2.1

“Good thing these rebels only form into groups of five or I might actually have a problem.” - The Revenant King, known for getting his empire upended by bands of plucky adolescents.

My surroundings disappeared in a flash of light, before I knew it, I found myself standing beside a large blue crystal.

Taking a quick glance around, it seems like I was still in the mall, at the centre of a food court, thankfully still with a roof. The crystal was embedded on an elevated platform, in what used to be a water fountain.

Looking around, I could see several other people loitering around the food court chatting in somewhat hushed tones. There was one person who had set up a blanket with several items on display. A seller so soon? Though I have no idea when Gaia actually started, for all I know Eve has been grabbing people for a while.

I turned around, placing a hand on the large crystal. “Log out,” I muttered before a light engulfed me.

My hand froze midway, dropping the chip I was going to eat. There was an odd feeling in my head… My other ‘self’ was coming back.

I leaned down from my seat and picked up the dropped chip and plopped it into my mouth. Five-second rule. Mentally juggling two separate sets of memories.

‘I’ had just gone through the Gaia tutorial, but ‘I’ also couldn’t sleep, and opened up my PC to research Giles Cooper.

The tutorial was hard. A hundred goblins, tracking magic and an intelligent goblin mage.

Finding information on Giles Cooper was harder, well it wasn’t like I couldn’t find anything, the dude’s famous after all. Life stories, biographies, achievements, prizes, etc etc, everything was there but almost nothing of his personal life. If anything I suffered an excess of information. Quantity but not quality. And…

HitZaDec: Yo

I sent to Matt. Even if it was three AM right now Matt was probably still awake. His sleeping schedule was almost as bad as mine. Sure enough, the trusty typing indicator showed up.

Mattmanfoo is typing…

Mattmanfoo: Yo

I opened up the Gaia program in a spare window, a pixelated scroll was on the top right.

I grabbed the virtual object in my hand before pausing. Should I really send this to Matt? I still wasn’t sure if the me that went through Gaia was the real me, or even if the me in real life was real. Could this be an elaborate trick by Eve?

No, very unlikely. Whether or not my memories of going through the tutorial in Gaia or even my research in real life are ‘real’, she has proven capable of at the very least altering my memories almost instantaneously. Frankly speaking, I shouldn’t worry about this because there was no point in worrying. There was nothing I could do or think of that can really counteract it.

I sighed and began typing my message to Matt.

HitZaDec: I need backup.

His reply was immediate.

Mattmanfoo: Aight, who we jumping?

Smiling slightly now, I continued.

HitZaDec: Nah not jumping anyone, it’s hard to explain… best if you experienced it yourself

And with that, I sent him the Referral Letter.

A flash of light later and I was back in Gaia. If I could be doing two things at once I might as well take advantage of it. IRL me was a bit tired so he was probably going to head to sleep after a bit more net surfing. Meanwhile, I’ll figure out more about Gaia as I waited for Matt.

Checking around, nothing much had changed, though the players seem to have clustered into a single group now, somewhat loudly arguing amongst themselves. Well, not my problem.

“Menu,” I muttered and an array of screens appeared around me.

According to Hendrix I can call this up whenever I was in a Gaia safe zone or near a large Way Shard. Navigating the screens, I found the usual game stuff. Friends List, Character Sheet and an Impact Point Store with a selection of races and classes. I skimmed the store, most of the usual suspects for a high fantasy world, nothing too surprising.

My friends list already had one person on it,

Mattmanfoo

Seems like Matt was automatically added.

I closed the menus with a flick of my wrist, I should get exploring. If my tutorial was any indication then Matt will at least take a few hours.

“Hello?” Someone called out, I glanced around, looking for the source. “Over here!” He yelled, waving at me. By the looks of it, he was a human warrior, and he was near the group of people that were arguing. A bit confused, I pointed at myself, “Yeah you!” he confirmed, “And the dude next to you too, mind if we asked you some questions?”

Turning around, I found a tree-like person. Bit lanky and skinny looking, like a literal stick figure. No discernable class from his gear since he didn’t seem to have any. Not even clothes either, instead just slightly different shades of bark, darker browns towards the end of his limbs and lighter towards his centre. Looking up, I realised he was pretty tall, at least 1.8 or 1.9 meters, with a large afro like haircut that merged with a Santa Claus style beard, both made completely out of green leaves.

Round amber eyes met mine, “Hello!” he practically yelled with excitement, “Nice…” he cocked his head in thought, “Hat?”

“Currently going with cap for the moment, and thanks. You have cool looking hair too,” I replied, awkwardly returning his compliment.

He grinned as he ruffled his afro, “Oh I’m sure it’ll get a lot harder to maintain than yours,” he replied whimsically.

How would a myconid haircut work?

