I had only a few moments to read the message before the box seemed to explode towards my face. On reflex I closed my eyes and shielded my face as I threw myself backwards and away from the perceived danger. Tumbling backwards down the hill with my eyes closed, I once again felt that sense of vertigo, as if I was falling from a great height.

Opening my eyes, I saw that the grassy hill and clearing were all gone and I now stood in the middle of a town. Looking almost medieval in design, the buildings were mostly single story with plenty of space between them and set up in neat orderly rows. Directly around me was a penned off area, apparently where new players spawn within the game after finishing the placement trials.

Throughout my vision, I began to notice new things that weren’t there before, and they moved right along with my sight as I turned my head. To the top left were three bars, one each of red, blue and green. Below them at the bottom of my vision were several icons lined up that I recognized as possibly being my character menu, inventory, quest log, and settings.

Lifting my hand up, I tried to push the icon for the settings, but nothing happened. Thinking back to what happened earlier with the vial of poison, I was just about to concentrate on the icon in order to bring it up when a couple new windows popped up before me.

Welcome to the world of Grendor!

You have taken the first steps into this wide new world and have been deemed to be most suited for the province you have been transported to. Please remember to log off and take care of your body at least once every five hours. A notification will be displayed on your UI when five hours have passed. Dumadine Technology warns that according to the EULA, the company is not responsible for any ill effects suffered when ignoring this warning system.

Enjoy your game!

Quest received!

Introductions.

New to this area and a possible recruit to the faction controlling these lands, you are tasked with reporting to Captain Vermund of the House Tyrith guards. Warning! He is much more powerful than a sickly old man, so don’t do anything stupid!

Rewards: Experience, coins.

Blinking a few times, I re-read the quest and had to chuckle to myself as the AI personalized the details to my own experiences thus far in the game. It was a pleasing touch and made me happy that I handled the trials as I did if it garnered this kind of AI attention. Then again, maybe I would have to check with Archie and Kayla about their experiences during the first portion to compare…

Waving away the messages, I once more attempted to focus on the settings icon, which looked like a gear you see as the icon in almost every game for this feature, and after concentrating a moment, a window popped up with game settings. Several options were available to customize the UI as well as the data that popped up during combat and all that fun stuff. It took me about ten minutes just to organize everything how I liked it, modifying the colors of the menus, adjusting the transparency, putting all messages on hold during combat except for high priority things such as receiving a crit or a few other things. Some of the stuff should be able to come up just in case after all.

I didn’t see any mini map or chat logs, nor any options to turn them on in the settings, but since I literally just started, I wasn’t too put out by that yet. Next on my priority list was pulling my inventory up and checking through what I had available. Focusing on the icon was a bit easier this time, as I was starting to get used to just how to do it, and another screen popped up with a short list of things. Most of it was common stuff, like my starter armor with 1 defense on each piece of gear, and a few rations and a full (non-poisoned) water skin. One of the items I saw was actually written in red! I actually started the game with a unique item? According to the name of it, perhaps everyone started with such a thing… I focused on it and checked it over quickly.

Calamity’s Shifting Weapon (Soulbound)

Unique

Damage: Varies

Durability: Indestructible

A special weapon for new Outlanders to begin their journey. While it might take a lot of getting used to, this weapon can take the shape of any weapon the wielder can imagine, within reason, and will reflect the damage of a base quality weapon of the imagined variety.

Neat! Having such a thing would be rather handy, even if I just kept it as a backup weapon for when I die, since that was bound to happen at some point or another. Not to mention the fact that there were no classes within the game, this one item could cover just about every category of basic weapon that could be used by any particular play style.

Initial assessment done for the time being, I looked around in search of some indication of where to go next when I froze. There were a few NPCs around, and some of them had little things flying around them or perched on a shoulder here and there. Looking closer, I noticed they were Fairies! And here I was without one at all, though judging by the populace around me, they weren’t as common to the point where everyone had one.

