“Use Skill, Appraisal.”

[Skill Appraisal activated.]

[Scanning target…]

[Skill All Seeing Eyes (Passive) activated.

Target’s full Status screen shown.]

[Name Pif

Title Faerie Guard

Class Briar Elf (NPC)

Allegiance Seelie Court

Briar Princess Rosa

_Faerie_King_Oberon_

Lv 70]

[Stats

HP 3400

MP 8600

ST 990

ATK 500

SPD 50

DEF 10

INT 8

CRT 2]

[Equipment-

I waved away the screen when I noticed the victim of my testing glancing in my direction, a somewhat exasperated expression plastered on his face. It was understandable, honestly. First he had to escort a clueless nutjob past the Wall, then he had to deal with several hours of the same nutjob using him as a guinea pig for testing the game mechanics. All in the dead of night when everyone else was tucked up cozy in bed. If I were him, I’d be pretty fed up too. Also maybe a bit creeped out.

I watched as the Faerie Guard slowly inched further away from me, his eyes averted. Maybe more than a bit.

Well, it couldn’t be helped, he was the only NPC in the close vicinity I could test my newfound knowledge on, after all. I had to read all 79 pages of the wretched Help menu just to know how to use mechanics I’d taken for granted when it was a game. 79 pages. No way was I just going to walk away without even trying all of them.

“Appraisal.”

[Skill Appraisal activated.]

[Scanning target…]

[Skill All Seeing Eyes (Passive) activated.

Target’s full Status screen shown.]

[Name -

I waved that screen away too. From my long, arduous trek through the Help menu, I’d learned that just about all of the active skills and information screens I could access were activated on voice command. I’d say the command out loud outside of a conversation, the System would detect the command, and let me do what I wanted to do in a very similar fashion to how the game worked. It was more or less the same thing if you wanted to change the settings of some of the passive skills.

With that experiment, contrary to the set commands provided in the Help menu, I’d proven that just shouting the skill name without adding “Use skill” in front would still be enough to activate it, as long as I was facing the target I wanted to use the skill on. I wondered whether Appraisal would go through objects to reach the target if I tried to use it with an obstacle in the way… That might be worth investigating.

There was “Status” to bring up the Status screen with all my stats and equipment; “Inventory” to show the items I was carrying, as well as my currently empty wallet; “Help” to bring up the Help menu I hoped to never see again; “World Chat” to bring up the global chat, if you wanted private chat or guild chat you just had to change the command; “Friends” to bring up the Friend list, in which I was surprised to see two pending friend requests from LarkspurXX and Trixnoct (Marge and Trix); “Skill Tree” to see the Skill screen et cetera et cetera. Basically ask and you will receive. 79 pages just to tell me that. I felt somewhat cheated.

“Status.”

My own Status screen popped up, beholding my stats and equipment.

[Name Bad_Luck]

[Title Chosen One]

[Class Human]

[Guild N/A]

[Lv 8]

[Stats

HP 670 (+5000)

MP 100

ST 230

ATK 156

SPD 5

DEF 5 (+30)

INT 1

CRT 1]

[Equipment

Weapon Nil

Nil

Head Nil

Torso Simple Tunic (N)

Arms Nil

Legs Simple Leggings (N)

Shoes Simple Shoes (N)

Accessories Ethereal Cape (UR)

Nil

Nil]

[Expand Unique Skills]

Briarwood Rebirth’s stat and equipment system was pretty standard stuff. Different Classes had different max stats, and your stats increased with your Level. Sometimes, you could get additional stat points from completing missions or achievements. Equipment was ranked on a rarity scale, the higher the rarity, the lower the drop rate but the better the stats. If the equipment was a high enough rarity, they would raise your stats by a decent amount as well. HP was your health points, the highest of all Classes without equipping items or additional stat points was 10000; MP was mana points, depleted with the use of magic skills, the highest was also 10000; ST was stamina, depleted with the use of physical skills, highest 10000; ATK was attack damage, highest 2000; SPD was speed, highest 100; DEF was defence, highest 100; INT was intelligence, highest Tier 10, basically dictated the Tier of the skills you had access to; CRT was crafting, highest Tier 10, that determined what rarity or quality of item you could or could not craft.

“Unequip Ethereal Cape,” I said to the screen.

Obediently, the slimy, ankle tripping Ethereal Cape unfastened itself from around my shoulders and poofed itself away.

“Inventory.”

Another large screen separated into many empty grid squares popped up, numbers indicating my wallet and the time situated in the top left corner. Reaching my arm into the screen, I pulled the Ethereal Cape out of one of the squares, waving away the Inventory as I did so. So that was how Inventory worked. Now to test another passive skill.

I threw the Ethereal Cape on the ground a few feet away from me. I could see Pif the Faerie Guard staring from a safe distance.

“Magnet Toggle On.”

[Passive skill Magnet. On.]

With a shlorp, the Ethereal Cape snaked towards me from where I had thrown it and poofed the moment it touched the tips of my shoes. When I checked, I found it back inside my Inventory.

