The one nice thing about being a bastard was the lack of supervision. It had taken me some time to realize that, suddenly, nobody cared where I went or what I did. As long as I didn’t cause too much trouble, at least. As long as I attended my training with the other castle boys – most of which were commoners who would end up in the guard or army rather than anything resembling my situation – nobody really cared how I spent the rest of my day.

My tenth birthday came and went, and I found out what they meant by ‘getting a bump’ in my stats at that point. Everything nearly doubled! Not quite, but almost.

Name

Hail

Level

1

Health

90/90

Strength

8

Mana

120/120

Dexterity

9

Experience

0/100

Vitality

9

Age

10

Endurance

10

Race

Human (blood of the travelers)

Intelligence

12

Class

Child

Wisdom

9

Job

Bastard of Yuikon

Charisma

15

Skills

Short Swords (7)

Spells

Cure Minor Injury (7)

Archery (5)

Detect Poison (12)

Balance and Conditioning (5)

Spark (6)

Animal Handling (4)

Analyze (3)

Traits

High Aptitude

Storage (5)

Quick Learner

Mark of Karma (special)

Royal Blood (+5 charisma, bonus to relations with factions loyal to Yuikon)

Blessing of Thedum

Mark of the Phoenix (hidden)

Voice of the future (hidden)

A few other things had changed as well. I had gained some skills from my constant practice under the master-at-arms, and of all my stats my endurance had increased the most from the constant exercise, a vast difference from what it had started out as.

Of course, I was still a Child, and hadn’t unlocked any classes worth mentioning. And my job was now “Bastard of Yuikon” rather than Prince. But I increasingly found that I didn’t care. I liked my new life of exercise and sunshine much better than the endless droning of my former tutors. I missed Beckah, but I was also relieved to be out from under her thumb. And mother … mother had remarried, and left me behind. That hurt, but it was grandfather’s doing, not hers.

I was coming to hate my grandfather almost as much as I hated my father.

It was for this reason that I decided to run away. I was supposed to join the army when I turned fifteen, after the local guard had put a few levels upon me, but instead I simply left the castle one morning with a purse full of coin that I had saved up, went to one of the equipment shops serving the travelers, and bought a new set of commoner’s garb, as well as a weapon that didn’t come from the castle armory.

My second visit on my new life of freedom was to the adventurer’s guild to find some friends. I’m not exactly certain why I found myself drawn towards the Travelers despite the way my father had treated me. Perhaps I simply wanted to find out if they were all jerks like him. Perhaps the Administrator had done something to me. Or perhaps I was simply tired of the constant sameness that I was beginning to recognize in all of the people in the castle.

It was strange, that sameness. Not everyone had it. Mother hadn’t. My nurses and my tutors hadn’t had it. But the boys I drilled with, and the new servants I saw about the castle? They were all so bland, following the same routines over and over, talking about the same things, repeating the same opinions on the same news endlessly.

And there was also the matter of escaping my disgrace. Nobody was overtly unkind to me – the king made it clear that would not be tolerated early on – yet those few nobles who had the spark of intelligence that was lacking from their servants looked at me with pity or disgust. I simply wanted to be done with it.

It wasn’t hard to find the adventurer’s guild, everyone in town knew where it was and was happy to provide directions. Walking through the city, I got my first real taste of a place where the Travelers and us Natives really intermingled. The Travelers were often easy to spot, both by the fact that they wore armor or robes as though they were going into battle, and by their eccentric behavior.

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One young woman was talking to the open air as she walked down the street. As she passed me, I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her who she was speaking with. She seemed surprised to be interrupted, but she answered me with a gruff “Partychat,” and then complained to her invisible companion about some weird kid on the street accosting her.

She wasn’t the only Traveler I saw behaving that way, but I didn’t stop any of the others. I figured they were all talking to ‘partychat,’ whatever that was. Others were typing on virtual keyboards which lit up under their fingers, staring at invisible screens. As strange as the Travelers were, there was simply something about them that was alive in a way that I wasn’t used to. I was really looking forward to making some friends with some of them.

