Chapter 2: The First Clearance

Light is being reflect by all the camera lenses in front of me, blinding me. I want to look away but I won't. It is getting hot in here and I start sweating. Everyone is looking at me expecting me to say something soon and every once in a while the flashlight of the cameras blind me even more.

They are all silently waiting for the words to come out of my mouth. I look once more around and see over the hundred heads away a beautiful decorated hall, especially embellished for this very occasion. Various armored statues from different common races of Another Life are neatly placed on the walls, some are made of beautiful colored stones or glass, others are plainly grey and white, but they all look amazing.

My eyes wander to the clock on the wall opposite to me and I prepare myself to talk as I notice that it is time. Everyone is still looking at me, who is standing on the podium. I clear my throat before speaking.

I look one last time at all the faces and try to ignore the blinding light and continue speaking after my long pause.

"I hereby announce the first and possibly the last patch of the game! In 24 hours the artificial intelligence will teleport everyone back to their registered safety zone if they are still online at the moment. That's why please end by then your tasks and quests as you cannot log back in for the next 6 hours. That was all, you may ask questions now."

As I stop my little speech I watch the surprised faces as they never expected a patch so soon and most of all not the last one. They probably thought I was going to announce a big event after the incident happened not too long ago.

They get into turmoil after letting my words sink in. Every reporter raised a hand and shouted questions. Because I could not understand a word, I raised my hand, to silence the audience and picked one of the cuter looking reporters.

"Mr. Boldman what did you mean by the 'last' patch?" She asks and I respond briefly.

"As I said, it is probably the last patch, as we won't work directly on the game any longer."

"How can you stop working on the game?!" Another reporter raised his voice, representing the thoughts of all the others.

"Well, actually our job was done when we finished the AI. And as we said before the release, that we created a fully developed new world thanks to the AI. The AI was the one who did all the work, we only added a few parameters like magic, game mechanics and some lore, while the artificial intelligence simulated the world up to this point, where the game was playable."

At this point only a few hands remained and I simply pick one and the reporter asks me immediately.

"What does the patch contain?"

"Mainly things what players wanted since the release, like an in-game clock, an auction house where you can trade items for real money, a few new game play contents where you won't even notice the difference, as not that much is known and increased the safety."

"Did you initiate the safety-measures because of that one player who went crazy after being hit by mindmagic?" Another reporter asks without being chosen by me, but I answer his question nevertheless.

"No, what had happened to that player should not even be possible in the first place. And that player was probably already in that constitution before he was hit by the mindmagic. The new safety measures are mainly about the capsule itself."

The topic changes and I continue to answer a few more questions to satisfy their curiosity.

Nick

"LEEEEEEROOY JEEEENKIINS!"

"Kumabear! Stop, don't do it! Argh, I can't look."

"Haaaa!"

"Noo, not you too, brother!"

I am currently rushing into a horde of scavengers, but not to kill them. No, I am rushing there because I spotted a goblin, but it is no regular goblin, rather it is very special, as it is a rarer variant of the goblins, a Wood Treasuregoblin.

Not much is known about them yet, but what we know is that they are very rare, that they can spawn everywhere even in cities, that they try to escape really fast as soon as someone finds them, that they drop a lot of items and that they are ranked. The known rankings go from wood to stone and then to copper and the higher the ranking, the more better stuff they drop and the rarer they spawn. It is not only hard to catch them as they will simply disappear after some time, it is even harder to kill them in the time limit because they have a lot of health.

That's why I rushed into the mob where a goblin with a big backpack is lurking and ignored the scavengers. Even my elf comrade comes rushing together with me, while his twin-sister shouts from behind us and another party member is leisurely watching.

"The goblin is mine! I saw him first, so back off, Dawn!" I shout while I sidestep to avoid an incoming purple beak but get hit by another one. But he does not slow down and shouts back at me. "No can do! You are alone not enough to catch him anyway." He also gets hit by a featherless ostrich even though he is a little bit faster than me.

Reaching the goblin I swing my copper sword at it but he grins as he easily avoids it. I swing my sword another four times without hitting but then the elf Dawn catches up and he too tries to hit the goblin with his puny knife and misses. We get hit by the scavengers and our health points gradually reduce while we are still trying to land a hit. After Dawn misses another time, I finally hit the distracted goblin by stabbing it with my copper sword.

"Hah! Now who is smiling?" I mock the goblin but then I notice that its health bar and name appeared above its head.

Surprisingly I did no more than 2% damage and the goblin, realizing I hit him, tries to escape. We are still surrounded by 6 scavengers but the goblin easily slips through them and we immediately try to follow but get soon blocked by the birds and lose sight of it.

I look over to Dawn and see him getting kicked and stunned but then I see another scavenger preparing to kick him. Helping Dawn by blocking the next attack is the least I can do for him, so I jump and take the hit for him. Both of our health bars reach the red zone and we fight as good as we can no longer trying to survive.

A scavenger tries to hit me with its beak but I avoid it and hit it with my paw and afterwards quickly slash it with my sword. The scavenger plummets to the ground and somehow burns a little.

Another beak aims at Dawn but he can by now defend himself enough to not get hit, or so I thought but he stumbles while evading and takes a full blow to his head and dies. After he dies I immediately stab the scavenger in rage until the poor bird also dies.

The now dead scavenger falls to the ground and I look for more but I am surrounded by 9 dead scavengers and a dead elf. I wonder how they died but then I notice that some of them have arrows stuck to their bodies and that others are badly burnt.

A female elf and human man in a robe approach me as I begin looting the dead monster bodies.

"I am sorry about your brother, Aurora." I apologize earnestly but the elf simply shrugs her shoulders. "And thank you."

"Don't worry about it, it was his fault anyway. That clumsy brother of mine."