Heh heh.

Shlorp.

I took the Ethereal Cape back out and repeated the process of dumping it on the floor, watching as it came shlorping back. And then again. And again.

There was something incredibly satisfying about hearing that sound file play when Magnet dumped items into your Inventory. And incredibly funny.

From an even further distance than I last saw him being at, Pif’s eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets.

After another while of playing with the Ethereal Cape, a thought struck me. Items of rarity SR and above would usually give you some nice stat buffs. The rarity of items in Briarwood Rebirth was only supposed to go up to SSR, and those already gave some very nice stat boosts and additional skills. This Ethereal Cape was UR. Chances were, the stat boosts on this stupid thing were better than any equipment I had back on my old character. If that was the case…

I pulled the Ethereal Cape out of my Inventory again, and held it up to my face.

“Appraisal.”

[Ethereal Cape UR

Lv 20

-HP +5000

-DF +30

-Fire Resistance Lv 1

-Freeze Resistance Lv1

-Stun Resistance Lv 1

-Knockback Resistance Lv 1

-SSR and SR item drop rate +200%

-EXP gain +500%]

What the fuck.

That was overpowered. Like really fucking overpowered. And only at Level 20 too. How much more OP would it get if I levelled it to max? Was Rue sane, giving out this kind of good stuff to all the Chosen Ones like dishing out highschool cafeteria gunk? I wonder why no one said anything about this after clearing the final boss. No wonder all the Chosen Ones wore it. I should be wearing this all the time too. I probably shouldn’t be throwing it on the floor.

…

But it was so long, and twisty, and got in the way, and so annoying to deal with…

A true dilemma. I reluctantly re-equipped the Ethereal Cape.

I would find a way to get rid of the annoyances at some point. Maybe, with a high enough crafting level, I could modify it into a scarf, or a jacket, and keep all the OP stats that went with it. Anything to make sure that it wouldn’t get in the way of my flailing limbs.

I eagerly checked my Chosen One badge to see if it gave similarly OP effects as the Ethereal Cape.

Nope. Just a normal badge. Damn.

There were a couple other features that I wanted to test out, like the Skill Keybinding function and the Combo system, but without any skills unlocked at such a low Level, I’d have to wait a bit longer if I wanted to mess around with those.

With most of my currently testable options explored, there wasn’t much else to do. I could see the sun slowly rising in the distance, glowing tendrils of light gradually seeping through the cracks in the Wall and casting onto the flat, crooked stones below my feet. Richard had told me that the guide would probably meet me in the morning, but he never really specified exactly how early in the morning. Surely a lady wouldn’t go through the trouble to get up at the crack of dawn just to escort a friend’s random acquaintance. Which meant I was probably in for a bit longer of waiting. I resorted to playing around with my Glamour customization loadouts while waiting for my guide to show up.

I was halfway through creating my dream avatar of an extremely handsome Hispanic man with sufficiently powerful looking muscles and sporting a super sexy Ironman goatee, when my guide finally arrived. She was a quaint, petite young woman, with the sort of fussy air about her that you might expect from someone who liked to make sure that everything was efficient and perfect. Square rimmed glasses, a very elaborate hairstyle, simple studs for earrings, and a dainty frock that made it look more like she was going to a job interview than to play tour guide. She seemed vaguely familiar, like someone who I’d seen a long, long time ago, but had completely forgotten what they were like. I swear I recognised that hairstyle somewhere…

“Good morning, Bad_Luck, sir,” contradictory to her prim and proper tone and appearance, her voice itself was somewhat squeaky and jittery, as if she wasn’t very sure of herself. “My name is Poppy. I run a clothing store here in the Inner City. I am here to guide you.”

Oh, the Inner City’s Seamstress. Now I remember. She was one of the first shopkeepers that you’d go to after finishing the tutorial quests. Sold light equipment and accessories for different Classes. Honestly, I’d completely forgotten about her. Being a shop NPC in what was basically the newbie town of Briarwood Rebirth, people usually disregarded her and the other Inner City shopkeepers for the shops in other regions that sold rarer, more exclusive, and better equipment. With most of my activity on my old account being concentrated in other parts of Briarwood, I hardly ever went back to the Inner City. Of course I wouldn’t be able to easily recall her.

“Hi, Poppy,” I sneaked a glance back at my dream Glamour loadout. Ew, all the changes restricted my max MP by 50%. I sadly waved the customisation screen away. Looks like I couldn’t be sexy and practical at the same time. “I need to know how to get to the tutorial quests. Care to show me the way?”

“Of course,” she nodded stiffly, and gestured for me to follow her up into the City. “Right this way.”

The Inner City was a different sight from the village I had previously been in. Where that village in the Outer City had resembled a Human’s medieval settlement with a bit more overgrowth than usual, the entirety of the Inner City took the fairy theme much more seriously. Not to say that all the houses were huge toadstools and all the villagers wore flower clothes and were all happy and sparkly, but it was most definitely much more plant themed.