With great cheer, I entered through the massive doors of the adventurerer’s guild and marched up to the nearest open window and said “I’d like to find a party.”

“This is quest turn-ins. Looking for group is over there,” the middle aged receptionist said, motioning to the window right next to hers. The one with a ‘back in 30 minutes’ sign.

“Can’t you help me?” I asked. “I don’t want to wait.”

She looked up and frowned at me. “New to the game? First time here?”

“Um, I guess.”

She tossed me a wooden coin. I caught it, and felt a strange sensation wash over me. It was sort of like having your hair stand on end from static electricity, but it passed quickly without a spark.

“Thanks?” I said, uncertain what I had just received.

“That’s your guild token. Don’t lose it. Well, you can’t, actually. Not without being kicked out of the guild. It’s bound to your account, and it will always pop back into your inventory. It unlocks a few features, including looking for group and quests. What level are you?”

“Level one,” I admitted.

“Jeez, kid, how’d you get through the tutorial without gaining a single level?” she asked. “I actually want to know, because there are players out there who would pay for the information to help twink their alts.”

“I just did,” I said, unwilling to admit that I had no idea what she was talking about. It was completely normal to stay level one until age ten, after all.

“Right. Well, what’s your class?”

“Child,” I answered, although it should be obvious.

“Wait, not ‘junior warrior’ or ‘junior mage’ or something?” she asked. Then she just shrugged. “You’re weird, kid, but I guess everyone plays differently. Look, you can join the El Eff Gee queue if you want, but I’d recommend picking up a few of the quests over there instead to get up to level five. Ten would be better, but sometimes level fives get together to grind. You should probably mark yourself down as a Dee Pee Ess because I doubt that you have any junior class skills that would classify you as a tank, healer, or supporter. To unlock the El Eff Gee menu, just put your token down over on the desk over there and navigate the popup menu.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, not really understanding.

“Now get out of here, kid, before someone actually comes with some quests to turn in.”

“Oh, right. Okay.” So I went over to the empty window and set my token on the empty desk, and sure enough a window I’d never seen popped up.

You have joined the Looking For Group Queue

Name

Hail

Guild

None

Class

Child

Rank

Wooden

Level

1

Select role

DPS

Select goal

Fighting monsters

Tank

Quests

Healer

Exploration

Support

Dungeons and Raids

Excitedly, I quickly selected DPS as the receptionist had suggested, and for the goal I picked fighting monsters. So I was somewhat disappointed at the result when the menu declared my estimated wait time to be “unable to calculate.”

Disappointed, I went over to look at the message board, which was covered in wanted posters and quest flags. They were even conveniently organized by level, which allowed me to quickly select a handful of level one to level three quests. However, I was uncertain whether or not leaving the building would remove me from the el ef gee queue, which I was reluctant to do.

“Hey, kid, want a boost?” a voice asked, and I turned to see a bald Traveler with a red robe and a staff approaching me. “I heard you talking to the receptionist. Level one, right? I’ll boost you up to level ten for twenty gold.”

“Really?” I asked, growing excited. That was more than half of what I’d saved up, but the thought of getting ten levels so easily was extremely alluring.

“Sure, if you’ve got that kind of money,” he said. “If not, I’ll boost you to level five for five gold, since that’s a much easier benchmark.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, and I promptly handed over my payment. The stranger seemed a little surprised as I counted out the coin and handed it over to him, but he simply grinned.

Severus has invited you to form a party

Accept?

