Lying on the crude plank bed, Aaron could not fall asleep at all. The female elf's handsome face flashed through his mind one moment, and that glow he suspected was Divine Shield the next. His thoughts were a tangled mess, and he could make no sense of them.
After all, Aaron still had no clear understanding of his situation, and no white-bearded old grandpa had popped out of a corner to explain it to him. All the information he could recall consisted of scraps he had seen in and outside the game.
"She said her name was Vereesa... and her surname was Windrunner... Vereesa... Windrunner..." A golden flash suddenly streaked through Aaron's mind, and he instantly remembered where he had heard the name Vereesa Windrunner. She was the younger sister of the famous Banshee Queen Sylvanas! Of course, she was also the younger sister of Alleria, one of the renowned five heroes of the Dark Portal.
"So it was her. She had so little presence, no wonder I couldn't remember who she was." Aaron muttered, though the meaning behind his words was somewhat hard to decipher. "But if she's showing up here at this time, could it be..."
At last, Aaron remembered something very important: why Vereesa had appeared here. The story was complicated if told in detail, but simple if kept brief. Summed up in one sentence, Vereesa, who had just completed her ranger training, had accepted a mission to escort Rhonin to Hasic, and after a series of adventures, the two had hooked up.
"Man, I'm jealous," Aaron muttered after recalling that chain of events. He then turned his attention to his right hand. Now that he remembered why Vereesa was here, he also had a basic idea of what time period he was in. This should have been after the Second War. The orcs who had invaded the Eastern Kingdoms had been driven back to barren Draenor, but some still occupied the dwarven kingdom of Khaz Modan. The human kingdoms should currently have been busy fighting those orcs, but the orcs had an ace up their sleeves-the red dragons.
Although the circumstances behind Rhonin's mission were rather complicated, judging by the final outcome, he had resolved the threat those red dragons posed to humanity. Rhonin, still a nobody at this point, had also gradually begun his rise to the pinnacle of life.
Remembering this was useful to Aaron, too. According to his memories, if he wanted to meet the Bronze Dragon Aspect, who controlled Azeroth's timelines, this was probably his chance. Finding that fellow later, when he was running around across multiple timelines, would be difficult.
But if Aaron wanted to meet the Bronze Dragon Aspect, he needed enough strength to protect himself. Otherwise, could he really persuade Rhonin to bring along someone who had not even undergone basic training?
Studying his right hand in the light falling through the basement window, Aaron imagined a blazing golden glow flowing through it. Yet even after thinking until his head hurt, he could not summon so much as a wisp of Holy Light.
"What happened tonight shouldn't have been my imagination. Does it only work when I see someone about to get hurt? Would finding a knife and cutting myself work?" In the end, however, Aaron did not put that idea into practice. After all, if he messed it up, he would be the one getting hurt.
But as Aaron tossed and turned on the straw bed, he suddenly felt something square and hard beside him. He reached out to touch it and froze-a hardcover book.
"What the heck is this?" Aaron was certain this book had not been beside him just a short while ago. He reached out and picked it up, and its weight dragged his wrist down. The book was quite heavy.
Examining the book in the meager moonlight shining through the basement window, Aaron could only make out that its cover was mainly gold and red, with an emblem of a clenched fist on it. That emblem was very familiar to him. It was clearly the symbol of the Silver Hand, the Paladins' organization. Still, Aaron had already expected something like this. After all, he had used Divine Shield earlier.
Aaron stroked the book's cover. It was as hard as steel, yet it did not feel cold. Instead, it had an inexplicable warmth.
Gritting his teeth, Aaron opened the book to its first page. An extremely intricate design greeted his eyes, but in the dim indoor light, he could not make out the full picture at all.
After some thought, Aaron quietly got up and followed the stairs to the ground-floor hall. The inn was silent now. The guests and the owner were all upstairs, and there was not even anyone keeping watch on the ground floor.
As quietly as he could, Aaron opened the inn's wooden door and stepped outside. Bright moonlight covered the open ground beyond the door. After confirming that he could read the book's contents by moonlight, he picked a vacant spot at random, sat down on the ground, and began studying it.
