Volume 1 - Chapter 12

Mini-Map Awareness

I stood outside Samuel Donovan's agency taking in a view of Whitaker Street.

It was hot and muggy, and I felt just as terrible as the city looked.

The good thing was I had finally been rewarded with enough experience to level me up for the first time. I was able to pick my first new talent, and unlock my talent screen.

Plenty of good motivation to keep me going.

My conversation with Donovan had revealed some good information. The game world was starting to make more sense, although I still didn't know anything about vampires or the third gang that seemed to be fighting for control over The Grims.

Realizing I hadn't read the updates to my missions, I quickly opened that up to see what I needed to accomplish next.

The mission’s name had changed to Copper Topper, and it took position at the top of my screen. The previous mission at the top, called Gallagher’s Maintenance, had shifted into a new section just below my current one.

I would need to go fix a window at some point, but until then I was more interested in the main storyline that would likely give more experience.

Reading the summary for Copper Topper, I was struck by the wording. Understanding the missions would update as I progressed, it shouldn’t have surprised me that it had already changed.

Perhaps as a result of something some other player did in the game? I had no idea, but my mission now included Stalvek Dyomin and a location to scout, when it didn’t previously.

It started with the part I did know. I was being asked to learn more about Billy Sadler’s situation.

In the middle of the night, a player character named Stalvek Dyomin brought a Grimsborough Heights police officer to the location where the arrest was made.

The Green Fists knew Stalvek was working for The Cortez Family, and that he had one of their own arrested.

According to Samuel Donovan, it was an arranged deal in which Owney "The Owl" Johnson would be gunned down, and Billy Sadler would be arrested.

Once Sadler ended up in prison or released, The Green Fists could arrange their revenge.

It didn’t make sense to me that The Cortez Family would agree to such a deal. It wasn’t an even trade, so I was likely still out of the loop on something.

I was supposed to find and get more information from Officer Packley, the one who made the arrest. I could do this at one of the local police stations in The Grims during his overnight shift.

Regarding Stalvek Dyomin, he was last seen way out on Superior Avenue, going into an apartment complex known as The Bleeker Building. He had been spotted frequently going in and out of the tall brick structure.

The last sentence of the mission told me to come back to Samuel Donovan's office whenever I'd collected enough information to make it worth his time.

I left the screen open as I thought about my new mission. It felt like a three part process. I had to find and get information from two different places, and then bring that back to Samuel Donovan.

Easy enough, I figured, especially since I finally had a mini-map.

I closed the mission screen and yet another notification popped into my view, delayed because I had been going through so many different screens after leveling up.

Achievement Unlocked: Making Deals - You made your first official deal with a non-player character.

I let out an exasperated sigh and impatiently sent the notification away. As useful as they might be for some players, the constant barrage of pop-ups was starting to grate on my nerves.

At the rate I was receiving them, there had to be millions of achievements built into the game.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I knew the notification settings could be customized, so I set about finally doing it.

The first thing I did was locate the toggle switch for basic achievements. It was easy to disable them, and I felt a sense of relief as I would no longer get notifications that didn't help me in any meaningful way.

Next, I found the slider for experience notifications. It was currently set to display all gains, no matter how small. I considered adjusting that bar, but decided against it for the time being.

I had the impression from the pre-sets that experience gain was designed on a curve rather than a linear graph. With any luck, I would start feeling stronger and more confident as I earned huge sums of experience from different tasks.

It was too soon for me to know this for certain, but I did know a few basics. Getting to level one had required one thousand experience, and getting to level two required fifteen hundred more.

If each new level required 1.5X the previous level, that curve would get ridiculous. By level ten I wouldn't be worried about all these little one hundred point gains. At that time it would make sense to turn them off.

Leaving the setting as is, I wanted to see all my points for a while longer. Being aware of that progress might be motivating, and I could always change it later when small amounts became annoying.

As I scrolled through the other settings, I made a few minor adjustments, but left most of them untouched. The game developers had likely put a lot of thought into the default configurations.

I didn't want to mess with anything too complex until I had a better understanding of the mechanics.

