Walking alongside Jess I can see a smile on her face, her mood has improved considerably from earlier, she is definitely starting to calm down. Of course this is largely owed to the nice scenery of this town.
Heimos. A rather vibrant place. We have been walking around for an hour or two now and seen a fair amount of the town. Most of the architecture in the town resembles a medieval setting of sorts, but even within that it varies quite widely from modest countryside wooden buildings to modern’ish elaborate stone structures.
The scenery itself is also really beautiful. Mountains in the distance, sprawling forests and plains stretch out in every direction, in the distance beyond the horizon of the town's main wall. The wall itself is quite a bit taller than the average person, but by no means unscalable. I am uncertain as to whether it is simply meant as some kind of deterrent, or just a general boundary?
“I’m hungry.”
Jess pulls me out of my thoughts. Giving it a moment's thought, “Why don’t we get something to eat then. I think we passed a tavern of sorts back around that corner over there.”
“Okay,” Jessica’s smile goes full tilt.
We change course and go back to where I spotted the tavern, it’s a two story building made out of a mixture of wood and stone.
I enter ahead of Jessica, but have to pause immediately to take in the scene before me. The place is really rowdy, it’s filled with people. Wait, people is not the right way to describe this. More than half the inhabitants of this room are not human. Lizardman, Cat-people, all manner of demi-humans, even what appears to be dwarves. The ages also vary wildly ranging from kids that can’t be more than twelve years old, all the way to elderly people.
This is truly a scene from an RPG, no not even that, a complete fantasy world. I feel a tug on the back of my shirt. Jess is hanging onto it with a gentle grip, the look on her face is priceless, shock and awe don’t even begin to do it justice.
I smile to myself, “Let’s get a seat.”
I lead Jessica over to an empty table that seats two, or maybe three people. We sit down on the wooden chairs.
“Aaahhh,” I let a relaxing groan. I guess it’s been a tiring morning and we’ve been walking around for a few hours to boot.
Jessica is just sitting there quietly, still surveying the room. I guess she is still taking it all in. Not surprising, her main focus is FPS gaming and there is not a lot of medieval fantasy type settings to be had in such a genre, never mind being thrown into it head first. At that I have an amusing thought, we’re both playing an FPS right now looking through the eyes of our characters. Of course I don’t share that thought, as she is right now, I doubt she’d get the joke.
It does not take long for one of the waiters to approach us. A human girl with short reddish hair. She, like all the other waiters here, is wearing a waitress outfit with a black skirt that stretches up like a low cut dungaree and white frilly top that accentuates her breasts, very much reminiscent of what you would associate with a german or dutch pubs waitress uniform.
I ask her about food options and she explains the menu to us. We settle on some kind of soup that I can barely pronounce and bread to accompany it. This rather simple meal sets us back five copper coins, that’s a quarter of our total wealth combined.
After voicing these thoughts to Jess we agree that our first order of business should be to secure an income.
“This world is clearly based on an RPG and probably whatever the 'It’s not a game' game was gonna be like.”
I pause for a moment, “If that’s the case then I think the obvious choice is for us to ‘play’ this game like we’re intended.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Treat it like an RPG. Go kill monsters, complete quests, earn money, level up, etc.”
“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves here? Can we even be sure that this ‘world’ even works like an RPG in the first place?”
“True. But, we can make some assumptions. For instance, our adventurer cards clearly indicate both our character class and level number, which for both of us is at level one. Also I’ve already used one of the Paladins skills. From this we already know that there is leveling and skills involved here.”
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Jessica considers my words but gives me a doubtful expression. At this time the waiter brings over our order and sets it on the table.
Now for one little gambit, “Excuse me.”
The waitress turns to give me attention. “Where can we find out about any available quests?”
The waitress gives me a slightly puzzled look. Oh crap. I’m starting to feel embarrassed, looks like that's not how it works after all.
“Over there,” the waitress points to the end of the room, “we pin all the available quests on that board over there, you can look em o’er at ur leisure and ask any o’ the staff at the counter if ya be needin more details.” The waitress smiles and walks off.
