Felan and Baxter had been walking for about ten minutes when the sounds of battle reached them. Baxter’s ears pricked up, and he immediately ran toward the racket, forcing Felan to jog after him. They crested a hill and saw the fighting below them - several wolves attacking a group of four people. Based on their clothing and simple weapons, Felan guessed they were low level players like himself.

He had a flashback to Andross’ betrayal, but he wasn’t in the wilderness here - the rules of the game would prevent the players from attacking him. Besides, if he stepped in now to help them he might have a shot at claiming the tails for his quest. He made up his mind and ran toward the battle as fast as he could.

As he was covering the distance to the nearest wolf, he activated Entangle in his left hand, unhooking his club with his right. He threw the spell as soon as he was in range, scoring a direct hit on a wolf circling round the group of players. Vines wrapped around bloody fur and trapped it in place. A moment later Felan reached it, and caved it’s skull in with a solid blow. His attack had positioned him behind a wolf that was gnawing on the wooden shield of one of the players. Felan took the opportunity to hit it from behind. The attack knocked it’s hind legs out from under it, leaving it dangling from the players shield. The player thrust his crude sword through it’s ribcage, finishing it off.

Felan was already turning his attention to the other wolves. Two of them were charging in unison toward a skinny pale faced man. Felan cast Entangle on the ground in front of the player, and both wolves were caught in the vines. His vision took on a pale blue hue, making everything look colder. He saw that he was down to five Mana - only enough for one more Entangle spell. Distracted by checking his Mana level, Felan failed to notice the wolf that had edged around behind him. It leapt at him, tackling him face first to the ground.

The beast had just clamped it’s jaws on the back of his neck when it suddenly went limp, all of it’s weight bearing down on him. Felan managed to struggle out from under it to see Baxter lapping at the blood pouring from his assailants throat. The other players had killed off the other wolves, all except one that was pacing backwards and forwards. It seemed uncertain whether to attack or flee. Felan rising to his feet seemed to settle the matter, and the wolf turned tail and ran.

Baxter took two limping steps toward it, then gave up on the chase. There were deep cuts on his front shoulder, and chunks of fur missing from his spine. The other players all looked whole. The skinny pale one Felan had saved looked like he might collapse at any moment - if the wolves had sunk their teeth into him he’d have been done for. Thanks to Baxter’s final attack, Felan still had half his health remaining. He didn’t want to dwell on what might have happened if his companion hadn’t reached him in time.

A quick glance around the battlefield made Felan smile - there were exactly seven wolf corpses strewn around. His quest would be sorted if he could just convince the players to hand them over.

“Hey man, thanks for the help.” The first of the players to say anything was the thin pale man. He sheathed his sword and approached Felan, extending a hand.

“No problem” Felan said as he shook. The strangers grip was weak, and Felan wasn’t surprised to see him sway slightly on his feet. He looked to be on the verge of passing out. One of his companions seemed to have noticed as well.

“You should sit down for a bit. I’ll cook these up.” She waved her hand at the dead wolves around her, then met Felan’s gaze.

“You wanna join us for some grub?”

Felan nodded, “Absolutely. You uh.. You guys don’t have a quest for these wolves do you?” he asked

“Nope, we just got jumped taking a shortcut”

“Hey! It was definitely shorter. How was I supposed to know about the wolves?”

The guy defending himself was on the far side of the group. From his grin, he seemed to have enjoyed the fight - or maybe he just liked the teasing.

“Why do you ask?”

“I was hoping I could take their tails for a quest I’ve got.” Felan could feel a blush creeping over his face. He hated asking for things at the best of times, and this felt dangerously close to begging.

“No problem. I don’t think any of us need them?”

“I need to skin them!” the defencive one piped up.

“Fair enough, you can help yourself to their tails though. What was your name anyway? I’m Mira”

“Thanks. I’m Felan, and that’s Baxter.” On queue, his companion plodded over to them. He was moving more gracefully again. His wounds seemed to have started healing already, thanks to the magic of video games.

The others introduced themselves as Felan helped them gather firewood. The pale man was Tobias, the defencive one was Atton. The final player couldn’t have matched his name any better. He went by Brutus, and stood about seven feet tall. His biceps were easily larger than Felan’s head, and he had an equally enormous great-axe attached to his back. He’d introduced himself with a nod and his name, and hadn’t said another word since.

With the firewood gathered, Mira started a small fire and prepared her cooking utensils. As the others stretched out to relax, Felan took his knife to each of the wolves, gathering the remaining quest items. He had everything he needed now, but he was in no great rush to turn the quest in, it was nice to rest with some players that weren’t utter dicks. The Andross situation had left Felan worrying that most of the players he’d run into would be horrible people, but this group seemed pretty cool.

