“Yeah, I wonder what brought on that impression” Noah fired back, glaring up at the person.

“Oh, probably the fact that you are in one of the defence pits, anyway, my name is Mathias, what’s yours?”

“I’m Noah, can you help me out of here already please.”

“Say, Noah, you don’t usually find people wandering in from the jungle, especially from a direction that doesn’t have any other villages nearby, what’s up?”

“Are you seriously not gonna help me up? I’ve gotta tell you my life story before huh?”

“You survived this jungle for an undetermined amount of time, by yourself from the looks of it, can you blame me for being wary?” Mathias responded, forcing Noah to think for a minute.

“Yeah I guess I can see how that looks.”

“Alright, here goes. Like I said my name is Noah, I woke up the other night and found myself in the middle of this jungle with a voice telling me my planet had been integrated. I have only the barest amount of an idea of what I’m doing, it’s basically all I can do to survive.”

“If you only joined the system a few days ago, how you are so high levelled?”

“I got stupidly lucky and survived fights with things that should have killed me.” Noah replied, clearly unhappy at re-living the past.

Without saying much more, Mathias walked away from the edge of the pit. Noah had a sinking feeling that he was going to be left down there with the rest of the bodies. In the time that Mathias was gone, Noah quickly scanned the walls of the bit to see if he could find another way out. All of a sudden with a cry of “Watch out below!” from Mathias, a think length of rope came soaring over the edge almost braining Noah.

“C’mon, grab on, I don’t want to be out here all day!” Mathias yelled from a slight distance away.

With no further prompting Noah slid his Glavenius between his back and rucksack, and started to climb. After a few minutes of hard climbing Noah flopped over the edge of the pit and crawled forward away from the drop.

After a minute he stood up, unsheathed the Glavenius and asked. “Ok where to next?”

“Mathias looked sideways at Noah. “You don’t need that; you are pretty much safe from here on out. Anyway, this way.”

With saying so, Mathias started walking away from Noah towards the village in the distance. As they neared the walls Mathias raised his voice impressively and shouted to the guards.

“YOU GONNA OPEN UP OR WHAT!”

“ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT KEEP YOUR HAIR ON”, the guard grumbled. A moment later and with a deep rumbling sound a section of the wall started sliding upwards. When Noah and Mathias had passed underneath it, it shut behind them with a thud.

“Welcome to Corundio Village Noah!” Mathias exclaimed

The instant Noah stepped foot past the gate a notification popped up in his minds eye and a sonorous voice echoed in his ears.

Quest Completed – Survive – Reach the civilisation shown on your map

Two rewards to be given.

Quest Reward List:

Bag of Holding

10 levels

5000 credits

Surestep Boots

Armour of the survivor

Spell scroll

Rolling….

Rolling….

Reward N. 1…. Bag of Holding

Reward N. 2…. Surestep Boots

Next quest will be given shortly.

As if they had always been there, two items were suddenly on the ground in front of Noah. Using [Identify] on them told him that they were the rewards the system promised him.

Identify succeeded

Bag of Holding

A bag enchanted to hold many more items than its size would suggest.

Identify succeeded

Surestep Boots

A pair of sturdy travelling boots that give a boost to the wearer’s dexterity.

Mathias turned around with a puzzled look on his face as Noah quickly ripped off his shoes, replacing them with the Surestep Boots. He then put his rucksack, his old shoes and the Glavenius into the bag of holding. With that done and the Bag slung on his back with the arm straps, Noah looked up apologetically.

“Sorry, I completed a quest by getting here, and those were my rewards. Where are we going by the way?”

“Oh ok, yeah that makes sense, we are going to see the village elder. He will know what we should do.”

Cool, lead on then I guess”

Noah once again fell into step beside Mathias and the pair walked through the village. A winding path led them past groups of people going about their daily lives. Discreetly using [Identify] on them Noah found that most of the villagers were barely level 10, even the older generation never reached past level 20.

“Hey Mathias, sorry if this is rude, but why is everyone here so low level?”

“The majority of people stay in the village. As you must know, life outside of these walls is nasty as all hell. some are just not ready for life and death battles, so they stay here and help the village. The downside is that combat give the most XP, so these guys will stay low level without it.” Mathias explained.

A silence descended on the pair and they quickly made their way to the hut of the elder. Stopping just outside, Mathias said “Just wait here, ill call you when you should come in.”

He then stepped forward pushing past the hides covering the entrance and a low murmuring could be heard.

A voice came floating out of the hut “Noah, would you come in please.”

Stepping forwards pushing past the heavy hides, Noah took a look around the hut. The only people that he could see in there was Mathias and a young man, at a guess about 20 years old.

“Noah, this is the village elder, Dakon.” Mathias said pointing towards the young man.

“The elder? You? But you are barely the same age as me? How are you the elder?” Noah exclaimed in surprise.

“I understand your confusion Noah, in this village we do not judge positions through the lens of age, rather than that of level. I am a level 30 Defender. I keep this place safe. Also, I think you must be under a false impression. I am merely the first Elder, there are a group of us, with me leading. However, as my skills specialise towards defence, the other elders help with the running of this village.”

“Ok, I can see how that would make sense, sorry if I offended you.”

“How could offense be given, you didn’t know. Mathias here has told me of your journey, and I welcome you to the safety of our village. You may stay here as long as you like. If you do However, I would have to insist on you helping out in any way that you can. We can afford no one slacking here.”

“Wow thank you for the hospitality, and yeah of course, that makes sense, it’s got to be difficult to keep the jungle from overtaking this place. Ill help out. Do you mind though if I come and meet with you at times, if I’m going to survive much longer, I need to know more about this place.”

“That is acceptable, when you wish to talk please mention it to Mathias here, and he will let you know when I am free. Now. You must be tired, I have asked someone to find a tent for you, it should be ready by now. Mathias will show you the way.”

With that Mathias walked Noah outside and towards his tent. “Don’t worry Noah, Dakon is a busy guy, it a fairly big surprise seeing someone new, that’s why he even had that much time to see you.”

“Yeah no worries I get it totally, im amazed at the hospitality of this place though, back home this probably wouldn’t happen.”

The pair stopped outside of a tent closer to the wall than the centre of camp.

“This is yours here, sorry we don’t have much more.”

“No, No, this is great thanks. Ok, ill talk to you later then?” Noah looked questioningly at Mathias.

“Sure, I’ll come find you when my duties are done, see you later.”

With that Mathias walked away and Noah entered the tent. Sitting down he was floored by what he experienced in such a short amount of time.

Despite his thoughts racing, exhaustion overtook him and he flopped backwards onto a fur covered bed and fell into a deep sleep.