“This the one you were talkin’ bout?” The owner of the hand said, holding me by the scruff of my collar so that my feet weren’t touching the floor. Internally I was wondering how something like that was possible within the confines of a safe zone. Externally I was screaming.
The hand that had grabbed me off the street was attached to a mountain of a woman with dark grey skin. Her head was topped with a tangle of long white dreadlocks and her face put her avatar somewhere in its thirties, maybe forties? Honestly it was hard to focus at the moment.
She was covered head to toe in a bulky set of plate armor and had a shield poking over her shoulder, which I could only see because I was still being lifted just a bit above her head. If I had to guess there was a good chance she was over 185cm tall.
After what felt like a year, but in reality was probably closer to just a few seconds, I was gingerly placed down in the alley, leaving me to look around the dark space. It was one of the more narrow side streets that I’d found myself in since the game started and it didn’t seem like it was wide enough to have any buildings or stores. A fantastic place to get mugged…
The terrifying woman turned towards two other players that were also in the alley, who both had expressions of absolute horror on their faces. After staring at each other for a few seconds I made the obvious move.
Turning to leave, I heard one of the players, a boy by the sound of his voice, it was hard to see much of them in the dark space, begin talking in a frantic whisper.
“Oi! Willow! Ya can’t just go pickin’ people up off the ground like that!”
“You’re the one who said not to let him get away no matter what.” The giant said. I felt like I could hear the shrug in her voice. Don’t shoot the messenger, huh? Oh well, if they weren’t here to shake me down then there was no reason to stick around any longer.
As I approached the entrance to the alleyway the other of the two people that were standing by as I’d been quite rudely transplanted from my natural habitat slipped in front of me.
She had long blonde hair that was tied back in a loose ponytail and shaggy bangs framed her face and hung just a little in front of her eyes. She was wearing a white dress that was tied off around the waist with a golden ribbon. The lack of weapon marked her either as some sort of mage, an artisan, or as someone who chose fashion over stats, which in a safe zone was pretty normal.
“Oh my god we are so sorry!” She said, bowing her head so deep she looked like a perfect right angle.
“It’s no problem.” I said, pushing past her and popping back out onto the street. I was almost horrified to realize that nobody who had seen that had even bothered to stop and help… not that I’d have gone down an alley after watching a mysterious grey hand appear and spirit another player away like that…
“W-wait! We just want to-!” She called after me. I raised my hand and waved at her over my head.
“Not interested!” I called back. Honestly whatever this group was they seemed like nothing but trouble. If this was just an honest mistake I’d love to just be on my way… but of course it wasn’t that easy.
Now it was the other player’s time to make a move. A short boy with blonde hair and stern eyes skidded to a stop in front of me with his arms spread wide.
“Listen man, I’m sorry about that, but please can’t we just talk for a second!” He said. His amber eyes were full of a determination I didn’t really expect from what appeared to be the leader of a back alley clown show.
His other two partners came and stood on either side of him, all three of them staring me down was quite the sight.
Seeing that I wasn’t saying anything, the boy clicked his tongue and turned to his left, where the blonde girl was standing.
“Urgh. Now that it’s come to this, Mari!” The boy yelled.
“Y-yes?” She replied, clearly confused.
“Use your looks!” He said. The blonde girl, Mari went red through the ears and Willow, the giant, grabbed him by the top of his head and lifted him a full two feet off the ground. All in all the three stooges definitely didn’t make the best case for hearing them out.
Unfortunately for me, I guess I had a soft spot for idiot newbies who were in way over their head… not that anyone trapped in this death game was actually a beginner.
I shrugged my shoulders and sighed. I’d first looked towards the blonde girl, Mari apparently. But the second our eyes met she turned a full hundred and eighty degrees and crouched down out of sheer embarrassment. Right. Guess she was just told to do something pretty unreasonable…
Trying my best to hide my embarrassment, I turned my attention over to the towering Willow who was still holding a flailing young man by the crown of his head. It almost looked like she was palming a basketball, seriously what was the system doing? Though in this case I was totally fine with bending the rules, just a bit.
