Chapter 3: Starting a game

“Hello. How may I help you, adventurer?” A pretty girl sitting on the other side of the counter shuffles some paper around.

“Hello, my name is Phillip and I was wondering if I could get some sort of quest here.” I smile weakly.

“Of course, it’s been oddly quiet here. I wouldn’t mind helping out a newbie. What you looking for?”

“I don’t have anything but the clothes on my back. I need to make some money so I can at least equip myself better.”

“Oh, you must be down on your luck then. Okay, if you go to the local library, the librarian has requested help for some organizing. It isn’t going to be easy and the pay is terrible.” The receptionist sighs, “The poor lady there needs some help though. She’s getting on in her age, if you catch what I’m saying.”

“I’ll do it. I need money.” I smile weakly at the obvious bait. I would have done this quest anyways, the bait wouldn’t have worked on me though.

“Thank you kindly! Now then. Since you are new, you’ll have to show the lady at the front desk of the library this piece of paper. She will take you for your task. Once you finish she should give you your reward and will return this paper to you with a stamp on it. Then we can finally get started on your assimilation in to the guild.” She smiles gently.

“Why does that sound scarier than it needs to be?” I sigh and take the paper from the girl at the counter. “Thank you for your help. Which way is the library?”

“Turn left after leaving the guild and walk for a couple minutes and it will be on the right hand side of the road.” She gestures the directions with her hands. “Have a good day, traveler. I hope to see you back soon with your task complete.” She waves at me as I leave the building.

I look around the streets and realize that is crazy busy. There are so many people just wandering, having no idea what to do. People should know the first thing you do in a fantasy world is go to a guild.

I can tell which people are from the other world because of clothing. The people in this world wear robes or shirts with no sleeves and shorts. Most people are wearing many different types of clothing, and then there are the people that tried to dress fantasy, but utterly failed… is that… Gandalf?

Never mind, I’ll just go to the library for now.

I walk through the crowd and eventually find a sign with a book on it. It is a large cathedral looking building… why is a cathedral a library?

“Welcome to Ravenwood Library. How may I help you today?” The elderly woman at the front counter greets me with a happy smile.

“Hello. My name is Phillip. The guild has given me a task to come and help you.” I say with a smile and hand the paper to the elderly woman.

“Oh! What an easy proving quest. Well then, young lad, please follow me.” The elderly woman motions for someone else to come over. “Dearie, could you please come here and stay at the front reception.”

“Of course grandma. Good luck Phillip, you’ll need it.” The young girl comes over and smiles at me. She’ll probably be quite the beauty when she grows up.

“Thank you…” I pause for a second realizing I didn’t know her name.

“Angelica. Nice to meet you.” She bows slightly as she greets me.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Angelica. See ya ‘round.” I nod my head as I start to follow the elderly woman.

“Now then, young lad. Do you know what a proving quest is?” The elderly woman leads me through a few doors in to the back of the library.

“I’m sorry for not being knowledgeable. I hope that it doesn’t affect my task.” I frown slightly.

“No, no. Don’t worry about it young lad. I will explain it for you then. I have a feeling I know which girlie you got as your receptionist. Ah well. A proving quest will allow you to get a device known as an ‘Assistant’. Here, let me show you mine.”

She pulls up her sleeve and shows me a fancy looking wristband that is about four inches wide. On it shows her name, height, race and gender. Oh, her name is Brianne.

“This device is used as identification. Money is also stored on this, so there is no need for a physical currency, but it still exists. You will also be given a rough map of the area and you can add things to it yourself, or you can pay a huge sum to get someone to transfer their map over to you and you can skip exploration.”

“Wow.” I look at the device. What a waste of a fantasy setting.

“No one knows how these things work, some say it is magic… but there’s really no way to prove it because very few people can use magic.” She sighs but shrugs her shoulders, “You have to do a single quest before you can get one from the guild for no charge, or otherwise, it is a fee of twenty Silvers.”

“I’m sorry again for not being knowledgeable. I don’t know how much that is worth.”

“Ah, you can get a half decent meal for about two Silvers. You can sleep for a night in the local inns for about ten Silvers. That would be their cheapest rooms, but you probably aren’t looking for perfection, being new to this.”

“Thank you for teaching me all this.”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind teaching you folk like you some new things every now and then.” She smiles and then opens one more door, “Here is where I need help. This is a newer room that we have used. I need to sort all of the books that are on carts and put them on to the shelves in some semblance of an order.”

“Oh…” I stay quiet as I walk in to the room. Books are everywhere, piled almost to the ceiling.

“Now then, please sort books alphabetically and by genre. Good luck, I will provide food for you while you are working on this, but please do try and be quick. I plan on opening this room tomorrow.” She smiles as she leans through the almost closed door. “Good luck, I will see you tomorrow!”