Each Fairy looked like a small person with wings and came in both male and female varieties, which was actually quite hard to tell when trying to see them from any distance beyond a few dozen paces. Between six to twelve inches tall, all the Fairies I saw seemed like miniature adults with beautiful wings on their backs, no two looking quite alike in both wing and face features. Some had butterfly wings, others had dragonfly looking wings, and others still had little feathered wings!

Captivated by the sights around me, I realized that I had been standing in the same spot for almost fifteen minutes now and was starting to garner some strange looks as it probably appeared I was staring off into space for a while and then began looking intently at the people with tiny beings with them. Yeah, if I had seen someone else doing that I would have classified them as a creeper right off too…

Shaking my head, I started walking out of the small penned off area through an opening in the short wooden gate surrounding the patch of hard packed dirt I had arrived in. Figuring this would be a bad crowd to start asking directions after my fabulous display of noobness, I walked along a street half again as wide as the rest around which I took as the main thoroughfare through the town. Judging from what I could see, this could probably classify as a small city by the size of the area. The main road alone continued for what seemed to be about a mile in total, maybe a bit less, with a castle in front of me, and a stone wall with a gate behind me.

With both nice weather and comfortably warm temperatures, I had no problem walking along the road for a time towards the castle until I deemed myself far enough away from the people who were probably judging me harshly when I made a spectacle of myself. As I was walking, a thought suddenly came to me. I never went through a character creation option! One of the buildings along the side of the main road had glass that was particularly clean and smooth, showing some reflections of the cobbled road I was walking along.

Heading over to one of the windows, I peered at myself in the reflection there and laughed softly at what I saw. Apparently, the scan to synch myself to the immersion device also recorded my body type and features to be used as a character. Thankfully I wasn’t bad looking and was happy with how I looked, as that might be a negative point for a good number of potential players.

Turning away from the window I was using as a mirror before I started getting awkward looks once again, my sight was drawn across the road to where a man was emerging from a small building that looked to be a shop of some kind. Tall and thin with a shaved head, the man wore an apron and seemed to be the shop keeper as he hung up a sign with a picture of a shirt on it to the left of the door.

Walking over, I waved a hand at the man and smiled in a friendly way. “Good morning sir! I was wondering if you would be able to help me and give me some directions?” As I spoke, I tried to concentrate on the man to pull up any kind of information on him that I could.

My attempt was side tracked as the NPC spoke up in a voice loud enough to hurt my ears. “Welcome! Where are you trying to go young man?” His tone was happy and energetic, if a bit too enthusiastic in its delivery.

Wincing at the pain stabbing at my head, my feet took me back a step away from him in an attempt to mitigate another spike at my brain from that voice. “I… I was wondering if you could direct me to a Captain Vermund? I need to find him as soon as possible.” As soon as my ears ceased being pained, I tried once again to check this guy out and was rewarded with a pair of windows that popped up in my vision.

Ivan the Tailor

Level: 25

HP: ?

MP: ?

A boisterous merchant who resides in the city of Tyrith and is unfortunately mostly deaf. Those who deal with the man should be cautioned to not stand too close lest they suffer the same condition.

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill: Inspect

Skill level: 1 (3%)

Knowledge is power, and details of people and things around you are sure to make your adventures more successful. As you progress this skill, more information about beings and objects will become available to you.

Score another win for me! My first skill and it is useful too. Seemed kind of easy to gain though, so it was probably a fairly common one. Stats in this game seemed like they would be important, but the skills should be where a character would start to show how much more advanced they were when compared to like-level players. Reading the character description of Ivan made the volume of his voice understandable, if a bit late.

“Eh? The captain of the city guard, was it?” He scrunched up his face in thought, studying me curiously until I nodded at him. “Well then, that is simple enough to point you towards!” One of his thin arms rose and pointed off towards the keep which was much closer now than when I spawned in the city. “Follow this ‘ere road up to the keep and there will be a building just outside of the gate. That be where you can find Sir Vermund.”