"Anyway, let's go back to the city. I don't feel like hunting anymore because of that coward of a goblin. How could he just escape?"

"Can't we just run after him?" Aurora asks while we walk out of the walk out of the forest.

"No, we would not be able to find him ever again."

We walked for ten minutes until we could see the city gates and finally reached the main road leading to Contessa. As Contessa is the starting city for many players in the kingdom of Covenry it expanded and is now almost as big as this kingdoms capital Cernion. Contessa was at the time of the release the smallest starting city you could choose, but nevertheless was it one of the most popular starting cities as many races could choose this city. That's why I could so soon meet an elf even though I am a demihuman.

One more reason for the rising popularity of Contessa is the challenge in the form of the Penguin's Palace on our far left side.

As we are nearing the city we all look to our left and see a few towers made out of ice jutting out of the forest. The elf looks amazed while the human begins to sweat and looks hastily away.

"Let's conquer the palace!" The elf says jokingly and to my surprise the human sharply answers. "NO!"

"Did you hear that, Aurora?"

"I, I am not sure. Could you repeat yourself?"

"..." But our mage in training remains silent and ignores the wide eyed Auroras question.

"Must have been my imagination."

"Huh? Yeah, no way he talked, right Kumabear?"

"Yeah. Anyway, we reached the gates. Now let us go eat something nice and then repair our equipment."

"Yes. Aaaand he is gone."

"What? When did he go?"

"I don't know, we will meet him again anyway when we go back hunting. Let's forget about him."

So Aurora and I searched the nearest inn, take a seat at a window and order some food. We talk, while waiting for our food to come, a little bit about our monster hunting today and joked about the misfortunes happening to her twin. After the food was served and we already were halfway done, she said.

"Wow! You can eat a lot!"

"You know, as someone of the Ursa-clan it is only natural."

"It still impressive. And..."

"And what?"

"When will you choose a class?" She asks while stretching her hand towards my arm and feeling my fur.

"You know that I want to make my own class."

"But those are only rumors!"

"Maybe, maybe not. But there should be some truth in it as Cable Corporation said that everything should be possible. Besides if it is true then I would like to have a class that suits my style. And I don't want to hear that from you, who also does not have a class yet!"

"But this is different!"

"How is that any different?"

"I don't have a class because we could not decide yet, because th-"

"My fur is soft isn't it?" I interrupt her as she was still touching my arm and hindering me from eating. She quickly draws her hand back and looks down on her table and I take a quick glance on the clock tower outside the window.

"Oh, my roommate should get out soon as the patch is coming out soon too. I am going to log out after the meal even though we still have some time, that is if you don't mind, but I really need to ask him something."

"Go ahead. Hmm? You don't use his pod right now?"

"Nope." I grin happily. "My capsule was delivered today and the guys where even kind enough to calibrate and install everything when I asked."

"Oh, that's good."

"Yep."

We then talked for a while, mainly about what the patch will change. Finally it was time for me to log out.

Dante

The shadow of the night fills a home.

None are coming.

The shadows of the night fill a home.

None are leaving.

The sound silently watches.

For he is there.

The sounds silently watch.

For he is here.

Sparks are glittering in our home.

The stars are talking.

Sparks are glowing in our home.

The sun is waking.

The night fills our home.

We are coming.

The night fills our home.

He is leaving.

'What is this? A poem or some chant? And why is something like this, of all places on a crystal?'

I was thinking after reading half of it and wanted to continue but I noticed the reflection of a gigantic ethereal fist on the crystal and I started panicking as the fist was rapidly accelerating towards me. With a lot of hardship I turned my head upwards and saw the fist of a giant nearing, whose head was so high up it was no longer visible. It's semi-transparent body was huge and had a bluish glow to it. The giant wore some kind of medieval armor, which was highly decorated and had the same bluish glow as the giant itself.

The moment before the fist hits the ground everything goes dark and quiet and I feel myself being sucked into the crystal ground. But I never got hit by the fist, instead I was flying in some kind of space. It felt the same as immersing yourself in to the game or the moment after I broke the light orb, only less hurtful.

The space around me gets distorted and wild. All kinds of purple strings were twirling around each other, some were knotted, others not and a few made structures like spider webs. My head began spinning and then I could see a bright purple light growing stronger in front of me, I looked down on my body to avoid the blinding light. Unexpectedly two delicate and purely white hands where wrapped around my belly. I looked behind to ascertain who they belong to, but before I could see the face of the one behind me, the purple light engulfed me and I was back, lying on my belly.

For the first time ever in the capsule, I could finally feel grass under me. I took the scent of the green grass and dirt deeply into my imaginary nose and felt with my hands the earth, it felt refreshing.

I was still lying prone, unable to stand up when I finally noticed the blue windows which appeared in my view.

Welcome wayfarer!

Big adventures, but also many challenges are awaiting you in Another Life.

You will unravel many mysteries, make friends as well as enemies. Grow stronger and challenge the mighty beings inhabiting this world to prove you strength or you might even enjoy your time by simply admiring everything beautiful this world has to offer. It is your choice, be who you want to be!

Now go wayfarer! Explore and conquer the big world of Talovin!

'Yes! I did it! Wuhu! Finally, but now to the other notifications.' I rejoiced as I seem to finally have made it to the game world. I closed the welcoming window, every player gets when he logs in for the first time, to read the following windows but my mood suddenly turns for the opposite as I realized what the second message was about.

The game is about to patch.

You will not be able to log back in for the next 6 real life hours.

Please log out now or you will be forcefully teleported to your registered safety area.

Patching in 2s

'Noooo!'

"Lo-" I quickly try to log out but did not make it in time and got forced out of the game.

"No! You cannot just kick me out right after I managed to get into the game!" I was furiously trying to get back into the game but it was for naught. Desperately trying would not change a thing and I got out of the pod while I still could not accept that the time to finally play the game should not be now.

