CHAPTER FOUR

“Joining Haven will be the beginning of a long lasting friendship” – Jill Norman, 2165.

In surprise, James whirled around, a surge of adrenaline striking him as he realised someone, or something, had managed to sneak up behind him without his knowledge. From the brief time he had been here he had already managed to look around all of it, and the area was devoid of anything that could be considered as an obstruction that could conceal something unseen. He also had not seen any doorways or corridors either, so it was a mystery on where anything could have come from.

He instantly detected the young looking man that was advancing towards him. Who, upon being detected, stopped suddenly, his feet skidding slightly in the loose sand. About ten feet away from James stood a stranger, his advancement upon James halted. He appeared to be human, about five and a half foot tall, aged somewhere in his twenties and dressed in a simple white tunic top and pants. The tunic was the type you pulled on over your head, buttonless, with a deep V neckline displaying his bare chest beneath it, and short, mid bicep length, sleeves.

As James stood there, his arms automatically raising in defence, evaluating any possible threat that this individual may pose to him, the stranger spoke, his tone soothing and somewhat reassuring. “Whoa, hold on, take it easy, there. I’m not here to harm you, or anything. I just saw you enter and came over to talk to you.” The man put his hands up towards James and took a slow step backwards.

James, still not quite sure about the intentions of the man, didn’t lower his hands and took a step backwards. “Who the hell are you ? “ he questioned, then continued without waiting to recieve an answer. “As far as I know, I am supposed to meet a teacher of some sort here, not another player… You are a player, aren’t you, and not an NPC ?”

A look of annoyance flittered across the features of the young man. “Before we continue with anything else, do not ever again refer to me, or anyone you meet in Haven, as NPC. That is one of the biggest insults you can give and will most likely result in someone pointing out your error with the tip of their dagger or sword. Everyone in Haven , whether from Haven, or from wherever else they have arrived from, make their own decisions and choices and all have equal opportunities to live and to learn. We are all individual entities and masters of our own destinies. Remember that and you could live a longer life. So please do not make this mistake again.” The man paused a moment, seeming to contemplate something while also reining in his ire, then continued. “The people of Haven are known as Citizens, and those who come here are called Visitors. I am a citizen. If Visitors live here long enough, they may even be honoured by being called Resident, but I wouldn’t hold out any hope of attaining that because Visitors are generally a selfish bunch who seem to bugger off back to wherever they came from at the drop of a hat. By calling someone an NPC you are basically stating they are mentally handicapped in some way.”

The words he was speaking seemed to be working the man up again, as his voice was starting to gain an edge of anger the longer he talked, so James took the opportunity to interrupt his flow of speech and to hopefully calm him down enough to gain answers to other questions. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult anyone, I didn’t know about that but will definitely remember in the future, so thank you for letting me know. So you are a citizen then, and not another… visitor like me ?”

“Yes, I am.” came the terse reply. “A citizen, that is.” He paused again to give James another rather querulous look. “Are you sure you are a visitor, my scrutiny of you is telling me your status it yet undetermined ?” He squinted at James, as if trying to see something else. “In fact, there is much about you that confuses me. I am supposed to meet a Visitor here to welcome him and teach him how to survive in this world, yet everything about you informs me that you are not a visitor.”

All this confused James, as he had no knowledge about anything that this person was going on about to him. “ Look, I really do not know anything about what you’re saying. All I know is I am supposed to meet someone here as well, and I think that’s supposed to be you, so let’s start over from the beginning, shall we. Hi, my name is James Carter, and you are….. ?” he held out one hand for the other to grasp it in greeting.

The other approached, grasped the proffered hand, and shook it. “My name is Coltain the Lorebringer, and I am the one you refer to as a teacher.” James was again struck by the realism shown. The pressure from the hand grasp was firm on his own hand, the creases and skin roughness easily discernible by touch alone. “If you are here, then I suppose you are the one I am to teach, even if you are not a Visitor.”

While they had been talking the sand beneath James feet had been gradually heating up from the sunlight that struck it, and now it was reaching an unpleasant level, stinging his bare feet. “Can we find somewhere else to talk, Coltain, my feet are starting to burn here.” He briefly raised one foot at a time, trying to find a little respite from the pain caused by the heated sand.

