Woke up in a room again. Only this time the room was familiar to me as I’d spent at least two hours combing it and another listening to my new favorite magic item I kept secure in my fanny pack. There was no as I was still in the tutorial room. No matter. I ate the food ration I’d been given in my tourist pack. It tasted like oatmeal-turned-paste and protein powder. Dry and terrible. Thank god for my canteen.

I drained it.

The information around it now read [Water Canteen: (Empty)] That wouldn’t do. I went back to the one door that was available to me and trudged back through the torch lit tunnel into the room I’d first awoken in. Still empty except for the sink. I’m not a water snob by any means, I drank from the hose as a kid for gosh sakes, but if it was a choice between this sink’s water and no water I would almost be tempted to pick no water.

The knobs didn’t take as much to turn them this time but the water still gurgled and came out brown. Not my well water I suppose, so I saw no harm in letting it run until it cleaned. It cleared up easily enough and I brushed my teeth with my toiletries set and I refilled the canteen. Alright, I wouldn’t be dying from dehydration any time soon which was cause enough to celebrate. I turned it back off and left the room stopping in the hallway to examine the torches.

Ker-chunk. I took another picture for my Compendium and waved away the notification. I’d take the time to go through and look at every item to rid them of the sparkle stars that twinkled around their item border later. I freed all but one of the torches from the wall sconces and brought them back to the sink and doused the flames out. I stuck them in my fanny pack where they materialized in my inventory with a red border around them.

Taking most of the torches meant that the hallway was darkened as I passed through it, the lone torch left struggling to keep the darkness at bay on it’s own. I walked back into the wizard room. The light in the window was bright with a serene blue, the telescope I couldn’t take taunted me. A light breeze blew in through the opened window, gently rustling the papers wedged between the pillars of stacked books I’d gone through yesterday.

I pushed the glass open further and poked my head out. A blanket of green trees stretched out all around me. The ground was at least five or six stories down and there were no where near enough bedsheets to climb down safely. I leaned out of the window as much as I dared to look around the side of the building but almost losing my balance didn’t seem like it was worth it. I shut the window lest I be tempted to lean further out the next time.

I looked around the room. There was a lot to look at still but I was getting antsy to get out and explore that big forest outside. I moved to the Quest Log on the right side of my vision and clicked to track the ::Leave the Tower:: quest. The blue dowsing dot on my wrist pulsed serenely leading me back to the window.

Yes true, it WAS a way out of the tower. But like I’d said: the wizard didn’t provide enough bedsheets to climb down. There weren’t any hidden exits through the bookshelves, I’d made sure I touched and pulled every book on the shelf for that exact reason. I mulled around the room but the dot still showed the window as my only outlet, until I moved closer to the door. The dot swirled, almost tugging me to go back into the darkened hallway to the sink.

I went back a third time to the room I had spawned in. The blue pulsing light insistent that there was something here in this room that I was missing. So I studied it. An escape room style situation. I’ve never been to one before but looking for clues felt right.

A perfectly empty room, except for the sink. The sink, who’s water came out brown before turning clear and cold? Huh. I inspected the sink. No pipes connected to the wall, only to the floor where a thin circle outlined just beyond the edges of the pipes that ran into the ground. The grout was out of alignment.

[Skill Increase: Investigation level 1]

I turned the sink until the grout matched up. The basin of the sink now jutted out at an odd angle. The stone tiles that made up the wall shifted, a dust fell from a thin crack that trailed down to the ground. A secret passage, the dowsing dot confirmed that this was the direction I needed to go. I set the sink back to it’s original position, taking a picture of the approximation of where it started. Ker-chunk.

[Roqor’s Tower Secret #1]

The first secret was a secret door. I moved it back to open up the wall behind it, such a thin exit it made an almost triangle I would have to duck through. Ker-chunk.

[Roqor’s Tower Secret #1- Solved.]

[Roqor’s Tower Secret 1/3]

The compendium updated and I did a victory dance as I dismissed my camera. Okay, well now I couldn’t leave until I found the other two secrets. Would you believe I slept on top of one last night? That’s right, under the bearskin rug was a trapdoor, aka Tower Secret number three. Ker-chunk. Another secret solved for the compendium! Maybe I should have taken the Detective class instead… nah. Tourist was proving to be WAY more fun than I’d thought.

