Ding!

When the twin suns were halfway through their downward descent, my reminder to eat lunch went off. Despite being fully aware that the time in game was about three times faster than the real world, watching the sun rise, peak, then fall, had made my stomach begin to growl. There weren't any leftovers from the night before, but I had already scheduled a lunch delivery before logging on.

I ran into a few more deer on my short stroll back to the village. The fact they mainly dropped venison did not help my appetite at all. My thoughts briefly wandered to Freddy and the med-tech company he worked at.

Med-tech’s importance as an industry exploded when immersive VR experiences became popular. The immersive VR space required a massive amount of research for scientific and development reasons, and many governments around the world were more than eager to win favor with their youth by subsidizing the costs. Much of the older population stopped their dissent when they realized their various investments also began to skyrocket from the economic boom.

Viral trends based on virtual reality began to trend on social media, accelerating the general population’s exposure to the technology. While the prices for the initial VR models were exotically prohibitive, the consistent stream of government cash caused the price tag of the second, third, and fourth generations to plummet further and further. It only took about ten years for the system to become easily affordable for the general population.

I was pretty young when the first critically acclaimed immersive VR game, Adventurer of Midgarth was released. It also happened to be the only time I had seen my dad cry, until my younger sister was born a year later. At the time, seeing my usually stoic dad cry twice in one year was an odd experience, but the appearance of my little sister significantly loosened up his emotions. My mom told me it was something about his paternal pride being eroded away.

My relationship with my dad also greatly improved after his first cry. Since many of the early immersive VR games only supported local coop, he would often pull me into his gaming sessions. The first game that I really remember was called Lime, the Prime Slime Criminal, where the players would have to investigate crimes committed by a neon green slime called Lime. It wasn't a particularly impressive game, but kid me fell in love with it. There was probably a Lime plushie lying within arms reach of my real body…

Anyways, Eden’s Gate was the first med-tech company that had made international news for their research on the impacts of immersive VR through diet fads. There was a brief, but intense period where thousands of teenagers, male and female, had fallen ill due to starvation within the same week. It was confirmed that they had all fasted in real life by overconsuming food in a specific VR cooking game.

When Eden’s Gate failed to confirm that the diet’s success was clearly due to a placebo effect, whistleblowers revealed that the developers had omitted internationally required neural blockers to enhance the game’s satisfaction output. It was a field day for the people who hated the technology, and riots from anti-modernization movements spiked in activity for a short while.

The debate on which experiences and sensations should be allowed in immersive VR experiences was a hotly debated issue that was legitimately endless. Entire careers were made out of arguing for or against any and all opinions, and it even began to creep onto political agendas.

I rubbed my temples when I finally arrived back at the village outskirts. My own reminiscing had given me a headache and nearly ruined my appetite.

Still gotta eat though.

—

Thankfully, by the time I was finished inhaling the chicken sandwich and fries set, the headache had gone away. After cleaning myself up, I fluffed up the Lime plushie and perched the slime on my chest before I dove back into Equilibrium.

My grinding session had gone amazingly well. I had finally unlocked my first (but still only) visible health bar on the wolves, and had a handful of unlocked skills to experiment with. Unfortunately, I had only ran into eight bears during the session, and I didn’t want to delay my lunch break to chance the last two I needed for their skill.

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In all honesty, the visible health bar mechanic was pretty underwhelming. The wolves were not particularly strong to begin with, and I guess it was cool to see how the game calculated the visible wounds to the floating red bar above the monster’s head, but it felt like unnecessary clutter. I ended up turning the feature off for PvE encounters, but kept a note to remind myself that it existed. Could always be relevant in the future.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the haul from the grinding session wasn’t all that interesting. There was really only one useful buff I was receiving, Haste from the foxes, and most of the other animals just had unlockable skills that pertained to their animal body parts. What was I going to do with Peck…?

I decided to start with the good news first, and headed over to the guild to check if I had fulfilled any gathering quest requirements. The building had become significantly more lively than when I had visited in the morning, which meant that the late night players had probably begun to wake up. I weaved my way to the quest board, scanning some of the more unfamiliar slips of paper.

~~~

Turn in Forest Fox Pelts! (Repeatable)

The beautiful orange hue present in fox is a precious material for fashion designers. Particularly soft pelts are extremely desirable, since they can be used for winter coats.

Requirements: Turn in at least 10 Forest Fox Pelt(s)!

First Time Reward: Training Forest Boots

Repeatable Rewards: Copper Coins

Extra Rewards will vary on the quality of the pelts.

~~~

~~~

Turn in Forest Deer Venison! (Repeatable)

This versatile piece of meat is the village’s favorite source of protein. The nicer the cut, the better the flavor. Even the nastiest bits of the deer can be used to make some questionable sausages.

Requirements: Turn in at least 10 Forest Deer Venison(s)!

First Time Reward: Copper Coins

Repeatable Rewards: Copper Coins

Extra Rewards will vary on the quality of the venison.

~~~

All of the quests were requests for the basic animal drops and some random rewards in return. All of the meat related quests rewarded copper and the pelt related quests gave a piece of the Training Forest equipment set. The miscellaneous body part drops didn’t seem to have any rewards, except for the moose eyes.

~~~

Turn in Forest Mad Moose Eyes!

The mysterious red glow remains in the eyes of these mad moose. Researchers would love to get their hands on high quality specimens to understand what the cause is.

Requirements: Turn in 10 Mad Moose Eyes - HQ!

Rewards: Exclusive Reward; Copper Coins

~~~

I checked my inventory, and I had about three high quality eyes back at me. I shot a message to Seb, Pat, and Liz to see how their progress on the quest was and went to the receptionist to collect the rewards. It was the same blonde NPC, and there was the faintest glimmer of recognition in her eyes. At least, I pretended there was. I found out through one of the morning run videos that there was apparently a rapport system in the game. It seemed that various recurring NPCs in the game were given experimental AIs to encourage more realistic conversation. Going off my first canned interaction with this receptionist, it was a safe bet that this was not one of those experimental AIs, but there was no harm in treating every NPC as if they had it.

After all, there could be an incredible exclusive quest hiding in the conversations.

“Hi! Happy to see that you’re still here. I’m back with more materials to submit.”

“Welcome back, Adventurer Magnum! I see that your morning hunt went well. What quests would you like to complete?”

The receptionist retrieved a few trays and handed them to me. I had enough pelt sets for the fox, wolf, deer, and moose quests, but nowhere near enough for the bear quest — which had the vest piece. I also went ahead and dropped in my sets of deer venison, just so I could refill my light wallet.

While the receptionist processed the materials, I wrote a reminder to myself to figure out where the crafter professions were. My inventory was full of miscellaneous items, and it would be a shame if I couldn’t make anything interesting from them.

Blip!

My social tab flickered into my vision. Looked like Seb had texted me back.

Sebastian (Sebastian): We didn’t get that many. We only got one dropped for the entire party, and it’s not a tradable material. I think my boyfriend has the most, which is like, 4? I have 2. Liz and Pat only have 1.

Sebastian (Sebastian): People online are being oddly secretive about it too. Must be some lore related thing. Only reason people ever keep stuff like that hidden I think.

I quickly sent a thank you back, before the receptionist pulled out my rewards from under the desk.

“Adventurer Magnum, it seems that you have qualified for the title: Forest Guild Quester - I, for completing ten quests with us. The title will passively increase your rewards with us, even if you don’t have it on!”

“Oh, thank you! I appreciate it a lot.”