I was sitting on a bench at the pier when the ribbon in my hair vibrated. I set down my sandwich, pulled it out, and looked it over. Words were fading in as if some invisible force were driving its pen into it.

Smith: Hey, grats everyone, we got the guild up and running.

Trell: Thank you.

Simone: The White Lions are open for business!

Relce: Okay bruh, let's do some questing.

Smith: Anyone found anything yet?

Trell: The butcher has a quest.

I was fascinated by the lines of text that would fade in while the past ones would fade away. It was a stream of communication, and it was getting hard to keep up. How would I join the conversation?

Smith: Go on.

Trell: We kill wild boars.

Simone: Ew. How many?

Trell: However many you want. He's a butcher.

Smith: What's the reward?

Trell: We get 350g per head, but you guys will get half that in gold and double that in XP.

Smith: That sounds kinda crappy.

Simone: No, that's good money, and it sounds easy.

Relce: Dude, that's two levels.

Smith: Alright. Let's do it. Alex, you coming?

I panicked. How do I reply? Do I write something? I need a pen! The only person nearby was a guy fishing. "Sir, do you have a pen I can borrow?"

"Sure," he said. He swiped open a menu, tapped an icon, and waved it away. The pen fell into his hand. "Just keep it, I have more."

"Th-thanks," I said. I thought he was a nipsy like I was. No, I'm a bugged-out player. Right? I shook off the thought and wrote in my reply.

Alex: Yeah! I'll meet you there.

Smith: Sweet. Simone and I will be there in about 10.

So now I would have my first quest. The game was looking great, and once I was done breaking myself into this new world, then I could debug my situation. And besides, even at 99% sensory load, the body would pull me out of the game when I fall asleep. There was nothing to worry about. Right?

***

After getting lost, asking for directions, and getting lost again, I finally found the butcher's shop - ten minutes late. The shop was on the edge of town, just a walk into the forest. Posted on its wall was a large board packed with bulletins of wanted posters and odd jobs. A group of people was studying it, perusing the options. Simone and Smith were waiting beside it.

"Sorry!" I said. I was still panting from the run over.

"Hey, she made it!" Simone said.

"Is that your gear?" Smith asked.

I looked myself over. I was still dressed in my casual street wear. Should I have bought robes? Would they even help? "I guess so," I said.

"So trendy," a guy said.

I looked over at him and saw the most obvious player avatar I've seen in this world. A stunning pink afro, aviator sunglasses, a mustache that dangled off his face, and a lashing eyebrow that struck at the end of every sentence. "What's up," he said. "The name's Relce." He wore a long brown duster and cowboy pants.

"Uh, Alex," I said. I reached my hand up to shake his. He was easily the tallest guy here. For the longest time, I thought this game was for hardcore roleplayers, but this guy looked like he made his character for laughs. I was in awe. "And I guess... you're a player?"

"You betcha."

"Am I the only..." I trailed off, and I noticed Smith smirking like some devil.

"NPC?" Smith said. His grin didn't waver. My face grew hot, and I looked away. He and Simone laughed at my reaction. "Trell is too. A nipsy, right? That's what you guys say?"

"Right," a gruff voice said. It came from this monstrously bulky guy reading the hunting board. He didn't turn to look as he spoke. "Alex and I are the regulars." He stood a tad shorter than Relce but was almost three times as thick. He wore camouflage pants and a black tank top. Bald head and five o'clock shadow. Black boots and daggers at his waist. Was he a rogue? How in the hell could this guy ever sneak up on anything?

"Neat," Smith said. He swung open his menu to check something before swiping it away. "We got a few hours before sunset, so I think we can knock this out quick. Where do we find these boars at?"

"The forest," Trell said.

We looked into the trees. The wind caught the leaves, and the birds chirped. There was a path that led deeper within.

"Well let's get this over with," Smith said.

We walked along the path into the forest, looking out in every direction for any sign of animals. We saw birds, deer, rabbits, and every woodland creature imaginable, but no boars. Roughly thirty minutes of walking in silence before Smith finally spoke. "Where are the damn boars at?"

"Dunno," Relce said.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Wait, aren't you a hunter?"

"Yeah."

Smith looked at him with narrow eyes. "Don't you have a track ability or something?"

Relce dipped his head in thought. The ends of his mustache swung this way and that. "Lemme check." He opened his menu, tapped a few icons, and looked at his abilities. "I have that," he chuckled. "I'm such a noob."

