Veuce saw that the humans were weak and that the world outside Sanctuary was poised against them. She would not betray Ammas' trust and allow harm to come to her new children, but her guidance alone was not enough. She talked to her siblings who like her felt close to the odd mortals. The twins Ordas and Judas answered and guided the humans in working together. Kirn admired their fighting spirit and so taught them to use it. Drys taught them to care for the land in return for succour. Myra could not teach but she provided health to those who asked in a manner to her liking. Veuce asked and was answered; her siblings finding meaning, amusement, worth, and more in her words. From this, humanity gained strength.

From this Humanity gained a pantheon of gods.

*****

Aiden grimaced looking at what remained of his savings. Two Denna and fifty Aes were both what he’d spent to get his basic gear and all that he had left. He wasn’t really sure how much that was actually worth yet and there weren’t exactly a lot of options in this tiny village, but NPC vendors were almost always rip-offs. It sucked to spend half his money almost immediately and have almost no clue to the value of it.

Nothing else for it, time for quests. Aiden pulled up his limited quest menu.

Quest Log

Active Quests: 3

Quest of growth I

Learn 5 skills

Reward: 1 Talent point

Clear the way

Dispatch of 25 Celties

Reward: increased favour with Cairn Village, Unknown

Save the Past

Talk to, and record the stories of 15 Villagers

Reward: increased favour with Cairn Village, Unknown

He wasn’t in the mood to spend any more time with NPCs, so the last one was out. The first two looked like they could be done together. Skills were gained from actions, and what better actions to get combat skills than those used to kill things? It was time to actually start playing the game. Now, where was he supposed to go?

He spotted the village elder sitting on a bench near the town hall talking with a few other elderly and approached, calling out to him. “Elder Cohler!”

“Yes?” The elderly man slowly looked up and answered.

“Where do I go to kill the Celties?”

“Just down south between the forests and the fields.”

Aiden wanted to ask for clarification, but the elder had already turned back to his companions.

“South it is then,” Aiden muttered, turning around. He walked a few steps before coming to a halt and turned back to the elder and his group, this time rather sheepishly. “Umm… Which way is south?”

The entire group of elderly stopped to stare at him before bursting into laughter. An old woman with a yellow shawl recovered first and pointed to the direction he was heading earlier. “Just that way young lad.” She then pointed to the sky. “Sellis is stubborn and only travels east to west; it’s afternoon now.”

“Oh, right, thanks.”

Aiden gave a slight smile and a wave before turning around again. It took him a moment to puzzle through the woman’s explanation before remembering his tutor once mentioned ancient humans used the sun and stars for navigation. It seemed a rather imprecise method, but it would have to do; it wasn’t like he had a GPS.

He paused on the dirt path leading out of the village, face in hand. “Idiot!” A bird flew away and a couple of villagers looked at him strangely for a moment before moving on. Aiden could have kicked himself as he navigated his menu to pull up the mini-map function. It popped into his upper-left field of vision, a quest marker already blinking in the direction he was heading. There was even a damn compass.

The Game had felt so real that Aiden had almost started acting like it. Not only that, but everything was so rustic that even every-day augmented reality felt out of place. Aiden looked through the menu options to see if he’d missed anything else. A lot, as it turned out. It had almost everything available in a standard augmentation package down on earth plus a few extras like his inventory space and a character sheet. Right, it would probably be smart to look at that.

Name: ----

Skills: ----

Talents: ----

Gifts: ----

Renown: Cairn Village: Common Stranger

Ah. So he was literally a worthless nobody. He should fix that.

*****

The south field expansion was a stretch of unkempt land between the villages farms and the forest which surrounded the valley. There were saplings, all kinds of weeds, and of course roughly half a dozen players chasing after bouncing fluffballs; these were the celties, Aiden presumed. Aiden looked at his crude iron dagger and put it back in its sheath, feeling he was more likely to stab himself than hit one of those. He stepped off the path onto the field propper.

You Have found the Celty Field! +1 to exploration skill for first successful navigation

You Have learned Skill: Navigation!

Quest Progress: Quest of growth I: 1/5 skills learned

“System. Set automatic notifications to vital only and the rest to simplified standby alert.” A notification pending icon appeared in his peripheral vision and Aiden sent it a mental activation

Preferences Applied

“System. Set system conversation to automatic.”