Time already passed to the point that the moonlight was faintly illuminating my room through the window. I was standing in the center of my room and the feeling of dizziness overcame me. My room was squirming and writhing and I would not dare to make a step towards my bed, as if to avoid falling down.

I stood still on the spot for several minutes until the dizzy feeling began to fade away. Everything was still squishy but it was now manageable for me to walk without worry towards my bed.

On my way to lie down, a smell filled my nose. That delicious smell pulled me unconsciously towards it and before I knew it I was eating at the dining table together with Nick.

"How is the food?" Nick asked me, but I was so hungry that I did not even knew what I was eating. Therefore my answer was a short and dull nod and I continued eating.

"I guessed you would be hungry after your little gaming session." He said while eating the last bits on his plate and continued after swallowing. "So? Care to explain me how you managed to be level 0?"

"What? You believed me?" I asked back, not wanting to embarrass myself by telling him why I did not manage anything useful in the game, even though I knew it was pointless to get embarrassed over an error.

"Well, it did not look like you were lying when you said it." He looked seriously curious and I believed he was watching out for any indications that I could be lying if I answered his question. And Nick knew me too well, which made it harder for me to hide the truth.

I was avoiding eye contact by looking down on my now empty plate and asked him for seconds but he shot me down telling me there was nothing left.

"What do you expect from the two days old leftovers?"

"There still was some of that?"

"You did not even notice what you just ate?" He did not wait for an answer and instead asked the question from before again. "Anyway, tell me if you are still at level 0."

"Why are you even so interested in this?"

"Huh? Is it not obvious? I want to know if anyone can drop to that level." He was genuinely interested on this matter and it was rare for Nick to be this interested in something.

"Why does it matter, you can't normally drop to that level." I was by now really curious why he wanted to know it so badly.

"Imagine! This would be the best punishment for really chaotic players who only play the game to harass other players. They would not be able to equip anything useful. Hell! Even the beginners set requires a minimum of level one!"

'Shit! I did not think of that.' At this revelation I got dispirited whether I should create a new character or not, but I dismissed the thought as I thought that I could easily overcome this challenge.

"Tell me now how you achieved the impossible!" Nick was looking at the moment exactly like you would imagine how a third-rate villain would look like. A villain, glaring at the third-rate hero and telling him of his third-rate plot to conquer the world. This made me unwilling to answer his question, especially since his grin looked evil, but the worst was that I knew he was totally serious when he said he would punish the bad people.

"Even if I told you how I did it, you would not be able to drop to my level as my case was more of an accident."

"Tell me anyway."

"You will be disappointed."

"I don't care."

"Alright." I took a deep breath and thought of how I could say it and decided that I should just say it out bluntly. "Because of some malfunctions during the character creation process I started with level 0 in the middle of nowhere. I am currently in the game lying in some forest and can't walk or even stand because all my stats together amount to 0."

Silence filled the room after I told Nick my story. He even repeatedly opened and closed his mouth without making a sound and probably wondered what he should say. The enthusiasm he earlier had was by now completely gone.

"Then... Then why did you not start anew?"

"Because I like to challenge myself."

"That is not the only reason, right?"

"Yeah, well. How should I put it? Let's just say that it feels like, that that character is my true self. Ah, I don't know it myself either, I simply can't do it. You know what I mean?"

"So you like being weak. I never knew that side of you." A small giggle escaped his mouth as Nicks told me that.

And I somehow could not tell him everything what happened to me. It felt kind of wrong telling him that, as if I feared that everything would just disappear the moment I told him what really happened.

"And the last few days in the game you did nothing but lie on the ground?" I did not know how to answer that, as I actually experienced several things, which I did not want to tell him of. And only incomprehensible words left my mouth, luckily

Nick answered in my stead.

"Ha ha, right. You could probably not do anything else besides trying hard to get some stats."

Nick tried to loosen up the bad mood filling the room, but I just wanted to escape from it not wanting to talk more, so I decided to call my little sister for a change, who I did not see since a long time already.

"Wait a second, I am going to call Kore." I wanted to go, but was stopped by Nick calling my name, so I turned around.

"Dante." His voice was low and he had that look on his face, pitying me. "I have known you since we were both kids and I worry about you, that's why I think you should..." He stopped talking.

"I should what?" To my question he only opened his mouth for a short moment and was thinking of something, but eventually kept quiet. After a pause he simply said: "Nothing."

I walked towards the phone, picked it up and talked.

"Hey, Korinna! How are you doing? The semester break ends next week, are you prepared? Have you studied well? Are you healthy? You don't spend too much money, do you? You know I worked hard for it, so spend it carefully. Hey, do you want..." The talk took me a while and I went to look after Cheshire before going to bed.

My room now had too little space since the pod arrived. I felt cramped in here. Eventually I decided to go talk to Nick whether I should keep my bed. Nick was in his room, using his computer. His room was neat and tidy unlike mine and I had not to worry where to step. The walls were full of artworks, none of them looked the same and they were all telling a different kind of a story.

But one of those paintings especially drew my attention to it. It was unusual for Nick to make such a minimalistic work. In the center of the painting was a black silhouette of a child standing there, it was surrounded by several colorful human silhouettes wearing a big white grin, keeping a distance to the only black colored one.

'I never noticed this one, he must have made it recently. But this one has a different feel compared to his other works, did something happen? Should I ask him?'

"What's up, Dante?" But a slightly overweight young man put his digital sketch pen down and called me first as I was still looking at his artwork.

"Hmm? Ah, I came to ask if you would help me get rid of my bed tomorrow, as I will be using the pod to sleep from now on. And you may want do the same with your bed." I looked over to his pod.

"Yeah, it was delivered when you were playing. They even did all the installing when I asked."

