Project: TheirWorld - Chapter 013 - Part 1

_____________

The Next Quest

_____________

TheirWorld

Shortly after Dassah got home from her coffee meeting, Guin found herself back in the School of Good Books, watching Grimhai sleeping at his desk. For the first time in an MMO, Guin found herself wondering if NPCs actually had homes and beds to go to. Sitting in the chair from before, she wasn’t sure what she should do. Should she wake him up? Did NPCs need sleep?

Scribe Marlon walked over with a distasteful look on his face. Guin lifted a hand to stop him, but she was too late, as he took a rolled up piece of parchment and smacked Grimhai in the head.

“Wake up, you fool!” Marlon said loudly. The young teacher shot up, glasses askew, drool running down his chin muttering unintelligible noises. “Don’t keep the girl waiting when she has run ridiculous errands for you! What nonsense… These young teachers…” The scribe didn’t even spare Guin a glance as he walked away, himself muttering obscenities.

Obviously dazed, Grimhai stared out, his eyes glazed as he licked his lips. Guin giggled; his glasses were hanging by one ear, his hair was flattened on one side of his head, and there was an ink imprint on his face from the paper he had been sleeping on.

“Hmhmph…” He went, blinking and looking around. His eyebrows rose slowly as he began to realize what was going on. “Ah-” he looked at Guin, who was covering her mouth. Furrowing his brows, he went to adjust his glasses, appearing shocked that they were half off his face. “Ah. Ah!” as if realizing suddenly what had happened over the last five minutes, Grimhai scrambled to make himself presentable. “I - ah - Do forgive me, Miss Guin, it appears that I fell asleep at my desk last night!”

“It’s okay! Don’t fuss! I wasn’t even going to wake you, but -” Guin couldn’t help but laugh as he smudged the ink on his face. “Y-You should probably go wash your face!”

“Eh?” He looked into a shining metal object on his desk and gasped in horror. “Do excuse me…” he quickly got up and disappeared through a door behind him. About five minutes later, he came back, looking considerably more professional, and sat back down in his chair. “Now then,” he said. “Where were we?”

Guin smiled at him and said: “I have done as you asked and finished the will of Pastor Jormund.”

“Ah! Very good then! Why don’t you pull up your faction page so we can have a look at what you have gained?” He rubbed his hands together.

Guin pulled up the screen:

[Mist] 1500 [Bade] 250 [Spirit] 1000 [Fox] 500 [Church of the Lady] 250

“I see!” he said, looking it over. “Very good. Now, how do faction points work? Any one faction beings at 0, which is considered normal, and it will rise and fall from there depending on your choices in the game. You can lose or earn main faction points on a scale between 40,000 and -40,000, and sub factions points between 10,000 and -10,000. Keep in mind that it is easier to lose points, than it is to gain them.

“Now, similar to skills you can see on your sheet that factions have sub factions, but the sub factions work in a different way. Let’s use the [Mist] faction as an example. The [Mist] faction itself is a general faction for all things related to the Mist Clan. The majority of the NPCs that you will meet, should you remain in Mist Clan territory, will be influenced by this number. Quests that you receive from the Mist Clan will almost always result in a change in this number. However, only certain sub faction points from certain places, and in certain areas.

“These sub factions, however, can be very beneficial to earn, because unlike with skills, the sub factions function as an added bonus to the main faction skill toward relevant sources. For example, you have a faction score of 1500 for the [Mist] faction. In addition, you have an extra 250 for the [Mist - Bade] faction, which means that your total faction score - in this, the Village of Bade - is 1750. While this number makes little difference now, if one achieves the total main faction score of 40,000, and then also has the sub faction score limit of 10,000, they have a total of 50,000 faction points for a given faction. This score, between 40,000 and 50,000, has special, unlockable quests, interactions, dungeons, and so much more, that only a devoted player might earn.”

If Guin’s head wasn’t spinning before, it certainly was now. At least the math was simple. Still, the game amazed her with the amount of customization work that went into it. She had dismissed the threads on the forums about factions, but now she wished she hadn’t.

“So…” she started. “Each town in the game has a faction?”

“Indeed,” he answered as if it were perfectly normal. “Each town, each race, each trades-guild, each company; some base factions have nearly one thousand total sub factions.”

As she struggled to imagine what her screen would look like with all of those factions, she asked, “So is there a way to organize them, like with skills?”

“There is; very much the same system as skills,” he told her. “But it isn’t very important for you to keep track of the numbers unless you really want to - and I would suggest you don’t. Factions, similar to your stats, will improve almost naturally as you play. The way that you play should reflect on your character, and the world will mirror that character as it is - which may or may not be as you think it should. Do you have any other questions?” Guin shook her head, and Grimhai nodded. “Then let us move on to the next of your tasks.

Accept this quest to begin a series of quests on how to play the game.

You must fulfill the basic five lessons of the teacher Grimhai Kidalmar.

