“Ye alright, lad?”

I blinked at the voice. Then blinked again, because my vision was coming back, and I was seeing a whole lot more than an empty void.

It was a person. An older man with wild brown hair, and a mustache that connected to his sideburns, peppered with gray. He was dressed in a brown shirt and a blue vest, and he was running a rag across…

I smiled. I was sitting at a bar, and the man in front of me was a bartender.

“Sorry, I'm new… here.” I said, looking around.

It was a nice bar. Rustic is the word, I think. Everything was crafted from a dark, rich wood, and seemed like exactly the kind of place that’d be fun for a relatively quiet night with a few friends.

The only flaw in this establishment—other than the fact that it was open at noon—it was entirely devoid of people.

“Oh, I can tell.” The bartender nodded, tending his bar with a damp rag. “You don’t even have a single level, do you? You’ll be wanting to change that, if you ask me.”

The reference to levels did not escape me. I looked closer at the very human seeming—not at all computer-y—person before me.

“Riiiight.” I said, squinting. “And are you… the tutorial?”

He shrugged. “Just an old man with a bit of advice to give, if you’ll hear it.”

That wasn’t quite a ‘no,’ I noticed. “Please, yeah, I’d love some advice.” I leaned forward.

This was far better than clicking through a tutorial. It was just talking. I like talking to people. Sometimes I’m even good at it.

“If you want to raise your level cap, you’ve got to kill something that’s got a higher level.” He said, throwing the rag over his shoulder and grabbing a tall glass mug from behind the counter. “You’re a newcomer to the cleaner’s guild, so you won’t be able to level at all, till you’ve gone on a slime hunt.”

“A… a slime hunt.” I frowned.

That sounded like rpg language to me. And here I’d almost forgotten I was in the tutorial of a video game. Though, I couldn’t say that the prospect of going on a ‘slime hunt’ filled me with the awe and wonder of escapism fantasy. More like… a mild yet pervasive disgust.

“Or you can try your hand at rat catching.” He shrugged, filling the mug with something from the tap. “I wouldn’t recommend it, though. Lousy buggers are hard to pin down, and they’re lower level than most of what you’d find in the sewer.”

He set the drink down in front of me, amber colored and frothing at the lip. I raised my eyebrows in question.

“Comes with the advice.” He shrugged again. “On the house.”

Not being one to deny a free drink, I decided to take it. It was an apple cider, I discovered, with no small amount of delight. I’ve never been the biggest fan of beer. It’ll work in a pinch, I mean, but it’ll never be my first choice.

And it tasted good. More to the point, it tasted. The glass was cool in my hand, heavier than I thought it’d be, but I could feel the weight, the muscles in my arm contracting as I lifted it to my nose and took a deep breath. It smelled like apples and summer, sweet and rich and ever so tart.

It was a pleasant few moments, sitting there, drinking. Almost enough to forget I was playing a video game. And it would have been enough to forget about a certain roommate, had he not interrupted with his usual show of drama.

“Quintin!” Ellis’s voice shocked through the room, making me nearly spill my drink.

I nearly spilled my drink again when I noticed he was wearing entirely different clothes. A flowing white shirt and long brown pants that made him look a little like a pirate. I was still wearing khakis and a Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt. I will admit, it did make me feel a little underdressed, but Ellis had a habit of doing that, and I learned very quickly to ignore it.

I watched him stroll through the bar’s doors and walk up to me at a hurried pace. “Ellis!” I greeted, raising my glass. “Come here often?”

He gave me a tired look. “It’s barely noon, and you’re already drinking? Instead of having the ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’?” He said, quoting the MoreMorpheus tagline.

I looked him in the eye, taking a long sip of my drink. The sip turned even longer, as I tipped back the glass and started downing as much as I could. I maintained eye contact for as long as possible, and by the time I had finished, I’d drained the vast majority.

“Lovely.” He muttered, lips curled up with the slightest hint of disgust.

I set the mug down. “I can do both.” I said, repressing the urge to burp.