"What? The guys who delivered mine did not even bother!"

"Ha Ha, they probably did not like you."

"Shut up."

"And, sure. I would gladly get rid of the beds." Nick changed the topic back to the original one and I left shortly after that, having nothing else to talk about. "Alright, thanks. Good night."

"Night."

Cheshire was already sleeping besides my bed and I decided to sleep one last time on my bed even though the pod was way more comfier.

There I was, lying in my bed, unable to sleep. The question why I would not make a new character was making me think about it and keeping me from drowsing off.

'Why am I so eager to keep my current character? I mean there were only disadvantages until now, so why? It can't be simply because it is unique and even though I am questioning myself it does not change the fact that I want to keep it. So why? Why?' I hated the feeling of not knowing the answer. I hated not knowing. I hated not understanding.

Those feelings were pestering me the whole night and I came to the conclusion that I am definitely going to keep going to unravel the mysteries shrouding me. 'I will not give up, if I do then I will regret it my whole life. I need to know.'

The next day Nick and I got rid of our beds. Nick luckily took a break from his part-time job to enjoy playing "Another Life" this week, like I did it too. Afterwards we went groceries shopping to fill up our fridge, nothing out of the ordinary happened while we were at it. On the way home we noticed that the house opposite to our home, was finally getting demolished. We were walking up the stairs when I mockingly said to Nick. "What you are already getting out of breath?"

"No way! I am just fine. Now hurry and open that door." We arrived at the apartment door and were greeted by Cheshire when we entered. Nick went to the couch to rest and turned on the TV. The local news channel was the first one to pop up and they were still talking about the accident across the street. The only new information we got from it was that the surviving boy woke up and repeated the words "He told me to do it. He told me to do it. He told me to do it." over and over again.

Not wanting to watch any longer I went to my room to prepare the exam for Amy, mainly about stochastic. After doing several other tasks I went inside my pod to play as the patch should have already finished long ago.

I was warped once again into the game, but to my regret I was back in the dark space with many colorful orbs. 'And I thought I left this void for good last time. Anyway, now that I know what to do it is no real problem.'

And so I did the same thing I did the last time, I tried grabbing one of the orbs and the scenery around me shifted. A green orb was on my palm and I decided to collect a few more with a little bit more care than last time, as I did not want to break it immediately. My surroundings changed a few times and I was holding six different sized orbs in my hands, two of them had the same green tone, another two were red, but different from each other, one orb was dark blue and the sixth one was simply white.

I could not hold anymore orbs in my hands or do anything else with them and decided that it was time to crush one of them. A red glowing orb in my fist began shattering after putting some force into my grab. Red light surrounded my whole body and an immense pain filled every inch of my body.

The pain finally subsided along with the red light. I was still floating in space, but my hands were empty, probably because I let go of the orbs while I was busy enduring the pain. Thankfully the five orbs I collected earlier, were orbiting me. I looked away to the distance and my eyes widened in shock.

'It is burning. Burning!' In my sight was a huge planet, which was at first a cold mass but it suddenly started getting hotter and hotter. It was practically melting by now and the surface was moving and shifting. Everything happened so fast I could not believe it. But the most weird thing was that huge chunks of the planet were splitting apart and shooting away from it.

'Seems like time is being reversed and fast forwarded. Interesti... Oh fuck!' It was not the time to admire the scene because a one of those pieces were closing in towards me at a frightening speed. I reflexively grabbed one orb orbiting me and crushed it immediately.

This time green light surrounded me and I again suffered agony. Space distorted again and I changed locations. I was sitting on the ground and leaning with my back against a rock. As I was still too weak to move, my only option was to observe.

Around me many bloody armored bodies of weird humanoid beings were lying, some were still standing holding weapons in their hands but did not move, it looked like they were trying to escape. My gaze moved to the distance where I could see an army of those blue skinned human like beings, wearing a different armor from those around me. A lot of them were holding bows without arrows and aimed at the sky. I wondered why they did not have any arrows loaded and looked up where they were aiming at.

'Why does everything want to kill me where ever I go?' I thought calmly when I saw a rain of arrows stuck in the sky, seemingly coming towards the area I am at.

'Hmm? No they are not stuck. They are only moving slowly. Really slowly.' Even then did I not panic and observed calmly my surroundings.

'Yeah, if I look closely then I can see those soldiers moving slightly. Oh, they all have a trunk. Ha, they look stupid. Anyway let's get away from here, it gets boring pretty quickly.' And so I grabbed another orb and it shattered in my fist.

White light surrounded me and it was followed by an unbearable pain. The pain and light subsided and a familiar scene came into my view. I was back in the forest I was in, before the patch. The same familiar scent was lingering in the air and the wind was faintly blowing through the crowns of the trees around me. It sure was a peaceful forest.

'Okay! Enough of admiring the forest. I need to check whether I am now really in the game world. Open "Inventory"' As soon as I thought of opening my inventory a blue window with four empty slots came into my view.

'Can't be! I should have more than this!' I was furious, because my inventory had far too little slots. Everyone gets an inventory with 24 slots at the beginning. 20 slots from your beginners bag and four slots from the innate itembox the so-called natural safe, where you can put your most important items inside, which never would drop, no matter what.

'This was to be expected. Nothing can be easy, right? Now first things first! I need to get moving and therefore I have to gain some strength.' The plan was set and so I tried pushing myself up, but it failed not long afterwards. I managed to move a few centimeters but my stamina depleted way too fast and I was already out of breath. Then I checked my status for how long I would need to rest.

'Right, my stamina regenerates 0.0 per second. This is impossible! No, wait. Open window "Stamina Regeneration". Ah there it is.'

Stamina Regeneration: 0.01/sec

'That means that I only have to wait 100 seconds before I can move again. Great!'

