Filpin stared at the weapons displayed before the four of them and gulped. He didn’t know what they should do. The swords in front of them were tagged into the hundreds of crowns. Even the cheapest, most basic of swords, the iron longsword, was priced at just under two hundred crowns. If they pooled all their money together they could probably just afford it, and nothing else.

He moved away from the swords on the walls and made his way to a small section in the corner where a barrel was filled with what appeared to be defective items. Not so defective as to cause direct harm, but not so great as the ones on display. He grabbed a crappy looking sword and pulled it.

“That one will cost you Eighty crowns,” the young smith over by the counter called out. He was busy watching over the shop that his Master owned, one of the many apprentices around, or so they were told.

Filpin moved over to the counter after putting the sword back.

“Look, um...” He struggled for a moment but the young man helped him.

“Angus,” he prompted.

“Yes, Angus. We’re new to this,” Angus raised an eyebrow but let him continue, “And we don’t exactly have much money on us. Is there anything you could do for us? And maybe even tell us how we could go about making some money so that one day we might afford such fine wares...”

Filpin had been learning of Frank how he should try to address the NPCs in this game as to get a reaction.

“Ok, fine,” Angus reached below the table and grabbed out four daggers and lay them before him, “I’ve got these here daggers. I can do them for Fifty crowns each. We don’t sell cast-off daggers either, so don’t bother asking. These are literally the cheapest thing in the shop...”

They had all come over now and each emptied their coin pouches onto the counter and they could see all hope fade from the eyes of Angus. He quickly counted each pile.

“Gods, man, you weren’t wrong about being short on coin! Is this all you have?”

They nodded a little solemnly. The start of this game was feeling a lot like hard modes in other games, where you started with very little. For them, it appears they barely had enough to afford a dagger. And aside from that they just had the clothes on their backs.

“Ok, I can see you’re struggling. I can’t give you anything, but I will let you have the daggers for what you have.

“That aside, there’s a few ways you could go making money.

“Apprenticeships are a good way, like myself. But a few of you look too old to be taken on as apprentices now.

“You could always go into the warehouses and such. They are always on the lookout for people to do manual labour. I’d say the docks, but they haven’t been used in years.

“There’s also the town watch, or maybe even the army. But I’d doubt they’d take you in like this.

“Last choice would be the Adventurer’s Guild. Not much of a guild anymore. But people do still ask them to do odd jobs here and there. Maybe you can find something to get you a bit of coin before you strike out for something better. Don’t join the Fog Crew, whatever their sweet-talking captain says. They’re a crazy bunch who try and go off into the fog once a month.

“If you’re after some quick coin you could always try and sell your body. Or even parts of your body. I’ve heard there’s a Doctor of sorts in the back alleys of Farcrest with a tent set up. And he can take your kidney out with almost no pain. That would get you some coin. Could also get you some disease, or worse.”

“Well, the Adventurer’s Guild was what we were thinking,” said Filpin, “Do you mind giving us directions?”

The crowns quickly vanished behind the counter and Angus go out a scrap of paper and a stick of charcoal. He started drawings a crude map showing them how to get there. He didn’t write any names on it, because he couldn’t, but he did draw a few landmarks.

“After you leave the shop, head north. Once you get up around here you’ll be able to see the Temple. Make your way over to it, then follow the road heading up through Two Lodges. Just before you get to the better part of Farcrest you’ll end up finding the Guild. Technically it’s still part of Two Lodges, so it’s a pretty safe area. Be mindful though.”

With these final words, they grabbed their daggers and made for the guild. The directions were easy enough to follow, and they enjoyed looking at the different parts of town as they went. This time they avoided talking to any people as they had a way to go and needed to start the game properly.

“How long you think we’ve been playing?” – Filpin

“It’s been just over half a day I reckon, by the sun.” – Mor

“No, I meant, in real life. How long have we been in the game?” – Filpin

“Oh, no idea. I had a look at the status earlier, and there was no clock anywhere. That reminds me, though, what was your special ability?” – Mor

“Ah, mine was being able to tell somethings value. But at this level, it’s not worth it... I can only tell out of a value of 1 to 1, so it won’t tell me anything yet.” – Filpin

“Yeah, seems pretty useless until we can figure out how to improve it. Mine is Pride. Says something about being able to reroll a critical fumble a number of days equal to my rank. Sounds fine, if only I knew when I was making a roll, or what a fumble was. What about you two?” – Mor

“Filpin thinks his is bad? Mine literally just says I vanish when I sleep...” – Frank

“So, mine seems to say something about overeating to gain stopping power... I think it’s some sort of armour? Why did I get stuck with Gluttony? Why couldn’t I have had something cool, like Wrath or Lust? Can’t believe the girls got those...” – Watatsumi

“Yeah, they did luck out pretty good didn’t they.” – Filpin

After walking for some time they came to the spot where Angus had sent them. Before them was a building that looked very similar to the taverns and inns they had passed along the way, but instead of a hanging sign, it had a large painted sign across its face. But the paint was faded and peeling, as if it hadn’t been tended to for some time. It clearly said Adventurer’s Guild in a bold typeface. They all shrugged and entered.

