Moving onto the main roadway that seemed to cut through town, he was pleased to see the first people he had met so far in Koral. The people of the town seemed to be split into several races, the majority being different types of humans, and also some Elves and Dwarves. He knew that Gnomes and Halflings were around, as well as Half-Orcs, and also some different Beast-Folk but there didn’t seem to be any of those present.

He started walking up the road towards the center of town, and noticed he was getting a lot of looks from the other people on the road. He took a second to consider how he would look to them; a raggedly dressed, scraped and bruised young elf walking into a town he was not from by himself.

I better think up a backstory. I didn’t consider I might have to explain my presence. Last thing I need is to either be seen as a threat by clannish townsfolk, or even worse, have some do-gooder decide they have to take me under their wing. I have shit to do!

He tried to plaster a good-natured grin on his face, and perked up his posture a little, checking out the town around him. Far Westburg was a fairly ordinary town, of about 500 people he knew from the map in the Lobby. It had a Caravanserai, a waystop for Caravans and travelers, which is what let players choose it as a starting point. It was about 100 miles east of the old Agelastan Empire border but the land between this town and there had been uninhabited for about 50 years, filled with only bandits and wild beasts.

As he was getting in towards the market square where there seemed to be a holiday crowd, an elven woman caught his eye and started to move toward him. Unsure of whether to wait for her to get to him, or try to make his way through the crowd and try to lose her, he just stood there undecided until it was too late to try and leave. With a sense of resignation and a hefty sigh, he turned his best innocent smile on her.

“Oh, you poor dear! What happened to you?” Her voice evinced a level of nosiness that boded ill.

“I’m afraid the group I was traveling with was set upon by bandits. I was lucky to escape with my life…lost everything else.”

“You were traveling on your own with a group? Or were you traveling with family, or a teacher? You can’t be more than 10…”

An unreasonable sense of irritation formed in his heart at these words. It was clear that his design of his avatar was going to lead to even more aggravation than he expected. “Actually, I’m 12, and I was traveling with a group of merchants. I was out west to check on some of my family’s holdings.”

A wry grin totally changed the whole tone of her face as she carefully took in his clothing – raggedy! – and his lack of accoutrement. “Oh, yes, I’m sure that is so. Well, have no fear, you are in Far Westburg now and even if you were an escaped apprentice or orphan we would take care of you, much less the scion of a powerful family as you say. I’m Laf’aera, what is your name?”

He looked her over, trying to decide her angle. She was short, about 5’ 2” but that was still quite a bit taller than his 4’ 2”. She was in quite good shape, lean muscles and a slender form. She had long, green-tinted hair that had some big curls at the bottom near her shoulders, and twinkly green eyes. She was dressed in some kind of festival overtunic, embroidered in budding green plants, worn over what looked like a plain linen shirt and kirtle.

In other words, she has to be one of the locals, not a player, and I can’t tell what she does for a living besides put her nose into other people’s business. Well, she seems to have taken pity on me, and I don’t want to raise any more questions about my own status. Might as well take advantage of her generosity. Might as well start as I mean to go; take every advantage, and leave no enemy alive. Plus, it’s a fucking holiday! But I am not going to tell anyone my full name, who knows what kind of magical uses that could be put to here.

“You can call me Kala. A pleasure to meet you Laf’aera. I must have been wandering around the woods longer than I thought? What feast day is this?”

A look of pity entered her eyes. “You must have lost all track of time. This is the eve of the Vernal Equinox. Tonight we feast and celebrate the disappearance of the Travelers, damn them all to the hells, may they never return.”

He nodded like this made all the sense in the world to him, scrambling to remember the cultural adaptation module the game made you go through before creating a character. If he remembered right, this had to do with the Alpha process two years before. He had been involved, but to him it was just a gaming experience. To the people in Koral it had taken on much more apocalyptic religious tones.

“Well, I seem to have come to town at the right time then. I don’t suppose you could help me out by letting me get cleaned up somewhere? Also, I seem to be frightfully hungry.”

“You can come take a bath at my house. Also, I think I may have some spare clothes from my younger brother that might fit you. Those ones your wear…well, they aren’t really nice enough for the festival now, are they?”

With a shrug he followed her as she wound her way through the crowd and out of the market square, up the main road to the other side of town, near the Caravanserai. Her house was a modest one, with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a porch. For a restroom there was an outhouse, and a wooden bathtub outside under a roof overhand, and with a screen round it.

As it was a hot, early afternoon, Kala just pumped cold well water out of the water pump into a bucket and emptied it into the tub a few times. Laf’aera had given him and old worn towel, and a few pieces of soaproot. He worked hard to scrub the rat off him, even when it hurt to go over some of the bruises and scrapes. The bath gave him some time to consider his situation, which was a good thing because this whole thing was much more intense and enthralling than he had imagined. The pod VR experience was blowing his mind, but also sucking him in deeper and deeper to the game world.

The lack of information we were given makes this a much different experience than I expected. This certainly has nothing in common with the MMOs of old where someone with a mark over there head would hire you to go bring them 10 rat tails. And as if I would hunt rats now! I need to stay in Far Westburg until I can gather enough supplies and skills before I can head west to my destination. I don’t think traveling up the road is going to be as easy as I thought, but the last time I came this way my character was a lot more powerful.

