“So that’s Mauling Peter…” whispered Mickey from below a great and dead tree with even deader black leaves dressing its branches.

Mickey, with his head barely poking out, was observing the monster within the ruins of a structure some 20 feet away. Mauling Peter looked to be a zombie—one with purple, rotting flesh, and black ooze seeping from its limbs. Its face had wasted away and hair had fallen out. Its jaw hung open with streaks of black dripping from its orifices. It wore some kind of rusted armor and three bone claws jutted out from its knuckles on each hand. These bone claws, each as thick as three fingers welded together, scraped the ground as Mauling Peter shambled back and forth.

Behind Mauling Peter, however, was a companion; a skeletal dog.

A dog, Mickey thought. I haven’t fought one of those—its just been the skeletons so far… So he has a companion? That might make cheating out a victory harder.

Mickey tapped through his Slate, inspecting his current status. He was at 54% health but still had the potions he could make use of.

Come to think of it, what are the penalties for dying? Do I lose experience? Hmm... I don't think the Beginner's Essential Guide covered it... Might it be in another guide? Well, I'll have to make a note of that for later.

Tapping through to his Skills, his eyes fell on Damage Rejection. He tapped on it and inspected it further.

Looking again, Damage Rejection has a 1-minute cool-down between uses. If it were just Mauling Peter, I could see myself running away and waiting for the cool-down to expire, but the dog might be a problem.

In Mickey’s mind, animal-type enemies were traditionally agile. Mauling Peter himself seemed to be slow—him being a rotting zombie further strengthened that observation. From a game design perspective, Mickey could see the rationality in assigning an agile helper to a slow boss if the desire to produce a challenge was being sought.

As Mickey was considering his plan, something began to descend on him from above—

“Huh?!” Mickey yelped. His body suddenly felt constrained—his arms were pressed against his body as something white was sprayed on him from above.

Mickey’s body was wound by silver threads, everywhere from the neck down to his hips was ensnared. His feet left the ground—he was being hoisted into the tree. He flung his head up—

“Oh, wow. How freaky!” Mickey remarked, taking in the life-like details on an inexplicable monster. “Do spiders really have that crazy of a skeleton?”

Above Mickey, a gray skeletal spider had crawled out from its home to capture unsuspecting prey. Its legs were sharp, and its eye sockets were empty aside from the eerie, yellow, and glowing points. This spider reeling Mickey in was wider than the boy and stood at 2 feet tall.

As its fangs gnashed Mickey watched, stupefied. “How is it producing silk?” He tried to wiggle his arms. “And it’s so strong too. I can’t use Ball&Chain like this.” Mickey focused on the spider drawing him in. “I got a plan though.”

Mickey’s head was an arms-length away from being pierced. It was then that it happened—the spider screeched as a hand pierced right through its head like a spear, having burst out from Mickey’s back.

“Good thing I can’t feel pain from my extra hands.”

The silk loosened and Mickey was released, pulling the skeletal spider down with him. Mickey’s extra hand tore off the silk, fully freeing him, and he wiped the sweat from his brow. “That was close. Good thing my extra hand comes out with so much force… Though, I’m surprised it killed this thing in one hit.”

Crouching down, Mickey inspected the spider—the hand had torn through so thoroughly its head was caved-in. Mickey could only conclude that it must have been a weak point or a critical hit.

“Bug monsters are typically pretty brittle… And how much experience did I get for that? 1EXP? Yeah, it wouldn’t be so strong—Oh, I did go through the mouth. It really might have been weak-point abuse.”

Mickey let the monster disappear and picked up the drop it left behind; a Clump of Silk(Necrotic).

“Sweet,” Mickey said as he stared up into the tree. “I think I can see more webs up there…”

“Oh wow! Good going, Mickey!”

With his extra hand and with strategic use of his spiked ball—that is, jamming the ball into the tree trunk—Mickey climbed the tree, entering the spider’s nest that was hidden behind the black leaves. There, he found a small treasure trove.

“So this spider must have been ambushing passerby since who knows when—it had quite the profitable little venture here.”

Mickey, groping around, found many hidden treasures. He collected 6 more clumps of silk, 30 pieces of gold, a Rusted Sword, Old Gauntlets, an Old Locket, a HP potion, and found a small treasure chest.

Mickey, recalling what the guide had told him wasted no time; he opened the treasure chest and found a puzzle piece and two colorful gems. Mickey tapped the three items and got the alert on his Slate:

***

Received:

[+1%] Skill Bit

1 EXC

25EX-EXP

***

“Ooooooh.” Mickey nodded repeatedly. “The gems were the Excia and the experience. Noted.”

Mickey, taking a better spot on the tree, cleared the leaves to get a slightly better look at Mauling Peter. As he scanned Peter’s environment, he noticed something in the corner of the ruins—a bigger treasure chest.

