"We aren’t troublemakers,” Kian says, jumping in to keep Briar from saying any more “We are new here, could you direct us to where we can train basic skills?”

The captain lowers his eyelids and takes in Kian, and then he points to where the narrator had shown an arena. “You can train in and around the arena. If you are a fighter and prove your worth you could even join the guard.” He takes a second look at Briar and says, “Well, some of you, that is.” A commotion breaks out on the other side of the square, so the captain turns and speeds off.

“How did we already get the guards’ attention?” Asks Briar. “It’s like he was waiting for us to take the quest.”

Kian says, “I’m sure he is probably part of the quest. We will have to sneak past him most likely and we have little time. It is dark soon and we have to start. I don’t want to fail our first quest.”

I look toward the commotion and see a group of rogues, players dressed identical to us. The other group is being questioned by the captain.

“We might not be the only ones trying to get this thing.” I say. Following my gaze, both Kian and Briar take in our potential competition.

“Bring it,” says Briar.

***

We scout out the bakery first and Kian remembers seeing a sewer tunnel near the river. Making our way there, we stomp through the muck and into a sewer drain. I guess from the distance we have travelled that we must be close to the underside of the bakery by now. Kian and Briar stop ahead of me.

“What is that?” whispers Briar.

“You don’t have to whisper,” Kian says, “There aren’t any guards down here.”

“But Kian, I hear something.”

I step up to see if I can pick out what Briar hears, and it sounds like a clicking sound. “I hear dripping and chirping sounds, maybe crickets.” I say as I see a pair of small, glowing animal eyes in the sewer ahead of us.

“Rats!” Kian says.

We pull out our daggers and raise our torches as more glowing eyes appear. I mentally inspect the creatures and see they are simple level-one rodents with at most two hit points. I slip into the shadows.

Kian dives forward as they approach and stabs one, killing it instantly. A rat near it jumps on his arm and bites him for one hit point of damage, dropping him down to 80% of his maximum. Damn, we are squishy at level one. Briar jumps ahead and stabs one, killing it, and also gets a bite for one hit point. I slink ahead to flank the remaining rats and a notice briefly shows. Surprise attack, 2x damage, +1 attack. I step out of the shadows and quickly stab two rats, who die with one hit each. Kian stabs the final rat; we all stop and look around for more. Our first fight in the game! We don’t get any kind of notification, nothing to tell us we got experience points. Did we kill all of them?

“Damn, that hurts,” says Briar, rubbing his arm, “Doesn’t feel as bad the real thing, but it still aches.”

“It does,” Kian says, moving forward to a side-tunnel. “Hey, this is what we were looking for.”

Just inside the tunnel we see a grate above and I can smell bread. We are under the bakery. “Shh,” Kian lightly says, pointing up. He straddles the wall and gets up to the grate and presses his face against it. Kian gives the thumbs up and he pushes the grate up and slides it sideways. Grabbing the edge, he lifts himself up and moves out of sight.

Briar and I follow him up into the bakery, each of us hiding in the shadows. We can see each other by a light blue outline, and as my eyes pass over my party members, I can see their icons light up in my interface. Their health is not recovering, shouldn’t their health be already recovering? I inspect Briar and see he has a disease debuff icon. The rats we fought had a disease. How much will this cost at the healing temple?

Through the windows of the bakery we can see a light from outside. Pulling back deeper into the shadows, I can see a guard—no, the captain—walk past the large window with a bright torch. The captain stops to check the door is locked then he continues on.

We need to get out of here; I move to the back room where I quickly and quietly open the door. There on a table is our locked box. The box glows a slight golden color for a second; it is our quest item, all right. I move forward to get it and hear a snore. To my right in the dark I can see the baker, covered in a thin sheet, sound asleep. A notification shows “Prone, surprise attack 3x damage, +2 attack.” W.

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The baker rolls over in his sleep and I can see that he is the one from earlier in the day, the one who docked the worker’s’ pay and called him an urchin. Josie flashes in my mind, along with all the torture, kicking, and name-calling I have endured. Welling up inside me, a pent-up rage erupts, and I am next to his bed with my level-one knife up and ready.

I am rage.

Notifications scroll in time with my stabbing arm.

You hit baker for 6 damage.

You hit baker for 3 damage.

You hit baker for 6 damage.

Baker has died.

“What the—” Kian says, standing in the doorway, his mouth open.

I spin around, grab the lockbox, and throw it in my bag. I see a chest and open it without thinking. I dodge as a short knife ejects out of the box—a trap—and pick up coins inside. A notice informs me that “+12 gold” is added to my inventory.

