Raven was faced with utter darkness for a brief moment, before suddenly patches of fire began to burn it away. Until finally the darkness cleared, revealing a vast and magnificent scenery. Great hills spread out beneath him, large plains of grassland, Mountains and so much more.

“Welcome, Conqueror.” Said a booming yet elegant feminine voice, seemingly coming from every direction at once. “Welcome, to the world of Eden...”

Suddenly the world around him blurred as his perspective moved at great speed, taking him down to see a great ocean beyond the cliffside that lay beneath him “Where wonders beyond your expectation may await you.” Said the voice, as Raven watched the sun set below the horizon.

Everything blurred once more, as suddenly he went even lower “...And where, horrors beyond your very nightmares await in the dark...” Taking him beneath ground, darkness filling his vision once more…until two red eyes opened before him. As if awoken from its slumber by his arrival.

A soft growling filled his ears when the world blurred, and he was taken elsewhere once again.

He was looking down, seemingly from the tree tops and upon a group of adventurers threading the forest. There was an archer, a mage and a warrior. “...Where you might meet friends of a lifetime...”

His vision blurred again, this time much more briefly than before. He was given a similar scene, yet this time the three adventurers were surrounded by four cloaked figures under night time “...And make several more enemies...”

And again, his vision blurred until he was returned to the first scene. Looking down at one face of this world called Eden.

“Your adventure awaits, Conqueror... The prophecy foretold of your kind, diving down into Eden’s below to cleanse the plague that is the Delve.” Suddenly and in quick succession, Raven was shown several scenes.

A group of four awaiting outside a large cave entrance, torches and weapons in hand.

“Gather your allies...” The voice said.

The same four carefully walking through a large underground tunnel, as the floor cracked and shattered behind them.

“Raid the Delve...”

A vast room with dim torchlight, the four adventurers deep in combat with dozens of armoured and animated skeletons.

“Conquer...”

The scenes quickened as Raven was shown, four adventurers, standing before a massive silhouette.

“Reap...”

Then again the same four adventurers, standing over the corpse of a massive abomination of rotten flesh. Chests of gold, shining equipment and strange scrolls laying open around them.

“...And so much more.”

The scenes slowed down as they moved through still images of warriors fighting great beasts, mages supporting their allies, rangers stalking silently within a jungle. He was shown a vast cavern, dozens of adventurers surrounding a single yet massive three-headed serpent. Then a bustling city street, merchants waving away at passing by adventurers as they spoke and laughed.

And finally, a large field of grass with two armies charging towards one another as arrows fell and spells flew from either side.

“Here Conqueror, is where your story begins...” The voice spoke once more and Raven’s vision changed, showing him a large city built into a goliath of a cliffside.

Paths were dug into the stone, taking from one hanging building to another. The architecture was bulky, the buildings mostly made of different types of wood and strangely coloured yet very large leaves. Among the buildings and growing out of the cliffside were many massive trees, hanging away from the cliff as their trunk lay half inside it with roots growing through.

Paths of wood were built around the trees, as some had doorways taking inside the trunk itself.

“...The Avian city of Cliffreach, as prosperous as it is vast. It’s inhabitants, one of the most peaceful races known to Eden. The same race, as you.” Explained the voice, as Raven was given a fly-by view of some of the city…

And peaceful it seemed not, as buildings and paths burned, as the people it called Avians ran and screamed while warriors of the mixed races fought against stubby short humanoids Raven guessed were Dwarves.

“Go, Conqueror. Begin your journey, here in this tranquil land before the storm.” Naturally said the voice…and suddenly Raven found himself standing in the very middle of the mayhem…

“Uh…Uhm…” He glanced down at himself now that he actually had a body, he was human at most but definitely not entirely so. Out of the bottom of his arms and his back trailing his spine long black feathers grew out, out of which more smaller feathers branched out.

Raven felt his face, it was thankfully human but…then he felt the feathers growing out of his head replacing his hair. (“At least there isn’t a beak-”) he thought, before a sudden burning pain in his knee cut off his train of thought.

“FFUUUUCCKCKKK” Raven swore out loud, as he fell onto his ass and grabbed his knee “Shit! The hell!?” he asked no one in particular, as through the tears he snuck a peak at the short iron arrow sticking out of his knee.

“Gahh!! F-Forgot t-the p-p-pain me-ter!” he grumbled to himself, remembering now that he did at one point read something about the pain resistance bar’s limit being increased. Raven took several quick breaths trying to calm himself, he was sure his knee was utterly shattered.

“Hell that’s what ye get for ignoring me!” Spoke out a gruff male voice from ahead of him, making Raven look up through the agony and see his aggressor…s.

