03
First mission
Day 1 Default 0
She was standing on top of a bed when the spiral in front of her eyes had slowed down. It was a nice second floor bedroom, the view from the window told her she was in the middle of suburbia.
Looking around, there wasn’t much but a desk, and a bookshelf full of game lore and fantasy, guides, and disclaimers she had signed… all that stuff. But she wasn’t interested.
She took the door out and walked down the staircase. The living room was empty, the kitchen, empty.
All in all it looked like a nice house.
She was looking about for anything relevant to stats, skills and leveling up. Finding nothing inside, she started for the outside.
She was about to open the door when it opened for her. And in front of the door stood a man in green light armor, sporting a crossbow on his back.
“Well that was fast,” he said. He turned around to his two partners. “The replacement has already arrived.”
The three of them came through the door and sat down. The other two looked like they were still recovering Stamina and a good chunk of Health.
One was a hulking Tank with iron armor and a terrible scowl. He nearly broke the couch just sitting down.
The other didn’t have any telltale features but looked like a possible Commoner wearing a red spandex suit and a sporting two long katanas.
The Tank looked up, “So do you talk or am I a going to have to ask for your info?”
“Yeah I talk,” she said. “I’m KillPrinsX, I’m aPsychic.” She held out her hand but thought it might not be a good idea, no matter how friendly a Tank might be, her hand might not recover.
“Oh great, a Psychic,” he replied.
Robin Hood grabbed something out of the fridge and downed it. “So is this your first time or did you default?”
She blinked a couple times. “First time,” she said.
He took a deep breath, “Alright” he put the drink back in the fridge. “So you’re a Psychic and we somehow had the luck to get your ass on our team. If you’re thinking about leveling up, you better do it fast and go out and get us some more milk and potions and stuff.”
She figured that was a good idea, but it probably wouldn’t help on the leveling up. Then she had the brilliant idea of asking, “How do I do that?”
All three of them sighed. Robin Hood handed her some coins and she slid them into her pocket. Her HUD told her that she was fifty coins richer. “Thanks.”
She was about to walk out but remembered her manners, “I guess I should ask you your names.”
“I thought you were psychic,” the Tank said.
Oh no! She’s acting like a newb. She’s played these games before. She even knew how to use Analyze from previous immersion games. She stared at the Tank and “asked” for their name. Sure enough the names appeared… well, not names, it was: Player 00073997, Player 00063842, and Player 00023496. Her mana dipped while her XP went up a little.
Ok, try some more. A little more focus…
Now their names appeared. Robinhood857, BruceBanner09, and hahaDeadpool. It would have been easier to have guessed.
You have learned the skill Analyze (tier 1)!
Analyze allows you to see another player’s name, level and class.
Cost:
1 MP
Gives:
+5XP per use
1 MP per rank
+ 1 Intelligence: Awareness: Others
“Now if you’re done staring at us and being weird,” Bruce said, “Why don’t you go get some groceries, I’m starving. And don’t forget you’re the haggler. That’s what Psychics are good for.”
She finally made way to the door, hearing their disparaging comments on the way out.
“I would have been faster.”
“Take it easy on her. It’s her first time.”
“What luck we’ve got. I hope our second respawn is better.”
The street was nice. It was a beautiful neighborhood of identical houses, trees and lawns exactly the same in every property.
KillPrinsX opened her map, making sure the house was marked. It was. Then, she checked out where the shops were.
They were quite a ways away, probably 30 minutes walking, she started checking out stats and skills to see if anything would help.
There was a bit of XP in a skill already. Analyze, level 1. No other skills were there except for the Basic skillset as a Psychic, the skill she had used already.
She thought that she might as well take their advice and start getting bargains at the shops. At least she had money.
She closed the skills screen and figured she had better find a car. She saw a neighbor had just driven in and parked their car in the garage. Maybe she had one in her garage…
She went up to the big garage door, an icon appeared, telling her that she can open it. She waited for the treasure that awaited her. What kind of car have we got?
Inside was a very average car.
She sighed heavily. No fun yet. And got in to drive off to the shops.
There were tons of players everywhere. She analyzed them all and got up to Level 3 by the time she got to the shops.
You have learned the skill Driving (common)!