“I guess you were right, it really is like we’re inside the game.”
We finish up our meal without much further conversation. I’m not sure what was in that soup. There was definitely vegetables and some kind of meat. It wasn’t anything I could recognise, so I have a feeling I’m better off not knowing. Jess also looks a little unsettled by it.
We head over to the large ‘quest board’. There are all kinds of quests, all written in very different manners, some with impressive artwork, others with plain text and some with really bad drawings and handwriting. They do generally have a few things in common though. They all list a description of what’s expected as well as the reward.
“I assume if we were to take on a quest, being level one and all, we would have to take on something suitable for our levels.”
Jess interrupts me, “Actually, before that even, do you think we’re the only people here? I mean, ‘players’?”
“Huh. Good point.”
I peruse the room wondering about this. “Probably not, but I don’t think we would ever be able to tell, since we can’t really talk about anything outside of this world.”
Jessica looks a little sad at that last statement.
I look back to the quest board. “Je- I mean Misty, what about this one?”
Jessica looks at the quest I’m pointing to.
“It’s just asking us to kill some goblins that have made a camp on the outskirts of town and have been doing raids on the villagers.”
I lean in closer to Jessica, to whispering distance. “I mean, we obviously don’t know much about this world, but in general goblins are bottom of the wrung monsters, if there is two of us, combined with my Paladin's healing skills, I’m guessing we can manage.”
Jessica once again gives me a doubtful look. “I don’t know about this. This doesn’t exactly feel like we’re playing a game here you know.”
“Aaarrgh!”
We’re both startled by the sound of someone else crying out. It’s coming from outside.
Not a moment before I’ve put those thoughts together, the door to the tavern comes flying open, a short man wearing light armour and carrying a sword comes bursting through it. “Goblin!”
This is great! I swear whatever god(s?) inhabit this world, they are looking out for me. This tavern is clearly filled with many other ‘adventurers’ a goblin won’t stand a chance here, and I can get a look at what we’re dealing with first hand.
“Eeaerk!” The goblin grunts as it chases the man through the door. It’s much faster than him. Small and nimble. The goblin lunges forward a short curved sword in his hand swings through the air and strikes the man.
The man squeals in pain as he continues to scramble away from the goblin. Jessica gasps. I see the reason for it. The man has left his arm behind. The goblin sliced it clean off, blood is literally pouring out.
Its as if time is slowing down, all the noise around me is being drowned out, all the color is being soaked up from the room. The goblin that looked like such small opponent, the bottom of the wrung small fry, now seemed like something else entirely. A menacing foe, a demon. It’s small pointed ears, it’s slanted red eyes, its fearsome grin filled with teeth. Terrifying, there’s just no other word for it.
Everyone else in the room had started reacting a while ago already, the waitresses and others running for their lives. Multiple people standing up brandishing all sorts of weapons. The ones that were charging forward mostly had melee type weapons at the ready to attack the goblin with. They were all a bit too slow though, the goblin had already raised his curved sword and thrust it deep into the armless man's chest.
The many adventurer’s that had charged the goblin released their attacks simultaneously. Thud, thud, clang, clang. They were butchering it, it never stood a chance, there was blood flying everywhere.
Finally things calmed down, they were satisfied that the goblin was sufficiently dead. I heard a voice call out “We need a healer!”
“Don’t waste your breath, he’s already dead, he took one to the heart.”
With those few words everyone settled down and started discussing what had just happened very matter of factly. They started talking nonchalantly and discussing arrangements for cleanups, funerals and to assign the goblin quest a little more urgency. It’s as if the dead man wasn’t even there. It felt surreal, like I wasn’t even there. Is this really such a normal thing around here? A part of daily life?
I felt Jessica clinging to my shirt again with one hand. I turned to look at her, she was staring into space, shaking and her face was sprayed with some blood.
“Yeah I know, there’s no way we could be adventurers.” This is just too far out of reach for regular teenagers. I felt sick to my stomach, this is not a game at all.