Before him stood an entire battalion of Dwarven warriors, wearing from full plate armour to chain vests and wielding either thick warhammers and wide axes or large repeater-crossbows and handguns.

Raven counted more than two dozen, and his vision was slightly blurred from the pain so he figured there was more. “Sh-it…What?” he asked in confusion, crawling away from the Dwarves who stood several meters away from his position.

“Cut the newbie some slack, he just spawned after all.” Spoke a female voice from behind him, Raven rubbed the blurriness from his eyes and glanced back to see another small army standing there. This one though was a mix of races, from Avian, Were and Orc even to Human and Elf.

“Hey I wasn’t the one who thought it’d be funny to shoot’im!” exclaimed the Dwarf who had spoken before, as he gestured at a crossbow wielding Dwarf cracking up next to him. The first Dwarf elbowed him and turned back to the opposing army of players, glancing at Raven he shrugged and raised his battle-axe forwards “Meh, welcome to COTD noob. Now get the fuck outta the way!” he shouted as if it was some dramatic warcry. Followed by it being repeated by every single Dwarf behind him…

“Huh?”

And they all charged forwards, warriors stomping down and rushing ahead at great speed as marksmen took aim and fired over their lowered stances. Raven’s expression paled, then he heard the stomping and shouting from behind…

“Take cover newbie.” Said the female voice once more, as a crimson feathered Avian appeared before him. Giving him her back as she deflected several arrows by twirling her metal spear about, the Avian glanced back and winked at him.

Then suddenly Raven felt weightless, glancing back he noticed a large brown skinned humanoid had picked him up one-handed. The Orc, Raven realised it was an Orc, threw him aside and off the path…

Between the pain in his knee, the shock of being shot in the first place, the surprise of being thrown and the current freak out of falling. Raven was flailing all over the place, hoping to at least grab onto something. And he did, as his left hand felt its way around something flat. Raven had fallen by another platform…and left his right arm behind as an axe flew right through his shoulder.

Raven swore incomprehensibly as he reached to his now blood gushing stump with his other hand, it hurt like a bitch. Blinded by the agony he had almost forgotten he was free falling, but the pain didn’t last long as it quickly subsided unnaturally.

And the moment he remembered he was indeed still falling, he hit the cold and still very much hard ground of dirt at the very bottom of the cliffside-city. Ending his suffering altogether.

You have fallen.

Please await resurrection or until the respawn timer ticks down to zero.

You will be given spawn options in; 1:59

[Achievement!] First death experience!

Raven found his vision rising, disembodied from what he figured was now a corpse. This was common in VR on death, allowing you to look around at your surroundings while the respawn timer went on. He looked down at himself, one-armed and beaten up he still got a better look at what he seemed like now.

Indeed, long silky black feathers had replaced his hair while wing-like feathers grew out from beneath his arms. But most obvious was the tail-wing, thick and long feathers growing together from his back like a cape and dragging back a few feet longer than his legs.

Looking closer Raven could easily recognise himself, albeit the black feathers and golden eyes.

(“Hm, actually doesn’t look bad. Makes me wonder what Weres and Mers look like now. First things first though…”) he willed open the menu and selected game options (“Pain meter…full resist…”) he set the pain resistance on the recommended, the maximum option.

One could argue that feeling pain in a game was a detriment but many would still argue for. It allowed players to pinpoint damage on their bodies, be it cuts, projectiles or poison through numbness.

So even on maximum resistance, there was some pain to be felt. But there was also another key feature that made pain in-game different from real life, and that was the system that numbed the pain down over time much more quickly than it normally would have.

Finished with changing his game options, Raven now glanced at his surroundings. Looking up he could barely make out the fighting (“A guild war?”) he guessed (“At a starter city? Seriously?...”) the fighting was fierce as far as he could tell, players being thrown off the paths left and right. And who knew how many more were being killed up there.

Raven expected a dungeon delver, but this seemed so much more now. He understood the Open World MMO genre of it now, not just the wide spread world he could explore without changing instance but also the other things that came with.

Player versus Player, Guilds then what came with them and player trading. This game wasn’t just a dungeon delving ARPG, it was a full-fledged MMORPG based around what the game called Delves.

(“Now that begs the question…where are these Delves? Hell where do I find the tutorial?”) Raven chuckled to himself, confused after being thrown straight into the thick of it.

He carefully inspected his UI, the different windows that lay at the very edge of his vision. If he focused on wanting to see them, they would unblur and become clear. To the very top and in the centre was his health bar, noticeable as it was an empty sphere. Compared to the left of that, were what he guessed to be his mana was, a second smaller sphere filled with blue glowing liquid. And to the right of the health ‘sphere’ was a third one, this one filled with bright yellow liquid. Raven took a guess that this was his stamina.

