Day 1

The very second the timer hit zero One was already spamming the Play Button. Alpha Seven-O-Six loaded the game in a matter of seconds. Very impressive for such a high scale game. Immediately One found himself displaced. The body he was able to test out before now was stuck in something warm, only his feet and hands were hanging in the cold. At first he was unable to see anything. A huge amount of hair covered his view. Quickly he realised that he was stuck in the mouth of something very much alive. No matter how much he struggled the teeth and flesh would not budge.

His feet were especially cold but the warmth on his body made it bearable. A couple minutes later the creature spit him out. A huge black wolf, with warm and friendly eyes looked down on him. Now he started to feel the cold. The wolf howled into the night. The wooden house behind One started to become lively. The door opened and the black wolf touched his chest before turning around and running into the dark.

A little later One woke up. The System Messages in form of popups appeared again.

´Protective shroud of Freki´ timed out.

´Freezing´ effect was cured by ´Touch of Freki´

´Entered a sacred zone. PvP will be heavily punished.´

Interesting. Seems like the big wolf was called Freki. Maybe a named monster? But One did not recall the name of a giant wolf like that. Fenrir was one of the real famous ones but maybe there were more wolves? He got up from his sleeping place, which was only a blanket. He stood in a small wooden room, there were countless things lying around most likely it was a toolshed. Scouting the room he found many things that could be useful, but he did not dare to just take them. If the system punished theft the house owners would retaliate. “Open Profile.” A big window appeared before him, and gave him a lot of insight. When he hovered things a text message appeared with further explanation. [like this]

Profile - Level 1

Gamer-Tag: “One” [Gamer-Tag is shown to other players instead of your name whilce NPCs ignore it]

Name: “Uffe” [grants 5% Cold immunity and grants “Fenrir affiliation”]

[Fenrir affiliation: 20% attack speed for allied wolves / +80% domesticating to wolves and dogs / heightened chance to gain lycanthropy]

Title: - none- [grants additional benefits depending on the title]

Stats:

Experience 0.00% [Amount of Experience gained for Level-Up]

Strength: 1 [+1 Damage on attack per Stat-Point]

Vitality: 4 [+1% HP per Stat-Point]

Toughness: 1 [Reduce damage taken by 0.5 per Stat-Point]

[Toughness applies before Critical Hit & Armor Pierce]

Speed: 2 [+ Attack and Movement Speed by 0.05 and 0.01 per Stat-Point]

DPS: 1 [Theoretical damage per physical attack/second]

Armor: 0 [reduces damage by 3 per Point]

Movement Speed: 1.02 [Movement Speed indicator, Base: 1.00]

Attack Speed: 0.60 [Attack Speed indicator, Base: 0.50]

HP [Health Points]: 104/104 [Health Point/Maximum Health Base: 100+4%]

Weight: 0.00 [decreases speed by 1 per 10 weight]

Critical Hit: 0.00 [chance to inflict 250% damage on physical attack]

Armor Pierce: 0.00 [chance to inflict damage ignoring 80% armor]

Cold Immunity: 5.00% [decreases effects of climate]

Heat Immunity: 0.00% [decreases effects of climate]

Skillpoints 0 [used to upgrade Job-Masteries]

Gear:

Head: -none-

Necklace: -none-

Shoulders: -none-

Torso: -none-

Belt: -none-

Legs: -none-

Boots: -none-

Rings: -none- [10 Rings equipable]

The most interesting part was the Name. One never heard of a game that had such a system, that gives out random names with different bonuses. Most likely the Name Uffe which was randomly given to him triggered the event where the giant wolf Freki carried him here. With a little luck he would get something good at this location? “Open Inventory”. He had 24 Slots. A lot of Slots and Pages with more Slots were locked though. Most likely they were upgradable later in the game by doing some sort of quest. The game time was not displayed anywhere so he activated that in the menu.

Options. Time & Map Options. There he activated Show Timestamp ingame. “Day 1 - January 07:47” it said. Good. He did not lose any time being unconscious. He also enabled location "Temple of Loki". Then he closed all the windows and got moving. One went out the toolshed and immediately ran into a man with a dark black robe on. The Cloth looked really badass. It looked like he was walking clothed in pure shadow. Aside from him there were nine other men present. They were working with tools, plants or praying to a giant statue that showed a huge man with wider horns chained down by the stone which vanished in the ground. It was around four or five meters high and a wooden floor was build right around it.