“Right, well, technically I’m working, and I kind of have to get to level ten by the end of next month, so I’d really appreciate it if we could…” he mimed me getting up from my seat and coming with him, “play the game, you know? It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Alright.” I shrugged, nodding at the barkeep. “Thanks for the advice. And for the drink.” I said, taking a final sip.

I followed Ellis from the bar with little fanfare.

The exit, like everything else, was rustic and wooden. Or… I looked closer.

Maybe rustic was the wrong word. They were double doors, decoratively paneled, with shiny brass doorknobs. Ellis threw them both open, and a wave of light flooded into me.

If what I saw could be described as the title of a painting, it would be: ‘A Lovely Day in The Village’.

I have been to a Renaissance fair exactly once, in my twenty six years, with a… I’ll call her a ‘friend,’ for brevity’s sake—who convinced me that it would be fun. And it was, in its own peculiar little way. Lots of people, interesting costumes, and enough expensive souvenirs that made me suspicious of the commercialism behind the entire event.

What I saw before me was a lot like that, only without the interesting costumes or souvenirs. There were still people, milling around on a dirt road, sitting under wooden awnings in front of equally wooden buildings. Their clothes—not costumes—came in various shades of brown. There wasn’t a princess or adventurer to be seen, which was its immediate distinction from a ren faire.

“Welcome to town.” Ellis, standing next to me, breathed deeply, smiling at it. “I never got the actual name, and I’ve been here long enough that I’m almost scared to ask.”

I frowned at him. “What, did you play all night?”

“Basically, yeah.” He said, walking forward. “I’m nearly level two now, actually.”

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I followed him down the wooden stairs, looking around.

No one paid us any mind, while we walked through town. It could have been the purpose that Ell walked with, or… these were literally npcs, weren’t they? It was just more likely that they just didn’t care.

“So…” I ran for a few steps, to catch up to him. “How does this work, exactly? The bartender said that you kill things to level up, and that tracks with just about every other video game I’ve ever played, but like… what’s the gimmick? Other than…” I waved at my body, still dressed in my clothes from home. “This, I mean.”

Ellis gave me a dry look, but didn’t stop the pace. “Well, first of all, this—” he gestured at me, “—is just the beginning.”

We turned, taking a left on another dirt road, this one looking slightly less worn and… even less road-like, really.

“Secondly,” he continued, now walking slower, eyes darting between buildings. “You don’t kill things to level up, you kill things to raise your level cap. Which means you can’t be a higher level than the highest level thing you’ve killed, right?”

“Okay, yeah, cool.” I said, slightly surprised.

“And after you have a level cap that’s not stuck at zero—” he gave me a pointed look. “—then you’re allowed to get your first ability. Using your abilities gets you experience, and that’s what you use to level up.”

I nodded again, as Ellis kept talking.

“We’re part of the cleaners guild. That basically means that we hunt monsters and get paid for it. Killing monsters doesn’t get you experience, but they do drop these… thingies, that you can exchange for money, to get cool equipment, to get better at killing things. Wash, rinse, repeat.

“Okay…” I said, processing. “The bartender said I needed to go on a ‘slime hunt’, is that what we’re doing now?”

“Almost.” He said, eyes finally lighting on a building that looked like all the others, to me. He turned to look at me, gesturing to the building in front of us. “First we’re going shopping.”

…

I don’t like shopping.

Allow me to rephrase.

I’m bad at shopping. Horrible, even. It’s a battle of competing instincts, for me. One the one hand we have: ‘get in, get out, go home.’

And on the other hand, there’s: ‘ooh, shiny.’

I will, over the course of several hours, wander around any shop I’m put in, marvel at all their goodies, frown at all their price tags, and eventually guilt myself into buying a single inexpensive knickknack, and maybe a piece of candy.

The thing is, I’ll get progressively more and more annoyed the more I shop, because something about the entire exercise is intolerably frustrating.

Hence the candy, to cheer me up.

Also hence why I make the vast majority of my purchases online, damn the shipping cost.

The most frustrating shop I have ever been to was a pawn shop in South Carolina. A friend of mine bought a guitar, and I could only watch while he did it.

What happened with Ellis was a bit like that, only worse.

