Ray and Bob were seated on stumps, drinking out of porcelain cups on a stump table while a little girl smiles at the both of them opposite from them. An interesting...experience, they both thought to themselves.

The tea was pretty good, it did taste like apples though and the inside of the house was a rustic...wooden interior. In case you didn't realize by now, we're inside the tree which is honestly quite spacious and looks very comfortable though a bit too large for one little girl...

"...Dude say something."

"What am I supposed to say?"

The two began whispering and moved their conversation to below the table.

"Why is there a child living in this giant tree..."

"...in the middle of nowhere..."

"Think it's a quest?"

"Maybe...or maybe the apples are a newbie trap and she's a horrible kille-"

"Hey! What're you two talking about!?"

The curious little girl had snuck under the table and was stealthily listening to their conversation.

Ray and Bob simultaneously gave a yelp and bumped their heads into the table.

"Ahh..."

"Ooooh...."

"Hehe, you're funny!"

The two groaned as they gripped their heads in pain, wood seriously hurts, while girlish laughter filled the room.

Minor head damage: -5hp.

Are you serious? A little blue notification appeared to inform Ray that he had taken some damage from his table incident...

...

Bob, after recovering, decided to open up a new line of conversation.

"So...Maya was it? Do you live here alone? Any family?"

"Mhm, Maya stays here alone. Maya takes care of the garden evvvvveryday!"

Garden? This place?! It's a forest and one little girl takes care of it? So many questions to ask...but more importantly, how do we get out of here? Time to chime in.

"So Ma-"

"Ah! Maya forgot to water the plants! Maya is sorry, Maya needs to go."

...Did she just avoid me? Bob was snickering as he saw the look on my face, confirming the fact that I just got avoided. Nghh, I'll hurt him later.

"Wait! Maya, I need to ask you how do we leave?!"

"Eh? Maya doesn't know but maybe Elise knows?"

"Then where is this Elise person?"

"Mmm...Maya's not sure, sister Elise brings tasty snacks for Maya every week...but Maya doesn't know where she is..."

Every week eh...so we're stuck here while other players can get a headstart on us...ugh, joining a popular game late sucks because the higher levels would have made friends with each other and it's harder to join any of their parties even if I did reach their level...

"Um...can Maya go now? Mister is scaring Maya..."

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, it's ok." ...I'm scary?

"Tsk, tsk. Bullying kids, I thought better of you than this Ray."

"I mean...we needed to know...I didn't mean to be scary."

"Chill out dude, it's a game remember? And I know you well enough, you're just mildly scary, hehe."

"Ngh..."

...

Bob decided to look around Maya's home, the tree is remarkably large and apparently had stairs that led upwards. He wanted to see what was at the top, as for me, I just decided to go look for Maya, I was curious as to what she was up to. It sounded easy but my god, her 'garden' was huge.

"Where the hell is she...if only there was a map I could use..."

Skill acquired: Memory's Map Lvl 1 (Areas that you have explored will be added to a map that you can view at anytime. The level will determine what is recorded in your map, exploration will increase your skill level.)

"Oh...a map...is there some god listening to my words and just conveniently giving me what I want...? Well, I'm not going to complain about it, map open!"

A small panel appeared in the corner of Ray's eyes, showing him the areas that he has already explored, the two most noticeable spots are Maya's house and the stream which are a significant distance from each other.

The map also had the name of the location, Maya's 'Garden', written at the top of it, even the map agreed that Garden was a bit of a weak term...It however, did not show any sign of where the little girl had gone to.

"This is pretty cool, especially the part where I can level this up. Although, it doesn't exactly help me right no-."

BOOM! An explosion some distance away from Ray caught his attention, a dust cloud appearing where the explosion had occurred.

"...I guess that's where I should start looking then..."