Satisfied with my customizations, I closed the screens and took a moment to get my bearings.

The new transparent mini-map was difficult for me to see at first. It hovered in the top left corner of my view, and gave every meaning to the word mini.

I didn't see anything valuable displayed there except for some light-grey dots. By focusing on the map, I could zoom in my Awareness to anything within one-hundred feet of my location.

It showed me the street I stood on and a few surrounding businesses.

NPC names were visible when I did this, and a half-dozen became readable on the mini-map as I studied it.

The non-player characters were going about their routines as normal, doing things inside buildings and walking along the sidewalks near me.

Honestly, I felt a little let down by the map, thinking that it really didn't reveal much of anything to me. I had been expecting to get a full map showing me much more than this.

I guess my expectations had been too great. It actually made sense when I considered the full talent of having Awareness.

No one in their right mind should have expected to instantly know their way around a big city.

If my Awareness doubled the size of the mini-map with each talent point spent, then it would need at least three or four more points in it before I could see an entire city block.

The curve after that would get crazy, as a player with nine points in Awareness would be able to see up to nearly five miles.

That would be incredibly powerful one day. For the time being, I squinted at the mini-map, trying to make sense of the grey dots scattered around me. A dark grey square indicated Samuel Donovan's agency was right where I stood.

As I zoomed in closer, a new blue dot appeared on the map, moving rapidly in my direction. The dot stopped right where I stood, and I blinked my eyes away from the map, realizing a player was nearby.

I was startled to see an Asian woman about my same age standing in front of me on the street.

She had dark hair that fell in gentle waves around her face. Her eyes were brown and seemed to sparkle with intense energy.

I read the blue words above her head, not exactly sure how to pronounce her last name, so I kept it to myself.

Mia Haoyu.

In the real world I'd had a few Asian friends in high school, and based on my time hanging out with them, I assumed the last name sounded something like 'ho-you' when spoken.

She said, "excuse me, what are you doing just standing around Donovan's looking stupid for?"

Her eyes narrowed in on me with suspicion.

I blinked, caught off guard by her abrupt greeting. What a way to start a conversation, I thought. I wondered if my screens gave away to her that I had dealings with The Green Fists.

"I'm not looking stupid," I said, "I'm looking at a mini-map."

I gestured up to my top left as if she could see my user interface.

She rolled her eyes. "You definitely look stupid. I can't see your mini-map, genius boy. I got my own map."

Her response made me smirk, but I did feel a little naive about how I'd pointed towards something she couldn't see.

I shook my head, growing defensive. "No, I just got my mini-map, and I was looking at it for the first time."

Mia laughed, but that happiness faded from her face. She studied me for another moment, her gaze looking at my overalls and unkempt appearance. Compared to me she was very well dressed.

"You're a melee type, aren't you?" She let out another laugh. "Well, you better figure things out quick if you want to survive. You know they can kill you at level three, right?"

I frowned, not appreciating her condescending tone. Even though I'd already read her name, I decided to give her a response that sounded like the one she'd just given me.

There was no reason for me to be nice to a rude person in a game.

"I'm doing just fine, thanks. And who are you, anyways? You think you're important?"

"Name's Mia Haoyu," she said, tossing her hair. "I was looking for this place. Samuel Donovan's Agency. But not for right now. It's the second part of my mission."

Hearing her speak her own last name confirmed that I'd pronounced it correctly in my head.

Greetings aside, I assumed that for her, my name was simple enough to understand.

The strange part for me was that she had missions involving Samuel Donovan. I must have looked confused in that moment.

"You okay?"

Mia stepped back from me, not trusting enough to stand in my presence. I found that very curious.

"Yeah," I said, studying her. "What business do you have with Samuel Donovan?"

She met my gaze evenly. "Well that's between me and him. I'm not about to tell you my business. Why would I do that?"

Her tone was clipped short, and she clearly didn't want to divulge any details.

"It was just a question," I said. "No need to be rude."

"I'm not rude for keeping my business to myself. You're the one who is rude for asking."

We glared at each other.