Above each sphere was a long grey bar that went from the left border to the very right, over it there was written in bright gold ‘0/100 XP’. This was the experience bar, and once the goal was reached Raven would level up.

At the very bottom right corner there was his character name in italic and bold characters, ‘Raven’ in front of a sphere of what looked like clear crystal. The crystal was cracked into three sections, a circle like a slot of some sort hovered above each section and surrounding his character name.

Then lastly, above the cracked crystal was a golden triangle with a glowing blue ‘Level 1’ within it.

Disregarding the UI for a moment made it blur out, the health, mana and stamina bar barely visible while the rest disappeared entirely.

Respawn available.

Please vocally select a respawn point.

Cliffreach [Avian] (Owned by BlazeWatch) {Under Siege by !GRUDGE!}

Oceangate [Mer] (Owned by SNEKK)

Bleakwood [Vamp] (Owned by /BloodLine/) (Under Siege by Tsun-Senpai)

Mistgrove [Were] (Owned by Fang/Fang)

Duskspire [Sauros] (Owned by Primal)

Suddenly another notification popped up in his vision, the respawn timer had reached its end. (“Well probably not respawning at Cliffreach or Bleakwood. So do I wanna hang around Mers, Weres or whatever Sauros are?...Hm, Mermaids…”)

“Oceangate.” Raven spoke out as he pondered why it was even a question, unheard by anybody else even as players fell to their deaths all around him. His vision shone brightly for a brief moment, blinding him before slowly dimming down. Revealing that he was now elsewhere entirely.

Raven found himself standing on a beach of sand, red brick buildings making up the town around him. Looking around the thought it much too small compared to Cliffreach, until he noticed that the town’s walls continued down into the water…

From which players and NPCs would walk out from and continue on land, their tails shifting with light into legs. These were Mers, mostly human on land with colourful fins for ears, one from each elbow and a long one growing out of their back. Then half-marinecreature in the water with long scaly tails ending in two even longer fins.

But Mers weren’t the only inhabitants around, seeing many Avians like him and some other races.

Weres were half-beastlike, Werewolves and Weretigers with furry manes for hair alongside their animalistic ears and tails. There were also what Raven recognised as Werefoxes and Werebears, their ears and tails the only difference between them and a Human which were also present.

The small green creatures, Goblins. The tall and bulky brown-skinned barbarians, Orcs. The green skinned and lanky goliaths, Trolls. The tall and long eared Elves. Even the stubby Dwarves and reptilian Sauros were not as prominent but still present within Oceangate.

What he didn’t see any of were Vampires, he guessed that he just couldn’t tell them apart from Humans.

“Oh yeah this one’s new for sure.” Said a voice from behind Raven, making him turn around to see a group of players staring at him. The speaker, a female Mer with short blue hair and violet fins was smirking at him.

“What made you think that? The equipment? The level? Or that he’s looking about like he’s on his best high yet?” Chuckled a dark green-skinned male Goblin to her right.

Raven looked behind them, there was many players standing around with full equipment and also looking at his direction. With those players he noticed several others with no gear at all just like himself.

“That makes thirty, there’s ten of us.” added a male Avian with silver and gold feathers.

The Mer clapped her hands thrice “Alright newbies gather around.” She announced and the unequipped players quizzically did so. “First of all, welcome to COTD. I don’t know what mental illness made you pick this game, but you did and now you’re stuck with us. As you might have, or not have noticed…This game has no tutorial, no map and no help window.” Briefly she paused to let it sink in, gaining the new players’ and Raven’s full attention.

“Secondly, let me introduce myself. I’m Tiana of the SNEKK guild, from beginner mentoring clan. We’re a small group of players within each guild, PVE, PVP or PVX matters not. There are some of us in every major guild. Anyway, our goal is to gather new players and show them the ropes using the mentoring system. The devs saw it right to give us due for our work, so our numbers have increased over the years and titles officialised.”

She gestured at the other nine well-geared players that were with her “It’s the weekend so there isn’t many of us available today, but we’ll make due by mentoring several each. We’ll help you understand your UI and menus, we’ll teach you about the system, its specializations, classes and other things. If you wish to a join a guild, our recruitment is open and we’ll show you how to request entry later on in this player-driven tutorial.”

(“Player driven huh? An interesting concept, definitely better than the usual factual and boring tutorials.”) Raven thought as he listened in with the rest. Or he would have, but Tiana had ended her speech to glance at one Mer player who began walking away.