The hall was huge and dozens of other rooms were connected to it. Although the size was impressive the state it was in was rather bad and most of the walls already had cracks in them. Generally the floor was in a bad state, full of holes so you had to watch where u step. If the statute had not looked that good the whole place would have been really sad to see. The hall was nearly empty, only the rooms had various different things in them.It was really intimidating to see the men in those black shadow robes. One would never try to steal anything here, those priests had to be high level for sure. He closed in on the first one. “Hello. Where am I?” The priest smiled.

“Welcome child. You sure were lucky last night. It is unusual to be found by Freki. Are you a believer in Odin?” The man smiled, but something about that was off. One felt threatened. Maybe this was a cult against Odin? The statue clearly had both eyes, so it could not be the ruler of Asgard. “No.” Immediately he looked friendlier. “I see. You are currently in the hidden temple of Loki. Will you pray with us?” Loki. The deceiver. The worst of all nordic gods. Well this was interesting. Maybe he should try and find out more? The priest looked at him curiously. Then a quest window popped up.

Quest: Pray.

Eric, the High Priest requested your presence in a Ritual to honor the god Loki.

As he provided you shelter for the night it would be well mannered to join the priests in praying.

Objective: Pray with the priests of Loki in the Hidden Temple of Loki and partake in their ritual.

Reward: ??? [It is unclear if you benefit from completing the quest.]

Decline: Refusing to join will decline the quest and grant you “Atheist” for 15 days.

[+15% movement speed / +10% attack speed / +35% experience gained]

One was confused. He could gain such a strong buff right from the start by declining the quest? Something smelled very fishy. Maybe refusing would result in pissing of the priest? It was also possible that there could be follow up quests later on that gave huge rewards. Also he never heard of a game giving actual rewards to players for not doing a quest this easily. The question mark could also give him some good equipment. One smiled. “Of course. I would be happy to.” A popup appeared: [Quest: “Pray.” was accepted.] The priest smiled. “It seems like you would like to get to know our god better right?” - “Of course. I have heard many great things already. Yet i know so little still…”

One made a very sad face. The priest was immediately excited. “Our god Loki is the son of a ice giant. He is one of the wisest and smartest gods! He deceived a lot of great Monsters the other gods sent to kill him, yet they were unable to harm him. Then they lashed chains upon him, but only after grouping up altogether they were able to subdue the great Loki!” Eric spoke with passion and it nearly drew One into his pace. It was a good thing to not decline the quest. He had a good feeling about this. “Yes, Loki is awesome! You need to tell me more stories later Eric!” His child body gave One the advantage to put all his cuteness into convincing the priest that he was honest. Little did he know that One could not give less of a damn. Naturally the priest smiled gladly. “Yes of course, i am happy that you think the same.” Another window appeared.

[Title: “Flatterer” The charming of a NPC for more than one time unlocked this title. +5% bargaining]

[Bargaining can be used with the profession “Merchant” only.]

Seems like titles are unlocked by repeating actions? But the accuracy of the System sure was an impressive feature. The reactions of the NPCs were almost completely human. “Follow me please.” One did as he was told and stayed right behind the High Priest. Hidden on the side of the statue was a small staircase. They followed the narrow path down for a few moments and found themselves in a round dark room. A lot of priests sat around, seemingly in meditation. Some nodded towards him. He pretended to be shy and played it with looking down. Maybe this cuteness would grant him advantages soon? Eric stopped in the back of the room and sat down, signing One to do the same. The priests started repeating a certain phrase over and over again.

Luga voss, väglerra voss. Vörgörre voss.

They said it over and over again, the phrase went from speaking towards a epic very silent song. No one was in the same speed or rhythm, yet if found together perfectly. One memorised the phrase quickly and began also following their prayers. How much would be needed to complete the quest? After a while he stopped thinking and just spoke the words over and over again aloud. He was never very religious, and this would not get to him either. It was just to follow this npc's in their blind believes. A seemingly huge amount of time went by before the prayers ended. One made sure to continue his praying even after all the priests stopped. Finally Eric placed his hand on One's shoulder. “Welcome to the Faith of Loki.” One hastily opened the menu with his mind, flew over the emote page and chose “crying”. As he hoped this had the perfect effect. All the priests were happy and smiled. Eric smiled the brightest. “I am happy to welcome you.” A message window popped up.

[Quest: Pray. Completed. Objective: Pray for over two hours in the Hidden Temple of Loki.]

[180 Experience gained.]

[Level-Up! You reached level 2.]

[Your Strength rose by 1]

[Your Vitality rose by 1]

[Your Toughness rose by 1]

[Your Speed rose by 1]

[Gained 5 Skillpoints]

Eric, the High Priest also bowed down to him and have him a little bag. One was excited, leveling rose his base stats quite a bit, maybe he should just quest some before trying to figure out how to handle animals or monsters? Fighting in general would be hard, since he had no skills that he could use. And just hitting something with his fists would not do the trick. What was in the bag? Maybe a weapon? Maybe some boots or cloth? The weather would be very cold until Day 3 or 4 where Spring would start and everything would get warmer. Quickly he grabbed into the small bag and pulled out its insides.