Coltain looked down at his own bare feet, frowning a little. “Didn’t notice it until you mentioned it, but mine are starting to burn a little now.” He looked up at James. “Sure, let’s move somewhere a little more comfortable.” He looked around the area searching for a likely spot, but the absence of anything at all, other than the walls precluded any possibility of finding some decent shade. “Hold on a minute while I make something we can park our butts under.”

This statement gave James a surprise with its normalcy. Normal to standard Earth slang, that is, not something he expected a computer-generated character to utter in general conversation within a game. ‘Hey, are you sure you are a…. umm… citizen of Haven, and not someone from Earth? You’re not just one of the staff acting out a role, are you, having a joke with me ?”

“Earth? Is that the name of the place you are from? Never heard of it.” Coltain replied while flipping through a book, where he had produced the book from, James was unsure, but he couldn’t have been hiding it somewhere in that skimpy tunic that he was wearing. It would have shown. “Ah, here we go, this will probably do the job.” He muttered, obviously finding what he was looking for, then closed the book with a snap. Dipping one hand into a pocket in the pants he was wearing, he withdrew it, a small green jewel held between his thumb and forefinger. Raising both hands until they were side by side, palm down, he moved them apart quickly, each one curving downward as they separated. he started to speak words that James couldn’t understand. Upon completion of the words he crushed the jewel between his fingers, a puff of glittering motes clouded his hand. The air was filled with an electric charge, fat blue sparks arced between his fingers and hands, then suddenly a transparent glowing blue dome came into existence above them. The dome was about ten foot in diameter and hovered about eight feet above the ground. Coltain turned towards a now amazed James. “Basic missile shield, that should keep the sun off us for a while, a simple spell that anyone can learn to do, if they want to. It has a lifespan of thirty minutes, plenty of time.”

James walked about underneath the dome, looking up at it in interest as he did so. It didn’t really cut out the sunlight, but underneath it the light that passed through was the blue colour of the dome above, and the heat from the sunlight diminished by a large margin. The sand beneath his feet hadn’t cooled down yet, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before most of the retained heat would dissipate away. “Cool. Will this keep the rain off you as well ?”

Coltain looked at him with some amusement. “It’s interesting that’s the first thing you should asked me about the shield, because most people ask about what missiles it stops and if they can learn it. The answer, though, is yes it would, for a short while. There’s been lots of tests done on exactly how rain affects a dome of this type. Each object to hit the dome has a chance of being deflected or stopped by the shield, and each raindrop is considered a separate missile, so it would stop of the rain, but each object that strikes a dome will also reduce the shields lifespan. So in a major rainstorm a shield, like this basic one, would stop about ninety five percent of raindrops striking it, but the sheer amount of rain actually striking the domes surface would probably decrease the lifespan to approximately ten seconds, maximum, probably less.” Seeing the look of disappointment on James’s face, he laughed. “You are not the first to think it would make good protection if caught out in the rain and snow, but it would be a lot easier, and cheaper, to own a good raincoat, and warmer too. The shield is really only to protect against arrows, other thrown missiles and some spells.”

Abashed at being caught out as being so ignorant, James just uttered the first thing that came to him. “So, then, can I learn this ?” Then realised that Coltain had made reference to exactly this question earlier increasing the embarrassment he felt even more, then tried to save himself by adding quickly “By that I mean learn it now, from you ?”

“No, not yet you can’t. This spell, even being the basic one, requires the skill Arcane Magic knowledge at tier three, level one. You don’t even possess Knowledge of Arcane Magic yet.”

“Tier three, level one ? What does that mean ?” The terms were unfamiliar to James, he knew what arcane magic was, but the classes and levels were new to him, ones he hadn’t seen before in other games he had played in.

Coltain pursed his lips in thought. “It’s really something I was going to talk about later, once we had got the basics out the way. Its probably best we get those done before I tell you, otherwise it may just confuse you. I only have a limited amount of time I can spend with you and I don’t want to waste it without teaching you the things you will really need to enter into Haven.” He looked at James, expectantly, then asked ”Are you ready to start ?”