Wanting to leave this NPC far behind me before I actually did go deaf myself, I nodded once more and waved at Ivan in appreciation while I spoke up a bit louder so he could properly hear me. “Got it, thanks!” I started off up the road once again, eager to see what was all in store for me ahead.

The street was still pretty clear, so to pass the time as I walked I pulled out the black sphere from my inventory that was supposedly my starter weapon and held it in my palm. According to the description, all I had to do was focus on a particular type of design and it would shape itself into a proper weapon. Didn’t seem too hard I supposed.

After almost ten minutes of imagining several different types of dagger, I still had no luck in making the lump of black metal do anything at all! How the hell was I supposed to use this as a weapon if I couldn’t figure out how to make it work? I growled in frustration, the keep only a hundred yards ahead of me when I squeezed the sphere in my fist hard and yelled in my head at the thing to turn into a fucking dagger already!

Surprise made me stop in my tracks as the pressure of my hand on the ball of metal made it shift! Smoothly changing shape, I felt the material flow in my grip as the structure rearranged itself into one of the mental templates of a dagger I had been trying to form. The sensation was extremely strange, but the idea of what I did differently actually made sense to me. I had been just holding the item in an open palm before, and if it had changed shape like that I would probably have dropped it instantly. If I did that in combat, it very likely would have been the death of me.

With understanding in place, I willed the weapon to change shape several more times going from dagger to a sword and back. It took a bit of concentration to make it change shape, but each successful attempt made the next one slightly easier.

Fully caught up in my testing of the weapon, I minimized a window that popped up in my view to read later and completely missed the sounds of a dozen booted feet stepping in time as they approached behind me until I heard an angry voice shout from right behind me nearly as loud as Ivan had been.

“What the hell do you think you are doing standing in the middle of the road fucking around with a damn weapon?! Put that thing away right now or I swear to all the gods that I will drop your ass in the dungeon for a week!”

Spinning around, I saw a group of six soldiers standing behind me all in full metal armor and carrying halberds upright in their right hands. The one who spoke to me had no helmet on unlike the rest of the men and also had a gold emblem on his breastplate. All of them stood at about my height, but were more muscular than me by far, and carried their weapons like they knew how to use them.

I gulped slightly at the intimidating sight, my inspect skill showing me that the ones with helms on were a whopping level 50 with the ranking soldier at level 60! The level 50 men all showed as Tyrith Infantry while the level 60 was shown as Tyrith Sergeant. Shit, these guys could make paste out of my measly level 1 without even trying!

“Uhmm… Sorry, sir. I kind of just learned how to use this and got caught up in the moment.” I made a show of putting the weapon back into my inventory then held up both hands, palms open, to placate the Sergeant.

“Hmph. See that it doesn’t happen again. I wasn’t screwing around when I said I will imprison you for recklessly playing with weapons in the middle of the street.” His tone was more reasonable this time, but still tinged with a hint of irritation at me. He waved a hand, and the soldiers all started forward again to pass by me on their way towards the large keep.

Disaster averted, I wished I had more of that poison left from the trial zone. Granted, it would still be a bad idea to do anything to the Sergeant in front of all of his cronies, but there should be a way of finding the man alone later on when he was off duty. Everything I was seeing thus far in the game made it seem like things here imitated real life in the way the NPCs went about their lives.

Once the patrol got far enough away, it seemed like a good time to get moving again. Didn’t want another group to come upon me and have a repeat occurrence… I made my way slowly up to the building that Ivan told me about and looked the large two story stone structure over quickly. It was built for defense, windows that were too small for a person to fit through and sturdy wooden door with a heavy metal latch. Maybe not impenetrable, but not easily broken into at the same time.

