Through careful timing Eli managed to get into the Simbox without having to talk with his mother, he didn’t feel he was in the best state of mind to talk about what had happened yet. Instead he snuck into the Simbox while she went to the bathroom and entered into the Shattered World right where he’d left off in the Craftsman Guildhall. An odd sensation it was, as his sense of touch was overtaken by the simulation and the anger he held in his mind carried over into his avatar.

He glanced at the Cooking, Artistry, Architecture and Scribing signs around the guildhall, remembering he hadn’t learned those professions yet. He wasn’t convinced he’d need them and at the moment he still had a lot of emotion boiling inside of him that made him want to pull out his sword and start stabbing things. So he took another deep breath and decided that a nice, easy calming set of activities first would be ideal to keep his head straight.

Two hours in-game, 30 minutes realtime later, he had acquired the last four crafting professions. He was pleased that he could now cook his own boar meat for stamina recovery, but the basic recipe that the NPC gave him tasted questionable at best. He’d also learned that he could combine the Artistry skill with most of the other crafting skills to design unique looking pieces, thus he started brainstorming ways to make his crafts more valuable just by improving their appearance.

He began working on cleaning up his inventory space to gain some experience in his new crafts. He used the leather and cloth he’d obtained first, refining it to the best of his ability before attempting to expand the size of his inventory. He didn’t have much growth in this regard, but he figured a few more slots and carrying weight couldn’t hurt. He then went to using his copper ore and wood supplies, with the intent of making as many copper tools as he could. His plan was to be as self-sufficient as possible with well made tools.

The process of working ore into usable metal by the game’s standards was tedious, as was the wood and the actual crafting, but after about an hour he got into a rhythm, and gained a level in each of the skills so that by hour three, he’d managed to make 5 of each tool, and use up the last of his apple supply in the process to keep his stamina up.

Stepping out back into the streets of Orm he was relieved to see no signs of Zekor or Samathara. He took a deep breath, taking in the many scents and sounds of this fantasy village, and very quickly all of the troubles of his real life felt so far away, he was so quickly at peace and immersed in this world - a place where he knew exactly what he needed and wanted to do.

Locating a merchant selling food, he stocked up on a few more apples and fastened his shield to his left arm before heading out of Orm towards where he’d remembered all the copper was. He didn’t get more than a few steps out of the village proper before a familiar voice shouted out to him.

“There you are, we’ve been looking for you!” Keldan smiled, his live streaming icon above his head switched on, with Swiftstar and some other players standing behind him. Winter let out an elongated sigh. These would be the first people he’d have to deal with, but at level 1 he couldn’t do much, he had to try and lose them for now.

“How long have you guys been waiting here for me?” Winter said groaned.

“Eh, not long. I’ve got bad news for you, City guards in Orm are sparse… aaand they seem pretty busy right now.” He peered around the streets to make sure none were nearby. “Oh well. See you in an hour.” Keldan grinned before releasing a huge blast of fire from his hand in Winter’s direction. Winter winced, anticipating the impact and burning sensation, but nothing came. Winter instead opened his eyes to see standing in front of him a tall, handsome Elven male with beautiful long silver hair standing in front of him, a giant greatsword nearly as tall as he was being held at his side. He wore intricately crafted full plate armor and a large tabard over his breastplate depicted an owl with spread wings.

Looking over this Elf’s shoulder, Winter saw DEAD text overtop all of Keldan and his goons' health bars, watching their bodies disintegrate as they were forced to log out. He then looked at the name above the Elf, it read Herilon, Level ???. From reading the Shattered World manual he knew that a player could choose to hide their level from other players that were at least 50 levels lower than them. Winter looked at Herilon in confusion with wide eyes, which Herilon quickly noticed.

“What? They initiated PvP, so no penalty for killing them.” Herilon shrugged.

“Why’d you help me?” Winter asked.

“I’m stuck on Guard duty for Orm.” He huffed with disappointment. “All these new players showing up, bunch of wannabe PvPers, bandits and thieves trying to take advantage. My guild rules over the Kalmoore region, so we get a percentage of taxes that the NPCs pay. It’s in our best interest to keep the peace. Still, what was the deal with those idiots? Attacking a level 1? That’s a good way to get yourself KOS’d by guards.”

“Ahehe…” Winter didn’t feel like explaining it to the stranger. “What’s your guild called?”

