I’m running through a bright green yard with abandon. The short stalks feel like velvet under my feet. This is freedom. I take a running leap, which ends up being more of a belly flop that turns into a slide. An “oof” sound is pushed out of my lungs before I start giggling and gathering the freshly cut grass around me. I hear a deep voice behind me say “Don’t you dare..” before I toss the clumps of grass as high as I can. Turning around, I look through the haze of grass slowly fluttering down and see a mock stern expression on my dad’s face as he walks towards me…
I twitch awake. My head is still groggy as the details of my dream slip away. Except for the smell of greenery. It’s stronger now with more of an earthy tone to it.
I force my eyes open and raise my head from the wooden table it was resting on. I’m seated on a short stool inside a run down room. There are gaps in the crooked, horizontal slats of wood with beams of daylight shining through. Moss and vines and leaves and other greenery are abundant. They’re growing over everything, including the slightly spongy feeling table I was just resting on. There’s a “door” on the wall behind me that looks to be just a large piece of wood leaning against an opening. The broken remains of a bed and what is probably straw for bedding are the only other items in the small room.
I look down and notice I’m wearing a long extremely faded blue shirt and beige pants that are almost like tights but feel thicker. I have brown leather boots that fit surprisingly well on my feet. I reach up and feel a rough linen cap that comes to a long point holding my hair out of the way.
Hooray. I’m alive. And somehow in weird clothes. Also, thanks for the dream, brain. I haven’t thought about that asshole in years.
I snort a huff of air out of my nose before sighing to myself.
Welp, might as well figure out where I am.
As soon as I stand up and start to stretch my arms up, a familiar blue window appears in front of me.
Quest Initiated
Name: Fill my nutsack!
Type: Fetch
Description: An empty nutsack is a sad nutsack. Find and deliver 22 Ochaco Seeds to the Twice tree.
Progress: 0/22 Ochaco Seeds gathered
Time Remaining: 6:23:52:11
Reward: ???
Failure: Loss of Life
Stunned, I stand there reading the information with my mouth slightly open and my arms frozen above my head mid-stretch. Watching the last number count down slowly, I realize I have an entire week to gather 22 seeds… until I LOSE MY LIFE.
Okay okay okay okay. Deep breaths. I need some logic. What would Mirah do? She’d want to have a long and boring strategy meeting going over what happened so she could sort all of this shit out and come up with some overly complicated tactics that I would completely ignore when the time came. Well the first part sounds good anyway. Let me review.
I finished a good stream. Got a blinding headache. Pissed myself. Woke up in a jail cell with the blue screen of death waiting for me. Saw a title on it. “Luminary Legend.” Vague and cliche all at once. Went through a menu. May or may not have accidentally initiated a quest before getting any useful information. Passed out again. Woke up here with a hovering blue screen telling me I’m going to die in one week. I didn’t watch some sketchy VHS tape god dammit!
ADHD, calm the fuck down. Focus.
Looking at the window, it’s just a fetch quest for seeds. This is just like any video game or isekai/litrpg I’ve read. Also, “Failure” could mean that I fail by losing my life. So maybe I’ll be fine if the time runs out and I’ll just.. get another quest or go back home.
As soon as I complete that thought, the window vanishes for a second then reappears.
Quest Details
Name: Fill my nutsack!
Type: Fetch
Description: An empty nutsack is a sad nutsack. Find and deliver 22 Ochaco Seeds to the Twice tree.
Progress: 0/22 Ochaco Seeds gathered
Time Remaining: 6:23:48:41
Reward: ???
Fail Condition: Death or timer runs out
Failure: Loss of Life
There’s only one real change and I feel the blood drain from my face when I realize what it means.
Not only do I die if I fail the quest, they are listening to my thoughts. Whoever the fuck “they” are.
I see the floorboards quickly approaching. I barely catch myself, just now noticing that my knees had given out. My arms are trembling.
They’re watching me. They’re in my head. Fuck you fuck you fuck you. Lalalalalalalala. Can I just not think ‘out loud’?
…
You’re an idiot, me. Thinking is thinking.
My breaths are quick and desperate. It feels like there’s something squeezing my chest. I can’t breathe.
Deep breaths. Focus on something else.
After an eternity that only lasts a few moments, it’s like a cord is cut from around my chest. I start taking deep, ragged breaths. My body is covered in sweat and I feel exhausted.