Driving is a common skill that is invaluable in many cases. Though it may not be the best skill for getting around in a car, better skills can be learned to make a car really do what you want.
Costs:
None
Gives:
1 XP per minute
1 HP per rank
1 SP per rank
Time driven: 13 minutes.
You have Analyzed 33 people and gained 165 XP!
Congratulations! You are now level 3!
You have 2 unused skill points.
(Skill points are gained by leveling up. Every new level is attained by gaining XP. As you have now reached level 3 you are awarded with 2 skill point.)
That was awesome, early game noobing! She wasn’t all that thrilled yet, there were plenty of games like this, but she still had to get used to all the quirks of this game. Leveling up in the later stages probably got super hard.
She was excited to at least have learned how to walk and talk, something you can’t always do for the first time in games like this.
She found a butcher and went in, looking for six pieces of meat, certain that Bruce would eat at least two servings.
“How much for the steaks?”
“Ten gold each.”
Then she started haggling, “I’ll take six for 45gold.”
You have learned the skill Haggle!
Needing to save cash, feeling a bit prudent, just don’t want to pay that much for a little item like that? Haggle time!
Allows one to get items cheaper than being sold for. May be subject to defect when other player uses Haggle, or dislikes you.
Cost:
5 MP per second
Gives:
5 XP per second
XP bonus for successful haggles. (10 XP per Gold saved)
+1 Intelligence
“Hmmm.”
Before he could answer she had already opened up the skills screen and put all of her 2 skill points into Haggle.
You have bought Haggle (tier 1) rank 3!
“Hmmm… 50 gold for six.”
“44 gold?” She asked.
“Fine.”
She happily picked up the steaks and tried to put them into her pocket. They didn’t fit, and she didn’t have anywhere to put them so she just held onto them and walked out, red meat in hand.
You have gained 90 XP by using Haggle and saving 16 gold.
Congratulations! You have reached level 4!
You have 1 skill point for your use.
It seems like leveling up is pretty easy, at least in the beginning.
Next stop, and just next door was a potions shop. She tried her luck with 6 gold and went in. She was immediately looking at potions for 500g and up. But, boy, were they good.
SALE!
Elixir of Luck: +20 Luck/1hour, 768 gold.
Critical Hit Potion: +75% Critical Hits, 899 gold.
Health Potion: 2X HP bar, 1001 gold
Drink of Infinite Stamina: Stamina will not decrease for five minutes, 2500 gold.
Magic Mana Elixir: +1000 extra Mana points, no matter limit of player’s Mana, 4512 gold.
Her intrigue faded with the price tags and she went off to look at the normal walls and displays. More or less what one expects: Health Potions, 100g/100 HP; Stamina Potions, 50g/100 SP; Mana Potions 50g/100 MP; Poisons for swords and arrows; Armor wax to decrease damage taken and dull or break enemy blades, all more moderately priced.
She asked the shopkeeper, “Anything for under 100g?”
He pointed over to a little section on the left wall. She checked it out. Potions of Stamina Regen, +1/sec for 10 seconds, Poison of -2 damage, Bleach for cleaning, and a Potion of +5 HP on sale for 3 gold. She didn’t have to tell herself that she needed some coins, the price tags told her. Getting out of low level land might be a drag, but you have to start somewhere.
Still nothing was under the 6 gold she had left, and she still had to buy milk.
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She said goodby and walked out, dropping a steak on the floor.
The shopkeeper looked over as KillPrinsX gasped and dramatically moaned. “Be careful,” he said.
She picked up the steak and took a potion off the rack while down there. She walked back to the exit, hoping to find some milk for her team mates.
As soon as son walked out her XP jumped up a bit and an icon of a face with black circles around it’s eyes popped up. Bandit. She took it in stride and just kept walking.
The next shop over had a cow on the front, what luck. But she still had that bandit icon. Looking at it, there was a timer counting down for five minutes. She wondered if others could see it. But She went in to get some milk anyways.
The milk was 2 gold per bottle. Easy math… have to use Haggle.
“I’ll take ten for 6 gold.”
“Hmmm. Eight for 6 gold,” the shopkeeper said.
“How about 9 gold?”