What could the third one be? I scoured the room for another hour, checking under the desk, lifting up the rugs, checking up in the fireplace. With no where else to go but up, I clamored to the top of the bookshelf, praying that it wouldn’t fall and squish me ending my run in the tutorial. Surely that’d be a first for the game. Platforming wouldn’t be too much of an issue so long as the ground was steady once I got up there, which thankfully it was. I squinted up to the celestial ceiling, nothing called to me like the other secrets did.

Then a familiar shape caught my eye. The arrangement of instruments hanging from the ceiling lined up now that I was at the proper viewing angle, forming the eight pointed star logo of Roqor Studios.

->|

I scooted across the tops of the bookcases to get the proper angle needed to capture it properly. Ker-chunk. I suppose if artists signed their works that it was appropriate for game designers to as well. One point, Roqor Studios.

[Roqor’s Tower Secret #2- Solved]

[All Tower Secrets Completed]

[Skill Increase: Investigation level 2]

A present icon flashed on my wrist screen as I climbed down to the ground. Click. The box sprung open with more 8-bit fan fare.

[Secret Reward One: Potion of Healing]

Oh snap. I moved that immediately to my fanny pack. I wanted to practice calling it forth but I was hesitant to drop it. The camera fell into my hand every time but it only took once and then no more healing potion. No bungling that one, Walters.

I looked at the trap door under the rug, a little disappointed in myself for not checking it the night before I went to sleep. I stopped that thought, thinking of the three secrets I’d found and the healing potion I’d received because I hadn’t. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I returned to the room I’d awoken in the first time. I could have taken the trap door, but that would be cliche. Everyone knows where a trapdoor leads: down. But a door behind a sink? Now that had some possibilities behind it.

I pushed in and the stone creaked. The hall was darkened so I illuminated it with my magic.

“Light.” My tiny sun appeared instantly in the palm of my hand, it’s light pouring down the continued rocky tunnel. I was in the mountains somewhere. I didn’t even know where here was, but that made it all the more exciting. There was no mini map on my HUD so I’d have to find and navigate using an actual real map and directions. I checked my inventory to see if I’d picked up any stray atlas or book of maps of the world but nothing showed up.

The light flickered once. My blue bar at the top of my near invisible HUD flashed as it depleted. My world plunged into darkness. Thankfully I was still close enough to the entrance that I could hobble my way back and light one of the torches I’d taken from the hallway and use that to continue through.

My magic meter recovered as I continued along and I summoned my tiny sun once again. It’s light was much stronger than the torch, overpowering it while it was on. My own personal high beam.

[Spell Level Gained: Light level 2]

Sweet, just had to keep that up while I had enough torches. I saw no health bar or indicator for the torches status so I rode it out hoping the tunnel would end soon. My sun sputtered out a second time as I rounded a corner and something large moved in the distance.

A dark mass of fur and grime sent a beady red eye my direction. The beast hissed, revealing a pair of giant incisors, a great big rat. It was as big as a great dane I swear to the noodle shop. You guys know I don’t take the noodle shop lightly. It was hella big. In the corner of my vision my HUD identified the creature as a Rat King.

My wrist beeped alerting me of an objective goal for ::Complete the Compendium::

[Monsters of the Tower: 0/1]

Oh thank noodles, only one and I hadn’t missed it! I summoned my camera, flicking it open in my freehand, holding the torch out to deter the feral king. It hissed and lunged at me, Ker-chunk. A brilliant moment of piercing bright light lit the tunnel for one brief moment: the flash. The Rat King’s eyes had been wide open, it’d acclimated to the pitch dark allowed it to see even the faintest light to hunt by. It had adjusted for the torch light but I’d just shown it a heavy duty lifted truck high beam straight to the retinas.

The creature stopped abruptly, writhing on the floor hissing and screaming as it clawed at it’s eyes. I swapped my camera for the dragon letter opener and finished the beast off quickly. My dad and uncle had taken me hunting before so I was no stranger to hunting and subsequently learning how to kill and skin rabbits. Turns out oversized rodents weren’t so different either.

