Chapter 3

Arrival

-Aaron-

My eyes opened, head throbbing as if I’d landed on it. I sat up, looking around and taking in my surroundings. Trees filled my vision and the smell of pine invaded my senses. I sensed movement behind me and turned my upper body to find Lisa stirring.

“Lisa! Are you ok? Where are we?” I asked

“Ugh. Yeah babe, I’m fine. I dunno.” She said, holding her head in one hand.

***Welcome to the Sylvaria!***

A message appeared in the middle of my vision with grand music. Startled, I swiped my hand in front of me in an attempt to clear my sight. The message blurred slightly, but quickly snapped back into focus as my hand completed the arc in front of my face.

“Sylvaria?!” I exclaimed. “Are we in my game?

“Your game? How is that even possible? The last thing I remember is you touching the computer and – oh. I remember loud buzzing, blurring and feeling woozy. Is..." She looked around fervently "this a game? Your game?”

“It seems like it. How do you fe-ouch!” I yelled, rubbing my arm.

“Sorry! Just wanted to see if this was real.”

“Then pinch yourself…”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She huffed.

Lisa snapped her head to her left.

“Did you hear that? That sounds like Oliver laughing.”

“I heard it... Oliver?!” I called

“That’s right! I tried to put him down when you started going all digital ghost on me. Ollie! Come to mommy!”

Lisa got up quickly and rushed through the forest underbrush. I followed, not wanting to be seperated. We forced our way through to a small clearing surrounded by pine trees, looking in every direction. Oliver sat in the grass madly moving his hands back and forth in mid-air, concentration apparent on his face.

“Oliver! What are you doing, bud?” I called.

He ignored us and continued giggling as he swiped his hands left and right. Lisa arrived next to Oliver and reached down to pick him up, pausing midway.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. Another one of those messages. I’m supposed to pick a class? How do I get rid of these messages?” She said while swiping in front of her face. “Oh it went away!”

“How’d you get rid of it?” I asked, now looking at a similar screen.

“Swipe you hand up and away.”

“Whew. Nice to know there’s a way to get rid of those. You’re unusually calm given the situation.”

“What can we do? Of course I’m worried, but this isn’t the time to panic about all of this. All we can do is move forward and figure this out together. I hope your dad is alright with the kids.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. I can’t believe Oliver is here with us. It goes without saying, but we need to find someplace safe while we figure this out. The last thing I want is something happening to this little guy.”

“Oooo maaaaa! Hooot!” Oliver exclaimed.

“Aaron, what the hell?” Lisa asked. Oliver held both arms out and moved both hands up and down. A 2 foot branch ignited just a few feet from where he sat. Worried, Lisa swooped Oliver into her arms, away from the burning wood.

“Oh no.” I sighed, running my hand down my face.

“What? What just happened, Aaron?”

“Look at his hands, Lisa.”

Lisa turned her gaze to Oliver’s still outstretched hands, eyes widening. Oliver’s hands glowed a dull orange and yellow, distorded with waves of heat.

“Oh. My. God.” She breathed. “How is he doing this?!”

“I don’t exactly know, babe. Maybe he chose his class.”

“How did he choose his class? He’s two, Arron! He has trouble eating without help!”

“How do you bring your class screen back up?” I asked while swiping the air in front of me madly. “There’s got to be something on this invisible screen he did that allows him to do this.”

“What mad God would allow a baby to choose a damned class?!” Lisa demanded.

“Ah! I found it! Swipe up with two fingers.”

I ran my eyes down the class selection, keeping Oliver in my peripheral view.

“Warrior, Berserker, Paladin, Wiza- Ah! Wizard!” I shouted. “He chose Wizard! That or he fat fingered some other random class that can conjure flames? I only ever played a Paladin, so I'm not sure.”

The branch in front of Lisa broke apart as the flames slowly receded. Oliver leaned back into Lisa, looking drained.

“Babe he doesn’t look good.” Lisa said, beginning to panic.

“He’s a brand new wizard, Lisa. I don’t imagine he can cast like that for very long. It’s got to be mana fatigue.”

“Is he going to do this every time he casts a spell? How the hell are we supposed to raise a baby who can cast fire?!”

A few moments went by as the gravity of the situation set in on us both.

“With skills to counter or keep him safe!” I said abruptly. “We need to be smart about our class choices. Our priority here is to keep Oliver out of harm while trying to figure a way out of this situation.

“Obviously." Lisa rolled her eyes. "Ok. What kind of issues is he going to have as a wizard? Is him passing out from mana fatigue dangerous? I can’t imagine passing out every time you did something is healthy.”

“No, it’s not healthy. If he casts a spell large enough he could completely drain his mana. We don’t know if this is real or just a game yet. We have to assume everything we do here is real. He could really hurt himself in a number of ways as a Wizard. Our biggest problem is countering anything he can cast. Our second problem is keeping him conscious if he overcasts. What to do…” I said, browsing the list of classes and their descriptions.”

