Chapter 4

  We managed to get back onto the proper road before the sun fully set. The road did have some lantern posts every fifty or so feet, probably so that in a snow storm travelers could see which direction the path was going in. Lyla inspected one and her theory is that there was some enchantment on them that let them burn for a long time, as it would be pretty crazy having to relight them every night.

  It was officially night by the time we reached the gates of Brackenhold. Lyla was pretty much in awe of the city, which is probably how I looked when I first saw it too. I showed the guard my token, and they asked Lyla the same thing they asked me. After a small conversation, Lyla was granted entry and given a token like mine.

  I explained to her what I learned of the city as we walked towards the Snow Tide inn, the darkness of night illuminated by this pocket of civilization. The clouds hadn’t really cleared up at all, but you could see a faint glow behind them from what I assumed to be a moon.

  Lyla would make comments sometimes about how cozy it felt and would stop to look inside the windows of shops that were still open, which slowed us down a bit but I didn’t mind. It was nice to see someone so happy and exploring something new.

  After a little while of meandering through the city we finally made it to the inn. The lights were on and Evelyn was now walking about the main hall, wiping tables and cleaning up as the day wound down. She smiled and said hello once she saw us, and went to put the dirty dishes she had collected away before she came to speak with us.

  She returned shortly after and spoke, “So Arty, did you manage alright helping Kyle? And who’s your new friend?”

  I answered the second question first, “This is Lyla, I met her while I was gathering herbs and things for Kyle. Lyla, this is the owner of the inn, Evelyn,” gesturing to each of them, “Lyla had a bit of trouble with some. . . what were they called again?”

  “Proteli, I think,” Lyla chimed in at this point, moving her cloak to show Evelyn the tears and stains of blood on it. “They did a real number on me, at least until Arty came to help,”

  Seeing the ripped clothes Evelyn made a light gasp, “Oh no, that must have been awfully scary. How about this, if you want to stay here tonight I have some extra clothes you can use, and by tomorrow morning I can have those cleaned and patched up for you. Sound good?”

  “That would be great! Thanks.” Lyla responded. They both began talking about the prices for stay, similar to my first conversation with Evelyn. Lyla ended up deciding to pay for a week-long stay, same as me. Evelyn wouldn’t accept payment for cleaning and fixing Lyla’s cloak and other armor, which was pretty nice of her. After getting everything sorted, Lyla went off to her room after saying good night. Evelyn then approached me as I was about to head out to the apothecary to complete my quest.

  “Arty, where did you find Lyla when she was being attacked by the proteli?” I had to think for a minute and retrace my steps, but I was able to give her a general area of where I remembered it being. It wasn’t very far off the trail, but it was still about two hours away from the city. She looked a bit concerned at that information.

  “Proteli are not supposed to be that close to the city, they usually stick to the open snow plains in the valleys, and sometimes will come up into the forests, but even still that would be an eight to ten hour trip away from the city,” she said, seemingly worried, “While they do get a bit bolder in packs, it’s pretty rare for them to attack people. They tend to scavenge for food, and occasionally hunt their own, but it’s usually smaller or similar sized creatures.”

  “So what does it mean? You think there’s something causing them to behave like this?”

  She thinks for a moment, “I’m not sure. Whatever the case, it’s not normal. It would be dangerous for you to go that far from the city again on your own. I’ll talk to a friend in the garrison in the morning, see if she has any ideas.”

  — — — —

  Afterwards, I went out to go see Kyle at the apothecary. The temperature definitely dropped by this point, and a gentle breeze made it more apparent. I arrived pretty quickly to the establishment, knowing my way this time as well as there being less people on the streets.

  Stepping inside I found Kyle laid back in a chair with a damp cloth on his face. He must have heard me come in as he sat up pretty fast, the cloth falling down and his eyes squinting in the light like he had been sleeping.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” I say, beginning to put the filled bags of herbs on the counter, “I just came by to drop off the things you requested.”

  “Oh, yes, great! These’ll help me a great deal. Thanks,” he responds, as he gets up and begins to inspect the herbs. After going through them for a few minutes, he looks up, “A job well done. Here’s the promised reward!”

  He handed over a small pouch, and I was going to count it but I got a little pop up on the right of my vision saying “+2s 40c” which would make sense as I had twelve full sacks, so twenty copper per sack would add up to two silver and forty copper. I got another pop up as well, although this one was larger.

  ?Quest Complete: Collect plants for Kyle?

  ?You gained 81 experience points?

  ?Herbology has increased to level 2?

  I was happy to see the increase in Herbology, which confirmed that you could gain skill experience by completing quests related to the skill. I pushed the notifications aside for now, and continued speaking to Kyle.