After he was cleaned and refreshed he toweled himself off. Even the feeling of drying himself with the old towel was sort of challenging because the scratchy piece of cloth was so real. Like, realistically he couldn’t discern anything about the experience that would let him know that it was “virtual”. No, this was just his new reality, which had been confirmed by the fight with the rat. The bruises and scrapes definitely hurt. He wasn’t sure what the pain threshold in K.O.R.A.L. was, but it definitely wasn’t 0.

Just outside the screen around the tub he found a neat pile of clothes waiting. His old sandals were there, and a dun linen shirt, brown loose sailor-style knee britches and a pair of braies (undershorts with a drawstring waistband).

When he went into the house, Laf’aera was waiting for him with a loaf of bread and some leftover stew. “Didn’t want you to be starved, but of course there will be other food at the festival as well. Pretty much anything you want, on a stick. There are some games as well, and stories around the fire once it gets dark.”

All in all it sounded a fun way to spend the first day of the game. They headed back to the market square, and Laf’aera took him around to a few of the food stalls, and he had some chicken on a stick, lizard on a stick, and “meat” on a stick. They were all good, but he spent a lot of time trying to see if he could determine what the last one was.

Eventually the sun went down and the party really got started. People started filling their mugs with the liquor and a bonfire was lit at one end of the square. As the adults started to consume probably too much booze, the children and younger teen gathered around the fire while a grizzled old man told the story of the Travelers, their arrival, destruction of the Agelastan Empire, and departure.

It’s always interesting to hear a story that you were part of told by someone else, from the other point of view, when they can’t know that you were part of it. As the children all cheered the storyteller, and were all pumped up on their own pride and savagery, Kalamedra had a tough time keeping the smile from his lips.

Yes, we were pretty savage and arrogant during that time, but to be fair we didn’t realize how different this world was going to be. We certainly didn’t know that the devs were just going to let the game keep running with it’s time compression, percolating away making us the big bads of the local’s history.

After the storytelling died down, Laf’aera came to lead him back to her house where she had told him he could sleep in the second bedroom. He certainly felt tired, even though not even a half hour had passed in the real world, almost 12 hours had come and gone in Koral and it had been a draining day. He gratefully lay down on the mattress in the second room, basically a linen sack with compacted hay in it, and was soon asleep.

Something woke him from his dreamless sleep. He saw the notification on his vision that indicated he had something in his log but he ignored it for now. Trying to determine what had woken him, he stayed as quiet as possible and just listened as hard as he could. He heard whispering voices from the front porch, that kind of whispering that in a quiet moment almost seems louder than screaming.

“He said that he had been traveling with a group from the west, and that they had been killed by bandits. Also, that he had been inspecting his family’s holdings, but he was wearing clothes that had more in common with the average dish towel than a decent garment.” “And you are sure he is a Dark Elf? It is hard to tell with some of them, especially when so young they look just like High Elves.”

“Jasper…I’m a fucking Elf. I know when I am seeing a Dark Elf, that aura they have is undeniable. After what they did to me and my brother, I am not likely to ever forget it.”

“Alright, alright. I grant that you can probably tell if someone is a Dark Elf but he is a young one, I don’t think he was probably involved in you and your brother being enslaved when you were on that mission out of town. You really think this is the right thing to do?”

“You remember when you and your friends freed me from that slave caravan and brought me back here? I wanted to die. All I had left of my brother was his pack of clothes and armor that they stole from us when we were captured. I wanted to die…and you wouldn’t left me, and when I finally decided to not kill myself I told you that the only way I could bear living is if I killed every Dark Elf I found.”

“I remember.”

“Well, I have done my best to live a normal life, I haven’t gone out to conquer a Dark Elf town or city. But, this one came here. He came to my town, to my home, and he’s clearly a liar. Baby monsters may not appear to be dangerous, but they grow up to be killers. So it is with Dark Elves. All I ask is you provide me with an alibi if I am questioned. The boy left after the festival, and I stayed the night with you. People already think we’re lovers so no one will question it.”

There was a long silence, but Kalamedra wasn’t waiting for the reply. Realistically, there was no way he was going to get out of this house unnoticed, and it was two versus one so he was going to have to do this the hard way. He didn’t even have a decent weapon, so he would have to make do with what he did have. Needs must when the devil drives.

He slowly slipped up off the mattress and as quietly as possible he made myself at home in the corner by the door, seeking to become one with the shadows there. As he was finding his position he heard the one called Jasper reply.

“Alright, I don’t agree with this but we have been through so much together, I can’t betray you for this boy, who is as you say, a Dark Elf. I will go home and when you are done, come slip in my window and we’ll pretend you were there the whole time.”

Damn, I just chose this race for the benefits but it seems like that racial hate thing is especially strong for some. I wonder how much trouble this is going to give me down the road. I literally just started this game today and I already have someone trying to kill me. Well, fuck this…

“Alright, Jasper, go home… I have this handled.”

There was a sound as the front door was opened, and someone was in the kitchen. He heard a chest open, the unoiled hinges creaking, and then the lid being set back down again after a few moments. The steps moved closer to the door of the room he was in and then the door was pulled open and an elven figure stepped into the room, dagger in hand.