Gordo awoke early the next morning, his nights rest slightly better than the night before. The low quality bed that occupied this room was just as irritating, but a liberal infusion of alcohol made it easier to bear. As he prepared himself for the days trials, he wondered how they had managed to recreate the effects of alcohol on a character, but also thankful the after effects of a hangover seemed to have been left out. He ran one palm across his chin, deciding the stubble hadn’t really increased in length since the day before, indecisive on whether he would let it grow out, or shave the thing off if it grew to annoy him.

As he stood there, another pressing need made itself known to him as the reek of stale sweat wafted up and assaulted his nose. He lifted one arm and gave his armpit a sniff, quickly pulling his face away at the strength of the aroma. Damn those developers, he thought, they thankfully left out the need for relieving one’s self, but code in all the annoying little things. He looked out the window at the sun, calculating it was about seven in the morning from its position, and decided he had enough time to take a leisurely meal before the others arrived.

The tavern below was quite full for this time of the morning, but with the expansion spell on the building, he saw there was plenty of empty tables for him to choose from. Passing the bar on the way, he put in his request for breakfast with Talaman, the barkeep, to whom he had become quite acquainted with after the last two days. Not many players rented rooms from him, mainly due to the time online restrictions that were in place, restrictions he was not included in, and when they were online, they didn’t have time to spend sleeping.

As he sat down at an unoccupied table, a deep musical dong resounded, filling the air about him with its noise and making him jump in surprise. It sounded like someone had struck a large gong right behind him, and he spun around to see who had snuck up on him and performed this dastardly act, but didn’t manage to locate anyone to whom he could lay the blame on. What he did see were the other players in the tavern, also looking around, some of them rubbing their ears, and at least one standing with his sword drawn turning about as if to find a target for this audible assault.

Surprisingly, the sound had either not registered with the NPCs in the room, or this was an occurrence they were familiar with, for he couldn’t see one of them that had ceased in their activities, or even acknowledged its presence at all, which was an amazing feat, for that was loud enough to wake the dead as well as shake their bones loose. The reason for the gong was immediately made clear when a red flashing message icon appeared in his vision. Glancing at it, he saw it was marked as a Global System Message, meaning this message was being sent to all players at once, the gong obviously was to make sure we noticed it. He imagined a few nasty message were going to be sent to the admins over this.

The message was interesting, to say the least, and the news would be accepted with exuberance by all players, all players other than him, that is. Some of the information within it was plain disturbing.

Game Update - Patch 2.003.348a

Please read the following changes that will be applied to the game at 12:00 server time. These changes will affect all players currently in the game, and those who will log on after the patch has been applied. Player will not need to exit the game to gain the benefits of these changes. If you suffer unexpected problems after the changes, please contact any game moderator immediately to resolve the problem.

Accomplishments. – Players will now receive accomplishment points towards their overall standing when they meet the requirements of an accomplishment. Many features will reward with accomplishment points, but these will usually only be awarded to the player, or group who first meet a specific accomplishments requirement. The amount of points awarded for an accomplishment are not always set, but will be determined by how that group or player reach the accomplishment. Accomplishment point rewards will be backdated to the initial release of Dawnlands, A New Beginning

Time Dilation - Game coding has now been finalized on a time dilation feature, This inclusion will affect the amount of game time a player can be online before their equipment restrictions remove them from the game. This addition will be included in three phases, to allow players to become accustomed to its effects. Each phase will last for one week, real world time, before it will be automatically adjusted to the next phase.

Phase one – Time dilation 2:1. With the inclusion of this phase, a player can expect to be able to play for two hours in subjective time, for every one hour that passes in real time.

Phase two - Time dilation 3:1. With the inclusion of this phase, a player can expect to be able to play for three hours in subjective time, for every one hour that passes in real time.

Phase three - Time dilation 4:1. With the inclusion of this phase, a player can expect to be able to play for four hours in subjective time, for every one hour that passes in real time.