Preferences Applied

“Better.” Aiden let out a grateful sigh, happy that the system operated similarly to the augments he had on earth. It was even as literal in implementation. He must have really been out of it to forget about them, and, even while doing something as banal as breathing, it was easy to see why. The air was full of all kinds of smells, some of which he didn’t even recognize. Sure it was similar to the enviro-parks sprinkled throughout the massive Metropolitan-complexes, but they were small regulated microbiomes mandated into existence so people didn’t go insane. They were nothing like an actual mountain valley.

“Pretty amazing right?”

Aiden started, finally noticing the player who had approached him. He looked around Aiden’s age and his hair was startlingly blond; almost white. Aiden wondered if that choice was deliberate or he had also stuck with his ‘default’. It was impossible to tell, but Aiden couldn’t help but wonder. How a person presented themselves told you a lot about them.

This person was well-groomed, had a confident posture and had even approached him freely. That was a lot of data. Sadly, Aiden never really learned the art of reading others despite his sister's best attempts to teach him. All she managed was to instil a habit of staring the first time he met anyone. Like he was doing now. Damn. “Right yeah, amazing…” Aiden tried to cover his blunder, the operative word being tried, “Umm, sorry, who are you?”

“Arthur, no last name yet, apparently you have to earn one.” Arthur held out his hand and Aiden shook it.

That he could do; all muscle memory—perfect for running on autopilot.

“I didn’t know that, I’m Aiden by the way. You were saying?”

“All of this,” Arthur waved his arms around gesturing to the world around him, “it’s amazing. I’ve been to the mountains once back on earth, a resort in the Alps, it's nothing like this. I mean it is, but there are only a few valleys kept entirely free of human construction and you wouldn’t know it because there are people everywhere even with the strict visitor limitations. I don’t think there’s a place left on earth anything like what we're seeing now.”

“I’ve never left the North American Complex, but I heard the Rockies are still pretty great. It’s where all the big shots go for their vacations.”

“Right, my trip to the Alps; I won that—never could have afforded to go otherwise. A trip to the Rockies would cost at least ten times that. It’s part of why I’m here. One of the only ways left to see nature is with a one way, thirty-year-long trip away from Earth. Never thought the virtual suite would be so amazing though.”

“Right.” Aiden had never really thought much of nature and while the mountain valley sure was nice he couldn’t see it as something worth leaving earth for. His ideas on that front didn’t mean much of anything though. “You on the starter quest?” he asked Arthur.

“Clear the way?”

Aiden nodded.

“Yup, it's harder than I thought. There are celties all over the place, so finding them is no problem. They’re weak, so killing them is no problem. They aren’t even that fast, it's just you can never tell which direction a celty’s going to jump next.”

“Think it would be easier if we worked together?”

“Can’t hurt to give it a try.”

*****

The sky turned red as the sun descended below the mountains and cast a long shadow over the valley. Aiden still had not completed the quest. Oh, he’d completed a quest, it didn’t take long to earn five skills running after fluffy monsters. He had less luck catching and killing said monsters though, even with the help of Arthur, who’d finished his quest an hour earlier and left shortly after, wishing Aiden good luck. It didn’t help.

Aiden might have thought Arthur had cursed him instead if that were possible. In the hour since he’d left, Aiden had not caught a single celty even as his skills rose and helped in his task, even though he only needed to catch one more before that task would finish. Aiden made a sweep at a passing celty and missed spectacularly. He wasn’t putting in all that much effort anymore and his skill gains had slowed as well. Maybe if he used that talent he got? No, Aiden wanted to read through the options first and decide carefully. Maybe talents were rare. The follow-up quest didn’t have them. Aiden paused in his fruitless attempts and pulled up the quest update he’d received earlier.

Updated quest!

Quest of growth II: Level 5 skills to 10 reward: +10skill levels in a selected skill

He wasn’t making progress, and it was quickly getting dark, so it was probably best to turn in and try again tomorrow when he wasn’t so frustrated. With his mind made up, Aiden quickly turned around and started on his way back, eager to leave this place behind. There was a soft squeak and notification alert began to blink. Aiden summoned it and stared in disbelief.

Quest Completed!

Clear the way: Catch or dispatch of 25/25 Celties to claim the reward report to the village elder.

Aiden looked down at the pink fluff poking out from under his boot an odd smile twitching on his face. He was happy—the situation was even a bit funny in an exasperating kind of way—but damn those fluffballs.