Alex slowed once more as he arrived in front of the box, having trouble reconciling the castle with… this. People milled about walking in, out, and around the ugly thing, not a one seeming to have issue with its placement in the otherwise beautiful district. Picking his metaphorical jaw up off the ground, Alex shook his head at the sight.
The entire tutorial existed on a weird line between manufactured and realistic that made it difficult for him to know what to expect. He supposed the purpose of such a disconnect might be exactly that, to keep him off balance and unprepared. Recognizing that any further gawking would just be delaying, and not wanting to make Janet suspicious wherever she was, Alex walked inside. His opinion of the place only shrinking further as he did so.
To enter people were given three options, a normal door, a set of automatic doors, and finally, a set of ever spinning revolving doors. Who needed three choices, Alex would never know, but thoughts of how to access the building fled his mind as he got his first look at the interior. Fluorescent lights burned from within a drop ceiling, their harsh white light, passing though sheets of fiber glass to reflect off-white vinyl tiled floors. Dusty white walls completed the trifecta of dystopian ugly, and Alex was almost glad when filthy burgundy rugs broke the pattern. It was his high school cafeteria all over again.
Walking up to the only structure in this part of the building, a round information hub everyone else seemed to avoid like the plague, Alex made to ask the older man monitoring it a question.
“Excuse me, I was-” He didn’t get halfway though his sentence before the man began tapping loudly on a plastic sign.
It read, ‘Take a number for your section, and go grab a seat.’
“Sure,” Alex said, his voice the calm one he used with all customer service representatives. “I’m just new to-” The man began tapping the sign once more, not bothering to even look up.
Blinking a few times, readying to explain to the asshole he wasn’t sure what exactly what he needed, Alex took a breath and went to go look at the sections on display. This part of the lobby was still barren of people so he took his time reading each offered option. They rounded the desk in alphabetical order, each labeled by a laminated name card glued to the desk. The number holders were similar to the raffle ticket wheels he’d seen at town fairs, one ticket sticking out of each while hundreds remained spooled inside. Starting from the beginning, Alex skimmed over the choices until he reached the section starting with “I”.
He’d come looking for an ID card and, though officially applying for city identification had the possibility of creating issues, he hoped the pros would outweigh the cons. That was already proving to be a stupid hope. The first option was “Identification Confirmation,” it obviously wasn’t what he was looking for, but the second option, “Identification Distribution,” seemed perfect. Alex made to grab a ticket for the section, his eyes flicking over to the next choice as he did so, “Identification Enrollment,” that made him pause.
Reading the next option on a hunch, he saw, “Identification Formation,” then “Identification Issues.” Deciding not to take any chances, Alex read over all ten of the “Identification” options. Even with only the names to work off of, and the attendant’s response just more aggravated tapping on the sign, Alex narrowed it down to two final choices. The more broad topics like “Issues” and “Services” tripped him up for a moment, but figuring narrower was better, he discarded them as viable.
It was between Enrollment or Formation, though after another few minutes of thought he settled on the former. His reason being that formation could mean just the creation of a physical ID, while enrollment was more likely to be the process of signing himself up in the first place. Alex hoped if he chose wrong, he wouldn’t be forced to grab another ticket as soon as he finished this first one, though he knew he likely would. Ancillary stat or no, he had a pattern of shit luck.
‘This will solve the money problem,’ he reminded himself in an attempt to reinforce his resolve. A moment passing before he mentally added, ‘hopefully,’ to that statement.
Grabbing a ticket for the “Identification Enrollment” option, Alex read his number, forty. The path to the room was printed on the back, and a couple flight of stairs later he was at the correct door. Seeing no one else had bothered to grab a number, Alex hoped his wait would be quick. He was promptly disabused of that notion, the room he walked into buzzing with activity.
There were people moving about, three other ticket dispensers sitting prominently on a table close to the door. Numbers rang out over the intercom, one’s as low as five being shouted over others’ as high as three-hundred. Seeing an empty seat near a section of unoccupied worker booths, Alex revised his earlier estimation. Rather than a school cafeteria, this place reminded him of an even worse hell, the DMV. Sitting with a sense of resigned hopelessness, Alex waited.
In the beginning, he tried his best to pay attention as the numbers ran out over an intercom system. There was no pattern he could parse, and after twenty minutes, as the numbers stopped sounding like real words to his ears, Alex mentally checked out of the monotony; hoping his subconscious would pick up when it was his turn.
Instead, he fiddled with skills, reading over their descriptions and wondering what classes they could form. Tried to figure out his plans for the rest of the day, then week, then month, knowing he had nowhere near enough information to do so. Alex let his mind wander beyond the tutorial. He thought of his parents and sister, what his friends were up too, what tutorial everyone had picked. He sincerely hoped none had gotten screwed over like him, but doubted all had picked the easiest one. Finally, as he started to doubt the possibility of being called at all, he felt the little piece of paper vibrate and heard his number.
“Number forty to I-13, forty to I-13.” The voice was slow and grating, dragging out each word in a tone that said they wanted to be anywhere but here.
Snapping to attention, Alex stood to scan the room for his destination, not wanting to get stuck waiting another hour because he took too long. Near the other side of the room he spotted a blinking light, the alphanumerical text matching what had been announced, he nearly broke out into a run.
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“Hello. Hi,” Alex said, taking a breath as he hoped he’d picked the correct section, “I wanted to apply for a city I.D.”
His ticket stopped vibrating and, not looking up from her papers, Alex saw the women roll her eyes as if he’d said something stupid.
