The four of them returned to the Solitude stables and hired two carriages to continue their journey toward Riften.
This VR-enhanced version was built upon the original "Survival Mode." Except for skipping the tutorial, fast travel was disabled for the rest of the game. Players also had to pay attention to warmth and hunger; otherwise, freezing or starving would cause them to lose health.
Arator and Amy were in the front carriage, while Wayne and Shadowbreaker sat in the one behind.
"Miller," Shadowbreaker started, "you're like a block of wood in reality, but why are you so stiff even in the game?"
Wayne was caught off guard by the random question. He had thought they were still discussing the black dragon.
"Stop acting," Shadowbreaker continued. "That girl proactively invited you to dance, and you just sat there acting all noble. If it were any other young lad, they'd be falling all over themselves to accept."
"I..."
Shadowbreaker couldn't help but think: The man in the desert dies of thirst, while the man in the flood drowns...
"You're not... uninterested in women, are you?"
"Pah!" Wayne shot him a glare and then said something he almost believed himself: "Until the Undead are destroyed, I have no home to call my own!"
Though he didn't say it quietly, his voice was drowned out by the wind and snow. The two in the front carriage didn't hear a thing.
"You brat... do those two things conflict?" Shadowbreaker asked.
"They absolutely conflict... Sigh, you don't understand, old man."
Wayne thought to himself: How could you know what's coming? In two and a half years, the Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight would suddenly declare war on all mages. To counter this, the entire rebuilt Dalaran would fly to Northrend under Rhonin's leadership.
That would include Amy.
And unlike others, she would choose a very unconventional way to fight the frenzied blue dragons, only to meet a heartbreaking end.
If he couldn't change that, then doing any number of trivial things now would be for nothing.
But changing it was easier said than done. Even the task of defying fate to save Marshal Windsor—with the full support of SI:7 and the elite members of Stormwind's professional guilds—had involved two extremely perilous battles against Onyxia and Chromie.
Given the nature of the Bronze Dragonflight, Chromie and her companions would surely interfere again when the time came.
By then, the mages would be dealing with the blue dragons, the Alliance and Horde would be fighting the Scourge while simultaneously handling the mysterious forces hidden in Ulduar, and they'd have to deal with traitors in the rear.
Wayne had no clear lead yet. He could only focus on strengthening himself and his friends while waiting for the Stormwind army to return from Dustwallow Marsh so he could fulfill the final request he had made to Mathias.
Chatting along the way, the four entered the filthy, foul-smelling "Ratway" beneath Riften.
As he followed Wayne, Arator remarked that the stench here only ranked second—just behind the brine for the stinky tofu.
After eliminating a squad of Thalmor assassins, they finally found the other member of the Blades, "Esbern." Upon learning that dragons had returned to the world, Esbern agreed to come out of retirement and followed them back to Delphine's secret base in Riverwood.
Based on his years of research, Esbern marked the location of an ancient Blades stronghold on the map.
Through thorns and puzzles, even sacrificing the blood of a Dragonborn, they finally entered the "Sky Haven Temple."
By the light of their torches, they saw the secret of the dragons—a wall depicting why the black dragon "Alduin" was born and how he was exiled. The Blades called this "Alduin's Wall."
The carvings clearly recorded that when Alduin was last exiled, three heroes had used the power of an Elder Scroll. To find this scroll, they had to go to a place called "Blackreach."
The group then visited the College of Winterhold—Amy's favorite place in the game. An old mage told them the passage to Blackreach lay within a Dwemer ruin, but the location of that ruin was known only to a mad mage living in a cave on the northern ice floes.
So, the four sought out this mage. He indeed gave them the location and asked them to bring back a box called the "Lexicon," claiming it was the key to unlocking the secrets of the Elder Scroll.
Outside the net cafe, the moon was bright and the stars were few; inside, the lights burned bright.
Wayne wanted to go to sleep several times, but the other three dragged him back, saying they were too hooked on the plot to sleep until they finished this part.
