(Quick note, will be in Pride/Jacob’s POV from now until the other characters pop in)

I’m not sure what I expected when I first entered the game. I’m not sure if I was expecting a typical castle town, surrounded by high walls, or a peaceful village with friendly citizens for the new players to be with. But what I can say however, that the sight in front of me, was not what I was expecting.

All around me there was light shining down as new players joined, creating a shimmering atmosphere around all of us. The place where we arrived was a stone plaza, shaped in a circle with an angle in the middle of a fountain, reaching towards the heavens with it’s hands, and a sword standing proudly beside it. What truly amazed me though, was where the angel was reaching towards. You see, in the sky, being highlighted by one of the three setting suns, was a castle floating in the air. It’s white walls, no doubt bleached by the suns rays over time, were shimmering in the distance.

Emerging from the castle were shapes, slowly growing larger and larger towards our group, until finally they were recognized as gryphons with riders on the back of them. Eventually the gryphons arrived, slowly circling above us, as all the new players were captivated by the magnificent sight before us. Finally, they landed in a circle around our group, and a man dressed in a white robe with faint gold embroidery stepped off of his gryphon and immediately, all the villagers around us dropped down onto bended knees, an action most of us then emulated.

“Greetings, children of the gods, my name is King Rex, and I welcome you to the city of Desri.” His words rang clear like crystal, and the faces of those around me were of those awed by the magnificence before them.

“Hello King Rex, although I am but one of us children, I do believe that I speak for all of us when I say thankyou, for the warm reception in which you have graced us with.” The words flowed out of my mouth almost subconsciously as all those years of reading fantasy novels finally kicked in.

“You are very welcome. Now, to proceed upon a more formal subject, I wish to inform all of you of the basic rules of my lands. I realise that your realm beyond is vast, with varying laws and punishments within it, so I would like to make clear how our world is run.” The king said this, while a man dressed in plate armour, approached him, holding a scroll in which I could only assume held the aforementioned laws.

“First, there will be no theft, murder, rape, or unnecessary violence while within the city boundaries. Second...:” The kings voice drolled on as he explained the rules of this land to us, but to spare you the speech, I will instead summarise the key points.

First off, many of the rules regarding violence or sexual conduct were maintained over here. Although sex was allowed in the game, due to legal concerns the developers had made it clear in previous interviews that it would be restricted to players above eighteen, who had no status effects on them.

Second, Dueling or other forms of sanctioned battles were to be performed within the walls of the arena, no doubt to prevent damage to the properties of the citizens.

Now Lastly, the most surprising thing was that slavery, was allowed. Of course it had rather strict rules governing it, but the fact that people could own other people created a stir within the group. Some of the group was calmed down upon learning that we as children of god, couldn’t be made into slaves, but it still was an unsettling thought to most. To me though, I wasn’t really surprised. Slaves could be made of enemies defeated in battle, or captured from other slave owners. Slaves could also be made if a citizen committed an atrocious crime, as they would then be awarded to the victim or their family.

After outlining all the rules of this world, the king mounted his gryphon and with a swift farewell, returned to his castle in the sky.

Slowly we all came to our senses and started to explore the city around us. Around the square there were some stores as well as a cathedral. I saw players starting to enter, most likely to search for jobs or skills related to the holy order. Others, myself included, started to head off onto the roads surrounding the square.

While wandering the streets I opened my inventory and was greeted by the sight of a wooden stick, 10 pieces of bread, 2 canteens of water, and a card.

Status CardType:SoulboundDurability:UnbreakableQuality:UniqueA card outlining a character's stats, level, name, and other information. May not be traded, destroyed or stolen.