“Are you a citizen of the country or a foreigner?”
“Foreigner.”
“Did you come here to work?”
“No?” Alex asked, dragging out his answer slightly, if the woman heard it, she ignored the implied question.
“Current County of Residence?”
He cursed internally, of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
“No home currently.”
The older woman looked up from her desk to glare at him, annoyance evident in the folds of her face; then back down to find a specific paper.
“Here,” she ground out. “Fill out this form, hurry up, I don’t have all day.”
Grabbing the paper, just glad he hadn’t been sent back to his seat, Alex read the english on the page as Comprehend did its magic. As an afterthought, he hoped the skill translated his writing as well, but knew there would be little for him to do if it couldn’t. The form was labeled as a Temporary Travel Visitation Application, so Alex assumed it wouldn’t be too complicated. It’s first few questions being the normal name, age, and the like proving that to be true.
When it asked his last kingdom or village of residence, he wrote in a generic name, Windfall, and hoped no one would check to see if it was a real place. Skimming over a few questions he wasn’t willing to answer, such as net worth, Alex arrived at the last prompt of the page, length of stay. Less time was often better received on applications like this, but if this was going through some sudo-official government system, he didn’t want to clue anyone in that he would be leaving after two months. Having that short time frame on paper might also ruin his next plan so he wrote in that he’d be staying for a year and hoped for the best.
Not bothering to read it over again, Alex handed the paper back to the lady.
“Ok, Mr. Dainer,” she intoned, reading the name he’d written. It was the one he’d given to the librarian the day prior, and sticking to an alibi never hurt anyone. “Would you like to apply for a Country ID on top of the City ID?” The diligent part of him wanted to question the difference, but he instead asked if the country one was necessary instead.
“As it suggest, the City ID is all you need to reside in the city, a country ID would work throughout the entire kingdom.”
Seeing no need to press his luck, Alex stuck to his original plan.
“Former ID.” She put out a wrinkled hand, waiting for him to pass her something.
“I, uhh, lost it,” Alex replied weakly.
She sighed, and it seemed to hold all the disappointment this dreary place could muster, before she began to write out something by hand.
Alex stood there silent for the next five minutes, too worried speaking would mess something up. He let the noise of the room wash over him until finally, as he felt the time couldn’t drag on any slower, she stopped writing, rose from her seat, and left. Indecision slowing his actions the woman was gone before Alex could say anything so he continued to wait. Luckily, she was back within the minute, a blueish green card in hand.
“The fee is thirty gold. You can’t revoke the process now that it’s been processed. Would you like to set up a payment plan?”
Pulling the money out of his inventory in three stacks of ten, he handed her the coins. The old bat tested them with a level of thoroughness Alex felt he should have been offended by, before passing the card through the gap between them. It looked like nothing but a thin sheet of semi-translucent metal, uninterrupted but for the purple gem in the center. Similar to the one the bookie had given yesterday but with a different colorway. Fiddling with it, he felt gem give slightly. Pressing harder as if it was a button, the ID clicked, a picture of his face and a prompt appearing as it did.
***
Name: Alex Dainer
Age: 25
Level: 55
Identification Number: 1-693-402
Residency: Temporary Resident Status
***
“Your Application’s determination will arrive in three months, until then you have temporary residency status, which gives you access to all citizenry benefits. If you do not come back to provide a place of residence by then, you will need to come back and update your identification card.” Having said her piece, the woman went back to her papers, the non-verbal dismissal obvious.
It was nearly noon when Alex finally saw the sun again. After the harsh fluorescent lighting of the City Hall had seared into his skull well over an hour, he was happy to know that he’d never need to go back to the godforsaken building. Walking over to a nearby bench, Alex wondered if it would make for a good rail, before taking a seat to refocus on his next goal, the bank visit.
As the shopkeeper had mentioned the day before, there were three different marks indicating bank locations on his map of Cindel. RTB was the closest to his current location. The Royal Treasury Bank, as the legend spelled out, was the most wealthy of the three as it was backed by the crown. While he never planned to face any consequences for his soon-to-be actions, stealing directly from the metaphorical boogeyman seemed like an unnecessary risk.
IBA or, International Banking Association, was similarly risky, although for an entirely different reason. Their whole spiel was being an international lender. Alex didn’t know how deep into his fake background any of these banks might look, or if it was even possible to do in this tutorial world. But if it was, he doubted an international bank would lack the ability to find he was a nonexistence a few days ago. That Endor Credit Union, a local organization that expressly operated in the city. He saw it as the only real option. A smaller bank would mean smaller issues. It might also mean the ECU would work with a smaller amount of capital, but, Alex only needed enough to kit himself out. Anything beyond that would be pointless after the tutorial anyway. He marked the bank on his map, the enchanted paper charting a path.
Though the walk hadn’t been as effortless as his earlier one, it didn’t take long for Alex to arrive. The building was as beautiful as any other in that sat in the district, the white stone columns, cleansing his architectural palette upon sight. He entered behind another person and was surprised to find the typical layout of a bank inside. There were desks towards the sides with an open center for lines that led to the teller booths further ahead. Instead of a security guard in a suit, there was a city guard in full armor, a sword secured to their hip. Part of Alex had expected to be denied entry, or for the bank to be closed entirely, but it seemed his actions were still aligned with the tutorial’s modus operandi.
Buoyed by that idea, but still activating Acting to assure everything went smoothly, Alex walked up to one of the obvious workers like he owned the place.
“Hi, I wanted to speak to a representative about getting a loan.”