“Sure, let’s go. I’m dying to see what Haven looks like.”

“First off, you must choose a name for yourself. I suppose the name you call yourself now is the one you had from wherever you come from. We can not allow that. Your new name must consist of a first name and a second name, while each separately may be a duplicate of another’s name, both together must be unique. You are starting a new life here, so you should start off with a new name as well.”

James thought about this for a short while. Choosing a good name was important because it represented who you were in the game if you ever became famous. Many players of other games had chosen what they considered as a funny, or clever name for themselves, only to find out much later that it was ridiculous and totally stupid. It also had to be catchy as well. While he was trying to work this out Coltain interrupted his thought process. “Oh, there are also certain names you are not allowed to choose, especially title names. You can earn a title, but you can not choose one for yourself.”

“Oh, right. I’ll have to think about this.” With this James mused a little more before deciding upon a name he had used in another game a few years ago. “I think I will call myself Edrik Darkfoe.” As soon as he had said this, he heard a light tinkle of bells, similar in sound to the small charm bells made at Christmas. The sound, while pleasant , caught him by surprise, making him look about himself to try to see where the bells were, but couldn’t locate any. “Where are those bells that ?” he remarked upon not being able to locate them. “Can you hear them ?”

“Bells, what bells ? Oh, those ones.. you’re only hearing the gods acknowledging that they hear you and they have accepted your choice of name. Every time the gods of the Aether send you an announcement you will hear those bells. If you don’t want to hear them all the time, then you can stop them in your profile settings, or choose a different sound instead.”

“Profile settings ? I don’t even have a profile yet.” James, knew what a profile was, but he didn’t know how it was accessed in this game. “Could you show me how to access my profile ?”

Coltain looked a little confused by this, but then slapped his forehead with one palm. “Oh, I must have forgot that, I haven’t shown you that yet, have I ?” a sheepish look crossing his face, cheeks slightly reddening. “Well, its simple, but you’re going to have to practice a bit to get used to it. The process takes two actions that you must do at the same time. First off, you have to think Profile to yourself and then focus your sight at a point in front of you of about five inches, just like looking at the end of your nose. Everything in front of that point should become unfocussed. If you do it right your profile should be there, right in front of you, but still allowing you to be aware of what’s going on around you. Once you allow your sight to correct its focus your profile will automatically close. Give it a try and see if you can do it.”

James decided to sit down on the sand before he tried this, so he could put his full attention into the task. Profile, he thought and slowly tried to unfocus his sight. As everything around him began to get a fuzzy appearance about them , faint white lettering began to slowly appear, hovering in the air in front of him. Turning his head slightly, he realised the words had a fixed point and no matter which way he looked, the words would follow his eyes, always staying centred in his vision. He couldn’t quite make out the words, and as he strained to bring them into sharper focus, he found his eyes starting to ache and lost them completely. It was just like learning to cross your eyes, he thought. Now knowing the right process, he spent the next five minutes practicing with his eyes until he could get a clean image of his profile every time. Finally comfortable with the process James allowed his profile to remain, then started to examined it.

Name : Edrik Darkfoe

Class : Undetermined

Status : Undetermined

Title(s) : None

Race : Undetermined (Attribute distribution will adjust upon race assignment)

Age : 4 Hours 3 minutes, 26 seconds

Level : 0 (Tier 1, Level 0) Beginner.

Health : 100 points

Physical Stamina : 00000

Mental Stamina : 00000

Money : None carried.

ENL : 100 (Experience need to attain next level)

Damage : 0 – 1 points (Hand, Right), Melee : 0 – 1 points (Hand, Left)

Wgt. : 0 / (100Pd / 45k)

Attributes

Strength : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Strength base cost : 5 credits)

Constitution : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Constitution base cost : 5 credits)

Defence : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Defence base cost : 5 credits)

Dexterity : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Dexterity base cost : 5 credits)

Intelligence : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Intelligence base cost : 5 credits)

Charisma : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Charisma base cost : 5 credits)

Wisdom : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Wisdom base cost : 5 credits)

Willpower : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Willpower base cost : 5 credits)

Perception : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Perception base cost : 5 credits)

Luck : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Luck base cost : 5 credits)

Locked Attribute 1 : 5

Locked Attribute 2 : 5

Locked Attribute 3 : 5

Locked Attribute 4 : 5

Unallocated attribute credits : 0

You will gain 10 credits per general level attained

Abilities

No Abilities gained

Skills

No Skills learned

He concentrated on his Strength attribute and a new page appeared, replacing the profile, which was not overlaid, but totally vanished.

