The night was still young, so she grabbed herself a quick bite to eat in the cafeteria of CyberBolt’s Chicago Arena and then returned to the teeming hills and valleys of green foam in the arena and pressed on her right temple. A screen appeared in her NeuReality vision with multiple options to choose from. She scrolled past the developer login and the NSA portal and selected the Conquest game logo.
CyberBolt Entertainment Proudly Presents:
CONQUEST
Even though her cover story job was being a developer of the game, she thoroughly enjoyed playing it in her spare time. Several of her colleagues had developed some new features for lower level players to improve gamer retention, and she had been assigned to test them out. She was excited to reset her character stats back to Level 1, because sometimes being an Overpowered Player got a bit boring.
Clad in her scanty strips of animal hide, she spawned near the gates of Samsiel, an area that had many enemies to fight once she was able to acquire some decent weaponry. It also meant more travel time on foot as there were no longer any Spawn Stones in her inventory to take advantage of. The only other thing she could do was upgrade her gear, however that would require spending actual money in the Conquest eStore which would be ridiculous considering she was technically on the job. The only other ways to gain new gear was through completing quests or looting fallen players.
A prompt appeared in her NeuReality vision.
Select Your Class:
1) Warrior
2) Adventurer
3) Assassin
4) Mage
Lily didn’t even hesitate to select the Adventurer class type. Since she knew what the weapons and armor would eventually look like, she felt comfortable picking whatever she wanted. Each class type used different attack styles based around melee, ranged, and magic. In addition, they each had access to special abilities. For example, Warriors had Combat Excellence, Mages had Fireball Conjuring, Adventurers had Sneak Strike, and Assassins had Acute Focus.
Unfortunately, all of the classes looked exactly the same until you started upgrading your equipment. But at least now she knew what her starting skill set would be.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Instead of wasting time on the character creation process, she decided to keep her current blonde-haired avatar for her profile @SuaveQueen25, even though she had flaming red hair in real life. As she started exploring the city, she found that there wasn't much of a tutorial. Instead you just picked one of three new quests available.
System Alert!
Please select one or more of the following available Quests:
1) In Search of Gold
2) In the Name of the King
3) The Blacksmith’s Apprentice
She read through the details of each quest: "In Search of Gold" - apparently the city's gold supply had run dry, and someone needed to go mining in the nearby mountains. "In the Name of the King" - someone had killed the king, and it was up to her to find out who. "The Blacksmith's Apprentice" - the blacksmith was sick and needed an apprentice to assist him in crafting new weapons and armor.
After considering her options, she selected the quest titled "In the Name of the King". This might actually be interesting, and if she completed this quest successfully, she could earn some decent loot. Hopefully the gold would be easy enough to find, and hopefully the quest giver wouldn't have unreasonable expectations.
With the quest selected, she walked into the familiar town. At first glance it seemed like a typical medieval European village. There were several homes, a church, a marketplace, and even a graveyard. As she moved deeper into the city, she realized that the buildings were far more spacious than necessary. There was a tavern with tables inside, but no customers. The inn had rooms that were empty, but no guests. And the market was filled with goods, yet no vendors.
And there were two guards standing next to the gate that didn't seem quite normal either. The first guard looked like a knight in shining armor, with his tall helmet and shield on his arm. He stood around five feet ten inches, and wore plate mail over his leather jerkin. His axe was slung across his back, and his sword hung beside it. When he saw her, his eyes went wide.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded. "No one is supposed to enter this town without permission."
Lily smiled at the guard. "I'm looking to complete this quest," she said. "That's why I came to the gate. Do you know where the king's castle is?"
The guard frowned at her. "Are you sure you want to do that? You'll be walking right into enemy territory. Why don't you turn around and leave before it's too late?"
"Because I've already chosen this quest," she replied.
The guard shrugged. "Well, that's your decision. Let me warn you, though; the bandits will kill you quickly if they catch you alone."
"Thank you for the warning," Lily said. "But I believe in my ability to succeed. So please let me pass."
The guard grunted, and turned away. The other guard, who was younger and shorter than the knight, had a deep scar running down his face. He was dressed in dark brown pants and shirt, and carried a short sword hanging from his belt. A large pair of boots covered his feet, and he had a long coat on top. Unlike the knight, he didn't stand straight, but leaned against the gatepost, his arms crossed over his chest.
"You're going to regret coming here," he grumbled. "This place doesn't need any more trouble."
Lily frowned at the guard. "It looks like we both agree the same thing."
He grunted again, and waved her through the gate. "Just try to stay alive; I'd hate to lose another idiot."
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