Steve spent some time reading me the details of the contract. It basically said they will pay for my expenses, will do everything in their power to make sure I don’t have any issues, yadda, yadda. The only real thing I had to agree to was not telling anyone that I wasn’t a normal player.

“Alright, dude. We should be all set. Give me the word and you will be good to go.” Steve gave me a smile and I felt ready to get back into the game.

“Thanks Steve. I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m sure it’s going to be better than what has apparently been my last two months. Thank you. Oh, and hey, Steve?”

“Yeah, buddy? What’s up?” Steve answered looking slightly concerned.

“Just tell my mom I love her alright. I’m obviously excited and all, but we both almost died and, well, I just…”

“Don’t worry dude. I will tell your mom. You just do your best in the game and everyone else will do their best in making sure you have a body to come back to. Good luck man!”

I started to answer but then everything vanished into darkness. When my vision returned, I was sitting on a bench at the Adventure’s Center in Landalof.. I tried to move but couldn’t. A big familiar screen popped up, showing a normal stock character. There were different categories of buttons ranging from hair to shoes. Arrows were present to navigate through different options. I was able to just load my last character’s appearance, saving me a lot of time.

It basically looked like me: long, dark brown hair, tall, and a slightly round face. The only thing missing from my head were the glasses I wore in real life. The only change I made was to add a few more muscles. Having played a maxed level character for so long, I got pretty used to the extra muscles. After making my hair a little lighter and shorter I was done. I hit accept.

I looked around; not much had changed. The building had two floors, one for the main creation services like a bank and adventurer guide and a second that just housed desks, books, and other objects that any old bank would have. The floors were checkered grey and white, the walls were made of oak, and the countertops were made of the same wood as the walls with glass windows between the tellers and would be adventurers.

There were a total of three bankers, two females and one male. The male wore a long dark suit and had short cropped blonde hair. The women looked exactly alike with blonde hair put up in a bun, grey suit jackets, and an equally grey skirt. In the middle of the room sat the Adventurer's guide.

The man was middle-aged and bald with a short grey beard and an ensemble consisting of tight leather that had brightly color fabrics consisting of various colors sewn into parts of the outfit seemingly at random. The man helped new players, or players that hadn’t been on the bottom for a while, make money and get started on their quests for fame, fortune, and power.

“Wow…” I looked around the room. Where I would normally see in somewhat realistic graphics, everything seemed more realistic and in depth. I had no idea how they were doing it, but I knew that what I was seeing was way different from what most players were seeing on their headsets.

“Hello adventurer. How can I help you today?” spoke the kind man programmed to help me. Just like every other NPC in the game, the Adventurer's guide had scripted lines that appeared on a menu, except it obstructed my view because I wasn’t looking over the shoulder anymore.

Because most lines had a voice over, I went through the menus to turn off the dialogue window. It was then that I remembered that usually my character’s lines were scripted as well, so I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Hello Adventurer’s Guide! Uh, I died and had to be reborn. I guess I just need to pick up my dropped item and ability rune so I can be on my way.” I didn’t really know what to expect, so I just stood there stupidly for about ten seconds.

The man stood up from his chair, and whipped around. “Oh, boy! A hardcore adventurer, eh? What’s your name and how’d ya die boy?” The kooky old man gave me a wide toothless grin.

A piece of parchment appeared in my hands. I wrote down my username, password, and security pin. I handed it to the man. “Well my character’s name was Kyogos. I got into a car accident and... “ The man looked at me like I had seven heads. “Nevermind. Basically, someone killed me while I was unconscious.”

The man smiled wide, seemingly preferring my reframed answer. “Wow, weren’t you the adventurer in possession of Sir Alfred Sky Cane's powerful sword?”  asked the man, with more than a hint of curiosity.

I blinked a few times, realizing that our conversation was starting to completely get away from any scripts the game had ever made. What is going on? I thought.

“Yes, yes that was me. Hopefully, though, it will be the one item I got to keep following my death.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Yes, yes hopefully so.” The man reached under the chair and pulled out a big red sack. He kind of reminded me of a demented, overly colorful Santa Claus from hell. He continued to rummage through his bag. Then he started tossing object after object out of the sack. Bags of coins, short swords, bows, all kinds of things emptied out onto the floor.

“Sorry lad, this thing is so full of random crap that sometimes it’s hard to find what you Adventurer’s need.” The man continued to pull objects out of the bag, but then he must have found what he needed because he then began to put objects back into the bag.

