JohnWillStab looked around the town, the sign at the front gate read "Duskshire".
"Hello?!" he called out walking towards the inn.
"Any villagers?" he yelled out.
"Any non-undead-hating villagers?" he added.
"God, this place really is empty..." he sighed stepping towards the inn.
"The buildings have doors now!" he exclaimed stepping into the inn, at first he tried to make as little noise as possible.
He placed one foot upon the creaky floor, then another - slowly he snuck into the main room of the inn.
Seeing that the room was still empty, he made his way towards the front till where he saw all the bottles that existed in-game.
"They're real! They aren't coloured polygons, they're real bottles!" he called out.
He brought the bottle up to his eyes and swished the liquid around.
"And they're filled with actual liquid!" he added.
He tried to open the bottle with his hands to no avail, he reached for his dagger and jammed it into the cork before pulling it out.
"You can even pull it out, it's not a three-d model!"
He placed the bottle to his lips and drank from it, the red liquid flowing into his mouth.
"And it tastes like piss!"
He added before tossing the bottle onto the ground.
"I guess the starter-booze is pretty bad..."
He looked through the cupboards finding a few pouches.
He opened the pouch and looked inside seeing what seemed like dozens of biscuits (the UK kind, so you might better know them as cookies).
JohnWillStab pulled one out and saw it grow in size multiple times until it was about the size of his open palm, it was evident to JohnWillStab now that this was a flat type of bread.
"Let's hope the food is good!" he called out reaching for the sack before pulling his hand back.
"It's not like I'll die of hunger or thirst here... can't say that for the others..." he closed the cupboard.
He looked back to the disgusting booze.
"Alcohol isn't a necessity... it even dehydrates you." he reasoned as he grabbed a few bottles and slipped them into his pockets.
He headed down to the basement.
"Come to think of it, I've never been in this part of the inn," he thought, once you enter the main room of the inn, you can either head to the kitchen or upstairs, from the kitchen you can then head to the basement.
JohnWillStab moved down the steps to the basement of the inn where he saw a few crates, bags and barrels.
"I wonder if they're empty..." he thought.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Normally the crates would be just a box, not even hollow, but if we apply the booze-bottle logic to the crates, they might have something inside." JohnWillStab thought.
He reached for one, using his dagger to open the nailed crate.
Inside was just generic inn-keeper stuff, pints, plates, cups, bowls, uniforms, cutlery, spices.
"I get it! It's designed to let a player come and perform the task of a given building! It's starter gear!" he exclaimed.
JohnWillStab looked through the items, he swiped a red cloak, "I doubt they'll need this - besides, I'm not sure how people feel about the undead here..." he thought putting the cloak on.
"Plus, it's not like I can feel the warmth or anything..." he added.
He rummaged through another dozen or so crates before he found a map, it didn't look quite right, it only showed the direction to capital cities, brewery and food suppliers, but it did show the shape of the continent, so it was good enough.
As soon as JohnWillStab touched it, a black dot appeared on its surface, like a drop of ink.
"Is the ink still fresh?" he thought.
He put the map aside and reached for another, like before the dot appeared on it.
He looked back to the previous map and the dot was gone.
"Wait! That's not just some ink! It's the map indicator!" he called out, he took the map and closed the crate.
"Let's see... Lorb said there'd be ten-thousand of us... at best, he sent about fifty of us down already, so it's fair to say I should get out as soon as possible!"
He walked up to one of the nearby sacks, he was planning to empty it and use it to carry his stuff around.
He opened the sack and saw that it was filled with dozens of loose pages and a few binders of similar-looking pages.
The only difference was that the binders were blank and the loose pages had pictures and text on them.
"Hold on, what are those?!"
He picked a loose page from the bag, on it was a picture of a massive cow.
The text read:
"Quest difficulty: D"
"Quest level range: 1 - 10"
"Task: Defeat Betsy, the werebull, he lives in the abandoned farm near Duskshire."
"Reward: 100XP, werebull gloves, juicy steak."
At the bottom of the page, the ink faintly read: "Draw a circle on the page to accept the quest and an x to abandon the quest if previously accepted."
"This world resembles a game in the weirdest ways..." JohnWillStab thought moving his fingers on the page in a circular motion.
where his finger went a trail of ink that never clung to his finger appeared.
As soon as the circle was complete, JohnWillStab folded the paper up and put it into his pocket.
He grabbed the quest sack and emptied it onto the ground before placing the thin rope used to tighten the sack over his shoulder.
He looked at his map again and tried to figure out where the farm was only to see an X on the map.
"Sweet! A quest tracker!" he said excitedly as he started making his way out and towards the werebull.
"Arachnophobia, make haste! We have bovines to defeat!" JohnWillStab announced, the cat cocked her head and looked at JohnWillStab.
"Sorry, I don't feel right questing without someone speaking old English and you selfishly refuse to learn to talk," he explained.
"Now then, Let's make haste! To defeat the werebull!" he exclaimed before picking the cat up, placing her on his shoulder like a parrot and charging off towards the bull while she dug her claws into him, holding on for dear (undead) life.
As JohnWillStab ran he realised that the endless stamina of the undead really did carry over into this world.
"I've been running for over a minute already and I'm not even winded!" he exclaimed.
"Alas, tis to be expected!" he added.
JohnWillStab ran for a few more seconds in silence.
"But it's a bit fucking sad I can't run for over a minute..."
The cat cocked her head again.
"Yeah, I don't feel right questing with Bonifacius if I'm not verbally assaulted by Crown."
If she had the means to, the cat would have sighed.
"I am not losing my mind!"
"...meow."
"NO, YOU'RE TALKING TO ANIMALS!" he rebuked.
Moments later Arachnophobia jumped off JohnWillStab's shoulder.
"Oh, so that's how it's going to b-" he was cut off by the fence he ran into knocking the air from his lungs.
It's not like he needed air to live, but he did need it to talk.
JohnWillStab pulled himself away from the fence "Fuck, that hurt!"
"Are thou alright?" JohnWillStab asked himself in a deeper voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine!"
"Should have spent your time looking where you're going, not talking to dead animals!" JohnWillStab commented putting on a high-pitched voice.
"Yeah, I'm actually talking to myself, eh?..." he said in a sudden moment of clarity.
"Alright, I need to find the others ASAP!" he exclaimed, wordlessly the cat agreed.
JohnWillStab looked back to the map and saw that he was at the marked location.
He looked up and saw a small, feeble looking bull sleeping on the ground, its ribs visible through its skin.
"God damn! Has Lorb not been feeding the enemies in this world!?" he exclaimed.
This caught the werebull's attention as it slowly stood up, turning to face JohnWillStab as it's skinny frame began growing, its eyes gave off a green light like Arachnophobia's.
Its fur went from a dirty brown to a solid grey which hung low, its horns growing thick and long, taking unnatural shapes as they cracked releasing green light.
The bull's hooves were replaced with what looked like iron.
Its muscles grew and trembled as it let out a roar so loud it caused birds from all around the zone to fly up.
"I'm starting to doubt this is really a level one quest!" JohnWillStab called out grabbing both of his daggers and holding one in each hand, the iron dagger he started with and the poisoned spider-dagger.
"Here goes everything!" he called out as he jumped onto the fence then lept from the fence onto the bull as Arachnophobia sat and observed.
Once again, if she had the capacity to... she would have sighed, just as loudly as the bull roared.