He looked at her funny. Haggling with someone who haggles all day. She tried her best cute look with eyelashes and the shopkeeper said, “You look like a newbie. Fine.”
She walked out happily and a got another bump of XP.
No good walking around the shops with no money, and raw meat in the hand, she drove back home, continuing to use Analyze on anyone she could.
She hadn’t done any fighting and was already up to level four. Great. Still driving, she opened her stats again and found that she had a few points to put into skills. Skills like Haggle, Analyze and Steal. She wondered about what kind of skills she might really need, so she looked at her Psychic skill tree. She could only buy the first skill in any of the lines.Focus might be good, especially at the higher levels. She bought it.
You have bought the skill Focus!
Focus allows one to get in there and fight. Distractions in the peripheral become less, while the danger in front of you becomes more in focus. Time slows to a small degree and allows +10% critical hit. Focus can be turned on and off at will, while MP lasts.
Costs:
1 MP per second
Gives:
1 HP per rank
1 SP per rank
1 MP per rank
+1 Intelligence: Focus: General per rank
Wow! What a skill that is! Hopefully it gets better at the higher levels. And for 1 MP/sec might not be all that bad, it looked good, but that Mana bar can drop quickly, especially with all the other skill use. The only way to find out is use it.
The drive back to the house was the same, 13 minutes, using Analyze on as many people as she could see while watching the steaks and milk to make sure they wouldn’t fall over onto the floor; and avoiding all those crazy drivers, who had no respect for the roads, that sped past and nearly killed her. Fortunately it was a non-hostile area and any crashes, or near crashes, were patched so that no actual damage was done. Yet, through all that, she made it back to the house with a nervous debuff, and…
You have driven for 13 minutes. +13 XP
You have Analyzed 25 people. +125 XP
You had 7 near misses with other drivers on the road, 3 of which you were at fault.
You have 0 marks against your license.
You are mildly nervous. Dexterity -1. This debuff will stay with you for 60 seconds after you exit the car.
She walked in and found the three of them playing cards while a fifth, and newly defaulted team member had arrived, who was set onto scrubbing the floor. Probably a ruse to level up. KillPrinsX analyzed him and found his name was Jack. She tried a bit more and found he was an Engineer. Well, she thought, looks like they’ll be a good team, all of them are specialized or leveled up pretty well.
The three seniors stood up and looked at her holding steaks and milk in the doorway.
Bruce said, “Oh my god. You just carried that all the way here. It’s not rotten yet?”
“Took you long enough,” said Wade.
She gave a shy newbie smile.
“Get cooking! You are a woman after all.”
She nearly didn’t do it, but as she put the food on the stove she found that sure enough, there was a cooking skill. She hastily threw the steaks in a pan and the stat started steadily climbing as the steaks cooked.
You have learned the skill Cooking!
Costs:
None
Gives:
5 XP per minute
2 HP per rank
+1 Intelligence: Knowledge: Common
+1 Dexterity: Noncombatant: Manual
Cooking was great… not really. She still had the problem of leveling up, and she knows that she’s not going to level up much more today unless she starts helping with the floors… So she asked the next classic newb question, “When do we go out and fight?”
They all laughed. “You mean go out and get yourself killed?”
“Umm, sure?,” she said, “I wasn’t trying to put it that way—.”
“Well if you want you can go to the basement and kill some rats,” Bruce said. “There’s always vermin respawning down there. When you’re level twenty come back and we’ll talk.”
Robin handed me a knife and short sword, “Pick one.”
“That might help.”
The basement was dark and damp. She could hear that there was at least one family of rats living down here.
After a blind moment of searching she had found the light switch and the rats scuttled off. She had still managed to hit one with the sword. Her XP bar gave a tick up and the rat dropped a coin. This is great, she thought, I’ll be rich in no time!
You have learned he skill Swords!
Swords are common use in everyday battle. Honor, privilege, respect. Know thy weapon, know thyself.
Costs:
3 Stamina per hit
Gives:
2 XP per successful hit
XP multiplier per successive hit
+1 HP per rank
+1 SP per rank
+1 Agility: Arms: Swinging per rank
+1 Dexterity: Weapons: Non-projectile: Aim per rank
It wasn’t until a few seconds later that the rats had found an intruder and started surrounding her. She crouched and swing her sword full circle, dead rats flew everywhere, hitting the walls with a golden clink! Then more and more started coming.