“Don’t other casters have crowd control abilities? Can’t we silence him?” Lisa asked.

“Babe, that’s brilliant! Enchanters can silence others. They also have the ability to feed other classes mana over time!”

“Ok, so that’s the first and second problem figured out. What are some of the other issues we are going to run into?”

“Well.” I scratched the shadow of a beard on my chin. “We have to be able to fight. There are bound to be all sorts of creatures and evil people nearby. If this is real, we need to be able to defend ourselves. We can’t just put every dangerous creature to sleep or silence every caster we come across. One of us is going to have to fight up close and distract.”

“You should choose Paladin, Aaron. You know the class and the skills.”

“I think you’re right. I would be able to heal a little at first. I will also be able to do a bit of damage and tank.” I clicked on the Paladin button and hit accept.

*Ding!*

Welcome to Sylvaria: Aaron, Paladin lvl 1

An icon flashed slowly in the bottom right of my vision. Focusing on the icon halted the flashing and brought the bag into the center of my focus.

“An inventory.” I murmured.

I found a rusty iron sword and wooden shield inside. Sifting around mentally I found a simple pot, bedroll and flint. Focusing on the rusty iron sword brought a window up.

Rusty Iron Sword

Rarity: Common

Dmg: 4

I allowed my mind to wander from the inventory and it closed. A new icon flashed slowly on the left side of my vision. The book icon opened to show me empty pages and I realized this was my spell book.

“That’s pretty cool.” I said.

“What’s that, hun?” Lisa asked, distracted.

I explained my findings to her, doing my best not to distract while she read over her class spells.

“Well, at least we know we don’t have to worry about carrying things around. A sword and shield should be fairly heavy. If you’re not feeling their weight, that must mean whatever is in your inventory doesn’t transfer weight.”

“Possibly. We’ll have to experiment later. Did you get your class sorted?” I asked.

“I did. I focused on the spell icon you were talking about and found a few spells: Weaken, Strengthen, Doze and a few illusion spells.”

“Those illusion spells may come in handy. Shame there’s nothing in there for silencing or mana, yet. I saw the lvl 1 in my title. If this is anything like the actual game, we are going to have to level up in order to access higher level spells. We will have to move quickly, judging by Ollie’s first attempt at spell casting.”

“How close to the game do you think this is?”

“I’m not sure. It feels like I’m in a forest in the real world. I can smell the pine, feel the soft breeze; hell I can even feel my clothes.”

“I’ve never been in a fight before. I’m nervous about having to level up. I’m hoping we don’t feel any pain from creatures or weapons.”

“There’s one way to find out.” I said, focusing on my inventory once more.

I mentally equipped the rusty iron sword and immediately felt the weight of the sword in my right hand, confirming Lisa's theory of weight transfer. Sitting down, I placed the edge of the blade lightly against my forearm and drew back, wincing as a slight sting registered and blood appeared.

“Well, pain is a real factor here, babe. It’s a good thing I will be the one taking the hits. This changes things, though. We need to do our best to keep ourselves out of trouble. Our only goal right now is to level up as safely as we can in order to cast silence on Oliver. We can reassess the situation after doing so.”

“Agreed. I’m not happy about you not being able to heal, yet. Any idea when you’re going to start getting spells? Not having access to a heal is going to slow us way down and puts us in more danger.”

“No, babe. I wish I could remember, but it’s been a long time since I was this level in Sylvaria. My guess is around level 5.”

“We also need to work out how to keep Oliver out of harm. As much as I hate to admit it, we’re going to have to fight solo and trade off watching Oliver.” Lisa said, glancing at Oliver as he slept in her lap.

My stomach rumbled as I made my way to sit next to Lisa. The realization that this was no longer simply a game dawned on me. We would need to find food, water, shelter and ways to stay safe. On top of it all, we needed to find out why we are here. A slight panic began to rise as I realized we may even be trapped. I shook off the feeling, knowing it wouldn’t help us survive at this point.

“I hope the kids are ok. I wish there was a way to let them and my dad know we are ok.” I said.

“I don’t think there’s any way to contact anyone here, let alone outside of the game. I don’t see any chat windows like we normally would in the games we play. We don’t even know whether we’re considered players.”

“Sweetheart, I think this is as real as it gets. I don’t know why or even how we came here, but we need to face the fact that we are here. I wish everything was laid out for us in order to go home, but we don’t even know if we can return home. We need to focus on one thing at a time.” I said.

“Right.” Lisa said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I’m going out for a bit to find some weak creatures. With luck, I can bring us back some food and we can figure out how to cook it. If all goes well I can gain a level or two and move closer to that first healing spell. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

“Ok babe. I don’t like this, but we don’t really have a choice. Please be safe. I’m going to figure out some way to make a camp with this stuff in my inventory.” She said as she got up and kissed me softly.

"You could always convince Ollie to start the campfire." I jested and headed towards the trees.