Fuck your games. I’m not playing.
I lay on my side. A thick vine is pushing uncomfortably against my ribs but I’m too tired to care.
Was I chosen for a reason? Did this happen to the whole world? You’re a douchebag if you’re reading this. Is there a world to go back to? Where’s my tutorial? You’re a used douchebag if you’re reading this and not answering.
Too tired to verbalize my questions, I attempt to think them extra hard.
Are you really going to kill me?
I stare at the window. Willing it to update.
Quest Details
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Name: Fill my nutsack!
Type: Fetch
Description: An empty nutsack is a sad nutsack. Find and deliver 22 Ochaco Seeds to the Twice tree.
Progress: 0/22 Ochaco Seeds gathered
Time Remaining: 6:23:41:17
Reward: ???
Fail Condition: Death or timer runs out
Failure: Loss of Life
No change. Just the clock slowly ticking down towards my death.
I feel my eyes start to water and it’s like a slap in the face.
No. Fuck that. I’m not crying over this bullshit. It’s just a stupidly named quest to gather some stupid seeds. I’m not dying here.
I push myself upright and stand a little too quickly. My head feels light and my muscles feel worn out but I focus on my objective.
22 seeds to gather and..
I check my shirt and pants.
No pockets. Of course. What can I use here?
I look around the room and find what is most likely the remains of a pillow on the other side of the bed. I shake the moldy straw out of the rough fiber sack and roll it up so it’s easier to carry.
Focus. Go get the seeds. That’s all I have to do.
Before I can dwell on my situation any further, I pull on the “door” and let it clatter to the ground before stepping over it and striding outside with false confidence.
Or I try to at least, but my foot reaches out into empty air and I struggle to regain balance. My arms flail wildly as I teeter on the edge of the platform. A spike of adrenaline courses through me as I glance down and realize that the platform I’m on is suspended 20 feet above the ground.
With the grace of an obese cat, I manage to “jump” backwards to safety. To anyone watching, it may have looked like I almost walked off a ledge without looking, pinwheeled my arms, then fell backwards onto my ass but, to me, it was a masterclass in reflexes.
As I put a hand to my chest and feel my heart slow its staccato pace, I look around and see that the platform outside the house is barely 3 feet wide. There’s no rope or ladder anywhere in sight.
Great. Climbing. My favorite.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach out for the closest branch and lower myself slowly to the next one I think can support my weight.
I was never the most athletic person in class. Hell, I wasn’t even in the top 50%. And I sure as shit didn’t continue a dedicated workout program after graduating high school.
My arms are weak to start with and my legs feel like jelly from my near full-on panic attack from before. It only gets worse the more I tighten my grip and tense at the thought of falling. I try to focus on my breathing, on one branch at a time, but my heart is racing and my mind is a blur. I go to move to the next branch but my foot slips and I only have one hand on a branch for stability. As I start to drop, I feel a tugging on my hair and my hat comes free, caught in a weave of small branches I was avoiding. My free hand instinctively reaches towards the trunk. My fingernails claw into the wood as I press my body as tight as I can against it. I whimper in pain as I feel the last press-on nail I have break, and I barely come to a stop. My hand holding the branch is straining but I do manage to hold on long enough to reach two separate branches on opposite sides of the trunk.
Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have done that unboxing stream. Using those damn nails to try to line up with my PixelPixie persona was stupid. I got like 10 views on that stream! Plus they didn’t even last a week! And they kept getting in the way when I was being a troll defending my honor online!
I press my forehead against the ridged bark. It feels surprisingly cool.
Now I’m doing the splits in a tree a million feet in the air with a week left to live and I’m complaining about a broken nail.
Breathe. You’re almost there.
After my impromptu mental detour, I push/claw/scramble my way to better footing. I realize I’m only about 10 feet up at this point and decide that it’ll be easier to drop and roll. That’s the excuse I use to justify trying to really climb anymore.
Hanging by my arms, extending my barely well over 5 foot frame to 7+ feet, I drop the remaining distance. It’s a bit further than I had guessed but, other than my landing being a little jarring, I roll onto my back well enough. I feel the tension drain out of me as I relax into the long grass, arms and legs spread wide.
I feel a slight smile tug at my lips.
I can fucking do this.