I pushed open the door carefully and stepped inside to look around a large open floor space with a stone staircase off to the left going to the second floor. The back wall was covered in a huge tapestry depicting a black raven on a dark red background which I assumed to be the house emblem. Set directly in front of that was a heavy wood desk behind which stood a huge man in black plate armor easily standing at six and a half feet tall, the hilt of a great sword poking up over his shoulder as he stared at some papers spread out before him. Thinking this was the man I was looking for, I tried use inspect on him and a window appeared.

Captain Vermund

Level: ?

HP: ?

MP: ?

?????

A frown formed on my face at the complete lack of information that showed for him. He must be too high of a level for me to get anything other than a name, but at least it confirmed for me who he was and I moved across the open floor of the building towards the desk, stopping a few paces away to wait for him to notice me. I wasn’t about to piss this guy off… There was a time and place for everything, and at the moment I was way too weak to even contemplate doing anything in regards to the monster before me. Besides, if the AI decided to put me in this faction after killing that first NPC, maybe there was a good reason for that.

For ten minutes I stood in the same spot looking around me at the sparse room with little in the way of decoration or adornment. There were a few benches set up along the walls and to the left of the desk was a heavy iron bound chest that I had to actively resist peeking into. I also spent some of the time studying Vermund himself. Huge and imposing, the man had a neatly trimmed beard to match his dark hair flecked with gray and appeared to be in his mid to late forties. The sheer size of him, however, lead me to believe that despite his advancing years he would still be a terror on a battle field.

When Vermund finally looked up with dark eyes to look me over, he spoke in a deep firm voice that brooked no argument. “Well, at least you have patience. Can’t say much more about you on the other hand…” He let out a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest as he studied me more carefully. “You are the first Outlander that has come here, but that doesn’t grant you any special dispensation in my eyes or those of Lord Tyrith. Hell, you don’t even have a Fairy! Useless… What is your name, Outlander?”

Bristling at the tone of the man before me, it was all I could do to keep the tone of my voice civil as I responded to him. “Calamity, Sir Vermund, my name is Calamity. And I shall not be weak for long if I have any say about it.” I let a hint of determination creep into my voice with the last bit, and smiled softly as a new window appeared before me.

Quest Completed!

You have completed the quest Introductions!

Reward: 100 experience, 5 silvers

Continue your discussion with Captain Vermund to find out more about this area and how to grow stronger so you may be of use to your new faction!

A hint of a smile twisted one corner of the older man’s lips as he heard my words. “Oh, confident, are we? Well, maybe there is a spine within you somewhere yet.” He reached down and pulled open a drawer in his desk and lifted a couple parchments out, setting them near me and motioning for me to take them. “Take these. One is a map of the surrounding area that may be of use to you, and the other is a task that very well may help you prove your worth. I will say though.” His face took on a stern look as he once again raked me with a disdainful glance. “Without a Fairy, you will be next to worthless. Go to the place marked on the map. It is rumored that Fairies gather within a cavern there, and perhaps you can attain a Contract with one if the gods are willing.” He shooed me away with one hand. “Now be gone. I am very busy. Do not return here until you have received a Fairy Contract as well as completed the task assigned to you.”

Quest received!

Vermund’s Trial.

Captain Vermund has tasked you with completing his assignment and obtaining a Fairy Contract before officially welcoming you into the faction.

Rewards: Experience, coins, Faction Title

Warning! Attempting to return without fulfilling all of the requirements will result in an unfavorable outcome!

I blinked at the man for a moment, then shrugged and lifted the papers Vermund offered me. As soon as I touched them, the parchments vanished. A new icon appeared at the bottom left of my UI and a mini map appeared in the bottom right centered on my location in the city. Well, that explained why it wasn’t there before. I turned and left before Vermund could say anything else and left the building, heading down the main road towards the city gates. A red arrow pointed in that direction on the mini map which appeared to be a guide towards the marked location I was supposed to go to. That made things a bit easier.