Willow looked away sheepishly for a moment, and then, still carrying her compatriot by the head, struck what I could only describe as the least sexy pose imaginable… I buried my face in my hands and let out a long breath.
I looked over towards the hanging boy, who instinctively covered himself with his hands and gave me a look… Pinching my nose I groaned and shook my head. “As entertaining as this is, and truly, you three do have a gift for… whatever it is you’re doing, is there seriously something I can help you with?” I asked. I already had a feeling, but…
Seeing that I was at least willing to hear them out, Willow released the head of the young boy who landed on the ground with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. He popped up to his feet and flashed a cocky grin as he pointed in my direction
“Take us to the next town over!” He said. His tone beggared no argument, but his position in this negotiation couldn’t be much worse.
“Pass.” It wasn’t that I was completely uninterested in the idea, but our interactions up to this point didn’t really make me want to leave my life in their hands…
“Wha..?” My one word reply made his mouth hang open for a second. Though to his credit, he shook off the stunned status pretty quickly and fired back.
“Aw come on man! We saw you out there earlier, swingin that sword around all crazy! Don’t try to hide it, those were skills weren’t they?” He said. Well that would explain it. These guys were probably level one. They probably had heard Levin talk about locking down the quests in the starting town, and so they were looking for a guide to bring them over to the next. Why they didn’t want to ask a larger group was beyond me.
The shocking overlap in our goals aside, there was just something about these guys that I couldn’t trust. Well, more specifically, about this guy that I couldn’t trust.
“Hrrmmmm…” I said, stroking my chin and tapping my foot. “What’s in it for me?” I said. Honestly, as long as the price was half decent I wouldn’t be completely against it… though I was hoping to maybe tack myself onto another group that had more actual experience hunting monsters.
It would take anyone a few hours to get used to fighting, and even I hadn’t been able to master all of my skills despite a few hours of practice. If these guys really were level one then it’d take them a good amount of time to even get up to speed…
“We’ll give ya 50% of the Gold and first pick of all the monster drops!” The boy said. I would have spit out my drink if I had one. They were willing to give me what?!
The number made my head spin. Half of the drops and all the best upgrade materials being funneled into just one person wasn’t just a good deal it was straight up exploitation!
I guess that I hadn’t said anything in quite a while because eventually the boy tilted his head. “Was that not good enough?” He asked. I briefly thought about just how much I could get out of these guys but that was already an offer I couldn’t accept…
“25% of the gold and first pick on every fourth monster we kill.” I said, rewriting my plans frantically in my head to accommodate for new travel partners.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“Wait, but that’s” Mari started to say. I raised my finger to my lip and smiled.
Dante for his part pumped his fist in the air.
“Woo! Knew you’d come around! Name’s Dante, by the way! I used to play Infinite Dungeon. Nice to meet ya!” He said. Finally putting a name to the face. Getting a better look at him he had what looked like a hatchet tucked into a leather belt loop. Combined with Mari’s lack of any sort of equipment to speak of I was really starting to wonder if I’d just accepted an escort quest for a bunch of crafters…
Next up, Mari stepped forward and curtsied in her summer dress. Now that I really did get a look at her she was exceptionally cute, but then again in games like this it was far more rare to come across ugly characters so I was used to just tuning it out.
“Hello! My name is Lunamaria, but you can call me Mari! Originally I played Fantasy Realms!” She said. Her trepidatious voice from before was replaced with what I’d describe as a fairly sunny inflection. I nodded to her and she smiled.
Last up was the ashen warrior with the shield on her back and sword on her hip. “Willow. Infinite Dungeon.” She said with a shrug. Whether she had a chip on her shoulder or was just a woman of few words was something that I guessed I’d learn later.
A ping in my head instinctively made me flick open my menu. At first I was expecting a party invite but instead what I’d found when I opened my menu was a friend request, after a moment of shuffling from the people standing across from me two more appeared.