I did not have to wait long until I could try it and after the fourth time I even gained a point in stamina. After repeating this for four another hours I could even push myself up until my arms were stretched out. My stamina points rose to 26 and my strength to 5.

'Yes! I should be able to stand on my feet now!' I waited until my stamina regenerated, which was even faster than before and tried standing up when it was full. While my hands were still on the ground upholding my body, I put the sole of my right foot on the ground, my other leg was supporting my body all the while. Slowly but wobbly I stood up. I was finally standing on both my feet.

The sun was setting and golden rays of the sun gave the forest a majestic feel to it and I was in the middle of it in a beautiful clearance. Small animals like rabbits and birds began to gather around me and they all looked at me awe-struck. It was the first time for me to see creatures in Talovin and they all looked so ordinary.

'I thought they would look different, more fantasy like, well at least they are a colorful lot.'

Warning! Your satiety is dangerously low!

'Oh, how real! I better go eat something, but what? Those animals would run away if I approach them and I am way too slow to catch them, so... Ah! There!' I looked around and found some berries in a shrub a few steps away from me.

The animals, standing on the borders of the clearance were observing me going to the shrub. Walking was hard but not impossible and after a few minutes I finally was near enough to pick up a berry. Carefully avoiding the thorns I picked the yellow berry and moved it straight to my mouth.

'Yes! Any longer and I would have died out of hunger!'

But the berry never entered my mouth. 'Shit! I forgot! I don't have a mouth.' The squashed yellow berry was sticking to my fingers and I tried anyway pushing it somehow into my mouth. The result was that I died after around five minutes and I was forced out of the game.

"How embarrassing to die of hunger! At least I made a lot of progress this time. Hah, now I need to wait three hours until I can play again." I looked over to the clock to check upon when I would be able to play, but I was startled that already three hours passed, even though I should not have spent more than five hours in the game which would mean that only a little more than one hour should have passed.

'There is something wrong. Did I remember wrongly when I entered the pod? Hmm, probably.'

And so I went to look for things I could spent my time with.

Nick

After Dante went to his own room I continued watching the TV for a while and eventually went to play "Another Life".

I am back in Contessa in my bear form.

"Hmm, everyone in my friend list is offline." Even if I say everyone, I only made three friends, namely the twins Aurora and Dawn and the never talking guy, who we like to simply call "Mute", but he is not in my contact list. After I think of what to do now, I decide to go the mages association to learn some basic magic spells.

'After I learn some magic then I will be a step closer to my dream class!'

I walk through the streets of Contessa, admiring the fantasy city, which by the way looks unlike other cities in Talovin.

The street is plastered with stones in different golden brown tones. Most streets here are narrow, but the one I am currently walking on is wide because it is one of the five main streets. The main streets all meet in center of the city, the marketplace. And I need to go trough there if I want to get to the mages association as fast as possible, even though it would take less time if I were to use the side streets, but there is the danger of getting lost as I don't know this city well enough yet.

The houses make Contessa so unique, as there are a lot of pipes and cogwheels sticking out of them. Smoke is coming out of the pipes and the cogwheels are all moving.

'This is truly a steampunk themed city.'

Many players wonder what those cogwheels are used for, so a lot of theories came to life. There are rumors among the players that they can be strategically used to move areas of the city in crisis situations or that they are for maintaining some secret underground prison or dungeon. Even the NPCs do not know what they are for or they are keeping quiet about it, feigning ignorance.

I arrive at the market plaza and see a lot of stores mostly from NPCs, but I don't pay them any attention and take a turn to the right on the next main street and leave the market place. The citizens of Contessa and the players starting here all have the same fashion sense, fitting for the city. Women wear corsets, bustles, gowns and petticoats. Men on the other hand wear suits with waistcoats, tailcoats and top hats with goggles. Both men and women have accessories, like gears or goggles fitting to the image of the city.

This influence comes mostly from the dwarven engineers collaborating with human engineers who were gathering here during the foundation of Contessa and trading inventions. But such a collaboration was only possible due to the convenient location. Contessa was originally a settlement in the vicinity of five rivers meeting at one point. Those rivers have been since long ago defining the borders of the five kingdoms Arainer in the north, Linthor in the south, Faywell in the east, Myrolyth in the northwest and finally Covenry in the west, where Contessa was founded. With time Contessa was soon a city located in those five kingdoms, because of its growth.

The other kingdoms mostly did not have a problem with it, as Contessa was inhabiting citizens from all five kingdoms. The dwarfs from Myrolyth were the second to migrate there, afterwards came the elves from Faywell and were followed by the demi-humans from Arainer. The linis from Linthor are rather shy and only dared two generations ago to immigrate to Contessa.

Officially Contessa is a city under the jurisdiction of Covenry, but is now a mostly independent and neutral city. Contessa is currently the most rapidly growing city thanks to the players but in the past the growth was several times slowed down by rising conflicts between the different races, which you would not believe if you were looking at the happy interactions between them now.

The mages association is now within my sight and I leisurely walk towards it but the next moment I hear a scream coming from one of the alleyways. I look to the people around me but they either do not care or did not hear the scream.

So I quickly run to the direction the scream came from and enter a dark alley. I avoid pipes sticking out from the houses while running and soon arrive at the crime scene.

"No! Let me go!" A little child cries out but gets the mouth stuffed with a piece of cloth by one of the three men surrounding it. The child notices me approaching them from behind and begins to struggle more.

One of the men wonders why the child looks past their heads and follows its gaze. He looks behind, but is too late as my fist hits his face. The man staggers and falls to the ground and without a pause I draw my sword and slice at the man next to me, but it gets blocked immediately.

The child is now even more struggling and trying to scream, which distracts me, I lose focus and can't avoid getting struck by an incoming fist to my stomach. I hold with my left hand onto my stomach, with my right hand tightly the copper sword and look up. The third man stood up while I was fighting his companions and is grinning with the other two men at me.

