"Coffeeeee."

"Hey—"

"Coffeeeee."

"Yes, I do make coffee, b—"

"Coffeeeee!"

"Tried telling you at least four times now: those aren't marks, those are just scraps of metal."

Carl squinted, feeling like the man was finally saying something that made some kinda sense. He glared down at the coins he'd pulled out of his pocket, which weren't coins now that he looked because coins were bigger than these things and also rounder. And flatter. And more uniform. He sighed deeply, continuing to stare down at the not-coins in his hand as his brain gave up and wrote the entire day off as a failure.

"In honor of the Lightning Scorpion's return, a free cup today," said the incredibly nice man who was bringing over a mug of steaming coffee.

Carl accepted the cup, raised it to his mouth, then set it back on the countertop with a thunk an instant later. The coffee synapses in his brain immediately began firing once more, and everything became a bit more thinkable.

He stared at the older, gray-bearded man, who was giving him an odd look. Uh oh, where am I? He looked around, but he didn't recognize anything nearby. This is like, some kinda outdoor cafe place? Small stone tables with matching chairs were set up before the shop's storefront next to the street, with a couple small tables set up along the stone counter where it turned and extended along inside the shop. A person sitting at one of the inside tables with a mug in front of them was also giving him a weird look.

"Uh…" Carl looked back to the shop owner. "Thanks for the coffee," he said slowly, struggling to recall what had happened when he'd been in his coffee-craving fugue. "How much is…" He stared down at his hand, which held a bunch of random chunks of metal, then fished around in his pockets, feeling more objects of the same type. What the heck?

"Free for you today," the old man said, giving him a sympathetic look, likely as he acknowledged the seriousness of lack of coffee. "Three marks usually, though."

"Huh." Carl nodded. "Well, thanks." He looked down at the empty cup. I don't even know if it was good… "I'll be back for sure. With actual money."

"Coffee better bring you victory today," the old man grunted. "You'll tell me of it tomorrow when you come back. With money."

"Yeah," Carl said, "why not." Not sure I'll actually be back tomorrow, but it can't hurt to be friendly since the guy just helped me out. He rubbed his beard. "Actually…" He looked around again, noting the sign "Breakfast" above the shop. "Where am I?" This guy's running a breakfast shop? People really love doing this slice of life type of stuff. Better than playing as an axe, at least.

The old man gave him another odd look. "Northwest edge of D-five." He pointed across the street. "Next street over's D-four."

Carl followed the man's pointing, having no idea what the directions meant or why he'd even bothered to ask. He looked around yet again, this time to make sure nobody was waiting to buy coffee since he didn't want to be part of the problem of people not being able to get their coffee fast enough, even if it was just game coffee. Alright, maybe I'll just ask this guy. "Where's Pertinax… Uh… That big armor-making place with the smithy?"

"Pertinax Protectives?" the old man said. He pointed again, this time to his left—Carl's right—and down the street that the shop was located on. "South three streets past Conquest Street, then turn left. New to Onyxfell?"

Carl nodded. "Yup. Just got here. Any advice?"

The old man stroked his neatly-trimmed beard. "If you're in D-five, keep clear of anyone with a purple armband. Those're Patties—Patrician kids from D-one. Come across the city to make trouble sometimes. Nothing much we can do about it since they've got all kinds of system abilities."

Carl grimaced. Why are kids always so freaking annoying in games? I guess that hasn't changed since I played. But wow, it's so great to not be in the role-playing weirdo zone anymore. I can just stand here and have an actual conversation without feeling like I'm missing out on pages and pages of the guy's backstory that I'm supposed to know somehow. "Alright, good to know. Anything else?"

The old man nodded. "Heard of the Lightning Scorpion?"

Feels like… Yeah, that guy at the gate mentioned him, didn't he. And this guy was just saying the free coffee was related, I think? Carl shrugged. "Kind of?"

"Never disrespect the Lightning Scorpion." The shop owner gave him a serious look. "I'm not as strong of an admirer—always favored the finesse that the Impenetrable Shield fought with, though everyone enjoyed the shit-talking skill of the Scorpion—but people get offended easily."

Carl rolled his eyes. "Gladiating is really that popular here, huh."

"Gladia…" The man snorted. "Go see a match sometime. A good one. Do you good to witness a victory in the arena."

"Hm. Maybe I will," Carl said. Could be fun. Get a different perspective, that's for sure. Good thinking spot maybe. Oops, I should probably be getting back. Did I really leave a sex doll in charge of defending our base? Can't believe the game even managed to copy my morning coffee craving. Stupid brain link realism. "Thanks again for the coffee."

"Victory be upon you," the old man said, giving him a nod.

Carl turned and began walking along the sidewalk-y part of street. City layout here is great so far. Nice and grid-y. None of this nonsense with a circle on the outside, and signs pointing in random directions, and oh, of course everyone knows where everything is so why would you even need a map? Just walk down a street, turn down another street, and I'm wherever I wanna be.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The asphalt was warm, but not yet hot beneath his feet, likely because his HUD's clock indicated that it was just past seven in the morning. Starting to get used to this barefoot thing. It's kinda nice now that I'm in a more normal VR city without so much poop all over. Way too realistic. He shook his head. So freaking weird. Who would wanna spend time in a stupid—

A car zoomed by, changing the course of his thoughts. Huh. Cars here don't have tops, just doors. Seems a little risky? Does it never rain here or something? Man, driving around in a convertible in a rainstorm probably isn't fun. Though I guess if it's bad enough you can always just throw your car into your inventory and log out for a couple minutes. Hm, feels like this whole time scaling thing is gonna be a little tricky to wrap my head around. I didn't even know that was a thing. Seems like it should've been big news too… Am I really that out of the loop? Gonna have to budget more time to follow tech news again if I can figure out where to steal that time from.