“Anyways,” he turned to the warrior, “you wanted to speak with us good sir?” he said as he started strolling down the platform.

I followed him, tapping my staff as I went. Several eyes turned to him. Damn, he was tall, was this how Matt felt around me?

“So what’s going on here?” Afro tree asked, gesturing to the crowd.

“We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on,” Warrior dude explained, “So we’ve been talking about how we got here and discussing whether or not we should contact the authorities or not.”

I mentally considered it. Sure what Eve was doing was no doubt so illegal a court lawyer would rather have a seizure than try to defend her, but the achievements of she made was well… literally all around him.

Calling the coppers would be the easiest way to antagonise her, and I wasn’t doing that until I explored more of the world first.

“How did most people get here?” I asked.

“Most of us got a message randomly when we were doing other stuff. I was in the middle of dinner when I got mine,” warrior dude replied.

I slightly lowered my eyelids and placed my thumb to my chin, a universal expression of thought, “Huh, I was doing some chores when I got mine,” I said.

Afro tree imitated my gesture, “I got mine when I was on the way to the hospital,”

The hospital? Could it have been the same one I was in? My location in Gaia was the same as when I was in the mall earlier with Matt. So it makes sense if other players were brought to a place close to their IRL location. Given the Wayshards seemed to work, it was most likely operating on a ‘Starter Town’ based start rather than directly translating your location IRL to Gaia. But then it depends on how many starter towns there were, if there’s only one in this country or one for every state or city. If it was the latter then everyone here lives nearby.

Looking around, it was clear that Afro tree and I were the weirdest races here. Were our premade races dependant on location? No, far too random, unlikely.

“Did you see anyone come by but leave?” I asked the warrior dude.

“Hmm…” he thought for a moment, “I only got here pretty recently, so I didn’t catch much, but other than you two, there was a gnome that appeared who left almost immediately, and an elf, fox girl, skeleton, a lizard, a few demon looking dudes and a raccoon.”

“A raccoon?”

“Yeah, it just appeared next to the crystal and ran off immediately.”

I bit my thumb, there was a pattern here somewhere. Weird races who all left the spawn location as opposed to the group here who were just chatting amongst themselves.

“Are you sure it was a raccoon and not a cat or something?” Afro tree asked.

A cat?

“Nah it was definitely a raccoon,” warrior dude replied.

“Why a cat?” I asked Afro tree.

Afro tree shrugged, “Oh I thought since... well, I accidentally went to Indiri first and met a weird cat.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Really? What was it like? How was the spawn location?”

Warrior dude leaned in, apparently curious as well.

“Well, I came into a city, but not next to the crystal. It was some dark alleyway without anybody nearby. I got lost and this cat helped me around to the crystal,” he looked up absentmindedly, “Wonder how she’s doing…”

So I probably won’t be attacked the moment I entered Indiri, “Did you need to go to the Wayshard to come back?”

Afro tree nodded, “Yeah, I had to touch it.”

“Was it guarded?”

“There were a group of mages,”

Hmm, magic users. If a goblin mage was that difficult to deal with how hard will a group be?

Coming to a decision, I said, “Well, thanks for the information. I’ll be going off on my own now.”

“You sure? I’m pretty sure our group will move out together once we get stuff sorted.” Warrior dude replied.

Higher numbers are safer but annoying to manage, and the crowd didn’t look like it’ll move on anytime soon. I could handle myself pretty well. If I had a bit more info and some help I could’ve probably gotten two-thirds of the goblins as opposed to a little over a half.

“Nah,” I replied.

“Mind if I come along?” Afro tree cheerfully added in.

I shrugged, “Sure, why not.” I could ask him more about Indiri on the way. “Bye then,” I told the warrior, before turning away.

Afro tree waved goodbye to warrior dude, before following me.

Name: Dustin

Classes: Fungalmancer Level 2

Body

Strength: 8

Agility: 7

Dexterity: 6

Constitution: 18

Stamina: 10

Vitality: 12

Mind

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 17

Charisma: 6

Soul

Will: 10

Aura: 10

Perception: 10

Racials:

Superior Darkvision, Fungal Body, Sun Sickness, Mana Dependency, Pacifying Spores, Innate Magic

Class Skills:

Fungalmancer: Grow Sporage

Spells:

T0: Balm Spores, Spore Lights, Sneezing Spores, Acid Spit

T1: Mushroom Meal, Poison Spores

Available Spell Slots:

T2: 1

Equipment:

Leather 'Armour' (Damaged, got stabbed multiple times remember?) - One HP Potion - Basic Wooden Staff - Two Basic Daggers - Herbalism Kit

Backpack - Tinder Box - Mess Kit - 50 days worth of rations (Overkill, you literally have a spell which makes food.)

10 Gold Coins

Impact Points: 4