“Ah! And we have a winner.” She chuckled smugly, while gesturing at a large Troll wearing full plate-armour. The Troll stepped to the Mer newbie and grabbed him one handed, raising him off the ground with ease.

“T-The hell? Let me go!” The player demanded as the Troll carried him over to face Tiana.

“Oh please, shut it and listen.” She told him before turning to the rest of the confused newbies “You see this system didn’t start out as us vets ‘Helping’ new players. No it was us wanting to pluck the problem at the root.” Tiana continued to explain “Before this system, new players would run rampant doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. At times it was funny, at times straight up confusing but at worst and there was many of these cases mind you…It made me question humanity as a whole.”

She glanced over each of their expressions, briefly stopping on Raven’s calm gaze before moving on “I’ll spare you the details, you’ve all seen the game’s rules. At least I hope you did…So the short story is, we got tired of your newbie bullshit. At first we would just kill you but, the problem with that was…well you respawned, grew stronger and just became more of a pain in the ass later on.”

Tiana turned back to the ‘winner’ “What’s your name? Ah, Grego-…That’s a long name, I’ll just call you Greg. Okay Greg listen up and pay attention. See what you did just there would normally result in a painful death. Why? Because we make the laws around here, and law states that new players must go through the tutorial.”

Greg snorted as he glanced away “And what if I don’t want to listen to some bull shit tutorial? I’ve seen vids bitch, I know how to play already.”

Tiana’s fins seemingly perked up, Raven also noticed that the players within her guild seemed to suddenly become more interested in what was going on. Their previous casual and laid-back demeanour changing.

“Oh?” Tiana hummed with a raised brow, the Troll was trying very hard to stifle a laugh. “Well, if you already know how to play. I guess it won’t matter if I blacklist you? You do know, what it means to be blacklisted right?”

Greg turned back to her with an unamused expression “Uh, no?”

Tiana smiled, a wicked evil grin as she made a flinging gesturer with her left hand at the Troll. He grinned just as widely, as he arched his arm back whilst gripping the Mer tightly…

“Guess you’ll just have to find out.” Tiana said when suddenly the Troll’s entire body was engulfed in a fiery red aura. He flung his long muscled arm forwards, letting go of the player midway and sending him flying off into the distance…Too far make out what happened to him on the way down.

She turned to the rest of the newbies “29, guess someone’s getting less work today.”

“What does Blacklisting mean?” Raven curiously asked, smiling to himself at the other player’s demise as he looked over the ocean trying to see a splash or something.

Tiana and the other players glanced over at him “Hm? Ah, if you don’t complete the tutorial we’ll list you under the Bounty system as a black bounty.” Tiana explained ”That means for each time a player kills you, we pay them. Indefinitely. There are other ways to find yourself into the blacklist, but this is the prime one these days.” She didn’t sound irritated at all, but Raven could tell with a glance that she was just hiding it.

The shaking fins that replaced her ears were a dead giveaway.

“Anyway, now that that’s dealt with.” Tiana looked around at the rest of the new players “Any other volunteers for flight Troll?” Nobody responded, other than Raven and a few others stifling a chuckle “None? Good, less money out of our guild bank that goes to bounty payment. We’ll divvy you all out now to a mentor, listen to them and you MIGHT not get killed. Alright?”

Tiana gestured at the eight players standing around behind her, them and the Troll began picking out three newbies each. Raven saw the silver and gold feathered Avian call out to two other Avians and then turn to him before Tiana tapped him on the back.

“I’ll take this one, Bane.“ she told the Avian mentor before turning to Raven, Bane shrugged and called out to the last Avian filling his group with players of the same race. Similarly, all the other mentors tried to do this as well.

“Same race players per mentor? Any reason for that?” Raven asked as he watched the nine groups head out, there were some odd ones but most of the groups were of the same race.

“Different races open up different paths to magic and skill acquisition. This just makes it easier on the mentors.” Tiana explained before gesturing over the last remaining player, a seemingly timid female Mer with long green hair and silver eyes. “Alright let’s see, Raven and DiscordiaX? Did I say that right?” Tiana asked the other Mer.

“Y-Yeah, you did.” Discordia shyly nodded.

“Avian with dark colouring and Mer with bright green. Damn had to be polar opposites.” Tiana sighed.

“Does the colour affect?” Raven asked with intrigue.

Tiana shrugged “Somewhat unfortunately, makes magic of the same colour easier to acquire. You can still unlock other magic types but there is extra requirements you have to clear out. But I’ll explain all that here in a bit, come on let’s head out. Easier to show and tell.” She explained while gesturing for them to follow her, towards the city’s gate.