While Felan had helped gather firewood, Atton had skinned the first few wolves. Mira was now carving them into something she could cook. Felan took the opportunity to sit with Atton and watch as he skinned the remaining wolves. Atton already had a few levels in leather-working - mostly from skinning his kills - and he was more than happy to talk through what he was doing as he worked. As he finished off the last wolf, he broke out in a big grin. Felan worked out that Atton had gained a level at the same time as a prompt appeared in the corner of his vision. He pulled it up, and found himself smiling as well:

Leather-working observed. 10xp

That was another nice discovery - watching someone else crafting was enough to build up experience for that craft. It seemed to be a lot slower than trying it himself, on par with failing on his own, but what else could he expect from passive learning?

Atton’s task now complete, the pair sat down with the rest of the group.

As they waited for the wolf meat to fry up, they told him about their travels. They’d started the game together just a few days ago - all except for Brutus. They were all friends in real life, and Brutus had convinced them to give the game a shot. When Felan told them about his experience with Andross, Brutus finally added his voice to their conversation. He’d heard of Andross before - he explained that Andross was a member of a clan called the Sirens of Silence, which was renowned for player killing. They’d risen to power pretty recently, and seemed to be on track to become one of the most powerful clans in the game.

After Brutus said “You want to forget about that man.”, he was done with the subject. Fortunately, the silence was soon replaced with the sounds of feasting. Mira had cooked the wolf steaks to perfection, and the others had produced bread and cheese from their inventories. Felan had nothing to offer, but no one was insulted by that - they were most welcoming of him.

As they ate, Baxter patrolled around their rough encampment. His wounds seemed to have completely healed - his health regeneration stat must be particularly high. Until his first few mouthfuls of f3ood, Felan had only recovered a few points, but Mira’s cooking provided enough of a health bonus to put him back to full.

With the meal complete, Felan said his farewells to the group. They each wished him good luck with the game, and then left. Felan stood behind with Baxter for a while, enjoying the fire. The meal had left him feeling more full than he’d been in weeks. It also made the prospect of walking anywhere rather horrifying. Truthfully, he was half tempted to curl up beside the fire and have a nap - a food coma - for a few hours. He dismissed the thought when he checked his quest log though - he definitely had all the wolf tails he needed to turn in his quest, and that would give him enough experience to level up!

He thought about teleporting back to Greenest, and a small semitransparent prompt appeared in front of him.

Would you like to Teleport to the Greenest Aetherstone?

As your first Teleport in 24 hours, this trip will be free.

The free part of the prompt caught his attention. Felan had assumed teleporting would always be free. No matter what he thought of though, the prompt didn’t elaborate. He’d just have to check it again after teleporting, to see if it listed a price. He punched the accept button, and a bolt of blue light shot down from the sky. Everything grew brighter until he couldn’t see anything at all. He closed his eyes against the light, but even the inside of his eyelids seemed to glow like the sun. A buzzing sound rose up to drown out everything else. It was like he was standing in the centre of a swarm of locusts. The pressure of the sound was crushing his skull.

As quickly as it came, the brightness abated. His ears popped, like when he drove high up a mountain. The smell of smoke from the fire was gone now, replaced by the smell of a home cooked meal. Felan opened one eye a crack to check it wasn’t just his imagination, and was greeted by a view of the northern gate to Greenest.

It only took a few minutes for Felan to make his way from the northern gate to the Inn. Baxter followed in his footsteps, never straying more than a few paces away. The wolf didn’t seem nervous, despite this being his first time in a settlement. Instead, he was acting like an exceedingly well trained pet. Felan wondered if the game enforced such behaviour within settlements - he could understand the need to keep player companions from running around terrorising everything.

When he got to the Inn, Baxter sat down to one side of the door, stretching out over the dirt. The wolf seemed perfectly happy there, so Felan stepped inside.

The aroma of mushroom stew clouded the room. Annie was in her normal spot near the fire, that great tome of hers open on her knees. There didn’t seem to be any players here at the moment, but the locals were milling around. The big barkeep was kept busy - it seemed that there was always someone queueing for a drink.

Felan made his way to Annie, weaving around the scattered tables. She looked up with a scowl as he approached, catching him off guard.

“Come to pay your dues have you?”

Shit! Felan had completely forgotten about that. He was meant to have had the whole week to raise 50gp to cover the cost of being in the adventurers guild. He’d spent that week out of game instead. He only had a few gold pieces to his name, and a quick glance at his quest log confirmed that the quest he wanted to hand in only paid 5gp.

“No, I’m sorry. But I’ve got something else for you” He tried to arrange his face into a winning smile, but it came off as a grimace.

“There are no guild services until your dues are paid. Was I not clear about that?”

“No, you were. Clear I mean. Perfectly clear.”

“Then I don’t think we have anything to talk about do we? Not until you have the money for your dues.”

“I took a quest, and I want to turn it in.” Felan hoped that didn’t fall under the list of guild services - surely turning in an existing quest wouldn’t require an active membership?

“Ah, so you have been doing something. Let me take a look.”

