JohnWillStab’s character opened his eyes to the grim, bluish sky above, blue-grey clouds drifted in a circle above what seemed like the entire world.

The slow music in the background primarily composed of slow violin and out-of-toon piano complemented the worn-out look of the zone.

Ruined houses that missed more than half of their walls stood around like ancient remnants of what could have once been a town.

A message appeared in the centre of John’s screen for a few seconds before fading away.

It read: “To move, use the W, A, S and D keys on your keyboard…”

JohnWillStab figured that much out before even receiving the message, hardly any modern game strayed from these fundamental controls.

He walked around, doing a few circles, jumping ever now and then.

“Hold down your right mouse button and drag your cursor around to adjust your camera position!”

JohnWillStab was already familiar with these kinds of camera controls from the dozens of 3D strategy games he played.

Looking around he saw a tall, wooden fence around the town ruins.

“Ah, I think this is supposed to be the tutorial…” he realised.

“Let’s hope it’s short!” he thought, remembering how much time he lost installing the game itself.

“Use your number keys from 1 to 0 in order to cast spells or use abilities found on your skill bar!” read another message.

John did as instructed, his character slashed at the air before him with a “swish” sound effect and a streak following the edge of his blade.

He looked up and saw a red bar he recognised as his health indicator as well as a yellow indicator representing stamina.

In the top-right of his screen was a mini-map showing him the top-down view of the area he was in.

From the corner of his view opened up a large array of empty squares, after his many years of gaming, John knew it was his inventory.

Inside was a single icon that looked like a gold coin; “x100” was written beside it, the number represented the quantity of the item in question.

“Sweet, I start with money!”

John snatched the gold with a simple left-click.

“Click the gold in your inventory to select it, then click on any empty slot in your bag to move it!” read the message.

John did as instructed.

“At least the controls are simple…”

Out of curiosity, JohnWillStab picked up the gold and clicked on the ground.

“What do you want to do?” asked the message, JohnWillStab had one of three options.

“Delete this item!”

“Drop this item on the ground!”

“Cancel!”

John selected “Cancel”

“Can’t go throwing money around…”

JohnWillStab didn’t know this yet, but the default action for this event could be manually changed in the options menu.

Another message appeared.

“Now you need to learn how to interact with the world, walk over to the big highlighted area with the mailbox!” read the new message.

John did as instructed, he approached an old, decrepit mailbox located by the remains of what must have once been a town hall.

As soon as he stepped on the big, glowing, highlighted area by the mailbox, a new message appeared.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“Now right-click on the mailbox and read the message!”

John clicked on it, prompting the appearance of a big grid of empty space, empty except for two icons, one looked like a scroll bound with red thread, the other looked like a gold coin.

John clicked on the coin.

A message appeared; the words appeared over a paper making it look like the actual letter had text on it.

“From: ???”

“Message: ...”

Below were a few item slots, each one of them had gold coin icons, under each one, “x100” was written.

In a flash, JohnWillStab became the very incarnation of greed, he swiftly clicked each icon gaining more money than most players would see in their lifetimes.

Instantly, his character erupted into bright light.

“Achievement Complete: first gold!”

“Achievement Complete: ten gold!”

“Achievement Complete: one hundred gold!”

“Achievement Complete: one thousand gold!”

“…”

“Ok…”

JohnWillStab ignored the fact his character just exploded into light a few times and moved onto the next letter.

“From: Admin”

“Message: You have completed the tutorial! Welcome to Binary Progression, the starter gold you received will be removed along with any other items you might have received during the tutorial!”

JohnWillStab read over the words again.

“R-Removed?” he looked to his bag filled to the brim with gold.

“…”

“Guess I’m not leaving the tutorial…” he decided as a countdown appeared in the centre of his view.

“10…”

“9…”

“8…”

“NO!” JohnWillStab started looking through his inventory, he tried to figure out a way to save his money.

“4…”

“3…”

“2…”

“1…”

Suddenly, his character’s inventory was wiped as the fence surrounding the town unfazed out of existence.

He felt as if he was robbed even though he didn’t earn a single of those gold coins.

He collapsed to the ground in defeat, when he gazed into his bags he was met with a cold, uncaring void and the fading memory of the gold icon.

Suddenly, a bolt of fire struck JohnWillStab, his character became a charred husk as it fell to the ground and crumbled away, all in under a second.

“…”

JohnWillStab blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t seeing thing.

“D-Did I just… die?”

Two options appeared.

“Respawn here (4 minutes left…)”

“Respawn at nearest town (Now)”

“What the hell was that?”

On the bottom left he saw the chat-window flaring up with messages.

“Crimnyx: rip”

“Crimnyx: are you a bot?”

“Crimnyx: hello?”

No matter how much John moved his camera around, he couldn’t see anyone.

JohnWillStab tested a few keys out and eventually found that the ‘Enter’ key allowed him to type.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: Hello” even though John suspected this ‘Crimnyx’ person was the one who killed him, he wanted to leave a good impression.

“Besides, maybe this is just what MMOs are like.” He thought.

“Crimnyx: 3 + 12?”

“Well that was abrupt…”

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: Sorry, what?”

“Crimnyx: 3 + 12?” they repeated.

John breathed a sigh.

“Maths?” he thought,

“I’m not great a maths…”

JohnWillStab complete the simple task he was faced with.

“Fifteen, even I’m not that bad at maths!” he thought with undeserved smugness.

“…”

John used a calculator app to make sure he was right before giving his reply.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: 15?”

“Crimnyx: …could still be a bot…”

“Does he mean an AI player? Or like… an NPC?” thought John.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: what do you mean?”

“Crimnyx: prove you’re not a bot!” he demanded.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: how?”

“Crimnyx: I dunno, define the word table!” he replied.

JohnWillStab breathed a sigh.

“Define a table? That’s simple…”

“It’s… Ehh…”

“I mean, it’s obvious, a table is… a thing stuff can be on…”

JohnWillStab began to sweat.

“W-what if I am a bot?”

Quickly he rushed to the chat.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: I don’t know! WHAT IS A TABLE?!”

“Crimnyx: aha! So, you are a bot!” he exclaimed, his character stepped out from behind a large bush, behind where the fence would have been moments before.

He was a human, clad in dull, brown robs with a bandana over his mouth and a bright blue wizard’s hat.

He was pale and walked with a hunched back.

Crimnyx was approaching the pile of ash that was once John.

“Crimnyx: Don’t take this personally Mr. bot, I just need to grind my magic stat…” the man said as a smile spread across his character’s face.

“Crimnyx: I hope you’re programmed to respawn here and not in the town…” he remarked.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: YOU DO IT!” John demanded.

Crimnyx’s character took a step back from John’s ashes.

“Crimnyx: I’m sorry?” it was his turn to be confused.

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: YOU TELL ME WHAT A F#$KING TABLE IS!”

“Crimnyx: …”

A few silent moments passed.

“Crimnyx: Dude… I don’t know how to define a table…”

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: YEAH! WHO DOES?!”

Crimnyx nodded.

“Crimnyx: I understand… I’ve used this technique so much I neglected to question it myself…”

“Crimnyx: I have slain so many people… my friends… my family… total strangers…”

“(Dead)JohnWillStab: In the game, right?”

“Crimnyx: …”

“Crimnyx: Are you a cop?”

After a few more awkward seconds the man logged off, leaving John’s cremated corpse alone.

That was John’s first experience with the community of this game, but it was most certainly not his last, I mean it’s an MMO, how would that be his last?

John looked to the two option, one allowing him to respawn here in three minutes, one allowing him to respawn in the nearest town now.

Seeing that he was located in the middle of nowhere, John selected option two.