the quartermaster instructed us to move it he said that there was no reason to keep it here so he had us bring it to the incinerator."

Lanius looked pissed even under his mask You could see the fury on his face just in the way his jaw curled and the girl who is probably half his size trembled before him. As if on cue the quartermaster who had given the order rounded the corner and froze when he saw all of the praetorians, Lanius, and Caesar himself standing there. Lanius look to the quartermaster and then back to the girl and she nodded her head and pointed at the quartermaster. The quartermaster looking confused putting his hands up in defence trying to explain himself however Lanius having none of it simply grabbed him by the throat and hoisted him into the air one handed causing everyone around to stare at the commotion.

"I had a box placed here to get it out of the way and to keep it safe should we ever need spare screws and parts and yet you haul it to the incinerator." Lanius bellowed loosening his grip just enough that the quartermaster could breathe and speak for himself.

"I'm sorry legate It was just taking up space I figured it would be better if to get it out of the way I mean they were just trinkets from the old world I didn't think they'd serve a purpose." The quartermaster could only squirm as he tried to reach the ground with his feet.

As Lanius tormented a quartermaster I couldn't help but notice that the girl had a necklace on with something hanging down into the patchwork dress that she wore but drew my attention was the thing connecting the string to the trinket was unmistakably the hook of a keychain. I walked over to her and Caesar noticed and followed. The girl quickly noticed this and began shaking again as she had met Caesar's gaze and I guess feared that he would have her crucified which you never know he might have at any other time.

I look to her and ask, "Well you're our only hope did you happen to snag one before you threw it in the incinerator?