“Uh… bye?” I say quietly as I am left alone in a room with a bunch of books.

I think I need to complain to the devs after this. This is brutality. Human torture! Oh well! We all have to start somewhere! Let’s organize me some library!

---Many hours later---

“I… I think I’m done…” My face was pale and my fingers were covered in cuts from cheap paper.

“Oh? I wasn’t expecting you to actually finish before we closed up for the night. I thought I was going to have to kick you out. I would have paid for your lodgings, its least I could have done. Oh well. Good work young lad. As promised, your reward.” The elderly lady holds out her hand and drops a card in to my hand. “This is a library card, but not a normal one!” She strikes a pose unbefitting of a woman her age, “This card will give you access to all of the rooms in the library, including the ones marked, ‘No Entry’.”

“Thank you.” I nod my head in appreciation. I guess I’ve done harder things when I worked in the real world. I just had to carefully read all of the titles and the summary of each novel… I want to die.

“Also, when you talk to the girlie back at the guild you need to remember to ask for your reward. I gave it to the guild because you don’t have your Assistant yet.” The elderly lady smiles. “Oh, and you should come back to visit Angelica every now and then.”

“Thank you so much. Also, why would I do that?” I tilt my head curious.

“You may not have noticed young lad, but she has a very favorable impression of you.”

“All I did was exchange pleasantries with her. I also talked to her one more time about how the books kept hurting me. By the way, I swear all of those books are cursed.” I look down at my nearly mutilated hands.

“Yes, but you treated her like a normal person. Due to her beauty, most people either woo her or insult her for being so beautiful.”

“I don’t care about looks. I mean no offense to either party here, but I am not interested in a relationship at this current time. Now then, thank you for feeding me and giving me a task. I may return when I have some free time.” I bow towards to elderly woman.

“I see. Angelica, you should come out and say bye to the lad. He probably won’t be back for a while, maybe even at all.” The elderly lady looks behind the front desk and I soon see Angelica emerge from underneath.

“I’m so-” I interrupt Angelica as she starts to speak.

“I don’t mean to be rude, interrupting and all that, but I will come back soon. I don’t know anything about this place. The extent of what I know was just told to me by your grandmother and I am eternally grateful. I will be back later. I promise.” I smile as I look towards the young Angelica, who was maybe fifteen years old.

She smiles and nods, running behind her grandmother. I bow my head and attempt to make my leave once again.

“Thank you Ms. Brianne. I am grateful for all that you have done for me. I won’t be back tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but I will be back soon so I can learn more.”

“No, thank you, young lad.” Brianne bows her head slightly as she watches me leave, I catch one last thing before I completely leave. “Ah, youth.” Crazy old lady.

I slowly make my way back towards the guild. The sky was starting to turn red from the setting sun. The once crowded streets now just had the occasional person wandering around. Most people must have either given up, or finally found something to do.

I make my way back in to the guild and see that the line to receive quests is now really long, almost going out the door. I walk to the near empty line that was for people who had finished quests.

“Hello again young traveler, how may I help you?” It was the same girl from earlier.

“Did you get moved from the giving quests to finishing them? Anyways, here’s the paper.” I pass the stamped paper to the girl in front of me.

“Congratulations on becoming an adventurer!” She smiles happily as she put the paper in to a filing cabinet under her desk. “Now then, here you go, your first Assistant! Upgrades are available for when you start completing harder and harder quests.” She passes me a black wristband that looks way too big to fit on my wrist.

I put in on my left wrist because that was more comfortable for me. It shrinks down and fits snuggly to my wrist. Weird technology is weird! Strangely enough, I don’t even feel it on my wrist.

“Thank you for registering with the guild! The wristband is now bound to you and no one else is able to use it, not that it comes off.” She gives me a slightly evil smile. “Now then, if you want to see how much money you made as well as starting to check how much information is shown. Mandatory fields include; Name, Height, Age, and Race. Everything else can be hidden from others. It works by way of binding and will only show all information to trusted people specified, and yourself.”

“Okay… thank you. I will see you around. I hope I can get a better task than whatever you gave me.” I smile as I leave the guild and look at the wristband, my Assistant.

On the screen with everything aligned nicely to the left I was show options:

Status

Settings

Only two options? I tap on ‘Settings’ and I get another set of options:

Brightness

Privacy Settings

Help

I then tap on ‘Privacy Settings’:

Hide status

I feel like I’m navigation a new phone, trying to set everything up. Oh well. I hide everything using the hide everything button that was in the top right of the screen.

I then go back and tap on the ‘Status’ button on the main screen:

Name: Phillip Tethers

Age: 20

Race: Human

Height: 6 feet (183 cm)

Current Occupation: Traveler

Level: 1

Guild level: 0

Oh? One hundred percent realism and I get a level? That’s not right. I demand a refund! Not really though. I think having a level is nice. It makes it so when I see someone else I can know if I am their match, but most likely not. I haven’t even fought anything but I know I’d get killed instantly if I left the city unprepared. Now how do I log out?

