Boar’s Head pub- 5 years after freedmen entered Royal Road

Shadow sat in the corner of the pub hiding within his namesake while watching the entrance and waiting for his man to appear. After sitting silently for an hour, he saw his potential employer arrive and immediately thought he was a fool. While coming to a pub in the most dangerous part of town he flaunted his wealth, almost asking to be attacked. After observing for a while, Shadow learned that he seemed to be a very rich and powerful man. Despite carrying a small fortune, the man showed no signs of being uncomfortable and it seemed as if he never even considered the fact that he might be in danger. After realizing that the man he was going to be dealing with was probably a pompous noble, Shadow stepped out of the darkness and approached to begin negotiations. As soon as he arrived at the table the man glared at him before asking if he was there to talk with him.

His only reply was “ I’m Shadow”

“ah, your Shadow. Hmm well then Shadow my organization has called you here to fulfill a very difficult request”

“ If its anything like what you’ve given me recently it wont be a problem”

“Well then this might be difficult because it is harder than every assignment we have given you until now, those were simple compared to this. Now, you are going to get a challenging mission”

“What could that be?”

“ We need you to find out what the seers hid before they locked their maze and isolated themselves from the rest of the world.”

“……………..”

“We have managed to discover every other secret they left behind, and using them has brought us great wealth, but whatever spell or trap the Seers left in that dungeon has killed every single party we sent in”

“ ……………”

“ We want you to figure out how to get in that dungeon, and tell us the last secret the Seers left behind.”

Ding

A quest window appeared before Shadow

Seers last secret

A secretive organization has offered you a quest to gain information on and if possible break into a dungeon left behind by the Seers.

Difficulty A

Quest requirement

Have worked for this organization before

If you refuse this organization and all affiliated groups will refuse to give you work or sell you goods.

Reward- dependent on quality and quantity of information gathered. You will only get the maximum reward if you find all the secrets left behind by the Seers.

Seers cave- 5 years after freedmen enter royal road.

He had been in this room for his entire life, and now he was finally going to be able to leave it. For his entire life he had resigned himself to simply being told about the outside world and being unable to see it, but that was no longer the case. After years of living in this cave, years of being taught by the constructs left behind by whoever left him here, his prayers to the to the Gods had paid off. They finally sent him a way out.

He looked once more at the gift the gods had given him. They were shackles. They looked like normal iron, but the magic placed on them was so strong that whenever he looked at them it felt as if a bug was crawling underneath his skin. And despite that feeling, whenever he looked at them, he smiled. He did not fear any magic they could hold. He was willing to accept any torture if it allowed him to go to the outside world.

Therefore, he took the shackles and put one on each limb. As soon as he attached the final shackle he received instructions from the God who sent him this gift. In exchange for his freedom the god only gave two instructions.

“ You must never remove these shackles”

“ You must live as one of those you were made to destroy”

He had no idea what the second condition meant but he gladly agreed. As soon as he did he disappeared, leaving behind only an empty room

He had no idea where he was now headed but he wasn’t worried, because wherever he ended up he would have the only thing he ever wanted. Freedom.

Seers cave- present day

Shadow arrived outside the cave and as far as he could tell, it was a perfectly normal. But once he stepped inside, he immediately knew he was wrong. Instead of the hard stone he expected the ground was covered in loose gravel. Instead of multiple passageways like he would normally expect this dungeon had only a single tunnel sloped so steeply downward that a single misstep would cause him to slide all the way to the bottom. After a descent that involved a little sliding a lot of shuffling and more than its fair share of cursing he arrived at the bottom and stood in silence trying to figure out what could have possible happened there.

At the bottom of the slope there were the bones of every creature imaginable. On top of those, he could see the bones of more recent victims, including what seemed to be the group sent by those who hired him.

After wading through the bones he arrived at a door. When he opened it the only thing he learned about the dungeon was that whoever was there is gone now.

Present time

When he woke up he was in a square white room. He was just beginning to wonder if he had moved from one dungeon to another when a feminine voice started talking to him.

“Due to the manner in which your account was created you are unable to change your gender, race, or appearance but the name of your avatar has not yet been determined”

“Select the name of your avatar”

Instead of answering he looked around the room for the source of the voice before speaking to the empty air and saying

“What do you mean my avatar?”

The voice, coming from God knows where, responded saying

“Your avatar will act as your body while connected Royal Road. The name of your avatar will be what you are known as while playing. What would you like to be called”

After thinking about it for a while he decided that he had no idea what he should be called so his only response was

“I don’t know”

“ if you don’t know what you want your avatar to be named would you like to randomize it?”

Unable to come up with a better idea his only response was “yes”

As soon as he finished speaking the voice said

“Your name and starting location have been chosen. Your name will be Relic and you will start in the Kallamore kingdom.