The others laughed. "Alright, what do you see?" Smith asked.

Relce closed his menu. "Track(woodland)," he commanded, then lifted his sunshades to scan around the forest. "Buncha red dots. Outlines, I guess? Yeah, dude, I see em!" He took off in a sprint, breaking through the underbrush. We followed after. He stopped right at the edge of a small clearing and crouched down. We did the same. Looking over Simone's shoulder, I could see a group of boars idling in the grass and bushes, almost a dozen. They were snorting and digging their tusks around.

"Okay," Relce said. "So we each kill one?"

"No, let's do it as a party," Smith said.

Simone giggled. "Because he can only use healing magic."

"So, what's the plan?" I asked. "These things look kinda scary."

"They're just pigs," Smith said.

"Yo, pigs are pretty spooky," Relce said.

"It doesn't matter," Smith hushed. "Just aggro one."

Relce got up, nocked an arrow, and shot it downrange. Thump. He missed. He tried again. Thunk. It stuck right into the trunk of a fallen tree. The boars lifted their heads in unison and turned in our direction.

We froze.

Relce eased his hand as if moving slower would mask his sound and chambered another arrow. He pulled it back.

"Don't do it," Smith said through his teeth. "I think you'll aggro all of them.”

"Dude, they're like level 1 beasts." Relce let slip the arrow. Slap. It dug right into the eye of one of the boars, killing it. "See?"

With that, the boars squealed in chorus. A heavy, mad squeal of anger and fury. They saw us as a threat, and they came charging.

"Shit!" Smith said. "Let's do it!"

Simone ripped the blade from her scabbard and readied her shield. She jumped out in front to stop the assault. "Provoke!" she shouted. Instead of charging in our general direction, the boars seemed to converge on her. Relce threw a few more arrows, missing most, before the boars made contact with Simone.

They slammed into her one by one. Each hit she tossed aside with her iron shield, but each knocked her back further. She swung her blade at them, but these pigs weren't stupid. They dipped and dodged at every strike. Before long, they overwhelmed her and pushed her off balance. "Guys!" she shouted. "Guys! Help!" She covered her face with her shield while the boars dug their tusks into her armor. I could only stare as she started screaming in a panic.

Relce shot arrow after arrow into the group, likely not even worried if he hit Simone on accident.

Smith was laughing at the sight.

Trell had vanished.

I stepped out to try out my new spells. I raised up my hand, felt the surge of strength within me, and commanded. "Water!" As if turning on a faucet, water spewed forth from my hand. Fsssss. It drizzled on them. The boars were unaffected. "Uh..."

Smith now doubled over in laughter.

"Guys! What are you doing?" Simone cried out.

I brought my hand up again. "Wind!" I felt a breeze blow past me and into the group. It rustled their fur. They continued thrashing and gnawing at Simone.

Now even Relce started laughing. He didn't stop shooting his bow.

I felt my face hot from embarrassment. It was time to use the tried and true. Unsure of the range of my spells, I sprinted closer. When I was almost within spitting distance, I pulled my hand back as if to throw a stone.

One of the boars broke from the group and charged me. They were bigger up close. Feeling the ground beneath me vibrate under the weight of this beast, I froze. I could only stare with wide eyes and a heart full of fear as the boar leapt at me and in midair get tackled by a blur.

Trell had it on the ground and was shanking it like a veteran prisoner. There was no time to sit and watch in morbid curiosity. The boars were setting their eyes on me and starting to charge. I threw my hand. "Fire!"

The light was blinding and the heat overwhelming. I could feel my hands blister. It seemed the entire forest was bathed in a red glow and the world itself roared in flame. I held on to the feeling as long as I could - a few seconds in total - before I switched off. When I dropped my hand, all I could see was the face of a boar launching itself into me, toppling us to the ground before it too was kicked away and shanked by Trell.

"Holy shit!" Smith yelled. "You set the woods on fire!"

I eased up and looked. The boars were running around in a panic as the flames swallowed them, licked their fur, and took their breaths away. The blaze robbed the grass of its moisture, and the fires were spreading. The tree trunk was ash. The smoke was choking me. "Simone?" I hoped I didn't boil the poor girl. "Simone!"

"I'm alive!" she mumbled.