She glanced at her book, then back at him. Her scowl had softened, she certainly wasn’t smiling, but she didn’t terrify Felan quite so much anymore.

“That was an old one, no one seemed interested. You’ve got the tails then?” She held out a hand expectantly.

Felan pulled the wolf tails from his inventory and handed them over. Annie made them disappear in an instant.

“Good job. Waylon will be glad go hear it. Here’s your reward. Now, if you don’t have your dues -”

A flash of light washed over Felan, distracting him from the rest of her sentence. A wave of euphoria rushed over him - Felan felt happier than he had in a long time. It was like the flow state he’d felt while riding his motorcycle, the perfect connection between his mind and the universe. Like a runners high dialled up to eleven. All of his concerns washed away, it didn’t matter that he couldn’t afford his guild dues - he was alive, and that was all that was important.

The light faded away, but the warm feeling remained for a time. Annie was staring at him, five gold coins resting in her outstretched hand. Felan snatched the coins away from her as a golden prompt appeared in front of him.

You’ve reached level 2.

You have 5 attribute points to distribute.

Whatever Annie had been saying, she seemed to have lost interest in him once he’d taken his payment. This left Felan free to focus on the challenging part of the level up. Even though he’d been playing for several hours now, Felan still hadn’t even looked at his character sheet. Now that he had points to distribute, it was definitely time to take a look. He thought about his character, and another prompt appeared in his view. This one was decorated like a scroll, edged with spirals of gold.

Name: Felan Oisin

Level: 2 (65%)

Class: Druid 2 (52%)

Subclass: N/A

Profession: Leatherworking 1 (40%)

Profession: N/A

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Will: 5

Intelligence: 5

Luck: 1

HP: 20/20

MP: 25/25

CP: 0

That was a whole lot of info to take in, and Felan was glad that an additional prompt appeared whenever he focused on each of the details. His level was the important thing - he’d reached level two!

Beyond that, he seemed to have levelled up his class as well. It looked like he would be levelling his class and professions independently, and they probably both counted toward his overall level. That was a little weird - it meant that someone could reach a high level working almost exclusively on their professions, which would leave them horribly under-levelled for combat. Felan would have to watch out for that.

He needed to refer to the helper prompts to understand his attributes. Strength determined his melee damage, and physical resistance. Dexterity contributed to ranged attacks and finesse weapons, as well as his dodge chance. Will and Intelligence governed different styles of magic - the prompt helpfully identified Will as more important for his Druid skills. Intelligence also contributed to levelling speed, so it might be worth picking up early on. Luck covered critical chance and loot drops.

His HP was derived from his Strength, and Dexterity, with a base +5 for being a druid. Whilst MP came from Will and Intelligence. CP was tied to his Subclass, which he didn’t currently have. No matter what questions he phrased in his mind, Felan couldn’t get a prompt to elaborate further - he didn’t even know what CP stood for!

Finally, Felan concluded that he knew enough to spend his attribute points. There didn’t seem to be any sense in holding onto them. He knew some hardcore players normally checked the ‘meta’ of a game before spending any points, but he’d never been like that. Sure, there were guaranteed to be some builds that were better than others, but Felan didn’t want to just copy what had worked for someone else. Besides, the company running the game spent so much time taking down game information websites that he doubted there was a well known meta. Not one that he’d be able to find anyway.

Felan decided to apply 3 points to Will, since he planned to learn more spells as soon as he could. The remaining 2 points were split between Strength and Luck. He only had his club to fight with, and he wasn’t sure that he’d be any good with ranged weapons. He’d tried archery once in the real world, one of his friends had hired out an archery range for their birthday. He’d tried both compound and recurve bows, but even with the sight on the compound bow he’d barely been able to hit the target, let alone the bullseye. So Dexterity didn’t seem that useful. If he had more points up his sleeve he’d have liked to stack up some Intelligence, just for the levelling bonus, but he didn’t want to spread his point allocations too thin. Not this early anyway.

With his attribute points now allocated, his HP had increased to 22, while his Mana sat at 31. The odd number irked him, but seeing as he only actually looked at his mana when he was on the verge of running out, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Finally, he focused on his Druid level. He was sure he’d seen a prompt somewhere saying abilities came with class levels. As he called up information about his Druid level, a prompt expanded to inform him he should talk to a Druid trainer each time he levelled up. Not exactly helpful, but fortunately he was still within walking distance of the Druid enclave.

Seeing as he didn’t have any money to cover the adventurer guild dues, and thus wasn’t able to pick up any quests from Annie, Felan decided that his best course of action was to head for the druid enclave. He’d hopefully be able to improve his druid skills, and they might have a quest for him - perhaps it was time for him to look more closely at the corruption in the forest.

Baxter sprung to attention as Felan stepped outside. The wolf fell into step behind him as he made his way back to the northern gate.

He had class skills to unlock.