It wasn’t very difficult. She’s had plenty of practice in other games. But she still had to keep an eye on her stamina, with her low level.
She kept slashing. Finally it was getting overwhelming. There must be something to help. Focus!
You have learned the skill Focus!
Being able to Focus is a skill that not everyone has. Don’t underestimate it! Distractions, friends, children, and near death experiences keep one from being able to just keep on at it, whatever task is at hand.
Distractions on the peripheral become less, while the task at hand becomes more in focus. Allows for a small degree of night vision. Time slows to a small degree when in an intense moment and allows for a 10% critical hit.
Costs: 1 MP per second
Gives:
+1 HP per rank
+1 SP per rank
+1 MP per rank
+1 Intelligence: Focus: General per rank
Time slowed down just a hair, time to get down and kill some rats!
And there were more rats!
She knew how to activate various spells and skills in other games… she flared her hand out, willing the rat to stop, and…
You have learned the skill Confuse (tier 1)!
Just imagine that bastard right in your face, he’s about to come down on you with nunchucks and you’re defenseless… but not entirely. Just give him a second thought, maybe he shouldn’t be doing this right now…?
The skill Confuse gives an enemy a confused status and unable to move for a few second, depending on their own level.
Cost:
5 MP
Gives:
5 XP
1 HP per rank
1 MP per rank
+1 Wisdom: Attack: Debuffs
That handled a few rats, giving her time to go in and slash before it ran away.
There was another skill itching it’s way through her mind. She put her hand out and thought about killing the rat…
You have learned the skill Drain (tier 1)!
Don’t have the imagination to give some real damage to your opponent? Skip all the showy movements of swords and moves… Just take their health away in an instant.
The skill Drain is a spell which saps the target’s HP.
Cost:
1 MP for 1 HP per second per rank
Gives:
1 XP per HP drained
Double XP bonus if target killed
1 MP per rank
1 HP per rank
+1 Wisdom: Attack: Psychic per rank
She kept it up, hacking and slashing, confusing and draining rats, she had even leveled up, giving her a nice boost and refill to her resources, HP, SP, and MP.
By this time she had 1000 gold and the rats actually stopped coming back. At least it was a very efficient way to level up and get some coins in the early stages.
She took the time now to look at her prompts, gratefully hidden mid fight. She took her time to read all the unnecessary details.
You have achieved rank 5 in Focus!
You have achieved rank 7 in Swords!
You have achieved rank 5 in Confuse!
You have achieved rank 7 in Drain!
You have killed 1000 rats and gained 2310 XP!
You have reached level 7!
You have 4 skill points for your use.
There’s skill points to use…
But there was another door, she opened it slowly. There wasn’t a light switch, just a torch, a bottle of alcohol (denatured) and a match box.
Looks like fun!
She stepped down with a lit torch and immediately heard a low growl. It sounded hairy. She thought this would be the perfect time to put some points into skills, just before she gets attacked by a giant rat.
Focus worked well, and tier 2 was open, an new skill called Discipline, so she put 2 skill points there, bringing it to rank 2.
Cha-ching! Cha-Ching!
With skill points, you have bought the skill Discipline (tier 2)!
This skill allows one to put more energy into the task at hand. Danger will be more noticeable, while distractions are pushed aside.
Cost:
2 MP per second
Gives:
1 HP per rank
1 SP per rank
2 MP per rank
+2 Intelligence: Focus: General per rank
You have purchased rank 2 of Discipline!
The only difference from Focus, so far, is that it uses more Mana, hopefully getting it to higher ranks will be more efficient.
She still had two points left so put them in her attack and disable skills: Drain and Confuse.
Looks like there will be some rat ass kicking tonight! The only problem is that she didn’t have any armor. On the other hand, her HP is up to 101 being at level 7, counting the skill perks to HP and all that.
Her Mana had already gotten to a whoppin’ 252, and Stamina was at 120. There wasn’t any data as to regen time but it seemed to be alright. There was plenty of Mana!… but not really. If she was using Focus the whole time, 42 minutes in all, it would have been over 2500 MP! The only thing that saved her was the the level ups, boosting HP, MP and Stamina back to the top with a little extra per level.