Turning a page, Aaron saw many things that looked familiar. Right there on the page were pictures of several creatures he knew well. "This is the astral cloud serpent, this is the phoenix, the Kor'kron War Scorpion..." After looking at just a few, Aaron knew what these pages contained. Clearly, these were all mounts he had farmed in the game. After carefully leafing through them, he confirmed that they were all mounts he owned. Not a single one he had failed to obtain in the game was there.
To Aaron's disappointment, however, not one of these mounts was usable. Their icons were all grayed out, indicating they were unavailable. But after the mount collection, he finally found something that delighted him immensely: the equipment collection.
"Why is there so little..." Aaron sighed. The equipment collection was much smaller than he had expected, with only one item for each equipment slot. The only good news was that all the equipment was lit up, meaning it was usable.
As for what came after the equipment collection... it was a completely dark toy collection, containing the same toys Aaron had collected in the game.
Aaron summoned the equipment pieces one by one. Once fully armed, he tried a few movements and found that the equipment did not get in his way. It even gave him the feeling that his stats had increased.
But after reading through the matching names of all these pieces, realization dawned on him. "Isn't this the T20 set from Tomb?"
Indeed, Aaron's set, which radiated golden light and included a golden circlet floating above his head, was clearly the game's second-to-last tier set, the Radiant Lightbringer set, dropped in the Tomb of Sargeras raid.
In appearance, this set was remarkably similar to the T6 set from The Burning Crusade expansion, though at least its effects were flashier. It was also one of Aaron's favorite sets. For a casual player like him, looking cool was a lifelong pursuit.
And in terms of stats, this was already the second-strongest set in the game. The only stronger one was T21 from Antorus, the Burning Throne.
"But this sword and shield... the Glorious Dawnblade. Isn't this from the Lightforging weapon series?" Aaron examined the weapon in his hand and shook his head in mild dissatisfaction. "Too bad it's not an artifact. Otherwise, I could hack my way from the Eastern Kingdoms all the way to Outland."
After thoroughly admiring the dazzling golden set, Aaron continued leafing through the hardcover book. Past the equipment collection, he was delighted to find a skill list. Only after that initial delight did he notice that eight or nine out of every ten skills were unavailable. Only a handful were active.
"Shield of the Righteous, Hammer of the Righteous, Light of the Protector, Blessing of Sacrifice, Ardent Defender, Divine Shield. Six skills in total. Damn, two attack skills barely stronger than auto-attacks, one heal, one for taking hits for someone else, one for taking hits myself, and one invulnerability. I'm protection-specced."
After trying out several skills, Aaron confirmed that they worked normally. The only troublesome part was that he had to press the icons in the book with his hand to use them. This made him feel he would probably need to practice switching weapons. After all, a proper protection Paladin needed both a main-hand weapon and a shield. Putting away a weapon and pulling out a book at a critical moment was far too inefficient.
Still, Aaron finally remembered that he had cast Divine Shield earlier without this book. Unfortunately, no matter how long he tried, he could not repeat what he had done before. Even calling out the skill's name, despite his extreme embarrassment, had no effect.
"All right, time to head back." Aaron bumped his clenched fists together. This equipment and the few usable skills had given him confidence that he could survive in this disaster-ridden world. At least he no longer had to constantly worry, as he had before, about dying in some catastrophe such as an invasion by the undead Scourge.
"Wait, won't going back like this be a bit inconvenient?" Aaron had only just thought about returning when he started moving and heard clanking all over his body. After all, Paladins wore full plate armor. Though it did not impede his movements, the constant noise still felt rather inconvenient.
As that thought flashed through Aaron's mind, the pieces of equipment on his body flickered a few times like incandescent bulbs with faulty connections, then vanished.
Aaron stood stunned for quite a while before belatedly patting his waist. He discovered that the hardcover book he had hung there had vanished along with the one-handed sword. He felt like crying but had no tears. Yet after barely suppressing the urge to throw back his head and wail, he finally realized that the book seemed to have slipped inside his mind, where it was now continuously radiating golden Holy Light.
Although having this inexplicable thing slip into his head troubled Aaron somewhat, after confirming that he could still use the equipment and those few skills normally through the book in his mind, he endured that discomfort and quietly returned to the basement to sleep. After all that fuss, he was unbearably sleepy.