The Inner City was built on one massive tree, with staircases etched into the sides of the trunk and small treehouses perched in the crooks of branches, floating bridges connecting all the houses together. If you looked up into the branches, you’d see hundreds of little Faerie huts nestled between the leaves, their inhabitants bustling around on the suspended walkways and bridges, going about their business. The houses in the lower branches were usually simpler in style, since the common folk lived in the lower branches, while the nobles were settled in the upper branches, with the Faerie Courts and the Faerie Palace situated inside the trunk itself.

Poppy began climbing a set of stairs circling around the tree trunk, and I followed, my hand pressing against the gnarly wood of the big tree. It was weird. I could feel the rough bark of the tree, I could see all the lenticels lining the surface, but it was just the same texture no matter where I felt, and didn’t feel at all like the patterns the bark showed. That was the thing about this world. It felt and looked so real, and the NPCs sounded and felt just like real people, but there were so many functional flaws and empty gaps that made me doubt the reality of my situation. Like I was walking in a dreamscape that only made sense within the limited space I was active in, with the rest of it spinning out of control in jagged, broken pieces. Like if some kid were building a sandcastle at the beach, and ended up putting all the details in the parts that they liked, leaving all the parts they weren’t focused on as just a vague mound. An unfinished world, that’s what this all felt like. Unfinished, and surreal.

After we’d climbed high enough to reach the lowest branches, I turned to take a look back down at the ground. I could see the shadowy blob of the Fortress of Ruin in the distance, and in front of that a dense mass of forest, then a large clearing dotted with the small specks of village houses, then the spot where I’d waited for Poppy, right next to the messy, woody mass of the Wall.

The Wall of the Inner City was actually just the roots of the tree emerging from the ground and burrowing back under, the big, gnarly things forming a tall barrier that supposedly stopped outside threats from barging into the heart of the Capital. I think it was these roots forming the Wall that made the Inner City the only open air settlement in Briarwood Rebirth that The Decay couldn’t enter. Something about the Wall making it an “abode”, which The Decay couldn’t personally walk into without invitation.

I remembered that the Outer City was situated on that clearing, under which the roots of the big tree burrowed. Even though the Outer City was mainly made up of small clusters of Faerie settlements instead of being an actual city, it was called the Capital along with the Inner City because they were all situated on the same land the tree took up. I think the game devs called the tree Yggdrasil, after the world tree from Norse mythology. A bit out of place in a game that took reference from Celtic lore, but few players really bothered to nitpick it.

“Here are the shops,” my attention snapped back to Poppy, who was pointing at a cluster of multi-storey treehouses on the branches to our left. Somehow, while I was still daydreaming, we’d climbed up into the main bulk of branches. And yet even after climbing so many stairs for so long, I wasn’t even the slightest bit tired. Fancy that. Yet another thing to add to my list of things that didn’t make sense.

“Mine is the third one from the trunk,” Poppy pointed to a treehouse that was decorated with what looked like sparkly cobwebs. “I sell gossamer clothing items, mainly for Kobolds, Briar Elves, Pixies and Fae. My sister has a side business selling some enchanted accessories made of crystalised dew. Please come visit if you need anything.”

I glanced in the direction of her pointing finger. Outside the house, there was someone chipping away at something on a small workbench, someone with similarly complicated hair as Poppy’s. That someone looked up and waved.

“Got it. I’ll come running if I develop a thirst for fashion,” shouldn’t be too hard to remember where it was. The Inner City was littered with road signs with every new layer of branches.

Poppy nodded in prompt satisfaction, and continued leading me up Yggdrasil. The treehouses on either side of us slowly grew larger and grander in scale, each more flamboyant than the last, with their floating terraces and gaudy statues.

Eventually, we reached the top of the staircase, which opened out onto a wide, empty platform. In front of us was a plank of wood in the shape of a door propped up against the trunk, two windows, one moon, one sun, at the top and the base of the door. Poppy regarded the door, then, without even a sign of effort, took the door that was almost twice her size and flipped it upside down.

“Sun side up will take you up to where you need to be. Moon side up takes you down to the Faerie Palace. Flipping the door so that both the Sun and the Moon face Yggdrasil will take you to the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts,” Poppy briefed me, her expression one of business. “That is my task completed. I wish you a good day.”

“Thanks, bye Poppy,” she gave me a brisk nod before heading back down the trunk of the Yggdrasil.

I turned back to the detached door. I wonder what happens if I throw the door down the tree.

I pictured lugging the door and tossing it over the edge, watching as it clattered noisily on its way down, hitting branches and Faerie houses as it fell.

Probably a bad idea. Worst case scenario, I’d get reported by a stray player for messing with the tutorial gate. Marge had told me that if I got my account suspended from being reported, I was basically dead, and I wasn’t about to risk my skin for curiosity.

Sun door it is.

I pushed open the door, and a blinding light filled my vision.

[Entering Main Quest #1]

[Tutorial Quest - Changeling]

[Quest details will be explained by corresponding NPC.]

[Warping to the top of the Yggdrasil.]