This change will be strictly monitored, to ensure the mental health and safety of all players. If any issues arise that are the direct result of the time dilation inclusion, it will immediately be removed from the game. If this inclusion does not result in issues after twelve months, this dilation effect may be further reduced to a five to one ratio. All concerns and issues should be immediately directed towards any moderator for action.

P.S. For those concerned regarding the amount of time involved against the amount of information that need to be processed to play this game, your brain, which is basically the only part of you actually involved in playing, can process information at least one hundred thousand times faster than the latest servers available. The only limit on time dilation is how quick we can provide information to you, not how quick your brain can process, and action that information. We will not be increasing the time dilation any further than the proposed five to one ratio.

Thank you

Energetic Entertainment.

Shit, he thought, after reading the time dilation information, knowing this was now going to make his time on game longer. His contract was for twelve months real time, which could now work out to end up being four years subjective time. Four years playing this game, with no release at all for the whole time, no escape to just chill out and enjoy the benefits of a real civilized life, The only benefit he could see to him was he had a longer timespan to meet his contract criteria, but he didn’t know if he could last for what would feel like four years to him, in this world. He desperately needed to talk to an admin before the patch engaged.

His rumination about his future problems was interrupted by the arrival of the twins. They approached him through a crowd of players, all excitedly chattering about the system message. He felt alone in his misery, their pleasure at this unexpected update unanimously displayed across all of their characters faces. He felt so pissed off at the unfairness of it all, wanting to feel the same thrill they all did, but unable to really appreciate it with his predicament. So he sent a rather rude message off to his admins, expressing how he felt about his contract and the effects of the dilation on it, making no bones about how he considered this imprisonment and how they would have known about this before they got him to sign up for a full year, real time. Before he sent it off, he added a whole row of that little brown pile emoji, as a sort of exclamation to how he really felt.

The brothers finally extricated themselves from the impromptu celebrations that had arisen among the players in the tavern and joined him at his table. Their excitement at the announcement was almost palpable, and seeing the joy on their faces, he forced himself to smile, not wanting to put a dampener on their high spirits.

“Isn’t it fantastic news, Gordo. Imagine it, we will be able to play for at least twice as long, and get more done before we are forced to go offline. No more waiting for days to complete a simple dungeon.” Garal enthused ecstatically. "Talking of dungeons, you all ready for the goblins ?”

“Sure am. Can’t wait for the patch to be applied.” Gordo replied, forcing as much interest and excitement into his voice as he could muster, which wasn’t much. Fortunately, they didn’t notice his almost total lack of enthusiasm, wrapped up as they were in their own elation. “Come on, let’s get going.” he urged, wanting to do something other than just sit there and mope.

Shan looked at him in surprise, slightly taken aback by the abruptness of the request. He exchanged a glance with Garal before replying. “Sure, let’s get going then.”

…..

Looking through the trees at the entrance to the caverns, Gordo cursed himself. He knew he had made the wrong decision taking the Small Arms skill when he saw the goblin guards. His inspection of these creatures let him know that they were pretty well armed, compared to him, and their health was not to be sniffed at, either. Each one of them had twenty health points, and from what the brothers had told him, these would be the weakest of the goblins that would be encountered in the encampment. He should have taken the Sword skill instead, and forked out for a cheap sword, but at the time he didn’t think he would need it this quickly. The only thing that he thought to be in his benefit was that short swords were classified as small arms. He also could see one of the goblins held a rather poor example of this sword, and he intended to make it his before taking any steps inside those caverns.

From where he lay on the forest floor next to Gordo, Garal let go of the branches of the bush he was hiding behind and whispered into his ear “As soon as Shan draws their attention and they attack him, I will rush down and surprise them from the rear. I want you to follow close behind me and let me know if any other goblins exit the cave. I won’t have time to keep a look out on that once combat has started. It looks like it’s only the two of them, so this shouldn’t take long.”

Gordo nodded his acceptance of this plan, turning his gaze to the trees on the other side of where the goblins stood at guard, waiting for Shan to put in an appearance. As they had all agreed on earlier, after grouping up, he was silently making his way around the trees to attack them from the other side. A group message popped up from Shan, updating them on his position.