She got back to the game and ventured on down, bottle of alcohol in one hand and a torch in the other. Strategically, this should be a good attack, and make it easier to target whatever is down there, as long as it doesn’t turn into a flaming beast…
The stairs were quite long, and though she was stepping carefully and slowly it still took the better part of five minutes.
Sure enough, as you all guessed, this growl was coming from Mama Rat. A huge ten foot long rat, and a good four feet at the shoulder.
The funny thing was, that KillPrinsX only found that out when it when it was in her face. She had walked right into it and it wasn’t pretty!
All at the same time she activated Discipline, threw the bottle of alcohol and the torch under the rat. That gave her just enough time to dash off and wait for it to go up in flames.
She followed through with Drain and her mana bar dropped to 200. She stopped quickly and saw it slowly creep up a second later.
That was good, it looks like MP regen is just under 1/sec. Now she only has to worry about the flaming rat in front of her. She knew there wasn’t anything to worry about, just yet, but gauging the MP usage is going to be vital.
She hit it with Confuse and attacked, it blinked for a few seconds, hardly stunned, but she managed to do a bit of damage with the sword.
She used analyze to look at it’s health, a quarter of the way down.
Now that the rat was pissed off and she was slowly eating her MP, she at least had stamina to use with the sword. She’ll have to watch it with the skill use. They’re all Mana based! Leveling up MP was high on the to do list.
But first, Evade!
You have learned the skill Psychic Evade (tier 1)!
This skill…
No time to look at that now.
The Mama Rat hat followed up with another clawed swipe. KillPrinsX used Psychic Evade to jump out of the way again and simultaneously get in her own effective hit, but she had got scratched from the other side!
Her HP took a good hit. She could only survive another three scratches and she hasn’t even seen how much damage it’s bite is.
She did another Evade, backwards this time, and got ready for another quick attack, sliding to the left. She predicted correctly and came in with few more slashes with the sword.
But now the fire had gone out and she couldn’t really see in the dark. Hold on, “not really”?
Using Discipline, she actually could see in the dark. Not very well and it was hardly a black-and-white movie, but she could see it still. Oh this is good.
Too bad for her Mana… she was only a minute into the fight and now she was really starting to suffer, she could only use Discipline for 2 minutes flat, without using any other Mana based skill. She might be in trouble.
She continued to slash, gaining a good amount of speed while using Evade as well. Looks like these skills are starting to pay off.
Her attacks and slides became automatic and routine, swifter and more precise with Discipline… until her Mana dropped out completely… shit!
But she was in a routine, she just kept it up blindly dodging and slashing, hoping to get a good hit while she looked into complete darkness. She could see how much that stat booster had done, when she hit now, it really sucked.
She took a hit and slid back, listening to where the weird rat sounds were coming from. She heard it swipe into emptiness and then she lunged, doing a bit more damage.
She kept at it until it’s health was low, and her’s wasn’t doing much better. With out seeing the rat’s health bar, the only way she saw how much she had to go without using Analyze, was that the rat had started to pass out, well from her side it sounded more like heavy slow breathing, whines of pain and frustration, and a pained attempt at an attack, all in all sounding like a giant drunk rat.
She had a finisher up her little low level sleeves and used her last few point of regained MP. She wanted that XP bonus and activated Discipline one more time. She backed up and crouched, hoping this action might trigger a charged attack, and lunged…her sword hand came up under Mama Rat’s neck with a good swift uppercut. Blood splattered on her face, the rat toppled over, and KillPrinsX cringed verbally and shook in disgust.
The rat disappeared into 20 clinking coins! Her XP jumped up… prompt time!
You have learned Psychic Evade (tier 1)!
Get out of any situation by simply not being there, find a nice little place a few feet away and be happy you weren’t just killed by that uppercut, or missile.
Sends the caster to the side without using any effort. Simply appear a little to the side, successfully evading any direct attack.
Cost:
3 MP
Gives:
1 HP per rank
1 MP per rank
+1 Agility: Magical: Evading per rank
You have learned the skill Evade (tier 1)!
Evading is a necessary action in any fight, even a tank could use an evasive action sometimes. This skill can get one out of most tight spots with a quick jump to the side… or back.