  “Thanks. Say, while I was about two hours out from the city, I ran into a girl being attacked by a pack of proteli, I think they were called. We managed to fend them off, but we spoke with Evelyn and she said it wasn’t normal for them to be so close to the city. Do you know anything about that?”

  Kyle looked a bit surprised, or as surprised as he could be with his illness. I couldn’t really tell if the words I just said shocked him or if he was about to sneeze. After a moment, he said “Evelyn’s right, they shouldn’t be so close. I probably wouldn’t have sent you out like that if I knew they were out there. Sorry ya had to handle those beasts.”

  “Do you have any idea why they would be so close?” I asked. My theory was a bigger and badder creature that shouldn’t be in their area was pushing them out, but there was no way to confirm that currently.

  “Could be any number of things,” Kyle replied, “it might just be that one pack and you and the lady got mighty unlucky. It’s been known to happen, a creature gets a scent and gets away from where they should be. I wouldn’t worry ‘bout it too much, just be careful if you go out that far again.”

  I thanked him again for the coin and headed out. As I was walking down the streets to go back to the Snow Tide inn, I checked my herbology skill, hoping for some more info.

  ?Herbology Level 2?

  ?A person who has picked some plants?

  I sighed, unsure of what I really thought would show up. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think these descriptions will ever provide any useful information. They seem like they are just flavor text at this point. With that out of the way, I continued on to the inn.

  — — — —

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  After getting situated in my room at the inn, I decided it would be a good time to log off for the day and get some sleep. I joined the game at around nine in the morning, and I had to think that it would be around eight or nine at night, maybe even later, by this point.

  The room itself was nothing too fancy, just a simple straw bed with some covers, a stand next to it and a chest at the foot. I did have a window overlooking the street below, since this was on the second floor. I laid down on the bed, and used the menu to log out.

  As I sat up in the real world, I felt pretty good. Not like I had just been lying down for twelve or more hours. I looked out the window, and I was incredibly surprised at what I saw. It was still cloudy, but it was brighter than when I put the headset on. Which didn’t really make sense, since I had been in the game for at least twelve hours. I knew that.

  I checked my phone for the time, and although I had many more notifications than I was used to, I was able to see it. It was a little after one in the afternoon. It was still the middle of the day. I had been playing the game for twelve hours, but in the real world only four hours had passed. I sat for a minute just thinking about how that could be possible.

  After digesting that for a bit, I went to my computer and found the website for the game. They finally opened the forums for it, and it appears to be flooded with people experiencing the same thing I did. There was a little counter up in the top right of the page, which said that there were currently about six thousand people browsing the forums and about forty thousand people still logged into the game. There was another number, which was a bit grayed out that was abbreviated to “3.6m” off to the side.

  There were posts comparing starting locations, combinations of weapons and armor, the usual stuff when a new game comes out and every one is experiencing it for the first time. I checked the info post on the forum, and it said that while people who were not let into the game could view the forums, only the people that could play the game were able to post. It seems like that grayed out number was the amount of people who couldn’t play but were still looking at the forums.

  Thinking about the time dilation while I browsed, I didn’t really feel like twelve hours had passed. Obviously I experienced them in my mind, but it doesn’t seem that they affected me physically. If they did, I think I would be really hungry by now, but I feel pretty good. A three times difference in time means that every eight hours in the real world, a full day passes in Aevum.

  Refocusing on the forums, a lot of the posts were things I had already figured out on my own. It didn’t appear like anyone had gotten much further than I had in terms of levels or quests, some even were complaining that they couldn’t get a quest. As I continued searching for a bit though, a post caught my eye.

  ?i know what happens when you die

  Clicking on the post, I was greeted by a wall of text. It was a bit rambly, but I was able to get the gist. Basically, after getting to level two, this person tried to keep looking for more monsters to fight. Eventually they found what looked like a giant bird, easily twenty feet tall they said, and after barely scratching it the bird pierced them with its beak, causing their HP to go to zero.

  After hitting zero, their vision faded to black. They said they could hear sounds, maybe voices, but they couldn’t make out any words. After what only felt like a few minutes, they woke up in their starting town's cathedral. Right on the altar in the main hall. The priests there were apparently quite shocked when a person materialized out of nowhere, but then they began to speak of a prophecy or something. The person didn’t stay long enough to figure that out.

  After escaping that situation, they checked their level. It seems like they lost about ten percent of their total experience upon reviving. That will probably need more data though, since it could be proportional to your level or something. The person also looked at their stats, and all seemed normal there, except a little icon off to the side. The person pressed the icon to see what it was. This is the only part of the forum post that seemed to be verbatim.