Suddenly the silence was split by the sound of a large thwack, instantly followed by an arrow streaking out from beneath the trees. Gordo followed its trajectory through the air with his eyes, seeing the goblins turn towards where the sound had come from, just in time for the arrow punch through the leather shirt one wore as armor, sinking deep into one of its shoulders. The struck goblin staggered back, greenish blood squirting out of the wound as the other lifted his spear up and charged.

Gordo had been so wrapped up following the action, he missed seeing Garal push himself up as he prepared to start his charge. He only became aware when Garal rushed past him, speeding down the slight hill towards the goblins, their backs now presented to him. Gordo scrambled madly in a vain attempt to catch up, but the dwarf had too much of a head start and he reached the caverns entrance before Gordo had even made it half way. In the short time it took him to finally arrive, the fight was already over, with Garal finishing off the wounded Goblin in one swing of his axe, the blade separating its head from its body as he dealt a surprise attack.

Shan had a slightly harder task, his opponent uninjured,, but had killed his opponent with two quick thrusts of his sword. As his run down the slope finally ended, the other two were already watching him as they stood over the crumpled remains of the goblins, shaking their heads. He leant over, breathing hard and waving away the experience received announcements in front of him, disappointed in himself for getting distracted.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Gordo, if you want to keep up with us. I know your character is pretty low at the moment, but come on, that was just pitiful.” The elf was trying to hold back his laughter, but the grin on his face was clearly visible. Reaching down, Shan placed one hand on the body in front of him, the dwarf repeating this act with the other.

“Nothing but trash here.” The dwarf remarked. “An old leather shirt, a rusty short sword and five coppers, nothing really worth looting, other than the coins. Oh, and the arrow you shot him with, Shan. Sorry, but its broken and not worth retrieving.” He looked at Gordo. “Anything you want ?”

“I would love the short sword, if you don’t mind. My dagger is better but the short sword will let me generate more damage.” Garal produced a rather rusty looking sword, about two foot in length, from thin air and handed it to Gordo. An examination didn’t produce anything he had already worked out. It was in poor condition, its remaining durability sitting at ten points, but its damage potential was unaffected by this, and would allow him to cause up to eight points of damage.

“This ones pretty much the same, except he has a spear, and a pretty poor one at that. I can’t see anything here worth taking.” The elf stood up. “Well, other than a slight lapse of concentration,“ he glanced at Gordo, “that went pretty much to plan, not that I thought it would be otherwise. The real contests will be inside. What about the money ?”

“Well, Gordo got the sword from this encounter, so its fair if we divide the coppers between just you and me. That okay with you, Gordo ?”

“Seems fair to me as well.” He agreed, and considered himself the winner of this loot divide. The short sword would have cost him more than a couple of coppers if he had to purchase it in the city.

“Now, as soon as we pass through the event entrance, we will need to fix our respawn point there. I’ll enter first, followed by Garal, and you,” he looked at Gordo “come in about ten seconds after him. If the entrance area isn’t clear, we will need to clear it out before we fix our respawn. We won’t need to worry about the defeated goblins respawning behind us, because that’s not possible until the party leaves the dungeon. I intend to stay in here until we complete it and if we run out of time, next time we log in we will reappear here, therefore not actually leaving the dungeon.” He looked at Gordo again. “ I noticed you waving away announcements before. You will have to disable those pop ups before we enter, for they will distract you at the worst moments, If this concerns you, then just disable your combat and experience announcements. You will always be able to see your health status by looking at your health bar. They damn well better include a verbal announcement system in the next patch, these text popup are just useless and dangerous.”

Gordo fumbled with his settings, unfamiliar with the pop up controls until he finally had managed to switch off the suggested ones. A small red bar appeared at the top of his vision, a representative of his health. Yes, he thought, this is much better. The only downside he could think of, was he wouldn’t know exactly how much damage he received. He closed the settings and nodded. “All done.” He told the others.

Shan gave his brother a glance, receiving a nod in reply to his unspoken question. “Right, let’s get started.” He said, and stepped forward, disappearing as he crossed the event horizon and into the caverns beyond.