[Weapon Skill Increase: Daggers level 2]

[Skill Increase: Photography level 1]

[Monsters of the Tower 1/1]

[Compendium Updated]

The compendium updated appropriately, lore text of the Rat King read off to the lower left of my HUD. By now my magic had regained itself and I lit up another ball of light as I checked the compendium. The Rat King pulled up in a Creatures tab, the photo icon was an amazing shot of the Rat King snarling menacingly at me it’s clawed feet fully off the floor mid strike.

It was a great shot if I say so myself, but I smacked my head with how obvious it was that there would be a photography skill to level up especially for the class I chose. Most of that was shame over how long it had taken me to get a shot worthy enough of leveling it in the first place. Thankfully though, I HAD gotten it so I knew now that it could be and I could work with that. It felt odd, having something so modern in the same world that I could summon a ball of light that burned like the sun. Whoever said magic and technology couldn’t coexist?

I flipped through the rest of the compendium. The pictures I’d taken arranged themselves properly as a viewable icon. I sported over one hundred unique pictures, mostly of hum drum things like water or a torch fire to count as the basics but still! One hundred less hum drum things I had to worry about later on down the road.

The camera icon held an update but no picture. I hadn’t found a mirror yet. I clicked it and the information pulled up in the side tab that I read as I walked.

[Camera] -For the Photo Compendium! |Memory card| |Flash ?/NA|

Properties-Flash has a chance to stun target.]

And boy had that chance come through for me right when I needed it. That was extremely important information to know and made the camera all the more valuable to me. I could find a way to use it as a combination with the dagger as soon as I got out of these dark tunnels. The torch stayed strong for the rest of the walk past the beast’s corpse where it dead ended at a different trap door.

[::Escape The Tower:: Quest pt 1 Discovered: ESCAPE THE TOWER?]

A question mark? What was up with that? Something didn’t seem right, I set my torch down on the ground and snapped a picture of the untouched [Trapdoor]. The compendium updated, this time instead of [Secret Trapdoor] it filled up the actual slot for [Trapdoor-(Armed).]

What the hell was that word: (Armed)?

Armed as in trapped? No. Roqor wouldn’t do something like this! I gave pause, no this wouldn’t be a route for JUST me. This was most likely an intended route for the rogue and detective classes to find. Did they fight the Rat King too? They might have actual skills to detect all that, but all I have is my camera and my compendium. It had warned me thankfully, since I had taken the time to identify it. I stared at my camera, my pictures and their documentation would be my guide and I would listen when warned.

I cast Light one more time, cupping it in my hands to transform it into a miniature flashlight, I searched for any indications that I could stop this trap before it stopped me. I found a small tripwire poking out at the corner and I followed through a natural groove in the stone that led to the wall. Where now that I looked further I could see there were three sets of holes drilled into the stone pointed at trapdoor. Ker-chunk. The Compendium paired the two pictures together as the pair that they were, cause and effect.

I breathed out as I safely disarmed the trap by springing it and leaping back out of the way as six small darts flew into the wall on either side. I waited a few moments to make sure nothing else reloaded before I ventured in and took a snap shot of the dart.

Small and pink with bright green feathers sticking out the end, like a boisterous badminton birdie. The compendium said it was a poison dart. I decided in that moment that I wanted to be VERY careful with them as I sent them to the fanny pack. I sorted through my notifications as I opened the now sprung trapdoor, revealing a ladder leading down into a dark pit.

[Skill Increase: Investigation level 3]

[Spell Level Gained: Light level 3]

[:: Escape the Tower:: Quest pt 1 Completed: ESCAPE THE TOWER?]

[::Escape the Tower:: Quest pt 2: ESCAPE THE TOWER, ALIVE]

[::ESCAPE THE TOWER, ALIVE::]

[TRACK NEW QUEST?

Y/N?]

Ah the caveat. Alive. Well I met the requirements at least, which I was glad about. I leaned carefully over the edge and peered down into the dark tunneling pit. I was not excited about this climb.

Click.