I whipped my head to the side, yanked into lucidness and out of my dazed state. There stood a human man a little taller and bulkier than me and wearing clothing not too dissimilar to mine, but minus the jacket and covered with horse hair.

"Excuse me, good sir, I know this is an odd question but - what's the name of this city we stand outside of?" I asked.

He gave me a blank stare for several seconds before answering, " 'Twould be an odd question indeed if I wasn't certain you stumbled into my barn to sleep off the drink after arriving from gods know where. This is the city of Ireford, in the Gold Kingdom. And now that I've let you sleep in my barn and answered your question," and with this, he gestured towards the road opposite us, away from the barn and horse pen, "be away with you before I call the guard and have them arrest you for vagrancy."

I considered this for a moment, but decided not to push my luck - the man had created an excuse for my presence for me and wasn't going to throw me immediately to the guard. Lucky me, and I don't mean that sarcastically! It could have gone much differently.

Marching myself over to the road I found it almost like those Roman roads still around in Italy, made of rough cobble and with wagon rut spaces running down the thoroughfare toward the city. This might not be the world's largest trade hub, but clearly, Ireford sees a decent amount of traffic - though I'll admit I have no idea of the scale of the place yet.

I walked towards the city gates, following the short stream of people walking in front of me. The walls seemed to loom over me like an angry grandma looking for someone to blame for breaking a window, and I couldn't help to feel a little apprehensive as I walked up under their fifty feet height.

This is going to be the place I start my life, and already it has fifty-foot walls... I might feel safer inside of them but I feel much less secure thinking of the reasons why they need them. I'm a small, weak fish in what seems to be a very large world surely populated by things far scarier than me.

Luckily, cities are usually some of the best places to start in Requiem overhauls. Yes, there's little to no combat to be found - but that's a good thing because we'd get squashed like a bug. Much safer to grind out fetch quests and other things of that nature in the city, doing deliveries and such until my level raises enough and gives me enough perk points along with my skills to allow me to survive against potentially... well, even against a rat if I'm being honest.

Assuming leveling still works like I'm expecting. I'll admit I have no subconscious feeling on this issue to inform me what the deal is - I seem to have been left to figure it out on my own. Given that we're functioning on a Modpack that I don't know the details of, leveling could potentially work in a couple of ways:

1. Leveling skills give overall XP for character level and therefore, perk points.

2. Leveling skills does nothing, with XP for character level gained from everything else

3. Combat could not provide any XP, with gain tied to completed quests or achievements

Or any mixture of these things and many other ways though these are probably the big three. I don't have a plan for number two, especially if it turns out XP for character leveling is tied to quests of achievements only. I'll be honest, that mix of numbers two and three is probably what I find most likely, which means finding and doing a bunch of minor tasks is even more important than it would otherwise be.

It's a matter of efficiency - it takes time, energy, and resources to gain XP. The less of the three you have to spend to gain that next level, the more efficient. Wasting any of the three doing anything that isn't directly purposed to gaining that level could be the difference between surviving and not. Running around and doing some deliveries is much quicker, safer, and easy than trying to jump into a dungeon or fight bandits.

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Heavens help us if XP gain is set to combat only...

Distracting myself away from my fears by thinking of the intricacies of the world I find myself in and planning for the future, I walked through the wall surrounding Ireford and into the city proper; the guards standing to either side of the gate seemingly only there to keep out known undesirables or in case of an emergency rather than checking identities or taking taxes or somesuch.

Entering the city was a bit of an experience; after walking through the end of the tunnel through the walls I found myself standing on one side of a large city square, with temporary market stalls in a double row down both sides of the street. Hawkers yelled their wares at every being passing by, and the smells of spices filled the air.

I wandered forward in a daze, walking through the market following the road. The square was maybe a couple of thousand feet in length, and I slowly made my way down the avenue following it past the market and into the next section of the city, houses and stores lining each side of the road with side avenues creating city blocks every five or so houses.

Armored people dressed in a uniform resembling the guards at the front gate wandered to and fro, and I saw at least three different groupings of paired guards coming out and turning to walk down the side roads. The city seemed decently policed, even if there was still a little more litter and dirt than I'd prefer along the road.

I continued to just wander down the street but began thinking to myself again-

Right, so let's take stock of what I know about my circumstances rather than caching it in suppositions and assumptions.

I've been yanked into another world. The world has game logic overlaying it, game logic that follows a Modpack I was about to play when I got yanked here. I have a race that must remain hidden, a class that stacks with that race giving me a good start at a necromancy build. I have two starting spells, and many suspicions on what I need to do both to gain more spells as well as leveling up to gain more perk points and therefore, grow more powerful. I don't seem to have anything else other than these things.

I'll state again - it could be worse.

As I wandered through the city thinking on things, after some time the road seemed to run straight to another smaller wall in the interior of the city. I didn't walk all the way around to check, but it seemed this was the center of the city with the lord's castle or mansion or some such likely behind it and sittias ng the centerpiece of Ireford.

I might not know where anything is, but the city itself was pretty easy to navigate with mostly straight streets and a direct shot from the gate I entered from to the lord's area. Now that I know how the city is laid out I can probably find my way around with too much of an issue, as long as someone points me where I'm going - it's not very dissimilar to New York City if absolutely fantasy medieval.

There didn't seem to be one particular area that was more high class than the rest either, though there did stand more stately homes and even what I would call a manor or two along the road and more of them closer to the lord's mansion. Since there didn't seem to be any zoned areas per see (disregarding perhaps the slum-looking area outside the walls) I suppose it doesn't matter where I start searching for the most important, most critical thing I can think of.

A place to spend the night. If I'm lucky a place with a job that partly pays in room and board. I do think I remember passing by an inn nearby, right here near the center of the city - I'll try them first.