He passed a number of people as he ambled down the street. Some seemed like they were obviously gladiators, with their visible muscles and frequently-shirtless torsos. Others were maybe racers, careening down the street at wildly unsafe speeds and occasionally soliciting shouts of either encouragement or profanity from those who were zig-zagged around. Still others were… Well, there were a fair number of ordinary-looking people too, who probably all owned small shops that sold gladiating memorabilia or whatever slice of life stuff they would rather do instead of racing or gladiating or whatever else there was to do.

How freaking far did I wander? Street after street passed by, each with prominently featured signage and none named Conquest Street, which he recalled was also the same street he and Mina had traveled down to reach the race track the previous day. She must've still been sleeping when I left? Or maybe logged out? "Friend list."

Ir'alith Shadewoods Mina Onyxfell BobTheGreatest Offline ➤ FE 0/2 Online

Nope, still logged in. Definitely a Sammy. Always seems to wanna sleep. Oh hey, Ir'alith's on now too. Maybe I should drop her a line? He considered it as he continued to walk with his friend list open, which was something he could do now that he was in a way more normal game city with people who liked to do game stuff and not just run around role-playing—not that he had a problem with role-playing of course, because people could do whatever they wanted in their free time for all he cared, well, as long as it didn't negatively impact his daughters, obviously—like they were all competing for some kinda freaking award or something.

Nah, she seemed a little weird yesterday towards the end. Maybe she wants some time after running into…" Carl's hands tightened into fists at the thought of the abuser. Really starting to get more upset that I let the other one get away that time. Wish I'd known. If I ever see him again, I'll—

"Excuse me, young man?" An older woman called out to him from in front of a car with a flat area in the back which was loaded down with a number of wooden boxes. "Would you mind helping me?"

Carl considered it. Mina's probably gonna sleep 'till noon. Better let her sleep. She could probably use it. Which means I've got a lot of time to spend thinking. Maybe I can get a different perspective for a few minutes on my way back. "Sure, what do you need?" he said, taking in the pale red dress-wearing woman with braided hair and the load on her car.

"Oh, thank you so much," the woman said, sounding relieved. "I have these crates that I want to fill with my wares to bring to the market, but I'm starting later than I usually do, and I'm afraid I might miss my opportunity to find victory in today's selling if I can't pack everything up and get it to my shop in time. Could you—"

"Load up some boxes?" Carl said, stroking his beard. Maybe a repetitive task like this'll get me into a different state of mind. "Okay. Dismiss," he added quietly to do away with his friend list that was now uselessly blocking his field of view.

"You're such a dear," the old woman said with gratitude in her voice, making her way around to the rear of the car with a surprising degree of spryness considering how old she looked. "I'm Attia Romuliana."

"Carl Weathers."

"Oh!" The woman turned around, her eyebrows raised in surprise. "Are you—"

"No relation," Carl said, as he so frequently had to when people confused him with the famous movie star based on his name alone despite having absolutely zero physical resemblance.

"Sorry, that must be hard on you," Attia—no, Romuliana, since Mina had said women went by their last names here—said, giving him a sympathetic look. "And I imagine if you were one of those mages, you wouldn't bother to be in D-five helping an old woman move her pots so early in the morning."

Oh, right. There's even more people with the same name to annoy me here. Carl sighed. It hadn't been the easiest thing growing up with his name, though it certainly could have been worse. There had been some benefit, at the least; after too many occurrences of forced arm-wrestling while being asked if the CIA had him pushing too many pencils, he'd begun going to the gym, a hobby that had remained a positive influence on his life for decades after. His dislike of ties had persisted until this day, however.

Romuliana gestured to the tall building nearest her car, pointing to a door that was located down past a small set of stairs which led into what was likely the building's basement. "We'll need to carry all the boxes into my work area first, then we can start filling them."

Carl looked back and forth between the door and the car. Why doesn't she just use her inventory? That'd… Something tickled the back of his mind.

"No, Dad, you can't send me any more fish for a while!" Bobby said, seeming unhappy about what she was saying.

"Why not, pumpkin?"

Bobby frowned, pressing her lips together and scrunching her face up cutely. "It's the stupid inventory thing. I gotta save up more money so I can buy another upgrade."

Carl's face twisted into a deep frown at the prospect of some stupid game function preventing his daughter from being able to get more of the cool fish he was sending her from his recently-begun lunchtime excursions. "That sounds pretty stupid."

"It's soooo stupid! Ughhhhhhhhhhhh!" Bobby said in a whiny voice, tilting her head upwards. "You should yell at whoever did it this way, Dad. Tell them to make inventories bigger!"

"Well…" Carl rubbed his beard. He was capable of talking to people at work about game stuff. But that would require that he actually spend time learning about it in order to make convincing arguments on behalf of his daughter. "They probably had a good reason for it," he said as he thought, "like teaching you how to effectively prioritize items based on their importance and efficiently manage them into a smaller area using—"

"Daaad, you're doing it again!"

Carl grinned at the memory as he carried another stack of empty boxes as tall as himself down the stairs. Yeah, no harm just carrying stuff around. I'm not in that much of a rush, and this kinda thing has to knock loose some ideas sooner or later.