Yes

No

I quickly accepted the invitation, and the stranger waved his hand and a portal appeared. I grinned with excitement, I was dealing with a proper mage! He motioned me to follow, and so I walked through the portal with him into lands unknown.

~~~~~~~~~

You have been kicked from the party by the party leader.

Reason given:

Trolling

I frowned at the prompt that came up as soon as we emerged on the other side of the swirling magic. “I don’t understand. Why did you kick me out?”

“Oh, it’s part of boosting you,” he explained. “I wasn’t actually calling you a troll, I just had to put something in that field, and that’s the option that pops up on top for me. We can’t actually be in the same party for this because I’m level fifty and will suck up all the experience, so that you wind up only getting two or three experience per goblin. But if you get the first hit on something, then I can blast it down in one hit, and you’ll get full experience.”

“Oh,” I said, having never known any of that before. I looked around at the conifer forest around us, and asked “Where are we?”

“Just north of town,” he explained. “There’s a goblin lair nearby. They’re level fifteen, so stay close. They can probably one shot you if we get careless.”

“Oh-Okay,” I said, growing nervous. I hadn’t expected my first encounter with the monster spawns outside of the city to be with such high level ones. But I followed Severus to as he led me deeper into the forest, and after a moment I could hear the sound of grunting and hooting. Ahead of us was a small patrol of three green human-like things, with sparse spiky hair and pointy ears, each slightly smaller than I was. Goblins were one of the most plentiful of monsters about near the city, but I’d never actually seen one before.

“Okay, kid. You don’t want to get close to them, so just shoot them with your arrows. As long as you draw blood, I can blast them apart and you’ll get full experience, okay?”

“Right,” I said seriously, unslinging my bow and quickly taking careful aim. I really was pretty good at archery, although I couldn’t raise it above five because I lacked combat experience, but hopefully that was about to change. I exhaled slowly, and the arrow I released hit the goblin that looked like a leader right in the left buttock.

And a second later, it exploded into gore. I jumped in surprise, and looked at Severus, who grinned at me.

“Hurry up and tag the other two before they charge us or run away,” he shouted, and I snapped out of my shock and knocked another arrow. A second later, I had shot the second goblin, which likewise was destroyed utterly a second later. I missed my third shot because the surviving goblin was running away from us, but Severus blew it up anyway. Afterward he clapped me on the shoulder.

“Well, two out of three isn’t bad. How much experience did you get from that?” he asked.

“Display status,” I said, and I began to grin. It was the first time in my life that that row had not displayed a mocking 0/100 and I couldn’t be happier

“Seven out of one hundred!” I declared.

“Shit, is that all?” he asked. “You should have almost gotten a full level from that.”

I frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah! You’re fighting way above your level here, so you should be getting tons of bonus experience for killing level fifteens while you’re still level one. In fact, you should have gotten level three or four just from that fight alone,” he explained.

I bit my lip, wondering if this was one of the differences between Travelers and Natives. It would make a lot of sense as to why they were so strong if they could gain experience so quickly, but I wasn’t ready to give up. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t do enough damage?” I suggested. “I mean, my arrow only did nine damage the first time, and seven the second.”

“Shit, is that all? My firebolt does three thousand damage by itself.” he asked. “Yeah, that’s probably the problem then. But there’s not much to do about it because you’re too weak to let you get into melee range and use that sword of yours. On the next group we find, let’s try having you shoot them twice before I blow them up and see if that makes a difference.”

And so we did that, finding a second group of goblins not far from the first. Except that I didn’t get any better experience this time than the last. In fact, it was worse, because I could only ‘tag’ one of the goblins before Severus had to blow them all up to protect me, so I only got three experience from that fight. We tried finding a third group, but Severus was growing impatient.

“Look, kid, this isn’t working,” he said. “Sorry, I tried to help, but your account is glitched or something. You should probably stick to the low level areas for now or you might get accused of hacking and get kicked out of the game. Don’t worry too much though, these sort of glitches have a way of clearing themselves up on their own. Anyway, I had something just come up eye are el, so I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.”

And with that, Severus faded into nothing.

Leaving me alone, in the wilderness, surrounded by a goblin lair, with no idea how to get back to the city.