"Heal!" Smith said. He hurried over to her with his staff out. When he was finished with her wounds, he tended to mine. He found a gash in my left forearm from the razor-sharp tusk of the boar. With the adrenaline still coursing through me, I felt nothing but a dull, numb pain. "Heal," he commanded. I watched as the blood stopped, turned to crust, then evaporated into a sandy mist. I was whole again.

"Thanks," I said.

He tapped me on the head with his staff. "You're not supposed to get hit."

"Sorry," I said. Why does my face still feel hot?

When we tallied our score, Relce killed three, Trell killed two, and I killed the rest. Eleven in total. The problem we soon found, was that we had to carry the bodies back to the butcher. The players couldn't cheat by stowing them through the menu, so we had to drag them along by hand. I could only carry one.

After an hour of travel, we made it back to the butchers to drop off our loot and to collect our payment. We settled on one boar for each of us, and the rest to go towards the guild. The players also got paper slips - experience points - that were used like scrolls to add to their progression.

"What will the guild need the money for?” I asked.

"Well, this is a sandbox MMO, right?" Smith answered. "Toward the end of the last season, players realized they could make bases and villages. We can really carve out a place for ourselves here and really have an impact on the world. That's what I plan to do."

"That actually sounds pretty fun. Did you play last season?"

"I got into this game right at the end, but that was only a week ago. Now everyone is starting over from scratch."

Something didn't sound right by that. I noticed Trell had a strange look on his face. Was it confusion, or deep thought? "Wait," I said. "Last week?"

"Yeah," Simone cut in. "I was there for the whole season. I actually dragged him into it," she chuckled. "The game is still new to most people, so this season will be especially fun. The turnout is huge!"

"Someone told me that the last time players were here was twenty years ago," I said.

Simone gave it some thought. "I suppose things are a bit different. There were a few days of maintenance, and I assumed the game was generating a new world."

"Nah," Smith said. "I remember the town names. We started in Nisa last time, but I saw it on a map earlier. We're going there next."

I dropped my head in thought. A twenty-year period without players that boiled down to a weekend in their time. This was a game, so the simulation must've been sped up during that time. But why? "Was it programmed to do that? To wait a couple of decades?"

Smith and Simone looked at me with raised eyebrows and faint smiles. "Programmed? What do you know about programming?"

"Because I'm..." I trailed off. This was going to be awkward, and I knew to avoid the talk. It wouldn't matter since tonight I would be kicked out of the game when I fall asleep anyway. Hopefully. "I've heard about it."

"I suppose so," Smith said. "It would make sense, after all. Some of the guilds were getting huge, the bases getting impenetrable. It's nice to start over and every time feels fresh."

"Last season," Simone said with excitement in her voice, "there was a huge event and a world raid boss. Some king took over half the world and challenged all the players." She brought her hands to her cheeks as if to relish the memory. "It was so cool! I was the main tank for that fight for all of three seconds."

Smith laughed. "You got one-shot. That doesn't count as tanking."

The group laughed together, except for Trell and me. I was still parsing the facts about the world and Trell probably never laughs. I looked back out into the forest. The sun was setting, and the wildlife was settling in for the night. The city itself was getting ready - workers lighting streetlamps and shops closing.

"Well I need to log, my dudes," Relce said. "I gotta work in the morn'."

"Alright," Smith said. "Tomorrow then?"

"Sure," I said. "Sounds great!"

Simone smiled at me. I never knew why she would, but it felt nice. "We'll see you tomorrow then!" She draped herself over Smith's back. Smith winked at me, then they both vanished.

Relce laughed. "Dude, I think they're coming on to you," he said.

"No way!" I snapped.

"I think you like it," he teased.

"No!" I crossed my arms at the thought and looked away.

"You're blushing."

I felt my face with my hands. I was flushed. "Ugh!"

He burst into laughter, even prompting Trell to stifle a chuckle. I kicked them both in the shins.

"Alright, alright," Relce said. "Fine. I think you crit me just then."

"Sorry," I said.

"Nah, I'm joking. I'm out fellas. Night!" He vanished. Now it was just me and Trell, the only two left with nowhere to go but here. He already started to walk away.

"Hey, what are you doing after this?" I asked.

"Oh?" He stopped but didn't turn to look at me. "Are you asking me out?"

"No. I wanted to ask about some things. About the world."

"Go find a scholar," he said. "Right now I have more questions than answers." He walked away.