Huh... I’d never thought to check if there even were social functions in the game, but now that I was looking at it not only was there a friends list that seemed to show the status and location of people you added, but there was a messaging function as well.
Well that would come in handy.
I accepted all three friend requests and closed my menu, looking back over the three of them with appraising eyes.
“Right! Now that that’s settled, when do we leave!” Dante asked, looking over at me with expectant eyes. I let out a sigh and waved my hand in front of my face.
“Tomorrow morning at the earliest. Actually, yeah, no. Tomorrow morning, six o’clock, north gate leading to the Golden Fields area.” I said. Being ambiguous would only come back to bite me later. Better to set a clear plan from the start.
“Wait what? Why so late?” He said, clearly expecting me to say “Right the fuck now!” And lead the merry band out into the Golden Fields laughing all the while. I shook my head.
“I can’t imagine that you’ve done everything you can do to get ready for the trip. If you don’t have any quests or anything like that it’s still only mid afternoon, go out into the area by the town and see if you can’t go hunt some monsters. I have some stuff I have to do before I’m ready to leave, so, tomorrow morning.” I said.
Dante looked like he was about to interject and say something but Willow put her hand on the boy’s head, stopping him in his tracks.
“That probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Willow said, resting her hand on the hilt of her sword. If they really had just been running around doing quests in town all evening yesterday and all morning today then their biggest weakness would be a lack of experience, both figuratively and literally.
“Then, how about we all meet for dinner tonight in the plaza?” Mari said, throwing a blinding smile my direction. Both Willow and Dante turned to give her a look but then they both simultaneously nodded.
“Y-yeah. That works for me. Just send me a message when you guys are heading out and I’ll meet you there.” I said, turning around. This time none of them sprinted to get in front of me or cut me off, and instead the three of them waved to me as I turned back towards the plaza. Before we headed out on our journey I still had to find a map, or at least an NPC that could give me directions to the next town, and I still needed to go back to the guild hall and upgrade my weapon… but I’d assumed that may not be possible until later in the day, so first things first was finding out where to go.
----------------------------------------
In the time since I’d left the plaza to go to the Guild Hall the city of tents and stalls had returned and the bustling atmosphere of the shopping areas was right back up to a fever pitch.
To be honest, I had no idea what kind of store would even sell a map. Maybe a general store or something similar, but I had no idea where something like that would be. I could of course just walk aimlessly up and down the aisles of the market until I saw something like a map just laying around, but that seemed like a horrendous waste of time.
Instead I decided to look for the one person I did know in the plaza and ask him if he knew something about the local geography. Normal game logic would dictate that a shop NPC would only have functions involving selling items at their shop, and thus wouldn’t have knowledge about the wider game as a whole, but after interacting with a few of them both yesterday evening as well as this morning I was pretty confident in saying that these NPCs felt a lot closer to people than they did to just autonomous robots
Sonnson was sitting in just the same place he had been the day before. His round body was perched atop two crossed legs and his eyes were closed. It seemed like he wasn’t dragged off somewhere and interrogated after giving me the rundown on weapon reforging last night, so that was a small relief.
As I approached his stall his right eye shot open and a huge grin split his face. “Ahh kid! Yer back so soon!” He said. I couldn’t help but return the smile along with a wave.
“Hey, Sonnson.” I said, looking over what he had on the mats in front of him. Since I hadn’t sold any of my other materials I still didn’t have enough money to buy any of his wares, and so I did feel kind of bad soliciting information out of him. I briefly wondered if NPCs took tips, but shook the idea out of my head.
As cruel as it was to say, he was a computer program, and I was a player trapped in a deadly game. If you looked at it that way, wasting my gold for no reason was one of the dumbest things that I could do. Instead, I decided to simply start with an apology.
“Sorry to ask, but do you know where I could get a map of the area surrounding the city? I’m looking to move on to the next town and wanted to see how far of a trip that would be.” I said. Sonnson for his part took my request in stride as he threw his head back and laughed.
“Aha! What’s that, lad? That all ye need? Let this old man think… bout here should be a place!” He said, not moving his arms to gesture in any particular direction. Instead a marker appeared on my map on a location that wasn’t too far away from the main plaza.