The shop was cluttered with random objects. There was no rhyme or reason to them, they sat loosely on the wooden shelves wrapping the perimeter of the small room, or piled in old barrels, stuffed with what I thought was trash, at first. I discovered it was simply more miscellaneous items when Ellis stuffed a hand down it, and pulled something out with a smile on his face.

He did that for a few minutes, while I stood in the doorway. Running around, sticking his hands in things, gathering an impressive collection of random garbage.

It all came to head when he stacked his bundle of… stuff, in front of the dead eyed attendant. He also watched Ellis in his gathering, with, I imagine, much the same expression as I had. Slightly open mouthed, right on the border between curiosity and indifference. But then, he was balding, slightly overweight, and likely in his fifties, so I imagine, or at least hope, that the expression looked a bit better on me.

And then Ellis did the unthinkable.

“Give me your money” He said, hand outstretched to me.

“Fuck off.” I said, entirely out of reflex.

He rolled his eyes. “You get five silver coins as part of your ‘welcome’ to Dreamland, and you need eight silver coins to get all the stuff you need for a slime hunt.”

I checked my pockets and found that I did indeed have five silver coins. A woman’s profile decorated the face of the coin on both sides, framed in laurels.

I sighed. ‘Easy come, easy go.’ I clutched them in my hand, staring at them in disappointment.

I walked out of the shop four coins lighter, and Ellis walked out one sack of junk heavier. I asked him if we were done here.

“No, my dear friend.” He said, throwing it over his shoulder, “one more stop, and then the slime hunt begins.”

I rolled my eyes, and walked on.

…

This shop, I noticed, looked the slightest bit fancier than the other. And actually had another shopper in it. An older woman stood by the large glass window just next to the front door, letting in a great deal of light. Instead of random junk decorating the walls, there were rows and rows of…

“Bottles?” I asked out loud.

“Potions and consumables, I think.” Ellis corrected. “And way out of our price range, come on.”

We walked up to the counter. The woman sitting behind it looked like she might have been in her early forties, with bright blue eyes and a hawkish nose. Lightly grey hair done up in a bun at the top of her head.

I let Ellis take over the conversation. I didn’t know what he was buying, and I was starting to check out of this whole, ‘adventure of a lifetime’ business. I mean, the drink was good, but so far it felt like a whole lot of chores.

The other shopper, a stooping woman old enough that she definitely needed a cane, but didn’t have one, walked up behind me.

I gave her a polite smile, and said hello.

“Whataya want, shithead?” She said flatly, in a scratchy voice.

I blinked at her, mouth hanging open for half of a very long second. “exsqueeze me?”

“You deaf and dumb?” She said in response, scowling at me.

I am, I would like to think, a polite person. Sure, I can have a bit of a mouth on me in my worse moments, but I never forget to say my ‘please’s and ‘thank you’s. I have not, in the entirety of my adult life, insulted a random stranger in a line for groceries.

“I’m sorry,” I said politely, preparing to give a world class recrimination. “But what kind of fucking—”

A hand forced its way over my mouth, cutting me off.

“A thousand pardons, Miss.” Ellis clasped his hands together apologetically before turning back to me. “Quin, time to go.”

“But she called me a—”

“Quin.” His voice went low and forceful.

I let him drag me away, still frowning.

“What was that lady’s problem?” I asked, once we reached a safe distance from the shop, and were walking down the street.

Ellis sighed at me. “Relax, ‘shithead’ is just a.. friendly colloquialism. You're a shithead, I’m a shithead, we’re a couple of shitheadsss.” He trailed off, eyes wandering over my shoulder before refocusing on me. “It’s just what they call us.”

I stared at him. “You're kidding.”

He smiled, “nope. Pretty sure it’s a developer joke, and I think it’s hilarious.”

“Okay, but why?”

“It’s just.. the balls of it, you know? Dreamland’s the only game that could get away with it, and they fuckin’ went for it.”

“Why ‘shitheads,’ genius.”

Somehow, his smile brightened even more. “You’ll see.” He stepped past me, patting me on the arm. “Come on, I’ll show you to our place of work.”