When Kenny opened his eyes and looked around he was standing in front of a large wooden desk, he had to crane his neck to look over the top of the desk. Sitting at the desk, next to some potted plants and flowers that were as large as he was sat a woman with a dark tanned skin, large studded earings, a crown and large red reading glasses in the style you would see a stereotypical librarian wearing.

Kenny turned and bolted out of the room. At least he planned on it, he turn and took about three steps and bounced off a tall woman with large pointed ears and landed sprawled out on the ground.

“Aha, look who has finally arrived!” said the giant librarian woman. “I have already given the others a small introduction, but I told them they had to wait on the final member of our merry little band. “So, essentially you all work for me now.” she said with a polite little smile.

“Uh, what, huh, where am I?” kenny sputtered out. Rambling in the confusion of not having a clue on whats going on.

“Oh, calm down now, Nastybadger, you were about to die, quite gruesomely i might add, but I saved you.” Giant miss librarian said, still with that big smile on her face.

“Wait, what did you call me?”

With a slight falter in her smile the giant looked down at a large sheet of paper on her desk. “Nastybadger, it says here that you are a battlemage of some skill. The two lovely ladies behind you are Bailindra, who is skilled with the maul and Arisarie, who was a fledgling druid before joining up today.

“Lady, i don’t know.” kenny started but was interrupted.

“Call me Goddess Ezra.”

“Uh, ok. So, where am I, and why do you keep calling me by my VRO name?”

“Sorry to interrupt, but can we get back to the topic on hand? I have been standing here waiting for an explanation for quite some time now.” cut in the tall woman that kenny bumped into. Now that he was looking, and not in a complete state of horror and confusion, though there was plenty of that going on he got a better look at her features.

Standing maybe 6 inches taller than Kenny at about six-foot-five she was shockingly pretty. Wearing black pants and a gray short sleeve shirt. She had blue eyes with large pointed ears that stuck out of her long messy black hair that hung down to the small of her back.

“Ahh Bailindra, yes. There will be time for questions after your orientation!” the Goddess Ezra said addressing the Elf. she then turned and made direct eye contact with the three smaller beings. “The three of you are dead, you all died on your own worlds, and i have purchased you to work for me. Oh, no, no. don’t worry im not one of those hands on bosses you will be left to your own discretion.” she continued completely misreading the confused and scared looks on the trios faces. “There will be a job board in the middle of town. Once you leave my office Jeeves will take you to look at it when he give you the tour of town. Alright, any questions? No, alright then, good like and don’t let me down.” she said, and waved them away out the door.

“Wait, you didn’t explain anything though!” kenny started shouting

“Any further questions can be answered by Jeeves, i have already gone past my orientation time. He will be with you right after I have a small chat with him. Thank you.” with that she spun her giant office chair behind her desk and completely ignored their stammering questions and outraged voices.

“My lady goddess?” Jeeves, the elderly man addressed his goddess. “Shouldn’t I be instructing our new recruits?”

“In but a few moments, i wanted to discuss our financial situation before you get started, mayhaps you can give them a nudge in the right direction afterwards.”

“Is something wrong with our vault?”

“Nothing more than it is nearly depleted.” the goddess sighed before continuing. “The creation of this land, coupled with the cost of the recruits has left of very nearly destitute. Not to mention the cost of the capitalistic courses I had to take at the Academy to earn my Land License.”

“Minor setbacks I am sure, my Lady Goddess. You passed your courses with excellent marks, and will be excelling and making your return on the investment in no time at all.”

“I hope you’re right, Jeeves. I don’t know where I would be if it weren’t for your help. I shall ever be in the debt of my parents for that.”

As they were leaving the office of the giant god, Bailindra took a moment to study her two companions. The man was a young human, he had shaggy dark brown hair that kept falling into his eyes and being brushed out. He wasn’t terribly tall, perhaps just under six feet, he wasn’t particularly well built either for somebody the god called a battlemage. A little on the pudgy side, he was wearing a pair of blue pants made of a strange fabric and a red cotton shirt with a picture of a large die with the number 20 on the outward facing side.

The other companion on the other hand was a bit harder to figure out. Bailindra could tell by her body structure that she was a young girl, though she had the cowl of her green and tan cloak pulled over her head she still had a few locks of red hair sticking out. She was even shorter than the young man, Kenny. Though she was lean, she wasn’t very muscular. She had a short red tail sticking out of a hole in her cloak that was hanging low and swings to and fro, almost like a cat.

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Shortly after the trio left the office they were greeted by an old man with an old cap and cane.

“Ahem, I am Jeeves. I will be giving you a short tour of town and explaining your duties.”

The trio burst out in a torrent of incomprehensible questions at the same time. Voices overlapping and no one question being understood.

“Hold on, hold on, I’ll be forthcoming with answers as soon as we complete the short tour and I explain some of what is expected from you, hopefully that will answer most of your questions before you have to ask them.