Looking up from my menu I thanked Sonnson and he gave me his own trademark smile in return. With the new information in hand, er, on map? I took off this time towards the western side of town.
----------------------------------------
The area that the marker directed me to was a small building tucked down a side alley. It was a thin, square, one story building and as I pushed the door open my jaw dropped.
There were so many piles of books papers and scrolls stacked across the floor that I thought I’d walked onto a crime scene. Book shelves lined the walls and displays that looked like wine racks stuffed full of scrolls. The only thing that made me certain that this wasn’t some sort of crime scene was the sound of an old voice calling from the other side of the shop.
“Ohhhh hello sonny! Welcome to me shop! How can this old bag o’ bones help ye today?” It called. The voice was so airy and… old… that I couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. I started the slow and painful process of stepping over piles of books to rare clear patches of floor on my way over to the back of the store.
As I passed the last rack stuffed to bursting with tomes and scrolls, the counter came into view. A… person? A something sat perched on the desk, cradling a cane in its arms. I couldn’t see its face, only that it had a very long nose that poked out of a purple robe and that it wore a sickly, toothless grin on its face.
Every one of my gamer instincts told me that this place was definitely a rare find, and that there may even be a whole quest chain that had to do with this… person? Thing? But I didn’t have the liberty to come poking at it now. Maybe after delivering Dante and co. to the next town over I could swing back and see if I couldn’t figure it out… at this point I was starting to think that Sonnson was some sort of infinite quest generator…
Shaking the prospect of a weird and whacky side quest out of my mind, I cleared my throat.
“I’m looking for a map to the next town. Is that something you sell here?” I asked. The thing on the counter cackled and a screen appeared in front of me. It was a normal shop screen but there wasn’t anything for sale… instead, the creepy person from the desk hopped down and dug around through one of the shelves before eventually proclaiming “Aha!”
As they did, an item that was just called “scroll” appeared in the list of items available to purchase. It cost sixty Gold but honestly even if it wasn’t the map I was after my curiosity got the better of me and I hit accept.
My funds took another hit, really emphasizing that I needed to make some cash, but the scroll appeared in my inventory.
“You take care now!” The person said. I jumped backwards. At some point it had regained its perch up on the counter… I hadn’t even seen it move. Yep. Definitely weird.
I thanked… it… and carefully stepped back out onto the street, not wanting to spend any more time today tripping over my feet or in shady back alleys.
Back on the streets I unfurled the scroll and was disappointed to find exactly what I was looking for. The map showed a circular town in the center, Origin, and two roads leading Northwest and Southeast. The only other marking I could see on the map was in the northwest corner of the map. It was apparently a settlement called “Oaktree” Well, that was good enough to get started, at least. There was a clear divide between the Golden Fields and what looked like a forested area to the northwest where Oaktree was located.
Depending on how long it took us to get from the front gate to the end of the Golden Fields we’d be able to tell how far away the settlement was. From there, it was just a matter of hoping that the forest wasn’t some crazy high level zone. That was something we could talk about over dinner, though. Which meant it was time for my last stop.
----------------------------------------
Leaving the book shop behind, I turned and hurried off to the last place on my list. Time to get some upgrades at the guild, or at the very least, time to pawn off some of these monster parts so I could buy some better equipment.
As I approached the guild building. I could see a line forming in front of the crafting stations that had been set up earlier. Looks like I had pretty good timing. There weren’t too many people who were lined up, and that number was only going to grow as time went on and more people started hunting monsters outside of the city.
I walked over to the back of the queue but before I could take my place in line, someone stepped out in front of me. They had flax blonde hair and a pretty-boy face so punchable I was tempted to really check the definition of the word “Safe zone”
He was dressed in what looked like light metal armor and had a spear sheathed on his back.
“The hell are you doin’ back here?” Fenix said, crossing his arms and standing in my way.
“Can I help you?” I said, putting every ounce of vitriol I could muster into my voice. He cocked a smile.