Among the obvious objects were wooden, stone, and even metal boxes that could have held anything really. In DSO bags and containers could be spelled to hold a nearly endless amount of objects. So, I wasn’t disheartened even though I hadn’t spotted GDS#9. Whether or not your objects were put into a container, or what the container looked like, was based off of both luck and your position in DSO.

After the man put everything away, all that remained was a thick box, seemingly made of dragonsteel due to its base coloring being dark grey, with red scales scattered periodically throughout the design.

“Wow, kid. You really were something, huh? This is one high quality box. There’s gotta be something inside that will help you or my name isn’t Sally Jones.”

“Is your name Sally Jones?” I asked, slightly amused.

He shook his head and said, “No, but that’s one sweet box. Just like the two Bensley twins over there. Ya get what I mean?” The man said, gesturing towards the twin bankers. “Man I’d really like to make a deposit in one of their bank slots if you get what I-”

Wow, I get why the game sticks to scripted lines,” I thought. “Uh yeah, whatever. Can I have my box now?” I asked impatiently as I reached over to take my box out of his hands.

“Hey, not so fast!” He yelled, moving the box away from my reach. “I don’t know if I should give this to you. You haven’t done a single thing for me, why should I help you?” You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Well… You are the Adventurer’s Guide and, well, I happen to be an adventurer. So it’s kind of your job,” I shot back, frustrated at my first interaction with an NPC.

Looking annoyed, and yet somehow content at the same time, the man smiled menacingly. “If you can tell me my name, maybe, just maybe, I’ll give you your box. The man then sat the box under his chair. “So, do you know it or not?” His eyebrows raised at me expectantly, but his lips curled, forming a deadly smirk.

“Please tell me you are joking. Is this some sort of Rumpelstiltskin bullcrap?” I yelled, my fists shaking a little. The bankers seemed to glance over in annoyed curiosity. I focused on him and the title Adventurer’s Guide popped up over his head. Well, that’s not going to help me at all, I thought.

The man chuckled maniacally, clutching his stomach as he went through a rather rough coughing fit. “Man, was that hilarious. You actually believed me. The name’s Billy by the way. Wow, I have never had this much fun messing with an Adventurer before. Usually you guys are all, ‘Give me the box,’ and I’m all like, ‘Here’s the box.’ I only ever get to talk like this to other natives of Dragaria. Wait… Are you a native?”

“Because if so, you aren’t really Kyogos and this box isn’t yours. Did that snot-nosed guard Sal put you up to this? He loves sending adventurers my way once they find their base class.” The laughter and coughing fit disappeared and a serious look resided on the man’s face.  Then seriousness faded as quickly as it arrived and the man I then knew was called Billy started chuckling again.

“It’s kind of a secret that I can’t share, but I am an Adventurer. I think things are just going to be a bit different for me from here on out. I’ve never had a conversation with natives before either. Sorry, I’m kind of taken aback.”

The man looked me up and down. “A secret huh. I’ll tell you what. If you ask the twins on a double date I’ll give you your box.” The man’s eyes seemingly lit up bringing attention to the fact that he not only acted crazy but also had weirdly colored eyes to match his weirdly colored outfit. The left one had a ring of red at the base of the pupil, then a ring of blue, and then gold, green, and what appeared to be an endless amount of colors.

I looked to the other eye and it looked similar but the order of the colors were different. What is up with this guy? I then looked back and his left eye looked different than before, blue with a whitish lightning bolt slicing through the pupil diagonally. I was taken aback by the change, causing me to stumble backwards a bit.

Looking back to the right eye, I saw what was clearly the moon, the pupil wasn’t even there. I wiped my eyes and looked again, his eyes were plain old brown. Is this game messing with my head or something? I thought, completely unsure of what to think.

Billy sat there watching me, obviously amused. “So what do you say, do we have a deal?” he asked. “Get the twins to go on a date with us and you get your box.  Easy, right?”

I reluctantly accepted the deal and shook the man’s hand. A quiet beep went off, alerting me that I had a notification. I pulled it up and saw that it was in fact a quest.

Billy’s Bargain

The Adventurer's Guide revealed himself to you as Billy. He is holding your possessions hostage until you score a double date with the Bensley twins. You will complete this quest when a date is secured. You will fail the quest if you are unable to score a date, though it isn’t time sensitive. Difficulty: Hard. Reward: Dragonsteel Box (contents unknown). Good luck hero!

I didn’t know who or what was messing with me, but the game definitely was revealing itself to be a whole lot different from the one I grew up playing. I shook his hand and approached the twins to try to get a date. Before I could speak a word, the first sister opened with, “Welcome to the Bensley’s Bank, how can we be of service to you?”