You have finished the third lesson.

UPDATE: The Fourth Requirement: Listen to Teacher Grimhai’s introduction to training and combat. Follow his instructions to learn basic combat.

This quest is required.>

Guin accepted the quest with excitement. Though she didn’t consider herself to be a particularly violent individual, there was a certain romance about the combat of games that was more thrilling than anything else. While she didn’t have the time or resources to do something in the real world, anything would be open to her here, from hand to hand combat to magic.

The magic-like abilities of the valkyrian, of course, made it even more interesting. They had spent tens of thousands of years researching and developing their craft, and those findings made their way into TheirWorld for everyone of all walks of life to enjoy.

“I’m ready!” she said, sitting on the edge of her chair.

“Good,” he said simply. “This tutorial should be relatively easy. I’m going to send you right outside to speak with Qii. You should know whim when you see him; he has a thing against shirts... That said, he is the foremost expert in combat in Bade. He should be able to set you up with some basic combat and ability instruction. Come back to me once you have gained a few combat skills.” With that he waved her away toward the door. As soon as she exited, she found the shirtless valkyrian she had seen the other day, his bright green mystriks splattered across his chest, sparkling in the sun. The children in the sand pit were the same ones that she had seen before.

The man looked impressive - until he yawned widely. Guin snorted as she went up to him and said: “Excuse me? Are you Mr Qii?”

Not bothering to look at her, he answered, “Yes.”

“Well,” she began, not bothering to hide her irritation from his curtness to her from him. “My name is Guin Grey. Teacher Grimhai sent me to learn about combat from you.”

The man leveled his eyes with her, then looked away. “That’s nice,” he said. “I don’t care.”

“Y-You don’t care …” she repeated. “Great. Well, I care.” She said.

Qii stared at her. “You want to kill?”

“If I do?” Guin put her hands on her hips.

“Then go,” he said, turning his attention back to the children fighting in the pit.

“Hey!” she half shouted. “Aren’t you supposed to teach me how?”

This time he glared at her. Guin felt herself shrinking back against his gaze. Whatever else, she had underestimated him.

“You want to kill so badly?” he asked, venom in his voice. Guin began to feel like she had made a very serious error in her approach to this NPC. “So keen on taking a life? You don’t need skill to do that - and I’ll not teach you with so low a bar to be set.”

“Ah - but-!”

Qii walked away from her. Guin sighed. Now what? She wondered. Was it possible to fail a tutorial quest? She had never heard of such a thing. Then again, this was TheirWorld. Biting her lip, Guin sifted through her memories about forum posts. Looking around, it was true that there were other teachers - though she just then noticed that the archery teacher she had seen before was absent from the grounds.

Then she smiled. This was TheirWorld - there was more than one way to skin a cat! Betting that Grimhai would at least be able to direct her to a weapon, she decided to drop the teacher for now, and focus merely on earning the combat skill that the quest required. In the meantime, she decided that it would be a good time to actively start working on the quest that she had gotten from Garun the horse - Teacher Grimhai might have known something about the Veil Ants.

Grimhai looked very confused when she appeared before him again, Why have you returned so soon?” he asked him.

Guin scratched the back of her head, quite unsure how she was going to pull this off. “Uhh… you see,” she scolded herself internally for the hesitation in her voice. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she continued, “Mr Qii told me that I should get a weapon from you, and then return to him.”

“Oh?” the teacher questioned. “From me? Why would he send you to me for such a thing?”

“I’m not really sure,” she said, perhaps too quickly as she wracked her brain for a believable circumstance. “I asked him the same, but he just kind of looked away and ignored me. I don’t think that he likes me much…”

To her relief, Grimhai nodded wearily. “I apologise on his behalf,” he said, reaching into his desk and pulling out a small dagger. Guin took it from his hand gingerly. “Qii is a bit of a stubborn man; admittedly, he is difficult for anyone to deal with. He is - well, was - one of the best warriors in the Mist Clan, before the accident. I’m afraid his wounded pride has turned a once prideful, kind, man, into a jaded, miserable one. He did not deserve such a fate…”

Guin tilted her head, “Accident?”

Face fallen, Grimhai nodded. “Back when he was serving in our capital of Xenthus as a knight. There was a festival in town - the Festival of Lights. foreigners from all over came to celebrate - and of course, celebrations mean merry making of all sorts. As the story goes, Qii saved some poor boy from being run over after a gang of drunkards spooked a group of horses.”

Guin shifted awkwardly as she felt sorrow fill her heart.

“It took him many months to recover, and much his strength never will. It was a true pity; it was said that he was in line to become a Tenmath.” Grimhai sat down at his desk with a heavy sigh. “Still, he makes for a good teacher.

Good teacher, huh? Guin cursed herself. She had taken the wrong attitude with him - wait..

“Tenmath?” she asked then. “He was in line to become a Tenmath?”