“You haven’t heard of it? You oughta if you’re starting here. We’re the Night Hunters.” He tapped the tabard symbol on his chest. “We’re recruiting of course, but you’ll need to be at least an intermediate class to be considered. Recruitment’s tightened up ‘cause of the recent influx of players. That Makaroth’s son being here’s been a real pain in our ass.” Herilon complained before suddenly looking shocked at something across the way. “Ah, damn cheeky- I saw that.” He shouted out at no one in particular, and in a flash, he was gone.

He didn’t seem to notice who Winter was, which was refreshing, and after turning to try and see where he’d gone, he spotted Herilon taking out a level 30 player down the street who was in the process of pickpocketing a merchant. Winter turned to continue on his way, a skip in his step now that he knew he wouldn’t be bothered by those guys for the next 6 hours - plenty of time to get somewhere they wouldn’t bother him.

“So, first thing is first.” He said out loud as he stepped under the shade of the forest surrounding Orm. He wandered forward for a bit until he found a rustling bush, then quickly opened his interface, the screen hovering in front of him, and made his way to his spell book.

Locating his minor heal spell, he double checked to see how to cast it. The spell indicated it had verbal and somatic components - he’d have to shout the name of the spell and raise a hand in the air. Easy enough, he thought to himself as he closed out of the menu.

He had a plan of action on how he could still get experience without attacking, but he wasn’t 100% sure it was going to work, so he went through the help menus to reread the basic rules on stamina.

Stamina Usage

All intense physical actions, skills, spells, and activities utilize stamina.

If a player reaches 0 stamina, they will exhaust themselves to death and be logged out, the same as if they have dropped to 0 hit points, so it is important to always give yourself time to recover stamina between intense activities.

When a non-player creature reaches low stamina levels, they will enter an enraged state. (enraged state can also be triggered by a creature reaching low hit point levels, see: Combat for more information) Creatures become more powerful during an enraged state, however they will, just as players are, be defeated once their stamina reaches 0. Exceptions to this are Undead, Mechanical, and Boss enemies, as well as other unique encounters. *Note* Non-player creatures have significantly larger stamina pools relative to their hitpoints,

He didn’t read the rest, instead closing out of the menu. He’d found from his research the days previous that most high level monsters had impossibly large stamina pools, so wearing them out wasn’t an option. For low level boars on the other hand...

Feeling as prepared as he could be, with all weapons and tools unequipped and just a shield out (to resist the temptation to accidentally fight back and lose his hard earned pacifism skill), he stepped forward toward the nearby rustling bush until he got the attention of the aggressive boar residing within. It charged at him from the brush with full force, and he braced himself with the shield, digging his feet into the ground.

You take 10 Crushing Damage.

*WHAM* - the sound of the boar’s hard skull slamming into the shield, his feet slid backward into the dirt an inch, the boar swerving around him to keep its momentum, turning a few feet away and charging back at him anew. He looked at his status, seeing his stamina drop a bit, and then braced for the next hit.

*WHAM* - This time felt harder, the pain of the impact mostly felt by his arm as he did his best to hold it in place. He double checked to see he’d taken 12 damage this time.

“Minor Heal!” He shouted with his right hand in the air. His hand began to glow with a white, warming and soothing light, which took him by surprise. He felt the warmth grow down his arm as the light grew brighter over the next 2 seconds, before finally it burst into an explosion of radiant energy and swirled around him, and his health went back up by twenty points.

Unfortunately, in that time, the boar had closed in for another hit, slamming into his shield and immediately taking him down a bit more.

Level Up!: Shield Mastery reached level 4!

“That was fast.” Winter said to himself, turning to face the boar and take another hit. He followed this method, taking several more strikes and healing himself 2 more times, until he saw his mana depleted. The following hit after that dealt another 10 damage, at which point the boar added in a secondary hind kick strike after its charge, dealing another 10 points and knocking Winter back off of his feet.

Winter quickly corrected himself, getting back to his feet as the boar dug its front hooves into the dirt, huffing and preparing a charge again. At that moment, he could swear the boar was grinning.The boar charged eagerly at him. At that moment Winter realized, a little late, that he hadn’t accounted for how slow his mana regeneration was.

“Hey hey, wait little guy, chill out for a second.” Winter shouted at it, but he got ignored, so instead of taking the attack head on, he tried strafing out of the way to avoid it, causing the boar to charge into a tree behind him.