With a few coins in hand, I decided to try and find an armor shop before I left the city. The crappy starter clothes I had on didn’t offer much in the way of protection and only gave me a total of 3 armor at the moment. With the death penalty being as high as it was, I really didn’t want to push my luck if I could help it.

A few shops caught my eye as I made my way towards the edge of the city, but one look at the wares left me feeling depressed as the cost of even the leather armor amounted to a couple times more than my current 5 silvers. I was just about to give up on the prospect entirely, when I spotted a shop only a hundred paces away from the city walls that displayed low quality common tier armor in the windows. Figuring it was worth a shot, I stepped inside and started looking around in the hopes of finding anything that might help me out.

“Greetings customer. Can I help you find anything in particular?” A woman came out from behind the counter and approached me unseen as I perused the goods and I turned around to get a look at her. She appeared a little younger than myself with a simple dress and a leather apron over top of it, an average looking face with a head of long brown hair tied back in a bun.

“Good day. I am finding myself a little short on funds at the moment, but have to head out into the wilderness and need something to protect myself. Do you happen to have anything useful I can buy for cheap?” I had wasted enough time looking around so far, and had little hope of getting anything before leaving the city, so I came right out and asked to save a little more time.

She eyed me critically for a moment before replying, brown eyes sweeping me from head to foot and back. “Hmmm… Outlander, eh? Well, perhaps I might have something that will fit the bill for you. Follow me.” Spinning in place, she walked back to the counter and stepped behind it once more. Reaching down, she pulled up a pair of bracers and a belt to set onto the counter. “Each of these are one silver. They are the cheapest things I have in stock, and I doubt you will be able to afford anything more at the moment.”

Skeptically I looked them over using my inspect skill. The items were both of normal quality and named Simple Leather Belt and Simple Leather Bracers, but both added 3 armor a piece. 9 armor was better than 3 armor no matter how I looked at it, so I agreed to the price silently by handing over a pair of silver coins for the gear.

“Thanks. Also, if you happen to find any animal skins and hides, bring them back to me and I will craft them into equipment for you at a steep discount. I am close to breaking into the Master ranks of leatherworking and all projects will help speed that along.” She beamed at me as I put the new armor on quickly, feeling slightly better about my chances.

“Sure thing. I have no intentions of learning how to make armor any time soon so I would be happy to bring you what I find.” I smiled at her happily. She might not make the best gear in the city, but just by cutting me a deal for new gear if I brought materials made her a step above the rest in my books.

Stepping out of the leather shop, I noticed across the street another interesting store. Deciding to check it out, my feet carried me across the road and into the dimly lit interior. Shelves lined the walls behind a counter that ran the entire room, ensuring that customers couldn’t steal any of the small vials populating the shelves.

An old man with long gray hair slowly made his way closer to me and smiled at my arrival. “Welcome, son. Are you in search of a particular potion?” His voice was calm and collected, no hint of shaking or sickness about him. I supposed that being an alchemist let him do something about combating the effects of old age in some way.

“Indeed. A few health potions and maybe even a few poisons if you have them?” I raised a brow at the man curiously. I doubt I would be able to get my hands on another vial of OP poison, but even some basic assistance in that department would go a long way towards ensuring my rapid experience gain.

“Ah, yes. Health potions I can do. Poisons, on the other hand, are illegal to be sold in Tyrith.” The old man smiled apologetically before pulling three vials down from a shelf and setting them on the counter for me to inspect. “Three for a silver.”

Weak Healing Potion

A simple potion that restores 25 HP instantly, and another 25 HP over 30 seconds.

Well that looked simple enough. I dropped a silver coin on the table and fit the three vials into the quick access slots on my new belt. I still had two more slots for potions, but wanted to get poisons in there somehow. Maybe I could find a black market here or something, though I didn’t know if a city this small even had such a thing…

The old man seemed to sense my disappointment at not being able to get ahold of any poisons, and must have felt bad because he motioned me to wait and slowly made his way into a back room with shuffling steps. Happy enough to wait for him to come back, I took a look at my UI and clicked on the new icon that appeared a short while ago with Vermund.