Unexpectedly I feel a dull hit on the back of my head and I fall to the ground losing my consciousness. I appear in a familiar gated white graveyard within a completely white space. Everything besides me is white.

A blue window appears in my sight telling me that I lost my consciousness. I look around and recognize this graveyard as the place, where every player goes to after dying or losing consciousness. This space is there to avoid that players suddenly get forced out of the game and enables them to log out manually when their minds calm down. As everyone has his personal graveyard one can look at the amount of gravestones to know how often one died. The gravestones even memorize the date and locations when you die. And if you knew what and who caused your death you could also read it on the gravestone afterwards.

You lost your consciousness!

Ghost state: You won't be able to do anything besides walking.

Time remaining until you can go back to Talovin: 46 Min 22 Sec

'The gates are closed, so I have nothing to do besides waiting. I better log out for ten minutes.'

Cheshire

It got so boring here since some men brought those weird cold beds. My servant now does almost nothing but sleeping, even my servants henchman, who is normally doing all the housework does now sleep most of the time since the men with the same getup brought him his bed. I begin to wonder whether those beds are really that comfortable, so much that they do not want to wake up.

'They even threw their old beds away!'

I walk a little in the apartment, but get soon bored as I see both of the humans sleeping in their beds. There is nothing to do here, which is why I decide to take a walk outside, but I then see the henchman waking up and leaving his bed. I approach him and rub my back at his leg, but he ignores me and goes to the kitchen.

"How rude! You dare ignore me when you actually should feel honored!" I retort while I follow him to the kitchen. The henchman still ignores me, refreshes himself with water and eats a few snacks.

"Yes, yes. Eat more and get rounder!" His ignoring me makes me angrier and I start insulting him. Which is unfitting for some like me, who normally can control her emotions. I calm myself down, when I remember that the henchman is too dumb to understand me and I give up trying to pointlessly talk to him.

The henchman goes not long afterwards back to his bed and I finally leave the house for a short walk. I jump out of an open window to the neighboring roof.

The weather is great and the sun is shining down warm rays upon me. 'How can they not go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather?'

I jump from the roof down to a balcony, then to another balcony and soon reach safely the ground. At least there are a few humans on the street enjoying the weather. A few little human children notice me taking a stroll and immediately rush towards me, but I escape the hill downwards and run into an alleyway. I look behind me, but I do not see any

children following me and I continue to walk leisurely towards the river in this city.

On my way there I meet a fellow cat, who looks ordinary unlike myself, whose fur has a blue striped pattern. The cat does not move but has an hostile look in the eyes, so I choose to greet the cat first. Getting to know someone new is never bad and the first impressions are therefore very important.

"Good day to you, fellow cat. I am Cheshire, nice to meet you." But the cat does not respond and still looks at me with hostility. 'And I even tried to talk as kind as possible, maybe he did not understand?'

"Would you mind introducing yourself?" Again no response and I lower my speech standards. "Who are you? Your name?"

The cat just keeps glaring at me and I decide to walk past him, while I mumble unconsciously. "Not another dumb cat."

"Dumb? Not dumb! This is my territory!" Apparently the cat heard me and prepares angrily to attack me. I sense the incoming danger and escape as fast as possible to avoid an unnecessary fight between us fellow cats. I look behind and see him giving up and returning where we came from.

I arrive at the river and continue with my little stroll. In the distance is a long bridge over the river and alongside the river are a few shops. I look around and one shop in particular grabs my attention and I walk towards it. It does not take long and I am soon at the door. One human leaves the shop and I hastily rush inside while the door is still open.

Why I got so interested in this shop is simple, it's because I saw through the display window a few of those weird beds, like those my servant and his henchman got. I see that the lid of one bed is open and jump onto its rim. When I look inside I see an orange something and hesitate before I get inside, but change my mind and take a leap inside.

It is unexpectedly smooth and elastic, but very comfortable. I stretch my body and begin to drowse, but a dull sound hinders me from sleeping in. It suddenly is dark and I notice that the lid is closed. I panic and hit around me, but it did not achieve anything besides lightning up a few lights. But I don't give up and continue trying to get out, and I realize that I cannot do it.

"Oh no! I am trapped in here! Help!" I cry for help. Nobody comes to help me and I give up resisting. The lights around me turn off. Likewise I go out like the lights.

Nick

I am back in the game and wait for the counter to reach zero.

You lost your consciousness

Ghost state: You won't be able to do anything besides walking.

Time remaining until you can go back to Talovin: 1 Min 34 Sec

'I am so going to kick their asses as soon as I wake up! Damn it, hiding another companion behind my back.' I plan my next steps for what to do when I wake up. While I do so, the timer reaches zero and a window pops up, asking me whether I want to 'wake up' or not. I immediately confirm it and find myself in the next moment, sitting on a wooden chair, cuffed behind the back in a dimly lit room.

I look around and see five other people next to me, rowed on the wall me and constricted like me. And I even recognize one of them as the child I wanted to rescue earlier.

'That child is an NPC.' I deduce out of the green inscription hovering above its head. Every player can see such inscriptions above players and NPC, which shows off the name of the person, the guild they are in and if applicable the equipped title.

From observing the room I get that around a dozen other people are in this room. Four of them are armed and look like guards and the rest are wearing venetian masks, their attire also looks pompous and they are all human. Thanks to their disguise I can't see their names but I can at least listen in on their conversations.

"Good day, old chap!" One disguised man approaches another one wearing a green suit and starts a discussion.

"Well it is quite a fine afternoon. Have you finally decided to attend our little tea-party?"

"I daresay it is well a planned party and the tea is quite exquisite!"