Winter saw the collision and got an idea, sprinting to a nearby tree in the opposite direction the boar had charged. With a running jump he leaped up as high as he could onto it, grabbing the lowest branches and scrambling up on top of them. The boar turned and glared up at him, puffed air from its long snout, and charged.

“Hah, hah.” He panted out of breath, double checking to make sure his stamina was still decent. “Can’t get me up here.” He said mockingly to the boar, but despite this he swore he saw the boar’s eyes twinkle with determination, and its continued charge started to worry Winter.

The boar slammed it's hard head into the tree he’d climbed, shaking the branches, and the trunk made a distinct crunching and cracking sound. Following the impact, it turned around and backed up, preparing another charge, and Winter looked down to see the busted up section of the trunk the boar had hit.

“You gotta be kidding me.” He said in disbelief as the boar charged again. “Stop you stupid-” realizing he was talking to a computer generated animal, he gave up on negotiations and panicked, holding on to the trunk as tightly as possible as the second impact hit. This time the trunk gave way and the tree began to teeter over, slowly falling to the ground. Winter braced himself as best as possible, rolling off the tree at the last second and getting back to his feet on the forest floor.

“What the hell is your skull made out of?!” He shouted as it charged at him, landing another hit into his shield, nearly knocking him off his feet.

You take 9 Crushing Damage.

Wooden Shield’s durability has dropped by 1.

“Haaaaaah!” Winter shouted in frustration as he broke into a sprint. He was shamelessly running away from the level 1 boar, who had turned once more and gleefully broken into another charge at him. The boar was moving faster than him, but from glancing back he saw it having trouble following him around the larger trees and bends, and decided to take advantage of this, maneuvering himself around various tree trunks.

Jumping at the right time, he could get the boar to charge past him, missing him completely and forcing it to turn around and charge again. From sprinting, Winter noticed his Stamina was draining fast, so he instead started maneuvering around a specific pair of large trees that the boar was having trouble with. This continued for a long while filled with furious squealing. A ridiculous game of cat and mouse took place while Winter happily regenerated enough mana to cast Minor Heal once more, nearly topping himself back off.

Suddenly the boar stopped charging and froze in place for a moment, huffing angrily as it began glowing red. It dug its hooves in more menacingly than before, its eyes bright crimson with rage.

“There’s the enrage. Here comes the hard part...” Winter nervously mumbled, the boar responded by bursting into a furious charge, much faster than before. Winter attempted to maneuver around a tree trunk once more, but the boar ignored the trunk completely, clipping through it partially and catching Winter’s shield with one of its tusks.

You take 22 Crushing Damage.

Wooden Shield’s durability has dropped by 1.

“Shit!” Winter shouted in pain, it felt as if his arm had been torn off. He had to double check to make sure it was still there - luckily the pain subsided shortly after, but he saw the boar turning to charge again. “D-demon boar.” He hissed. The boar, of course, didn’t react. Winter knew he shouldn’t take any more attacks from this thing, and resorted to climbing a tree again as the boar closed in.

The boar crashed through the trunk like a bulldozer, but Winter managed to avoid the strike. The tree fell down forcing Winter to jump to another as the boar rushed forward to charge again, knocking a second down. He panicked, there wasn’t another one immediately nearby, so was forced to sprint away again as the boar charged at him from behind, gaining on him.

At the last second Winter turned to take the impending hit head on with his shield, flinching as the boar closed in, but suddenly it lost its footing, collapsed and slid forward through the dirt, the boar let out one last huff of heavy breath, then stopped, laying there motionless.

Small Forest Boar Defeated!

You gain 8 Experience!

“Whew...” Winter wheezed, dropping his hands onto his knees to catch his breath, sweat dripping from his forehead. “Now the moment… of truth…” he nervously said to himself while looking at the notification. He hastily went through his interface, checking to see his Pacifism skill was still present. His heart jumped into his throat with anxiety for a moment, but to his relief, it was still there. He took a moment to stare at the boar suspiciously, then walked over to it and gently nudged it with his foot. “Oi… you alright little guy?” He whispered. It’s health was at 0, it looked just as the boars did that he and Derrick had beaten on his first day in the game.

“Hah… haha…” He cackled to himself maniacally, taking out his skinning knife and kneeling over the boar's body. “Take that, stupid boar. Pacifism, bitch.” he began harvesting it triumphantly.