“Whoa,” says Kian. “I don’t think killing the baker was part of the quest.”

“It’s fine,” I say, “I thought he would wake up. Let’s get out of here fast.”

We slip back down into the sewers, replacing the grate just as we hear a loud click and the front door opens above us. We freeze and listen. It is quiet, and then we hear, “What the hell? Someone killed this dude, where is the quest b—”

“Thieves!” I hear the voice of the captain call out. The light from his torch filters down the grate and into the sewer. “You thieves will go to jail — there’s been a murder, they killed the baker!” I hear more footsteps enter the bakery and turn and point to the way out, I don’t want to be around for this. We navigate our way back out of the sewers and make it before the rats respawn.

“Whoa!” Briar says with a laugh. “Those other rogues got shafted!”

“We completed the quest, at least,” says Kian, looking over his gear and checking the diseased rat bite on his arm.

“Let me see the box,” Briar asks, sticking his hand out. I give it to him, and he sits and looks it over, occasionally poking at it.

“So, what happens now?” I ask.

“I think we need to report back at the square,” Kian says. “But I don’t know if there is a curfew or anything. Let’s avoid the bakery and head back.”

Disappearing into the inky dark, leaping from shadow to shadow, we make our way to the square and stop. I see players still gathered around, looking at gear and digging in their bags. Standing near the stalls, I step out of the shadows. With a glance at our surroundings, Briar and Kian also step out and we walk forward to claim our prize.

At the quest board I look around and see the quest manager booth. He is a human who is dressed as an old-time bank teller. He sits in a solid booth made of wood. Walking up, Kian says, “We would like to turn in our quest.” He grabs the lockbox from Briar and places it on the counter in front of the quest manager.

“Quest failed, someone has opened the box,” the quest manager says. “Regular experience points have awarded for battle and skills.” Notifications scroll along in the lower right of my vision, but floating in the center is a pop-up.

Quest “A daring break-in” failed.

You opened the lockbox.

With his voice a low growl, Kian turns and says, “Briar, what did you do?”

“I didn’t mean to, I just saw some paper inside,” Briar says. “I thought there would be gold or jewels or something inside, man, not some stupid paper…”

I grab the box and open it and pick up the paper.

Quest chain: a daring endeavor.

The note in the box indicates that the baker was looking to bind creatures to his will to make his bread and was getting help from a nearby dark wizard. The baker had been providing the wizard with children to experiment with.

Find out what the baker was up to and rid the town of the dark wizard.

Success: Eliminate the threat of the dark wizard.

Failure: Abandon quest.

“See,” I say. “I knew he was a bad guy. I knew it.”

I click on “accept” and select the option to make it a party quest.

“Okay, so let’s not screw up this quest, all right, Briar?” Kian pokes a finger into Briar’s chest, and I watch both of their hit points tick down. The disease is still active.

My bathroom indicator icon is blinking—back in the real world I need to go to the bathroom. But first, I interrupt the boys, “Let’s go get you two healed.” I pull out some of the gold coins looted from the baker. As we walk to the healers across the square I say to Briar and Kian, “Looks like the disease will kill you in about a day, and it prevents you from recovering your hit points.”

“And it hurts,” says Briar as we reach the temple and see a female priest standing in front expectantly.

“Cure disease—one gold,” she says.

“A dollar!” Briar says, he tilts his chin down and hiccups, losing another percent of health.

Paying the healer her fee, I see I have another ten gold pieces left over. I excuse myself while the healing happens and walk back to the market; I stop at the tailor's shop where there are mage's robes and other low-end player gear for sale. I spy what I am looking for and quickly buy three black-hooded cloaks for two gold each. The tailor looks me over, saying, "These are good for keeping the night at bay, if you are a nightfall type of person?”

“Yes,” I say, “we are nightfall, uh, folks.” Does that sound bad? I wonder if she knows about the baker.

I try my cloak on and it feels right—it’s the uniform of a rogue in this game so it should. I test the shadows and I blend in and out easily; I walk back to the temple. Reaching the boys and handing over the cloaks, I say, “Here, we should have these.”

Seeing , “I need to log out for the night, it’s late.”

“I need to go also,” Kian says, trying on his cloak. I watch his hit points finally increase as his natural healing now works with no disease.

I log off

***

Josie had watched the runt girl and her friends slinking around the town square and made a note of their player names. Josie herself had chosen a ranger starting character and had excellent eyesight, tracking, and aim. She was a character designed to mercilessly track and kill. About to log off, she had spotted the rogues and followed them with an arrow ready, waiting for them to step out of the square, but they logged off.

This will be fun.