Then there was a flash of light and next thing he knew he was in a city square. He had been expecting it to be loud and full of life, but what he saw was beyond any of his expectations. Instead of hearing merchants call out their wares there were soldiers shouting commands. He saw countless fighters streaming towards the walls while all of the civilians were running deeper into town.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He was sitting on the ground stunned by all of this action when a soldier ran up to him and started telling him that monsters had slipped through the defense lines and that all civilians should go take shelter in the church.

He simply nodded and let the soldier push him in the direction of the church.

As soon as he arrived in the church, without even bothering to look around, he sat down and started thinking. He had just started to get a basic understanding of the situation, when a player came up and introduced himself.

Apparently his name was Frankie and since he had seen Relic appear in the middle of the attack and decided to explain what was happening.

What Relic learned was that the countryside of the Kallamore Kingdom was filled with monsters. Many of the monsters in the countryside were powerful, but the monsters that attacked were those weak enough to be driven from their territory. This meant, despite the large number of monsters attacking, that fighting to defend the kingdom was a great way to get stronger.

Relic sat there, trying to decide how useful this information was, when Frankie started talking again.

“ So, with all that said, I have a proposition.”

As soon as he heard this Relic looked at Frankie and gave him a questioning look while thinking

What he could possible want from me?

Frankie waited for this idea to sink in, before continuing

“ I want you to pair up with me for knight training.”

Relic sat there thinking while Frankie endured what seemed to be an eternity before he responded with just one word

“No”

His denied Frankie for a few reasons. First off, from what he been told, those who joined the army always had to follow strict rules and do whatever their superiors told them to do. There was no way he would restrict himself that much when he just gotten his freedom.

Secondly, he knew that you needed money to survive in the outside world. Without it he wouldn’t be able to get shelter or clothing. Therefore, he knew he needed to find a job.

Despite this seemingly definite answer, Frankie pressed on.

“ Come on since you started here without even knowing about the monster attacks you must know nothing about royal road. If you team up with me I will tell you everything I know”

Relic just sat and didn’t even bother to respond

“We are not even able to join until the end of the first month so team up with me and i'll help you train”

Relic didn’t even move a muscle in response to this over

“ If you team up with me I can even get you a job. Even though I only started three days ago I already have a bunch of NPC's I am friendly with.”

Relic seemed interested for the first time and asked

"what are NPC's?"

"NPC's are the characters that are here without the players. They make it so that there are always people to interact with and let there be towns and cities in undiscovered places. They are also the ones who give out quests and teach skills to players."

"What are players, and do you mean quests like those in fairy tales? also why do you need someone to teach you a skill can't you just learn it trough practice?"

"I knew you were new but this is on another level. How did you even get in Royal Road without knowing all this."

"I agreed to the conditions set and then I ended up here"

"Well whatever. Players are people like us who make avatars and play the game, and some of the quests are similar to those in fairy tales but there are a lot of realistic ones too like deliveries and menial work. also you can get skills on your own but it is extremely difficult. It takes a hundredth of the effort to just get the skill with the help of an NPC and then level it up."

"...."

"And before you even ask a skill is something that helps you complete an action. Even though i just started learning swordsmen ship with the help of skills i can already do some pretty cool attacks. It's like that for everything else too."

"How will i know when i get a skill?"

"There will be a popup window.It will just appear in the air and tell you when something about your avatar has changed. Also you can always look at your status window to see what skills you have."

"ok."

"So are you up for it are not? If you don't know any of that stuff then you will never be able to survive on your own."

Despite the fact that he agreed with Frankie's last comment, he still denied Frankie thinking that there was no way he would restrict his freedom.

even though he was denied again, and even though his partner was going to be someone who knows nothing about Royal Road, Frankie was still filled with hope from finally getting a reaction. He decided that it was time to bring out his trump card.

“ In fact, if you team up with me for the knights training, I will let you have all of the drops from a secret dungeon I learned about."

Frankie smiled to himself deciding that no one would be able to resist the temptation of secret dungeon when Relic said just one word.

"Drops?"

After another incredulous look he said

"Drops are the things that monsters leave behind when you kill them while exploring."

"exploring?"

"you know that thing were you go around the continent searching for treasure."

“So we will be able to explore even if we do the knights training?”

“Of course you can. Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

“So we don’t have to join the army if we do knights training?”

“Of course not. There is no way we would end up in the army. Players have been trying to get in through the knight training for as long as it has existed but no one has been allowed to enter the Kallamore army yet”

“So I really wont have to join the army”

“Yep”

“And you really can get me a job”

“Yep”

“Then i'll do it”

"Great"

"Hey Frankie"

"Yeah."

"Why do you want to do knight's training?"

"It's great XP."

"Whats XP?"

as soon as Relic said that Frankie sighed thinking

Looks like i am going to have to do a lot of explaining

End Chapter 1

A few random things

My writing isn’t as good as I want it to be so if you have any suggestions please tell me. (Especially about my transitions and dialogue)

Also I am terrible with coming up with names and spent far too long deciding what to call Relic so if you have any good names then please leave a suggestion here. I couldn't even decide what to name the bad guy in this series so i just referred to them as a mysterious organization -.-