“There’s a treasure chest there?” Mickey whispered. “Has no one picked it up before? Or are treasure chests there for every player? Actually, that makes more sense… I think. It must look kind of goofy in fully-realized VR… The guide didn’t say anything about limited treasure chests so player-specific re-spawning chests make sense…”

Mickey observed Peter again—his behavior hadn’t shown any red flags. If Mickey had to label it, he was idling. Mickey then looked to the hilltop.

“There’s no telling what level I have to be at here… I’ll go the tree first. Peter’s probably going nowhere.”

“There’s the tree.” Mickey was approaching the withered tree atop the hill. “I hope it was a landmark after all.”

Deciding that taking his time with Mauling Peter was the more prudent option, Mickey had made his way to the hill without accidentally grabbing Mauling Peter’s attention. The walk to the hill was uneventful, aside from the three skeletons that had him ambushed on his way there.

As he came to the dead and withered tree, his Slate played the familiar alert sound.

***

Landmark Found

Lonely Tree atop the Lonely Hill

Once a spot for young couples and stargazers, it is now a stark reminder of the tragedy that befell Asniels.

Received:

1EXC

25EXP

25EX-EXP

***

Mickey, elated, sat beneath the tree and looked out to the rest of Asniels. To the south, he was sure he could see Torea, And further north, he could see structures basking in the pockets of light. The geometry didn’t let him see what was going at the foot of the hill, but Mickey was sure Mauling Peter was idling still. So, as he gazed out into the world, the chilly breeze flowing by, he relaxed a bit.

“It’s kind of depressing how gray and moody it is… But this is a pretty amazing sight…Let’s take a small break.”

Mickey pulled out his Slate and played around with his apps. He looked at his current level and learned that the gap between Level 2 and Level 3 was, again, 100EXP.

“So, is it always going to be 100? That would explain why the skeletons aren’t giving me 2EXP a piece anymore…”

For systems where the experience gap is static, the experience given by enemies needs to be variable relative to the character level. Conversely, by Mickey’s estimation, it meant that Hidden World Online put more of a focus on completing quests rather than vanquishing monsters. And that thought in of itself was consistent with what the guiding hand of the quest rewards had suggested.

“Still… I’m already up 4EXC. If I wasn’t in debt, I would have made $800 already… Wow…”

Mickey grimaced at the Slate. Truth be told, he was twiddling his thumbs, not wanting to check his current playtime.

He wasn’t unaware of it. He knew he must have been playing long past the 4-hour mark. If he had played for too many hours too late, he was ready to use the malfunctioning alarm as an excuse. Who could blame him for trusting a suspicious program? All that said, he was aware of what he was doing—of how he was trying to weasel out of admitting it out loud.

Mickey was truly enjoying the game.

This was the most fun he had since his grandmother went to the hospital all those months ago. He could try to play off his spending more time in the game as an accident, but he knew he was enjoying every minute and looking for every reason to stay.

Mickey sighed. “I can’t keep running away from reality. I have to be responsible.”

Mickey checked his playtime and went wide-eyed.

“Ahh… I overshot by quite a bit. Over five hours… Wow.” Mickey was impressed by how engrossed he was but he was also curious. Why didn’t the alarms go off? Did it really malfunction?

There was one app that Mickey had tried to avoid after spotting it. The Real-World Clock. Mickey assumed that app would simply tell him what time it was in the real world so that he didn’t have to do the calculations using play-time.

He shrugged and opened the app—

“HUH?! What?!”

Mickey was shocked, almost dropping the Slate. In fiction, this mechanism was commonplace. But he didn’t want to think it was true—it was more likely that the clock was just off. But even so—

“It’s only been 25 minutes since I started playing?”

Mickey wanted to believe—Hidden World Online had already proven itself spectacular.

“Is this serious? Is there seriously time-dilation?”

Mickey could come with the many ways the phenomena could occur—HWO had already replicated sensory stimulus with just a headset. Interfering with the sense of time seemed, somehow, a much easier feat. Scanning the screen, Mickey noticed another bit of information.

“The ratio is one to twelve hours… So, one hour in the real world is twelve hours in here—Holy! Wow! No wonder that headset is so expensive!”

Mickey looked to the dark sky, floored.

“So, I can play longer—and with minimal consequences. I mean—one hour turns into twelve! That’s amazing! I could take amazing breaks and no one would be hurt! Wait—no. I need to check and make sure it’s not a mistake. I can just log in again if everything is as it seems.”

What was melancholy was now, once more, excitement. Mickey eagerly tapped through to the log-out button but was met with an alert.

“’ Please get to a Safe-Zone,’ huh? Looks like there are limits to when I can log out, but I get it. A safe-zone is probably somewhere like the camp. Alright, got it.”

Enthusiasm renewed, Mickey ran back to Lonnie’s camp.

***

Now loading... Inter-Chapter Action

Mickey fought: 6 Laughing Bones

Mickey collected 4 vials of bone dust and 1xFunny Bone (new)

“Hmm… I wonder what the story for this game is…”