It turned out to be just a quest log, giving me details for the task Vermund had assigned me. Apparently there were creatures in the cavern I was heading to, and I had to bring back a specific trophy along with a Fairy in order to be accepted into the House Tyrith Faction.

A loud thump drew my attention back to the shop I was standing in, and I waved away my window to see a heavy book on the counter before me. “This is an herbology book, lad. Take it. You are the first Outlander I have seen here and you have an interest in specific things that I really wish I could help you with, but cannot. At least legally.” A sly grin came over his face as he tapped the book. “Learn what to find, collect the raw materials, then bring them back here and we will see what we can do about brewing you up some less than healthy substances, eh?”

Grinning, I knew this old man and I were going to get along just fine. “Thanks a lot sir, my name is Calamity. I will definitely be back when I get a good haul of materials and anything I don’t need immediately I would be glad to offer to you in return for this book.” I placed a hand on the book, and my eyes widened as a new screen opened before me.

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill: Advanced Herbalism

Skill level: 1 (0%)

A rare skill, Advanced Herbalism gives you an inherent knowledge of all the uses of a plant you find without the need to experiment to determine its properties. The higher this skill, the more precise information you can observe about rarer plants.

“While you will find some of the plants out there can be used without any special processing, the bulk of the herbs and plants out there will need to be refined by alchemy. When you get a small supply of materials, come back here and I will let you use my equipment while I teach you what to do.” He smiled at me and placed a small black velvet pouch on the counter with a wink. “My name is Derek, and these didn’t come from this shop. You have a look about you that says these may be useful. Have a good day Calamity and be sure to work on your Herbalism skill.” Turning away, Derek shuffled off into the back room once more to return to whatever he was doing there.

Happy as a pig in shit at the moment, I took up the pouch and looked inside, curious as to what my newest gift was. The items inside shocked me and made me even more elated than I was a moment before!

Weak Spider Venom

A common spider toxin that can be applied to a weapon for one hour. Once applied, every strike will have a 10% chance to paralyze your target for 5 seconds

The venom gave me more ideas about what I needed to collect if I wanted to seriously get into making my own poisons and such. There were no plants involved in those vials, but the paralytic effect seemed pretty damn good for a ‘weak’ quality concoction. I left the alchemy shop and headed towards the main gates again to leave the city in search of greater power. A thought struck me as I remembered the window I had ignored and minimized when playing with my weapon, and I called it back up now in order to check it out.

Congratulations!

Due to the fact that you skipped over most of the tutorial in the Glade of Trials, you have received +1 Int for figuring out how to use your starting weapon. Too bad you missed out on all of the other benefits of -not- killing a helpless old man…

The cheeky AI! Not that I would turn down a free stat point, but the sarcasm levels of the AI were a bit on the irritating side. I couldn’t complain over much really, as I had indeed lost my temper and did things my own way. Oh well… I willed my character screen to pop up so I could check my overall stats to see where I stood.

Name: Calamity

Player Level: 1

Stat Level: 12

Exp: 100

Title

None

Fame

0

Armor

9

HP

200/200

Energy

200/200

MP

210/210

Str

20

Fort

20

Dex

20

Int

21

Agi

20

Will

20

I raised a brow silently at the stat level, then remembered hard mode players got a bit of an advantage in that department due to the higher downsides of death. SL was calculated by adding up all stat totals, subtracting 60, then dividing by 5 and rounding down to the nearest whole number. Since I started with an extra 60 stat points over a casual account, I had a bit of a leg up on the average player in the game, although in the later levels that gap would be drastically reduced.

With a wide smile on my face, I closed all the windows and pulled my unique weapon out of my inventory before striding confidently out past the city walls. My real adventure had just begun and it was now time to learn just how intense this game would really become!