Left with no choice, Wayne guided them through the vastness of Blackreach. Along the way, the monsters they encountered most were spiders of all sizes and colors.
"I've heard from veterans who returned from Northrend, and from monks who study history, that there is a massive spider kingdom beneath Northrend as well," Shadowbreaker remarked.
Amy immediately confirmed, "That's right, my father told me about it too!"
"Miller," Shadowbreaker said, "I'm not the only one who thinks this. I'm sure everyone feels a bit strange. Why is it that the things you have us play always have such extreme similarities to the world we live in?"
"Sometimes I even wonder which world is real and which is fake—the one we live in or the ones in these games."
Amy followed up on his thought: "Could it be like a portal? Perhaps we aren't playing games, but actually transmigrating to another world? Or perhaps, to a planet similar to Outland that no one has ever reached before?"
Wayne thought: Go ask the developers... why are you asking me?
However, he told them to keep playing and that he would answer that question later.
Passing through many traps, the four arrived at a circular mechanism room. In front of five buttons, the other three watched as Wayne performed a series of rapid presses. The disc below lit up, and the mirrors above focused the light onto a blue crystal in the center. Finally, the crystal descended—the Elder Scroll was in their hands.
The four took the Lexicon back to the mad mage. He opened something that looked like a space pod inside his ice cave. Just as the four exited after inspecting the interior, a terrifying scene unfolded!
A massive, black, squid-like tentacle erupted from the ground, piercing the mad mage from below and exiting through the top of his head. The mage didn't even have a chance to resist, his body only twitching with primal, powerless instinct. Then the tentacle withdrew, and he collapsed to the ground like he had been sucked dry, turning into a withered corpse.
"What is that thing?!"
Even Amy was pale with fright, while Shadowbreaker and Arator immediately raised their weapons in a defensive stance.
Only Wayne spoke calmly: "It's fine. we're in no danger for now."
Then he stepped forward.
A dark, mass of tentacles and eyeballs appeared at the entrance of the ice cave. Arator had never seen anything like it, and even Amy had never read about such a species in her books. They didn't dare follow Wayne forward.
"The mortal world is but a drop in the ocean..." a voice echoed. It was deep and hollow, but no one could tell where the "mouth" of this mass of tentacles and eyes was.
Wayne was a bit surprised; this line of dialogue wasn't there when he had played before.
"Do you fear me, traveler?" it asked.
Wayne shook his head.
Wayne took two more steps forward. Behind him, Shadowbreaker shouted, "Careful! Don't fall for its tricks!"
Wayne waved his hand back. "If you have something to say, say it. If you have a fart, let it out. I'm in a hurry to turn in the quest."
The entity then spoke at length, explaining that the mad mage had only opened the box with their help, and because of that, it was willing to offer them more "knowledge."
Before Wayne could reply, Arator, bursting with a sense of justice, shouted, "In your dreams! I would rather die here than help a demon like you!"
With that, the terrifying mass of tentacles and eyes vanished.
"Is it... gone?" Shadowbreaker asked.
Wayne nodded. "Yep. Why, are you missing it already?"
"How... how are you so calm?" Amy asked. "I've never seen anything so disgusting and eerie..."
"Stinky tofu is just as foul-smelling, and you'd never seen it before, but now you eat it like it's the best thing in the world," Wayne teased.
"What would have happened if I had gone up and hacked it?" Arator asked.
Wayne looked at them. "Didn't you just ask me what the relationship is between our world and these game worlds?"
The three nodded immediately.
Wayne told them: "Ancient gods with tentacles, dragons that want to destroy the world, never-ending undead, magic that spirals out of control, and demons transmigrating from other worlds—the things found here are all present in our world as well."
"Consider this a preview. Sooner or later, you'll find that the things in the real world are far more terrifying than in the games. However, in reality, we are also far stronger than we imagine."
"Let's go! It's time to face Alduin!"