He led them out of the building they had arrived in, a large mansion of a place that could easily house ten families of dwarves. Out into a large open area with nothing there but 2 small kiosks and a lot of grass. In the distance, Bailindra could see an outline of a forest just on the other side of a large lake.

“Well, this is the town.” jeeves said with a smile. “It’s a bit empty at the moment but that is where you come in. Your job is to build this plot of land into a livable village, you wont be alone though, the Great Goddess Ezra will continue to hire more people to help you on this endeavor. Allow me to show you the two stalls we have set up for you” he put an inflection on the word we that made it abundantly clear that he did all the setting up.

As they approached the stalls Jeeves slipped into the first one they reached.

“Jeeves Jolly Equipments open for business!” he said with a wide smile. Bailindra could tell he had been wanting to do that for a while. “Here you can purchase weapons, tools, and armor for your quests and general work around the village. He then slipped out and into the next kiosk next to it. “Jeeves Genuine Spells and Magic shop. Over here you can purchase spells and abilities to help with your quests and general work around the village.

Another onslaught of undecipherable questions that Jeeves silenced with a calming gesture with his hands. “Almost done, then I can answer any remaining questions.” he then walked to the back of the kiosks and turned to a large sign that spaced the distance between the two stalls, written at the top was a few words in gold lettering, It read Quests and Missions.

“And this is where you find missions and quests to undertake to earn gold and rewards to build the city. Oh, and of course to pay the Great Goddess Ezra for her hospitality. I think that about sums up everything in the tour have a great day and enjoy your stay!” Jeeves then turned to leave.

“Wait!.” Bailindra hollered before Jeeves left them just as confused as they had been. “I know I still have questions and I can only imagine the others do as well.

Jeeves frowned. “Well darn, I thought I did a very thorough job explaining. Go on then, ask away, let us start with you Bailindra.”

“Alright, well to start, let us say we understand that we died an’ was brought to this strange land to work for this Ezra.”

“Great Goddess Ezra.” Jeeves cut in raising his right hand in the air index finger pointed up.

“Uh, yes, her. Lets say we understand and accept all that. Why would we want to do this for her. Also, you mentioned pay Ez.. the Great Goddess Ezra, for her hospitality. What exactly does that entail?”

Jeeves looked confused for a moment. “You guys are brand new?”

“Lets pretend we know what that means and say yes.”

“Alright, let me start at the beginning then. You are aware that you died right?” three heads kind of nodded, kind of shrugged, not fully getting it but nodding to keep the explanation going. “After your deaths your souls go to the afterlife, and in the afterlife they are given what is essentially a price tag. Every soul in the afterlife can be bought, in theory. Some souls are worth more than others and some are worth such a large sum that not even the Gods and Goddesses can afford to grab those few souls. The reason they do this is because gold is equal to power, the more gold a god has in their coffers at any time means the more powerful the god can become. The more gold you possess means the more gold you can invest and profit off of, which gives you even more gold to invest and so on and so forth. As a god amasses more wealth they can purchase more Souls and larger worlds. Some of the Gods use their wealth to help others while some use it for nothing more than making others miserable. But I can assure you that the Great Goddess Ezra is one of the nicer gods that could have purchased your souls. Anyways, there is a bit more to it than that. But to sum everything up, The more gold a god earns the stronger they can become. And Great Goddess Ezra needs to become stronger as quickly as possible. You see, the Great Goddess Ezra just recently graduated and received her Inheritance to start her new world. With that inheritance, which was a pittance due to circumstances outside of her control.” he looked sad after saying this last part. “ with that pittance she purchased this small plot, your 3 souls, the spells and equipment in the kiosks and a small allowance for the three of you to make a small purchase to start out here. The last is of course expected to be paid back in full, not all at once mind you.”

“This is horse shit.” kenny started. “What if I don’t want to be a slave to your giant god.”

“Great Goddess Ezra is no giant god, she is fairly young and therefor much smaller than most of the gods. If you refuse to work your soul will have to be sold to another, the gods that buy these souls that refuse to work take them to their reformation worlds. Those worlds tend to be quite unpleasant and painful, most like to practice torture on these souls. You have been given quite a gift just by being picked up by the Great Goddess Ezra. I would suggest maybe starting out purchasing a few tents to sleep in while you work on building the village into the best village you can make it. Easiest way to make gold is to take on quests, but it’s not the only way, not everyone hired will be skilled the way you three are and will have to find their own ways to earn gold, usually skilled labor and the like. Take some time and explore, i know its a lot to digest so try to remain calm and think about the next few steps you want to take. Oh, and here you are, gold for you to begin working with, I would recommend you start doing the quests set out on the mission board as soon as possible to start bringing a flow of money into the village. Also, please work hard for the Great Goddess Ezra, she could have left you guys with a much darker God. ”

Jeeves looked sad for a moment before shaking his head and smiling, he then handed each of the three a handful of gold then he turned and headed back towards Ezras mansion. Leaving the three still highly confused souls together with their thoughts.