Strength

Base : 5

Adjusted : 5

Carrying Capacity : 100 Pounds / 45 Kilograms Maximum

Strength – This determines how physically strong you are and will affect how much weight you can carry. Strength also affects your maximum health , damage given, and what types of equipment you can equip or use. Strength may also influence the benefits/results of certain spells within Haven, from increasing/decreasing the damage output, through to the length of the spells influence.

You can increase your base strength by using attribute credits. Each point of increase will cost you 5 credits more than the previous purchase in this attribute. Your current cost to increase your strength by 1 point is 5 credits, to increase it by two points will cost you 15 credits. You will earn 10 Attribute Credits for every general level gained.

Again thinking on the profile, he pulled the page back into sight and concentrated on the first locked Attribute. It was something that puzzled him.

Locked Attribute 1

Base : 5

Adjusted : 5

This attribute is hidden from you at this time. No improvements on this attribute is possible at this time. This attribute will unlock when the appropriate conditions have been met.

Well, he thought to himself, that’s fairly understandable, all though some parts of it were different from the profiles he was used to in other games, other than the four locked attributes. He withdrew from the profile and focussed on Coltain. “A few questions, first one being, what are these locked attributes ?”

“Hmm, interesting question, and one I find myself unable to answer. The locked attributes will affect something, whether that’s now, or later, is unknown. Like everyone, including me, you will just have to wait and find out. I also hear that locked attributes will vary, from person to person.”

James wasn’t too happy with this answer, for things he know that would affect him in the game, and that he had no knowledge about, gave him grave concerns. “ What about race ? I have undetermined as race on my profile ? “

Coltain was surprised here, and showed it. “You have no race chosen? You should have chosen that before you arrived here ? I’m not sure I can help you with that, and you won’t be allowed to leave this area without a race choice either. “ He paused a moment, thinking, then continued. “I’m going to have to leave you for a little while, to see if I can find some way to resolve this issue. You stay here…” then paused a moment before giving a small bark of laughter, realising what he had just said. “Well, you can’t go anywhere else, can you.” He handed James a thinly rolled scroll. “While I am gone, just read though this, it should give you the rest of the basics about your profile and other things, like your inventory. Read through the scroll, it should fill you in on some of the things I now will not have time to teach you about. Don’t worry about experimenting with anything, this is a training area and nothing can really damage you here.” Without waiting for any kind of response from James, he turned and walked away, his figure slowly gaining a transparent appearance the further he walked, until finally there was no indication he had ever been there, even his footsteps in the sand had vanished.

At least the floating shield over his head had remained, protecting him from the sun which had progressively become hotter as time passed. He sat and made himself as comfortable in the shade as he could, opened the scroll and started to read.

It didn’t take James long to work through the scroll, most of it was straight forward to him, and the parts that were confusing could be assumed from the rest of the information that linked to it. His inventory was totally empty, as no items had been added or were already there, not even starter equipment, which he should have had. He found his ‘Quest’ page, but again it was deplete of anything, this he expected as he hadn’t done. Or received, any yet, and that also was depressing. All the pages in his profile that he accessed were the same, empty. At the end of the scroll, he did find something that he had questions about, that being his level progression. It was a chart showing the list of progression that affected not only his general level, but also his skills, abilities, weapons and armour.

Experience Progression Table.

This table lists the path of progression for all items and statistics that are affected by experience. When you have earned 99 Tier levels in one Tier you will progress to the bottom of the next tier.

Tier is the class of level attained and determines your Title

Tier Level is the level of skill you have obtained within a Tier.