‘Huh, I guess that instead of having a window to show our stats to us, we have a card that we can display to others instead’

Status WindowName:PrideAlignment:NeutralLevel:1Jobs:NoneRace:HumanGender:MaleTitlesNoneFame:0Infamy:0-Health:100 / 100Health Regen:0.5 / SecMana:50 / 50Mana Regen:0.5 / Sec-Strength:10Agility:10Vitality:10Intelligence:10Wisdom:5Leadership:1Luck:10-Attack:1Defense:10

‘Hmm, it seems that the basic stats are pretty normal in comparison to any other RPG, but what is this about a job, and where is the class slot? Do they mean the same thing perhaps?’

I wonder what the other’s stats are. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I realized I had almost forgotten to add them as friends. Saying ‘Friends List’ was enough to pop open a window for myself in which I then tried to add the others to the list, only to be greeted with a message saying I must be within 200 metres of the target to add as a friend.

‘Well that’s a bit of a pain.’

Although its a pain in the butt, at least that confirms my thought that none of the others chose to start here.

Oh well, atleast from all this walking I finally reached the edge of the city.

“The entire fucking city’s floating!?!” Unable to contain My thoughts, I burst out my finding to the surrounding crowd that had noticed the same.

When you look out from the main gates, you would see a field slowly stretching towards the edge, before a sudden drop, almost as if the city had been ripped from the earth and set into the air like a balloon. Off to the right from the gate, a river flowed off the island, and out of sight from my eyes.

‘I wonder what happens to the water, and why has the city not run out of water anyways?’ While pondering such things I started to turn back to try and explore within the city for a little while longer. Never know, maybe I could come across a typical training center, or stumble across a quest.

After wandering aimlessly for an hour though, the only building I found of interest to me was the library. Of course I also found buildings for the various guilds and professions that were available in the city, but seeing how full they were with other plays, I decided to wait for calmer tides.

Around me I saw other players who seemingly had the same idea, as they wandered the aisles looking at books of lore or magic, perhaps in search of a skill or quest. I myself, am currently reading a book titled ‘The Principles of Magic’. The book so far, had outlined what magic was, and surprisingly enough, told the principles behind it.

Magic worked in multiple ways, with multiple results. With summoning magic, the caster would form a pact with the summoned, and then create a specific formula to summon the summons with. That formula could take three forms, a verbal chant, a set of runes, or an item which contained the stored summons.

Chanting would need to be memorised, practiced and could be at times rather lengthy and cost a lot of mana, however it required no outside materials or skills.

Runes required a basic knowledge of runes, as well as the rune itself to be created. Runes could be put onto parchment, or carved into a materiel to act in a way similar to the item form, but to fully use runes one would use mana into the air to create the set of runes with just their mana. This however required a lot of practice, and the tinies of mistakes could ruin the entire summon.

Items were the best in terms of time and mana, but were hard to come by and could not be created under normal circumstances.

That was just an example into one branch of magic, contained in the game and in the book were the principles of hundreds of forms of magic, such as elemental control, body strengthening, teleportation, telekinesis, mind magic, and hundreds of others. After reading the book though, one piece of information lodged itself rather firmly in my head.

That information was that almost all the magics had one common way to be used. Runes.

Runes, for those that don’t know, are symbols formed using in most cases a ‘magic language’, that then forms the spell by taking in mana from either the user, or the world around it. In Fractal Worlds though, runes could come in various languages, shapes, and some would even require special materials. Even with these restrictions though, it was one common idea that linked everything together.

Just like that, through a boring book in the library, I found my calling in Fractal Worlds.

Pride, Rune Master.

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Hello once more! A bit of a longer chapter here to compensate for the fact that the previous two weren’t in game yet, so I hope you enjoy it. Big thanks to Sieghard for his guide on making tables! I tried a different writing style then what I was used to, but I think it turned out okay, let me know what you guys think though. Also, I’m curious to know how much detail you want me to give on the cities and areas in chapter. I have an idea of going between chapters and posting little side bits that would outline the city layout, design, basis etc. as well as show some images I used for concepts. But I’m curious as to what you guys think. Anyways, thanks for reading! :D