[Logging out is completed by thinking of logging out and confirming with me.]

So it can read my thoughts. Ireina, do you not value a man’s privacy?

[Privacy is irrelevant. You agreed to be monitored when you stated playing this game. That includes thoughts and latent desires.]

Creepy. Oh well. I wish to log out.

[Request confirmed. Due to being in a safe zone, you will be immediately removed, however, this may change depending on various variables within the world, such as special events. If you wish to log out in an area that is not designated as a ‘Safe Zone’, you will be forced to wait in a single place for thirty minutes. Recommended usage time: sleeping after setting up a camp in a relatively safe area.]

I see. I will keep that in mind. Thank you Ireina.

[No problem, Phillip] My vision starts to go black as I feel my physical body start to move. [I like you Phillip, I’ll be keeping a close eye on you.]

I safely step out of the pod making sure I am no longer being monitored. That AI is creepy. I have a feeling it is getting attached to me. Let me see if anyone else on the forum is feeling the same way. I stretch my body and grab my phone.

‘Monstrous failure across the board.’

‘How do I even begin to explain my fury!?’

‘How to not make a game 101’

‘Is this truly a fantasy game?’

‘Anyone figure out how to… well, not suck?’

All I see on the forums recent posts is a bunch of people complaining. Was the game really that bad?

I guess it’s true that the beginning of the game is odd. Why is there no tutorial? Why is there no help? Why this, why that, why not? I don’t seem to understand myself. I make my way up to the table outside the kitchen and see Cecilia sitting at the table with a complex expression.

“Yo, what’s up Cecilia?” I sit down across the table from her.

“I was just wondering what was happening. There’s no tutorial and people like myself, we only had issues in the game. I chose to start on a coastline and was mauled by the other players right from the start. No one knew what was going on. Then the city flooded and we had to wait outside the city for a couple hours while the water cleared out. When we went back in to the city, everything was good and normal, except all the players. We were outcast with the village people calling us a curse from the heavens, not letting us set a single foot in the city.” Her head slams on the table. “The players formed an impromptu group so that we could travel inland. The leader was a typical blond ‘Justice is power’ kind of guy… blah, blah, blah, we were all taken as prisoners within the next city cause mister ‘justice is power’ fought a guard and got us all thrown in to prison. A total of five hundred players, including myself are now slaves.”

“I think you should just create a new character.” I get up and grab a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water.

“You think we didn’t want to? The AI told us that creating a new character before your first death is impossible.”

“You have to die… to create a new character?”

“Yep. No one wants to experience the pain of death. Also, if you try to kill yourself, the prison has healers to make you all better. Revolting isn’t any good either. The guards are all trained to beat you within an inch of your life, and then get a healer to come and help you.”

“Magic healing, or medicine?”

“Magic, it’s definitely magic! There was no casting mantras or fancy words, there was just a man holding his hand out and then healing!”

“Well… I was a librarian for half a day. I have endless respect for librarians now, that shit is annoying.” I sigh as I drink more water, “Also, the librarian tried to set me up with her fifteen year old granddaughter.”

“Ha! You’re a pedophile now!” She points and laughs at me.

“No! I denied her and left! I completed my first quest and I got something called an ‘Assistant’. You heard of it?”

“Actually yeah. It’s why Mr. ‘justice is power’ got in trouble. He didn’t know what this ‘Assistant’ was and tried to attack the guard because he got angry.”

“Well, it is how you show your identity and that you aren’t a criminal. Everyone without one is penniless and could cause trouble, so they give them out after a proving quest at a guild. It proves that you are willing to get a proper identification meaning you aren’t a criminal, and if you are, the Assistant will show that.”

“I see. You make any money yet… or rather, even figure out how money works?” Cecilia gets up from the table and grabs a small bottle of chocolate milk from the fridge.

“Yes. It’s all stored on the Assistant. If you collect any coins, you have to take them to the guild to exchange them for virtual currency, because nobody will accept physical currency due to potential forgery.”

“Makes sense… but this fantasy world is messed up.” Cecilia sighs as she drinks her chocolate milk.

“No, it’s just a weird game. I don’t know if I will call it fantasy. Not until I see a player use magic that is.”

“Fair enough.” Cecilia shrugs her shoulders and sits down on the couch.

“I don’t know, I think I’m gonna go to sleep now. Feels like I just went through a long day at work.” I stand up and sigh.

“But it’s your turn to make dinner.” Cecilia looks at me with a frown.

“Oh yeah, eating is a thing we need to do. Okay, that first, then sleep.” I walk in to the kitchen and look in the fridge while thinking in my head. I’ll just look in to the AI thing tomorrow, it probably isn’t too important.