That’s when I notice that my hand isn’t on grass but packed dirt instead. I sit up and see a defined path I hadn’t noticed before. Following it with my eyes, I see some motion and the outline of buildings through the trees ahead. Looking back behind me, it looks like the ends at the treehouse I came from. Behind that, I see a literal wall of trees covered in moss. They are grown so close together that it could even be one wide tree stretching across my vision but my mind refuses to comprehend how such a tree could exist. I look up and I’m unable to see the top of the tree-wall but I get the feeling that it is towering over the tree I “spawned” in.
If this was an actual game, I’d turn right around and scour the area off the literal beaten path but there’s no fucking way I’m doing that now.
Standing up and shaking my limbs out to recover from the recent ordeal, I begin my march down the path, the soft sound of distant birds and other wildlife picking up as I get closer to the structures ahead.
The whimsical designs of the houses and buildings lining the path come into focus as I approach. Each one has at least one tree, covered in moss and vines, growing through the middle of it. Most are situated at ground level but there are some, like the one I almost fell out of, that are built 10-20 feet above my head with haphazard stairs or ladders leading to their entrances. The buildings look much cleaner than I expected a bunch of treehouses to be. Little flower gardens and pots adorn a few of the obviously residential dwellings and everyone’s lawn has short, soft, green grass that stops right at the path I walk.
Mushrooms abound. Most are brown, off-white, or some shade of red and situated in the deepest shade of the trees or used as decoration around some entrances. I make a mental note to stay clear of any mushrooms that vaguely look like they are growing in a circle.
A fallen log situated between two buildings is absolutely covered in mushrooms. It’s propped up almost like it is on display. Some more colorful mushrooms poke out between the duller colors almost make a kind of abstract design that reminds me, oddly enough, of stained glass windows.
Something else that takes me way too long to notice is the doors. Whether they are round or rectangle or even square-ish, they are all barely my height, if that tall.
Oddly enough, I also don’t see a single person. I’m tempted to go inside one of the buildings but they look like they have been used recently and I don’t want to get caught trespassing if any of the owners are nearby.
After about half an hour, my path merges with a larger one and I keep walking in the same general direction. I notice quite a few other paths leading to the new, more defined one I now travel.
So far, this cute little town is actually helping me relax. As creepy as it is to be abandoned-ish, it still has a good atmosphere. My mind starts to wander as I contemplate my actual “quest.”
Once I find the seeds, how am I supposed to know what the “Twice” tree is? Will I get a waypoint? That would be too easy.
Wait. How am I even supposed to know what the seeds look like? What the fuck even is an “Ochaco Seed?” Would it float?
I’m snapped out of my thoughts when I hear the muffled sounds of multiple conversations in the distance. That’s also when I notice the giant tree that the path is apparently leading me towards.It towers over even the largest building and highest treehouse. It’s large enough that my concept of distance seems to be distorted trying to estimate it but it’s at least five times the height of the trees nearby and 10 times the width. There’s an expansive clearing surrounding the tree with only a few beams of light making it through the dense, expansive canopy hovering above the town.
The sounds of the people are getting louder and louder. I can’t make them out due to the deeper shadows in their direction but there must be hundreds of them.
As much as I want to ask someone what is going on or for help in any way, my body betrays me and I start nervously backing away because…
I hate crowds.
With that thought dominating my mind, I start jogging in the opposite direction. It doesn’t take long to pass the path back to the treehouse I came from but I decide to stay on what appears to be the main path through the village.
I quickly see that I’m headed towards the tree-wall, but this time there’s an opening that the path is leading me straight towards.
As I get closer, I see a lone figure leaning against an exposed root near the opening. He has a blue tunic similar to my own but brighter and what appears to be thick bark stitched haphazardly to his chest and upper arms. His blonde hair has a red tint and is pulled back into a short ponytail.
I stop short when I notice he has long, pointed ears.
Also, he’s four feet tall.
Awwwwwwhhh. A little elf! He’s so cute.
Social anxiety forgotten, I try to keep my smile hidden when he finally catches sight of me and scurries to pick up a slender wooden spear that ends in a metal tip and a shield made of the same bark stitched to his clothing.
Look at the little guy! He’s a big scary guard!
I approach him slowly but before I can say anything he brandishes his shield and shouts, “Halt! No one is to leave the village without having the proper equipment!”
So authoritative!
I slow to a stop and say, “Hyah! Hu Hoo Hyah! Seyah!”
WTF?