"Oho, indeed it is. Have you good sirs considered 'employing' one of our 'attendants'?" A man with a black suit joins in on their conversation and points swiftly with his arm at us. The three of them observe us for a while and then resume talking.

"Perhaps this little fellow would be capable for my tasks." The man in the green suit walks over to the child I tried to rescue and holds its chin, forcing it to look at him straight in the eyes.

"Marvelous! It is a female linis." The man, who first started the conversion points out.

"I shall say, dear sir, that you immediately chose our most splendid exemplar. What good eyes you have! Ho ho, If you may allow, then I might be able to pre-arrange something."

"Well, thank you! I would gladly take you up on that offer and while we are at it, may I request from the dear host to add that rascal to our arrangement?" The man in green shifts his gaze to me and I suddenly feel a chill.

"Of course, old chap! I will see to it at once. Well then, if you would excuse me, I still have other guests to attend to. And please, enjoy our little get-together." The host says and shortly afterwards the little group of three disperses and they each join in on other conversations.

After they lose interest in us I look over to the linis child, whose name, which is hovering above her head, shows that she is called Alissa Pyttel and I try to converse with her. But our mouths are gagged and it can't be helped that she does not notice me, so instead I do my best to free myself as inconspicuously as possible.

As I try to free myself a door opens and four guardsmen enter the room. The host welcomes them and motions with his head into my direction. After the guards nod to the host they move towards us. One of them grabs Alissa first and drags her off the room, another one follows them from behind and watches how the child is crying and struggling.

The other two men, who are wearing a heavier armor than the ones from before, approach me, grab my arms lifting me up and take me out of the room. But before we leave through the door the host comes to us and orders them to stay still. The host faces me and looks me deep into the eyes. His blood-red eyes keep staring at me. I don't avoid his sinister eye, instead I return a fierce look, which conveys the meaning that I will come for him. He gives off a smirk and nods to the guards. The guards turn while still holding me and move to leave. From behind I hear the host's voice.

"Tie him up better this time."

'I will come for you. I swear!' Simply thinking about that man makes me furious and I swore that I will come for him and end this injustice.

Dante

After three hours of boredom the pod finally allowed me to connect back to the game.

Everything around me was quiet, it was dark except for the illumination the orbs in my surroundings gave off. Three of those orbs were orbiting me, they were the orbs I took with me in my last session.

'Good, then I won't need to collect them again. Now which one do I chose? Red? No, not after what happened the last time. Then how about green? But what if I am in the same spot again and the rain of arrows finally manages to pierce me? Would be really painful, especially since they would be slowly going through me. I don't like to torture myself voluntarily, so that won't do either. Then there is the last one, the dark blue one, but it gives off an eerie feeling.' I pondered about what to do next but then my curiosity decided for me.

'Yes, I need to know more about those orbs.' I had to know whether the same colored orb would take me to the same place or not, but my priority was in getting back to Talovin and as the white orb brought me the last time there, I decided to grab a white one and begin with that.

My surroundings changed a little, more like the placement of the surrounding orbs changed and I was holding a white glowing orb in my hand.

'Let's roll!' I crushed the white orb and once again a white light engulfed my body and I was in agony. But not long afterwards I was back in a familiar forest. It was nighttime, but I had no problems seeing. I could make out details from the berry bush in front of me and it did not differ much from seeing it at daytime, the only difference was that it simply lacked colors.

'Ah right, I need to check my status. After all I died. Please do not say that my level is now in the negative. Please!' I prayed and opened my status window.

Status WindowName:-----Alignment:NeutralLevel:0Class:-----Race:Unknown EntityTitles-----Achievements-----Fame:0Infamy:0-Health:1 / 1Health Regen:0.0 / SecMana:1 / 1Mana Regen:0.0 / SecStamina:26 / 26Stamina Regen:0.0 / Sec-Strength:5Agility:1Vitality:0Intelligence:0Wisdom:0Leadership:0Luck:0-Attack:0-0Defense:0

I felt relieved after seeing that I did not lose anything even though there should be a penalty applied for dying. Normally I would have lost a level and it would be the worst if my level dropped to the negatives, if that was even possible.

After that I intended to learn how to fill my satiety-bar. Therefore I looked up at what percentage my satiety was.

'30% although I just logged in? This game is being harsh on me.' To survive through this game I need to learn how to eat and so I picked up a few berries. To no avail I tried stuffing them into my mouth again and again. After some time I died once more of hunger and was forced out of the game. After another three hours I crushed a white orb, found myself back in the forest and tried eating a berry.

Time passed and it was now Wednesday evening in the real world, which meant that I repeated this for two whole days. But while I was trying to find out how to eat, I sometimes decided to crush orbs of a different color. I easily found out that the same color did not necessarily mean that I would go to the same place.

To get to the same place I was before at I had to find an orb with not only the same color, but with the very same color tone, although there were some exceptions which I still cannot explain yet. I also found out that the duration of the warping took longer every time I crushed an orb, even the pain I felt after crushing an orb got worse the more orbs I shattered.

At least I saw a lot of breath taking places, for example I was once underwater, which repeatedly froze completely and thawed only to freeze again. Another time I was in the middle of a cluster of a thousand suns and wondered over how it was possible that nothing happened, considering that they were relatively close to each other. That was also one of the few times, where nothing wanted to kill me or at the very least I did not notice.

Once I even recklessly tried crushing two different orbs at the same. The result was that I felt a pain, which was too much for my brain to handle and I fainted for half an hour. Even after an hour were the aftereffects present and I swore to myself that I would never dare to do it again.

Now I was back in the forest, the sun was setting and the animals were going back to sleep. By the way, every time those little animals saw me they just stood there motionless, watching me, but would run away as soon as I set a step towards them.

A while ago I gave up stuffing the berries into my mouth and thought of why a being like me even needed to eat, given that I do not have any organs for that very purpose. I then thought why living beings even needed to eat. The answer was that they something where they could get energy and so I came to the conclusion that I also needed energy in some form.