(Tier number x 100) + Tier Level = Overall Level of the statistic/item that this applies to.

Tier 1 - Beginner Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 2 – Apprentice Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 3 - Adept Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 4 - Expert Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 5 - Master Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 6 - Grand Master Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 7 - Veteran Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 8 - Sage Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 9 - Champion Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 10 - Hero Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 11 - Paragon Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 12 - Epic Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 13 - Legend Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 14 - Immortal Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 15 - Demigod Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 16 - Titan Tier Levels 0 - 99

Tier 17 - Deity Tier Levels 0 – 99

Tier 18 – Lesser God Tier Levels 0 – 99

Tier 19 – Greater God Tier Levels 0 – 99

Tier 20 – Creator Tier Levels 0 – 99

Ie: Tier 5, Level 12 informs you that you that a Master class has been obtained and you overall level progress is (5 x 100) + 12 = 512. If this was in the Skill of Crafting, you would be a level 12 Master Class Crafter .

Now the scroll was finished James found himself becoming bored with waiting. He had already fiddled with all of the settings that he could adjust, including choosing the Imperial option for his displayed weights and measures. There was nothing else for him to alter. Looking around for something else to do, he saw absolutely nothing. Here he was, alone in a square, roofless room with bare wooden walls, and no exit. He wondered what was on the other side of them, whether he was in a town, a city, or just existing nowhere. An idea suddenly occurred to him. Why not see if he could climb the walls and see what was on the other side. They were rough, so maybe if he tried in one of the corners, where two sides met, he could use the angle somehow to help him climb. Pushing himself to his feet, he started over to the nearest corner to him, but quickly changed his mind as his feet started burning, and returned to the shade under the dome.

As he stood there, feeling a little more comfortable in the shade, he considered contacting the support team, as he knew there was something definitely wrong with his character. The required character setup had not happened and he knew without this, his character would be unable to enter the gameworld. He suspected that the experimental Pod he was supplied with was the cause. Pulling up the contacts page he had located earlier, he quickly located the support link on it, which wasn’t hard as there was only three entries in it. As he looked at it to activate it, the link suddenly disappeared from the list. “What the hell ?” He thought, but was interrupted from further thoughts by the sound of a sucking pop behind him, so he closed the contacts page and turned about.

About ten foot away from where he stood a hole in the air had appeared, its edges rippling and roiling like disturbed clouds, while the centre glowing brightly in the air. It was roughly oval shaped, seven foot high and four foot wide. He knew what this was, for he had seen similar things like this before in the other games he had tried. It was a teleport portal and stepping out of it was an elderly man, with white hair and a short beard. He was dressed in a brilliant white robe that fell down to the leather sandals that could only just be seen peeping out below the hemline. Gripped tightly in one of his hands was a six foot wooden pole, obviously a wand of some sort. The old man stepped out onto the sand and the portal, now behind him, quickly dissipated until no sign of it remained.

The man looked at him, his expression one of annoyance, his eyes slowly roaming down James’ form before he spoke slowly with a firm, deep voice. “You. You shouldn’t be here, your presence is an enigma.” Before James could react to this startling appearance, the old man raised one hand and twisted it, purple lightning forming around it before suddenly streaking from his clenched fist to strike James. The lightning played across his body, sharp stabbing pains appearing wherever it touched his skin. It felt like someone was pushing red hot needles into every part of his being, and one giant spike through his brain. The pain was indescribable, like nothing else he had ever suffered. The final thing he remembered was when every muscle spasmed uncontrollably, flinging him into the air, only to land on the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. As soon as his body had stopped twitching, it burst into a cloud of multicoloured sparks that winked out of existence one at a time leaving nothing behind to indicate that there had ever been anything here before.

The old man stood there, observing this process, then took a look around, as if to see if he had missed something. Seemingly reassured by his visual search of the area, he waved one hand, bringing into existence another portal and stepped into it. As this portal swirled away out of existence, another one popped up quite close to it, disgorging Coltain the Lorebringer onto the empty sands. Stepping away from his portal Coltain looked about for James, head swivelling from side to side. Not being able to locate him, he shrugged his shoulders, called forth another portal, and disappeared.

.