  ?Stigma Mora?

  ?You have died, yet you live again. Your existence defies the laws of this world, and will therefore be punished. For 7 days, you will be unable to level up. If you die again during this time, your punishment will worsen.?

  That’s pretty intense. I knew there had to be some set back when you die, but not being able to level up for a week basically means you are guaranteed to fall behind the other players. Hopefully it just means a week in Aevum, not a week in the real world. I also wonder what it means that it will worsen if you die again during the timeframe, but I shouldn’t worry about that too much right now.

  I continued to browse the forum for a bit while I ate some snacks. It was mostly the same stuff though, and outside of a few things there wasn’t much to learn yet. After about thirty minutes had passed since I exited Aevum, I put on the gear once again and went back in.

  — — — —

  Reentering the world, I got up from the shabby bed in my room and reacquainted myself with the feeling of being in the game. The air definitely felt heavier, which I would think is from the mana but I can’t confirm that. The first time I entered into this world I was just taking everything in. This time, I had a goal.

  I shouldn’t need to sleep since I’ll be doing that in the real world, and although it’s night and nothing’s open, I should use this time to figure some stuff out. The first order of business for me is to improve my one handed swordsmanship skill. I plan on being pretty combat focused while I play so improving that skill will help me a lot.

  After leaving the tavern, I headed out of the city. I got some looks from the guards but they didn’t stop me. I only wanted to get out into the forest a little bit so I could practice without bothering anyone. After walking for a bit, I found a nice open spot in the trees where I could still see the path and the walls of the city.

  I had never taken any sort of martial arts training in the real world, and certainly not any sword training. Most of what I had been doing while fighting the creatures I already have were just frantically trying things, luck, and thinking it through. That won’t work forever, and while it would be better to find someone to teach me properly, it can’t hurt to practice some basic swings.

  I started with a vertical overhead slice, alternating between one handed and two handed every few minutes. I had to think that even if I focused on one handed, I probably would need to know how to use a sword with two hands as well, so better to start now. I continued on for about an hour and a half, until I got a notification.

  ?One Handed Swordsmanship has increased to level 2?

  I sat down to take a break after seeing the notification. While it definitely felt like I was capable of doing more physical stuff than in the real world, it still tires you out all the same. I would think that eventually outside of training, increasing my CON stat will help me increase my stamina. While I rested I checked the skill description, although my hopes were not high.

  ?One Handed Swordsmanship Level 2?

  ?A person who has swung a sword?

  It’s still disappointing, even though I was expecting it. A few more minutes passed as I looked up, pockets of the night sky opened up as clouds parted, and closed again just as quickly. I eventually got back up, and began swinging in a simple diagonal motion. There was still probably seven hours or so till the sun rose, and I wanted to make more progress.

  — — — —

  I trained a bit longer than I anticipated. I guess you can get lost in the motions and lose track of time. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it felt as though an hour or two had passed since the sun had come up. But I felt like I was in a groove, and wanted to keep practicing until I felt like I had made enough progress. Finally, a notification came through.

  ?One Handed Swordsmanship has increased to level 3?

  It feels like the difference in effort for level two and level three was super high, but I think it makes sense. I probably gain skill experience faster for this skill when fighting monsters or just actually in battle. Practicing on my own, most likely inefficiently, probably doesn’t grant much experience. Not to mention I had fought those hyena things and my skill didn’t level up, so I was probably already a good distance to level two by that point.

  In any case, I now had a skill at level three. I checked again to see if the description gave away anything.

  ?One Handed Swordsmanship Level 3?

  ?A person who has trained with swords?

  Not exactly, but it does feel a bit specific. I’ll have to look on the forums later, to see if anyone else has the skills that I have, and if they have the same descriptions.

  Now that it was early morning though, I went back to the inn first to get something to eat. Evelynn wasn’t there and I didn’t see Lyla, so I ate without making much conversation with anyone. As I ate, I thought about what to do next. I did want to find someone to teach me swordsmanship, but at the same time getting more levels and increasing my stats could make up for my lack of technical skill.

  I ended up deciding to look around for a bit and see if there even was anybody that could teach me. I asked a few tavern keepers and other people that looked like they might know the goings on of the city, but none of them had any ideas. One did give me another quest though. Apparently there is a small village further up the mountain, about a day's walk from Brackenhold and he asked me to deliver a small package to his brother there.

  The trip seemed easy enough, and it was all on a proper road so I figured why not. He gave me a silver piece for the journey, so it seemed like a good enough gig. After getting some more supplies I headed out for the village of Larkinge.

  ?New Quest: Delivery Dues?