[You received “Apple” as a reward for completing the Quest: Pray.]

One stared at the item. Then he stared some more. He fought his rising urge to throw it away and starting to murder everyone in sight. A f**king apple for two hours of annoying gameplay? He screamed internally and dropped to the ground in despair. How could they give a huge reward for declining a quest and then give an apple as a reward after doing tiresome work? “Is everything alright, child?” Eric seemed worried about him. Immediately One changed. Using his famed crying emote he looked up to the priest. “I am just so glad that i am here. Thank you for inviting me to pray.” Immediately it showed effect. The priest was very touched. Smilingly he gave him another apple. “Here, i hope you can help us out in the temple when you feel alright with that?” One clenched his teeth. Another f**king apple? This NPC was trolling him! “Of course, i would be happy to.”

[Title unlocked: Deceiver. Beginner I]

[Using techniques to continuously deceive and manipulate others you find humor and amusement amongst it. +10% Bargaining. +2 Vitality. +1 Strength. ]

Equip Title: Deceiver. Just thinking it equiped his title. At least he got something other than a god damn apple. Looking around all the priests now had a small blue arrow above their heads. Clearly Quest-Indicators. At least this quest unlocked some more. Maybe he could find something useful here? He talked to Eric again. “How can i help?” With a curious look his childlike face must have resembled an angel. God damn... Emotes are useful. “Of course child. You see the fireplace right next to us?” How could anyone not see a fireplace? “Yes. Why?” He really had to grit his teeth for that one. His anger nearly got the best of him. Nothing could have made him more happy than a skip button right now. “We sacrifice the things we worked hard for here to show our god that we are worthy.” Bingo. Huge rewards incoming. He just needed to find out what to sacrifice and he would receive huge rewards.

Quest: Sacrifice

Eric, the High Priest, shows you an ancient stone with sculpted sharp runes on it.

Find 10 of each, 7 of kind. Burn them. - Loki

A very short quest description. But it made the thought of huge rewards go Puff. If it were gold and items to receive skill points or special priest stuff he could sell afterwards because no one else was at this place before it would have been great. Like this you only receive one super rare thing for yourself and had to work a great deal. But that's still good. The High Priest stopped talking to him. Good thing he did not listen. He put up a fake smile and left towards the next priest. A black bearded old fellow trying to fix the scrappy wooden floor that laid out the whole temple floor. “Hello.” One fake smiled and hoped for a good response. “What are you grinning about? Thinking you can escape a little work like that? Here take that and get to work. Damn kids this days…” He shook his head. One was stunned for a second. Then he took the hammer the priest reached to him. “Yes, sir!” With a serious expression he yelled it out. The old Priest grinned. “That´s better boy!”

Quest: Caring for the Temple

The Chief Builder of the Temple of Loki, Leif, wants you to help fix the temple. Repair anything for 1.000 Points.

Reward: [Token of Care];[Unknown]

[Received: Hammer]

One looked at the hammer to inspect it.

[Hammer Level 1]

[Even though the hammer looks sturdy and is pretty heavy it does not posses any battle strength. Using it will unlock the [Builder: Beginner I] Jobmastery.]

Interesting. The token was most likely used at the Sacrifice Quest that Eric gave him. Also the Builder Job could be helpful later on. It would not hurt to grind that Mastery a little. He swung the hammer a couple of times on the floor. After nine hits the Job finally triggered.

[Builder: Beginner I learned.]

Immediately One looked at the Job in the menu. A passive skill was also generated.

[Repair I] - Repairs all kinds of broken things. Also raises the durability of the item trying to be repaired. Higher level items may require advanced forms of Repair. Repairing also increases your knowledge.

Soon enough One found himself hitting away at the floor. It was the perfect kind of quest for the first Day. He did not have to go outside into the snowstorm and was able to raise his Job Mastery. Whacking away at the hardwood, slowly the points of the floor climbed up. 1/2.000. 14/2.000. At first it was going very very slow, but as his Builder Skill increased it was going rather quickly. When he reached midnight he already reached 1.870/2.000 Points and collected the quest once. His Job Mastery had climbed to 12%. For the amount of time he spent it was very slow, but as everyone would have to do such a thing, he was convinced that he was currently the highest level Builder in the whole of Midgard. That got to be worth something?

23:59. Well, time to start Day 2.