The room beyond was well lit and looked like they expected any tavern to look about town. There were round tables with chairs. People sitting at them too, only a few though, with mugs of drinks before them. They readily expected the drinks to be ale, as any good tavern in an RPG would serve their patrons.

The people were an eclectic mix.

In one corner were several people wearing quite decent clothing, with what appeared to be good swords and other weapons sitting against the wall nearby. They were crowded around their table and on it there was a map which they were pouring over. They couldn’t really hear their conversation but they could see from here that some were excited and others seemed over the whole thing. Whatever that thing was.

There were a couple of small groups of people. Dwarves and humans for the most part, though there was one lone elf drinking from his tankard. They all seemed the hardened mercenary type. Scarred, burly, and ready to break a neck.

At the far end of the room was a long bar and a small sign above one end that said Reception. They made their way over to it, where two other figures were talking to a tired-looking gentleman behind the counter. As they got closer it became apparent that the two doing the talking were two of the girls who had left at the start.

“What do you mean you can’t do anything?” Said Nala, the blonde girl who seemed to be about Filpin’s age.

“Look, you need to talk to the Watch. But they won't be able to do anything anyway. And you’ve got no money to hire anyone,” the gentlemen was matter of fact about his speech, even if his face did say he would rather do anything else.

“Oh, hey, um, Nala, and um, Grif... It was Grif right?” Filpin called as they got close behind them.

“Oh, guys, you’re here,” there was some relief in her voice, “Hildr got taken away by some thugs.”

“What?”

“We were on our way here. This is how anyone starts a game these days. Well, first we went to buy a weapon, but we didn’t have much money, so we pooled it together and bought a sword for Hildr, since she seemed the most capable to use it,” Nala stopped to take a breath, “Then we tried to come this way. But we didn’t know where we were going, and we found some nice fellows and asked them directions, and they said they would lead us, so of course we followed them, I mean, what kind of NPC wouldn’t want to show us the way to the Adventurer’s Guild. Beside the point. We followed them, and they tried to rob us, not like we had anything though, so we didn't do anything, but they tried to take the sword, so Hildr fought back, and she hurt a few of them and seemed to go into some sort of rage. We took our chance to flee as Hildr called out to us, but when we were back in the main street we saw they had knocked her out and were dragging her away.”

Nala panted as she finally finished her talk. The guys could barely keep up with how fast she was talking. It almost felt like she’d said the whole thing in a single sentence.

“Anyway,” she continued, “We came here to see what we could do. But with no money and no gear, we can’t do anything.”

Frank waved his arms for her to calm down.

“Look, I’m sure it’s fine. They wouldn’t let us get into a scuffle that’s over our heads, we’re only still learning the game. When we log off and log back in next time I’m sure we’ll be in a better position to deal with it. She might even log in close to us,” Frank spoke slowly and calmly, as he could see Nala was getting ready to run her mouth again.

“You’re probably right,” she took a deep breath. As she did Mor stepped forward to the gentleman.

“Hi, good fellow. We’ve come to look into the Adventurer’s Guild.” – Mor

“Welcome then, I suppose. I’m Sam. I run the everyday goings-on here. Are you looking to hire someone or want to find a job to do?” – Sam

“I want to find Hildr!” – Nala

“Ignore her. We’re looking for work. We don’t have much money and this was suggested as a way to earn some.” – Mor

“Well, I suppose you’re in the right place. I take it you’re something like an Adventuring Party?” – Sam

“Well, we probably are.” Filpin gestured to the four male members.

“Hey! We’re part of this too.” – Grif

“Are you? You just walked off before...” – Filpin

“Yes, we are! There’s only the seven of us, we have to stick together now!” – Grif

“Fine, don’t argue. The six of us here, and our missing friend, are a party.” – Frank

“The drama... Fine, whatever. There are a few jobs, but you don’t look prepared enough for a lot of them. They are over on the board by the door out. We have lodgings here too, if you wish to use them.” – Sam

“Maybe another time, good sir. We’re short on cash and need to earn some.” – More

Sam just shrugged as the six of them now walked over to look at the board. On the way to it, a sign flashed up before each of them.

You have been playing for 3 hours, you will now be logged off.

“Oh, crap,” a countdown began and Filpin turned to the others, “I’ll be back same time tomorrow night.”

Everyone gave their agreeance as the countdown began to end. Then the world went black.

* * *

Archie opened his eyes and got out of the deep dive gear. His muscles were sore from being still for 3 hours. He felt that they hadn’t accomplished much for being in the game for three hours, but it is what it is, and there was no moping over it.

The game itself wasn’t doing much to get his attention yet, but he’d give it another shot at least. Once they had a go of the actual gameplay rather than just cutscenes then maybe he would begin to like it more.

He stretched, turned his alarm on, and headed off to bed. He still had school in the morning.