The way creatures get their energy was something impossible for me, as I lacked a mouth and so I tried lying in the sun, absorbing the energy from the sunlight like a plant.

'Hah. As expected that too is pointless.' I sighed or imagined myself sighing, lied on the ground and looked at my satiety bar.

'I need to think of something fast! Only 8% satiety left.' I rolled to and fro as I could not think of anything else and stopped suddenly.

I was motionlessly lying on my back with my arms spread, watched up into the sky and a random thought entered my mind.

'How awesome would it be if I could simply dissipate matter and absorb the energy resulting out of it. Huh?' As I dreamed of that I felt that the ground directly under my palms disappeared and looked left and right to check.

'Woah! No way!' Unintentionally I really did what I dreamed of. And so I jumped up and looked to the places where grass and a little of earth in the form of a hand were missing. I even checked whether this filled my satiety bar and it indeed did.

So I jumped a few times out of joy, which was only possible because I raised my strength to 17 by doing push-ups in the past few days.

Immediately afterwards I walked over to a tree with the intention to experiment on it and so I put my hand on the tree and thought of absorbing it. The place I touched pixelized and disappeared. The tree had now a little dent in the form of my palm. I inspected it for a while until I heard a rustling sound from behind me and turned around to take a look.

A humanoid lizard the size of the child, which had long rabbit ears hanging down the head, appeared out of the thicket. It stood still awestruck when it saw me. Its pair of big blue eyes kept looking at me and it look like as if it tried to catch its breath.

From behind the grey lizard came, a big hairy man, twice the size of the lizard. His hair or rather his fur was long and dark brown in color. He also stood there, staring at me with its gaping mouth.

'Why does everyone look so stunned when they see me? Am I that impressive?'

Both of them had shabby clothing on, which was mostly tattered and even burned at some places. In order to get closer and talk to them I set a few steps, but stopped when I remembered that I did not know how I should communicate without a mouth.

However the occasion to try out how to communicate with the two would not come, as a second after I stopped moving a group of six armed men came out of the thicket. Like everyone else they stood still, looking awestruck at me and one even let his sword drop.

The hairy man noticed the group and grabbed the chance to escape. He easily lifted the lizard up and carried it with one arm while running away.

But the group which just came here, stood there unchanged, so I walked towards them trying to communicate.

'I feel just like an alien. Probably I am one?' I felt that way when I saw that they began fearing me as I approached them.

Two of the men raised their swords and came rushing at me when I only made half the way to them.

'You are not the type to make new friends, are you?' I stopped walking again and prepared mentally for the attack.

One of the men shortened the distance and was now a step away from me, while the other one was trying to get to my back. The one in front of me raised his sword, but when I raised my right arm motioning him to a halt with my palm directed at him, he stopped in the middle of swinging his sword.

His face showed clear signs of fear when I moved and he even wet himself. To not let this golden opportunity pass I immediately grabbed with my right hand his face and dissolved it into pixels, the guy who was now behind me saw it and also stopped attacking me. I grabbed with my other hand the one behind me and so I did the same to him.

'I am practically eating them, right? So, is this called cannibalism? Wait, I am not human right now, so it is not.' I thought while holding the men.

At first they struggled slightly and cried but after some time they stopped resisting, but I did not stop "eating" and eventually my satiety bar was full. That's when I could no longer dissolve them, so I let go of them and the two men or rather the corpses fell limp to the ground.

Half their head, up to their ears was now entirely gone. Brain matter and blood was seeping out of their skulls and the other four out of the group who watched us until now were shitting their pants, dropped weapons and ran back to where they came from, while crying and screaming "Demon!" at me.

'Muahaha! Run back to your mommies!' I felt like I was the strongest at the moment, but on the other hand I was glad that the others decided to run away instead of avenging their comrades, because I definitely would have not survived as I was not able to eat them because my satiety was full.

'I was lucky that they feared me, but why were they so fearful right from the beginning? Do they fear the unknown that much? Anyway, I probably won't be that lucky next time, so that that won't happen I need to level up.' And so I resolved to get stronger, therefore I needed to level up, because with every level up I gain ten stat points which in turn I can distribute as I wish and so I checked whether I leveled up in this fight.

Status WindowName:-----Alignment:NeutralLevel:0Class:-----Race:Unknown EntityTitles-----Achievements-----Fame:0Infamy:0-Health:1 / 1Health Regen:0.0 / SecMana:1 / 1Mana Regen:0.0 / SecStamina:84 / 124Stamina Regen:0.1 / Sec-Strength:17Agility:6Vitality:0Intelligence:0Wisdom:0Leadership:0Luck:0-Attack:0-0Defense:0

'Impossible! How can I still be stuck at level 0, should it not require the least experience to level up?' Nothing changed besides the stats I gained manually. Therefore I decided to take a look at how much experience I needed to level up, but what I saw gave me almost an heart attack.

Experience needed until level up: 0

'How... How can this be? Why?! Impossible!' I was at a loss for words and kneeling on the ground so I could in my desperation rip grass off of the ground.

It took me a while to calm down and was I now lying on the bare ground. The faint moonlight was shining down on me, encouraging not to give up. I got up and left for the direction the two escapees went to, hoping I would find any other players, NPCs or even villages along the way. But I did not forget to loot the bodies first. I was glad that I could not get nauseous in this game when I realized what I did to the corpses lying on the ground.

Everything I could loot was useless, because I could equip nothing. At the very least they had a few copper coins with them, which I put into my inventory as I did not even have a purse.

And so I left the clearance.

A/N: From now on I will be posting one chapter every week, but don't worry as they will be of the same length as this chapter and maybe I will be even writing two chapters in a week. If I can do it...

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