Teleportation: Active. Ruins of Nulia. Selected.

Those were the last words I saw before I was blinded by a bright white light. It was like I was thrust directly into the suns core. I stopped floating and found myself sitting on a hard substance…almost like stone. My blotchy vision start to clear and I found myself in the middle of a street. All around me I could see stalls and rushing people. The sky above me was a pure azure blue and it was extraordinarily beautiful. The occasional flying baby, at least that’s how I referred to the winged cherubs, would pass above me and make some sort of grunting noise, because I was blocking the street.

“You getting up sometime kid…I have to get my wares out of the city.” A strong gruff voice came from behind me and I was so startled my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

“Ah sorry…sorry.” I apologized quickly and got up on my feet and moved out of the way.

The merchant made some sort of grunting noise in response and continued to pull his cart full of merchandise down the street. I was so excited I almost didn’t notice the blinking blue light in the corner of my vision. I lifted up my hand and clicked on it in order to get more information from it. The moment I touched it the box became bigger and I read the most disturbing sentence I would ever read in my life.

Trolls4lyfe would like to initiate voice chat with you

I put my hand on my mouth and almost started to weep. “No he didn’t…seriously.” I nodded my head in response, but the system didn’t seem to recognize non voice commands. So I simply replied. “Yes.”

Hey man whats up. So what race did you choose. I bet you can guess mine

“…”

Its not that bad. Come on I’m a troll and its ironically funny.

“I might have to rethink our friendship.” I said, while I was feigning disappointment. “No we can be friends. Lets just have a secret friendship in-game, where we never meet.” I spoke sarcastically.

Whatever Kai…have fun on your anime adventure. I’ll be chillin with me trolls yah. Anywho the game has a radar for players who live close to eachother. That’s how I found you so fast.

I still hadn’t looked through the menu yet or checked any of my stats so that was the first thing I was going to do after I finished talking to Troll…no Nate. “That’s cool. Though it says on the radar that were on different continents. I heard the fee for continent-to-continent travel was pretty steep. It looks like we won’t be able to meet for a while.”

It’d be cool man. Its about 100 gold I think. We can set some aside as we quest. For now I’m gonna party with other noobs I met.

The voice link closed with a swooshing sound effect and I immediately started to investigate a few of the other pop-ups that I had ignored until now. The ones I was most curious about were the ones I got when I first arrived.

For being the first traveler to choose the Cherub race +50 Fame

For being the first traveler to discover the Ruins of Nulia +20 Fame

I was excited to see that I got something for doing pretty much nothing. I wondered what fame actually did for my character. I knew that if I used my voice I could access some sort of help menu of some sort. “Fame.” I stated out loud. “Activate: Fame.” I tried again and again while using the word: Open, proceed, spawn, appear, information…but nothing seemed to work.

“Try saying the word description followed by what you want.” An older stall owner that was behind me was laughing while he spoke. “You must be one of them travelers. The prophecy did say you guys would be arrivin’ soon. You might want to try saying ‘Status’ as well. Gives you a good look at yourself.” The older gentlemen snorted again in laughter before he went back to sorting the vegetables in his stall. I nodded my thanks before I walked away from the main street. My face was slightly red from embarrassment and I wanted to be somewhere less crowded in case I did something stupid again. “Description: Fame.” I called out and suddenly a blue box popped up.

Fame: Is one of the most important stats, because it records how you are treated by others or at least how they should be treating you. The higher your fame the more important you will seem. People with high fame are usually recognized adventurers, wealthy merchants, or some sort of nobility. Fame directly effects your relationship with others. Whether they will offer you lower priced goods or trust you with an important task…etc

The magic blue box seemed like it wanted to say more, but certain parts of the fame stat were hidden. Of course I could have just been overthinking things, because of how the AI had acted previously. I didn’t dwell on the subject for to long, because I wanted to find a training area and to take a look at my status before I started to look around. “Status.” I mumbled the words before a large box with a significant amount of detail popped up in front of me.

Status WindowName:KaiAlignment:NuetralLevel:1Class:UndecidedRace:CherubGender:MaleTitlesNoneFame:70Infamy:1000-Health:100 / 100Health Regen:0.5 / SecMana:150 / 150Mana Regen:1.0 / SecStamina:50 / 50Stamina Regen:0.5 / Sec-Strenght:5Agility:10Vitality:10Intelligence:15Wisdom:15Endurance:5Luck:0-Attack:1-2Defense:10Physical ResistancesSlashing:5Piercing:5Crushing:5Elemental ResistancesFire:10%Water:10%Wind:10%Earth:10%Light:10%Darkness:10%

I studied the chart for a while and realized that my regeneration rates went up by 0.5 for every five stat points I put into Vitality, Wisdow, or Endurance. Or at least that’s what it seemed like and my health, mana, and stamina increased by 50 for every five points as well. The other stats may come into play somehow…”I’ll have to rest this out later.” He mumbled to himself as he closed his status screen.

“Alright.” I exclaimed softly. “Its time to explore.” I exited the alley and started to look around this place for real. I needed to get the lay of the land if I was going to be spending so much time here. As I travelled around I started to realize why it was caused the Ruins of Nulia. It wasn’t exactly a wealthy place. The streets were certainly busy and filled with vendors, but the buildings and the architecture were decrepit and falling apart. I managed to ask around and found out that the majority of the people lived here, because they feared if they left they would be killed by poachers and their gemstones would be taken off of their corpses. The ruins were pretty much the only sanctioned place for the Cherubim to live. Cherubim hunting was outlawed by the king of Veratha within the confines of Nulia and its surrounding fields. It was supposedly a token of good faith by the king, but the people here thought of it more like a prison sentence. The majority of the Cherubim that left ended up getting killed and the ones that were strong enough to survive were discriminated against, because of their enormous magic potential. “Its not always good to be unique.” I spoke sadly.

“I need to find a place to train some weapon masteries to make my body stronger and then I can search for a place to pick up magic.” I knew from walking around that Nulia had no official training area for physical combat, but if I asked around enough I might be able to find someone.

“Move your ass kid!” I turned around with a frightened expression to see the second most disturbing thing I’d seen today…an elderly winged cherub with a great sword.