I spawned back in front of Eunuch. I remembered the letter the street urchin had given me but decided to get some sleep-in game first instead. I walked into town and immediately a chat box in the lower left of my screen faded into existence. This was pretty typical of the chat box placement of most MMORPGs/VRMMORPGs/VRMMO games in general. It just feels right.

ons of people were hawking their wares and linking items in chat. I was astounded at the amount of people in chat. However, only a rare few had actually rare items, being well-off items with good stats, those being blues or epics. The rest were just trying to make a buck, which, I could understand. Merchants lined the street coming into the town, hawking their wares verbally as well as other players hawking their wares. I went up to one of the NPC merchants, some guy selling meat from a stall. Looked pretty fresh. I inspected one of the pieces of meat.

[Golden Cow Flank]

Ingredient

Spoils in: 7D:9H:10M

I wasn’t aware ingredients could also have qualities. Some high quality food must be made around here. I couldn’t wait to try it.

It suddenly dawned on me that I was actually having some fun, even as little as it was, at the moment. I was actually enjoying myself. Feeling the weight of my mace on my hip, and my wooden shield on my arm, the crappy burlap clothing I was wearing, the Mail helmet I had on being padded perfectly for my head… it was all so surreal and I wasn’t sure what I was feeling was right, much less using my mother’s old VRCapsule that she died in. I mean not in a “I’m going to get sick from corpse germs” way, the VRCapsule sterilizes itself after every use, but in the moral sense.

But the sights, the sounds, the smells all pushed that away. The merchant was staring at me like I had two heads while I was staring off into space.

“Apologies,” I said, “I’m just inspecting the meat you have on your stand here. The name’s Setari.” I held out my hand to shake his. Also if it was one thing I could appreciate in life, it was meat.

“Ah, yes, my friend, my name is Abjul!” I nodded as he shook my hand. “Our meat is provided from the freshest dungeon creatures every day!” He leaned in close to me and said, “Between you and me, if you want, I can get you a good deal on this meat. You look like a well-worn traveler and I’m sure you can appreciate fine meat such as this!” He waved his hand over his stall and a golden glow appeared around it. I inspected the actual stand.

[Meat Stand]

Enchanted with:

[Glowing Radiance]

Type: Visual

Any person who could afford an Epic enchant that was activated on arm-swipe had to be selling good product. I made a mental note in my head to keep track of this guy.

“Abjul, I appreciate the offer, but I am actually looking for a good inn to stay at for the night.”

“Oh, yes! The very best! Just down the street there is a tavern called The Sow. Great food and soft beds! Very home-like. I have a room there personally as well. It’s a little bit expensive, but well worth the money.” Seeing as I had 4,900 gold from that GD chest, I wasn’t starving for cash at the moment.

“That sounds very nice, thank you! I hope to see you there so we can chat. I might not be there for a while though, I’ll be in and out. Adventuring things, you know.” He nodded and I walked off, waving a goodbye and him waving back to me. I turned around and yelled “Abjul!” and he looked at me and I tossed him a 100g coin. “Thanks again!” He bit the coin to make sure it was real and slipped it away and kept waving, always smiling.

A little while later I found The Sow tavern. Why were taverns always named after farm animals or weapons and stuff, I wondered. I headed inside the tavern.

Immediately a scent of apple pie with cinnamon in it hit me. I could smell that smell all day long and not get tired of it, it made my entire body relax from my journey and I just wanted to melt on the floor. But, I had to get a room, at the least for my character. I could always sleep inside the simulation but I figured it’d be better to get a room to store my things in at least. I walked up to the bartender, a pudgy looking woman who was wiping down a set of glass steins without lids on them.

“Welcome to tha’ Sow, what can I do ye’ fer?” She had a heavy accent on her.

“I’m looking to get a room at this tavern.” I hopped up slightly and sat down on one of the wooden barstools.

“That’ll be two hundred gold up front for repairs to the room for any damages, just in case, and fifty gold a night.”

“Hmmmm. 30 gold a night sounds better to me.” I scooped a bunch of golden coins from my bag and placed them on the counter. “Paid in advance, as well.” Her eyes bulged out at the money.

“I-uh-I-uh, I need ta go speak with me husband!” She rushed into the kitchen which had swinging doors on it. I sat there just admiring the smell and the polished look of the tavern was very nice. The chairs were varnished and polished to a nice sheen, and the torches in the place as well as the couple fireplaces inside at either end of the tavern horizontally were a nice touch, obviously stone fireplaces. The bartender lady came back out of the kitchen while my eyes were uh, taking a rest.

“Yes, this will be fine.” She counted up the money. “So you will be staying two weeks or so?”

A prompt appeared in my vision as well about some Trading skill, but I sent it to the notifications that were minimized at the bottom of my vision.

“Eh, probably? I’m not sure. What is the policy about if I pay in advance but don’t stay the full amount of days? I’m Setari by the way,” and held out my hand.

“Olga. We will refund you half of the amount that is left.” I nodded. That sounded good to me.

“That’s fine.” She handed me a key with a wooden piece attached to the handle of the key that was engraved with 104 on it. “Room 104, I take it?” She nodded as she scooped all the gold into a bag and set it underneath the counter. I walked to the stairs next to the bar a little ways away and headed upstairs to find room 104. As I hit the top of the stairs, I got a notification.

When reaching the top of the stairs in a tavern for the first time, you have two options:

Be teleported to your personal room.

Walk to the room door and enter it normally.

I thought perhaps they created separate instances for rooms due to the amount of players in the game, which is why I was getting this pop-up. Smart move, developers. Otherwise you’d just have people camping out on the streets or close to the city walls every night, which, apparently is also a thing in this game, but I preferred a bed. However I wasn’t one to be teleported places just yet, so I selected the second option and walked down the hall from the stairwell and found room 104 and entered it.

It seems it was already loaded, as I walked into a large room with a four-poster bed, good looking sheets, a dresser, and various other things inside. I walked into the room, shut the door and checked out the dresser. The room was just… very nice.

I went in and laid on the bed and went to sleep, thinking of chests of loot and where I’d go in the city tomorrow. I was out like a light with all my clothes on.