Jim’s POV

Jim could see the city of Alextria in the distance and started making his way there. He tried bumping up his sight again and it was a beautiful thing to behold. The massive walls stood in the way of the view of most of it but he could still see some of the ramparts as well as the tops of the larger buildings within. The castle was fairly square with four massive battlements on each corner of the structure. This was the first real landmark in the game and he was expectantly looking forward to checking out the place. Just looking at it from a distance gave him great satisfaction. In the original each town or castle was represented by a small picture, and when stepping on that picture the map would fade out and you would enter the town or castle. But this was not the case now. There were a thousand details that he could make out. It looked like fortifications he had seen in pictures! With a huge smile he started walking towards the city.

And promptly Jim was annoyed that he had not had any random encounters yet. Normally on average you would fight at least three battles before getting into the city. Now he was almost halfway there and he had yet to find anything to fight. And halfway there was taking way too damn long. He had been hoofing it for like twenty minutes. Even with battles it normally took five minutes to get to the city. Clearly now it was going to be around an hour, and that was without fighting anything. Maybe it was a bug? Getting bored of seeing the same image slowly getting larger he decided to fiddle with his menu.

The first thing he realized was that he forgot to put anything on. Glancing down at himself he saw the only thing he had on was a flimsy shirt and a pair of boxers. Upon closer inspection it was exactly what he had on before he started the game. That was something that he could fix. Navigating through the equipment menu he put on some familiar items.

The set of armor he equipped was considered one of the best in the game. Jim scanned through and selected the more defensive fighting heavy plate pieces. In his opinion it was the coolest looking armor. Not only did it provide a ton of armor value, but the set of armor also halved all damage taken. There were plenty of other armors that would do more damage, but nothing came close in terms of defensive value. He also equipped some leather boots that had the added bonus of making him walk faster, which was perfect for now. And finally he had a massive two handed sword. The size of it was absolutely bonkers. It might as well have been a surfboard with a stick attached to it for a handle. He wished he could take a selfie in his new gear, he knew he would look epic. He really needed to find a mirror!

Scanning the menu he decided to check his stats and clicked on his portrait in the menu. To his irritation it seemed he had a debuff called weakness. Annoyed he found that all of his stats were reduced by half! He chuckled at his insane stats. He had over one thousand of each: Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, and Magic. Doing a quick bit of math in his head he realized he must have chugged down forty of his greater sources before blacking out. He had just a bit over ten thousand hp! Cheering mentally he was excited to see proof that he had broken beyond the normal limits of the game. Still Jim felt a little off, and he figured that this weakness must have been the problem. Since it was a debuff he had just the thing for it! An elixir should fix him right up!

Jim took a second to look at the little bottle in his hand that he pulled out of his inventory. The vial had intricate detailed little swirls all over it. The liquid was a deep red that seemed to have specks of glitter in it. Leaning the vial left and right he watched as the sunlight made the shimmering liquid sparkle. Opening the vial he cautiously smelled it. His last session of blacking out made him a little more wary. Of course this time he would only be drinking one of them. When he couldn't smell anything he realized he still had that sense at zero percent. Jim sighed and drank the red fluid quickly. Tasted like strawberries! At least the things in this world tasted good! The effects were immediate and he started feeling much better. The dull suppressed pressure in his head seemed to melt away. Checking his status again he verified that the debuff called weakness had gone away. Much better. He was glad that the elixir truly did restore all status effects. Weakness was not something that was in the game before. Now that the world was a bit more on the real side he wondered if the more specific cure items would even be useful. There were only about a dozen negative status effects normally and each one had a specific item that would cure it. How would it work now? Would the original items cure more than just what they said originally, or were there a ton more different cure items? If the latter then anything that cured "all" would be very powerful. He would have to look into it,

As his mind was lost in thought about that topic he felt a wet squish as his right foot landed on the ground. Bewildered Jim looked and lifted up his right foot. He stared with disbelief at the brown clump now stuck to the bottom of his brand new boot. At least he couldn't smell it. There were definitely going to be some changes when he logged out. This was not acceptable. Doing the familiar boot scraping moon dance on grass he got most of it off and continued on his way. Another improvement to stow away for version 2.0.