Cost:
3 SP
Gives:
1 HP per rank
1 SP per rank
+1 Agility: Feet: Evading per rank
You have slain the boss: Mama Rat!
You have been awarded 1039 XP!
( 855 XP =
[Mama Rat = 250 XP × Discipline bonus: × 1.5 = 375 XP]
[Discipline: 70 sec × 2 XP = 140 XP]
[Drain: 10 sec × {8 HP / sec} × 2 XP = 160 XP]
[Swords: 44 hits × 1.5 XP = 66 XP]
[Psychic Evade: 2 × 3 XP {Successful bonus: × 2} = 12 XP]
[Evade: 16 × 3 XP {Successful bonus: × 2 = 96 XP}
[Failed Evade: 3 × 2} = 6 XP] )
You have been awarded 100 gold for winning your first boss fight!
There was a little chime and an achievement badge flew across her eyes. “Basement Cleaner,” it said. What a fantastic achievement. I’m sure my friends upstairs would be proud.
Bruce the Tank upstairs sounded amazed, “You got over 1000 gold and got up to level 7 from killing rats in the basement?” Bruce’s face was not so expressive of emotion, maybe his face muscles didn’t stretch that far, maybe he just tried to hide it.
KillPrinsX gave a girlish smirk, “I told you, I’ve played these kind of games before.”
Robin, standing by, also had something to say, “In a battle outside you only get that kind of rewards for killing another player, and probably at least a level 20. Depends on how much they carry.”
That opened up another question, “What do you get for killing another player anyways. XP, coins and loot?”
“Oh yeah,” Robin answered. “All of it. You get a good chunk of XP depending on their level. You get first picks on all of their loot and their coins. Maybe it depends. I’ve never really asked someone what their level is, or how much money they have before I put an arrow through the head.”
So her next question, “What happens when someone gets killed in this game?”
“That’s a really good question and something very horrible to find out, especially after level 37.”
Wade coughed and gave a smile in Robin’s direction.
Robin pretended not to hear it but raised his voice anyway, “Continuing!… You loose everything. Armor, weapons and gold, and get defaulted to a new house. Unless you have some special items or whatever, that lets you default back to your own team or guild or whatever...”
“Or you have a house on the outskirts,” Bruce said.
Robin shrugged, “Then you get defaulted wherever you’ve chosen.”
Bruce flicked something out of his hand, “You’re basically just thrown into whatever group is available.”
KillPrinsX had to stop them to ask the next stupid question, “You said, ‘Default’, what’s that?”
All three of them rolled their eyes to maximum level. Robin bent over and talked to her like a child. “You’re in a game called Default, whenever you die, you go back to… default. Any more questions?”
She ventured to continue on that line, “So what happens to your level? You go back to zero?”
“Bingo. It sucks, drastically. Stats back to default, zero, and the only thing that reminds how far you’d gotten, is that your Innate Ability skills are still open, but usually cost too much Mana for a little low level… defaulted… mana bar.” There was more irritation in his voice. “Plus you can only use common or tier 1 skills before level 5, then leveling up you open up the next tier. Either way you’d hardly be able to use a tier 2 skill while at level 1. Too much Mana or Stamina costs.”
She sat down on the couch while thinking that over. In the game, it seems like if you want to get out you have to level up high enough to get through whatever dungeon and beasts are there, and if you aren’t good enough you have to do it all over again, back from zero. But you might be able to get a house, store loot and gold there, so it doesn’t all go down the drain. Then level up again and again, then just rinse and repeat until you come out.
But maybe that isn’t the whole thing. Maybe people just want to play for eternity…
“Hey! I nearly forgot,” KillPrinsX said, pulling the one and only item from her pocket. “I picked up a potion while at the shops.”
She took it out of her pocket. XP Potion: Increase XP by 50% for one day.
The guys looked at her in awe.
Bruce gave her a side look, “You stole it from the potions shop?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t that hard. Just crouch and grab, then walk out. It took a bit to not rush myself. I even got a little bandit icon on my HUD. Then I bought the milk. Haggled nicely for it too.”
“I did notice you had a decent turn out for shopping. I wondered what a Psychic could do with 50 gold.”