Glancing up Jim saw he was almost there. From this angle so close it was hard to see anything but the ominus walls that surrounded the city. They were massive things that were forty feet tall. Walking forward they finally blocked out the sun and he was able to see more clearly. There were a few guards blocking the gate and he was surprised to see how empty it seemed. Looking at the guards he was excited to see how real they appeared. In the original game guards were all represented by the same exact character. With characters being so small, it was not possible to make each guard different. To Jim's pleasant surprise each guard was totally different.

One was an older man with a graying beard who seemed to be in charge. In addition there was a large man with a broken nose and a slim younger man who seemed to be receiving instructions. As he got closer he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was really friggin tall. Eyeing it it seemed he was even taller than the big man by a significant margin, plus he was even wider too. The older man came forward and said “Welcome to Alextra young warrior. Is there anything I can assist you with?”

The cadence of the man's speech was normal. He was half expecting the people of this world to talk like robots reading a script, but they sounded genuine! Jim smiled energetically and said “No sir I am fine. Keep up the good work!”

Passing by he could see the older man’s eyes followed him for a few seconds and then started talking to his younger comrades again. The way the guard greeted him was rather interesting too. Normally when first coming to the city the guard would challenge you and would ask your business. A wrong answer would require payment to get into the city. But the man welcomed him? Very interesting. Maybe it was because he was wearing fine armor? He would have to check the next time he played. He really wanted to see how advanced the NPCs speech was, but he figured not pissing off the people who could kick him out was a good idea.

Soon Jim was passing through the streets and was disappointed. He couldn't find anyone. In the game there were only about two or three dozen people in total in the city, he really hoped that there were more. It would be a real shame if the population in this new version was the exact same as the original. Then every town would be a ghost town considering how much larger this city was compared to the 2D version.

He started examining the buildings and they all looked very detailed and different. The clay roof tiles were similar but looking closely he could see how each brick was weathered a little differently. Somewhere chipped and cracked and many were even missing. Jim smiled as he identified familiar signs that identified each store. Seeing the crossed swords as well as the shield icon really brought him back. It was a small proof that his idea of creating a new world from an old game had been a success.

Jim decided to see what was for sale in the shop with the crossed swords.

Shopkeeper’s PoV

Eric was pissed. He had told the boss he wanted this day off months ago. At the time he thought the agreement was too quick, but he didn't want to mess with his good fortune. And now it's the day of the parade and he is one of the few people actually working. Who in their right mind would even want to shop on a holiday like this?

While brooding he was surprised to hear the jingle of the door bell go off. Wow, what fool would come in at this time? With a bland smile Eric looked up figuring a street urchin got in, but to his astonishment what greeted him was far different. A man taller than any he had ever seen before was in front of him. His black armor was literally gleaming. Then there was the weapon on his back. It was massive! Yet the man moved smoothly and looked like it was little effort.

A bit tongue tied he said shakily to the man “Welcome to the best arm's shop in Alextria! How can I help you”!

Weirdly the man started leaning towards him and closely inspecting him while saying “Seems the speech synthesizer definitely needs some work. Maybe another bug?”

Taking a step back Eric tried to recompose himself and said his welcome speech clearly this time.

The man smiled and said “Great! Probably just a start up bug! So kid, how do you like it here in this town?”

Eric was flabbergasted. What kind of a bug was a startup bug? He definitely kept the shop clean of pests, else he would have gotten an earful. Also why was this massively rich hulk of a man asking about him about how he liked the town? He was trying to cobble something together but he must have taken too long when the man let out a loud sigh and said “Looks like not much extra got programmed in. Very disappointing. What went wrong?”

The man walked out of his shop while mumbling under his breath and Eric could only watch him leave with utter confusion. What happened?

Jim's POV

After getting back to the street the sound of fan fair in the distance made him smack himself on the forehead with his palm. The parade! How had he forgotten that the parade was going on!

Following the music he soon found a crowd of people. Being tall has its advantages, he could easily see over everyone's head. At first he just studied the crowd all around. There were so many people. There were hundreds of people lining the street, each different and unique. He officially dubbed the project a success! Now that he had a ton of time off work he was going to have a lot of time to explore and have an adventure. Best vacation ever!

Gazing through the people he saw that many of their clothes were stained with the work of heavy labor. Jim was glad he still had his smell muted, he really didn't want to smell these people. The next round he needed to figure out how to make things smell better without changing too much. It was going to be a pain.

In the center of the street there were drummers marching in columns with soldiers. The thumping reverberated nicely, he could really feel it in his bones. The cheering started growing louder. Soon a group of much crisper looking soldiers were marching not too far away. After taking a second to look at them he realized it was the royal guard. The king and queen were going to show up soon! Scanning behind the group he found them riding on elaborately decorated mounts, and slightly behind he found someone else. The First Minister Zed was trailing behind the royal pair on a fine horse with slightly less ornamentation.

He smiled looking at the older man. First Minister Zed was actually the final boss of the game. If the sequenced played out as it should the king would be dead sometime at midnight. Only later would it be learned that the First Minister had a hand in killing the king in order to take over as regent. As new regent his first order would be to lock down the city and question all outsiders on the assassination of the king. Our hero would be woken up to being arrested in the middle of the night and being charged with murder. In the end it would turn out that Zed was up to all sorts of nasty things and the only thing stopping the world from destruction was a group of heros. Jim placed one strong hand on his massive sword. Maybe he could make that happy ending come out a bit sooner?

Heaving the great sword above his head he started to charge and yelled “Leeeroy, Jenkins.”

Jim easily pushed through all the members of the crowd watching the show. Even the members of the royal guard were pushed away like children as he rushed forward. Soon First Minister Zed was in front of him with a surprised look on his face. Bringing the sword down with as much power as he could muster he cut Zed in half as well as most of the horse. As his massive sword dug deep into the earth his vision faded away and credits started to roll by. He was a little disappointed that it ended so fast. Still there were definite improvements he already had in mind.

Jim looked through the credits with amusement. Soon he was met with line after line crediting him with the creation of the game: Art Director - Jim Sair, Combat Director Jim Sair, Sound Director Jim Sair. The credits kept rolling by and his name was showing up over and over. Even the ending music had been altered. The classic song was now being performed by a true orchestra and it was being played right in front of him. The scenery kept changing to different landscape views of the world. He was watching as if he was levitating in the air. The musicians were floating as well slightly below him while playing the familiar tune. The view changed and he was above a massive mountain range as it slowly rotated below him. The landscape changed again and now he was floating above a harbor and he could see people hard at work. All through this the credits kept rolling with the incredible new version of the ending music being played by the orchestra. It was a fantastic experience!

Some of the original authors were credited, but the vast majority were credited to him! He could have skipped it but he let it play out. He really wanted to watch it but for some reason he kept feeling itchy. His interface turned off as soon as the credits started rolling and he really didn't want to accidentally skip this. The itching was barely noticeable so he blindly sought out the sense menu. Doing this blind seemed to be happening too often. When the itch went away he knew he found the right slider. He was getting good at that. With a bit of disappointment the credits finally ended. To his chagrin his vision didn't seem to be changing back to his house, but instead he saw the familiar crowd of dirty people and they were all looking at him. Then he looked a little lower and saw the crimson garbed soldiers had him surrounded and were attacking vigorously.

Jim glanced down at the lower left hand field of his vision and saw that he only had thirty hit points remaining. So now it tells him! His original total was over ten thousand! Quickly he manipulated the menu and mentally selected the item tab and pulled out and elixir. As the strawberry flavored liquid reached his tongue he started to relax when he saw that his HP had jumped back up to max. Well that was unexpected he thought.