Jessie really wanted to punch Death, he still had so many questions about how the game was supposed to work, how was he to name his character, what about classes, he had yet to name his character, did the game use his actual name? As Jessie was thinking these thoughts rows of text appeared in front of him, the brightness of the text compared to the black screen that was what he was currently seeing was enough for his to slam his eyes closed and flinch away, unfortunately for him, the text followed where his eyes were forcing him to adapt to the light difference quickly.
‘Welcome to Alecious, player information below.
Name: Unknown
Class: unknown
Blessing: Blessing of the Ancient God of Death (Upgradable)’
“Huh, so, how do I name myself and obtain a class?” Jessie asked out loud
‘Would you like to choose a name for your character? Or use the name associated with the purchase of this game’
“Huh, so that's an option apparently.” Jessie muttered to himself. “Is there a way to use both?”
‘Alternate identities can be unlocked later in the game.’
“Hmm, I think I'll use the name Ghost for now. I can change it with an alternate identity later.”
‘Name chosen: Ghost
Please choose a starting class’
A long list of classes appeared in front of Jessie after these words came up, the list included the basic classes of swordsman, marksman, mage, priest, ranger and so on. As Jessie looked at the list infront of him, he noticed a bunch of tabs at the top. Combat, crafting, blessing, misc. The closer Jessie looked the more small details he noticed, mainly the very tiny text tucked away at the bottom of the misc page that read.
‘Note: starting classes are not static, you may use whatever weapon or magical ability you want, so long as you learn it first.”
After reading through all available starting classes, Jessie thought about how he wanted to start his adventure. After pondering this for a while he decided to go with the ranger class. He had considered the soldier class, but after realising that he didn't feel confident it close range combat, he began to ponder between the ranged classes and the magic classes, ultimately settling on ranger to start with because he didn't want to get into the complicated magic system he was sure the developers had put into the game to annoy the player base and make them spend weeks getting builds that could cause the most cost effective destruction. Anyway, the ranger class allowed him to fight at range while also not worrying about running out of mana.
‘Class selected: Ranger
Skills: None’
“Oh, so skills aren’t included? Great.” Jessie said with sarcasm clearer than a glass window. “Don’t suppose I could see my entire character sheet?” he followed up
‘Character Sheet
Name: Ghost
Class: Ranger
Blessing: Blessing of the ancient god of Death (upgradable)
Skills: None
Items: (given in table form for convenience)
Item:
Rarity:
Quality:
Quantity:
Durability:
Bow
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Quiver
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Arrow (Iron)
Common
Poor
60
N/A
Hood (wool)
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Tunic (wool)
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Pants (wool)
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Gloves (leather)
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Boots (leather)
Common
Poor
1
100/100
Cloak
Common
Poor
1
100/100
You can change the layout of the items table at any time.
Titles: None.’
“Ok, um, change items from chart to list:” He said after looking at the chart that popped up. It just felt a bit weird as a block. “Whoever uses the chart is weird.”
‘Character creation complete’
“Wait, no race selection?”
‘You can switch your race after finding certain items or devoting yourself to certain gods.’
“Is that everything, I want to play the game now.”
‘Character creation compete
Please choose a starting power.
Twilight dynasty
Storm kingdom
Elven dominion
The alliance
…’
The list continued for another dozen or so empires, kingdoms and other powers that held territory on the planet. Jessie looked over each of them and slowly read the descriptions of each of them. It did take him a while to decide on where he wanted to start, but he eventually settled on a place called the Star Dragons grave.
‘The Star Dragons grave:
One of the five great powers of this world, the Star Dragons grave wields the second most powerful military force. Yet despite this they are adamant to remain absolutely neutral with all other powers, only utilising their armies for monster control and preventing dungeon breaks. The north of the kingdom is defended by a mountainous region known as the dead peaks, which keeps the northern tribes out of both the Kingdom, and the rest of developing nations.’
After selecting his starting power Jessie chose to begin outside a small walled village several kilometres away from the base of the dead peaks. The only information he was given about the village was that it was the main resupply for a fortress that blocked the only pass between the kingdom and the lands of the northern tribes.
‘Starting location chosen,
Spawning player,
We hope you enjoy The Stars Of Fate.’
The nice welcoming message was soon followed by yet another black screen, well, that’s debatable as the screen was always black with the white words appearing as if it was a canvas, the words simply vanished leaving him in complete darkness again. Which slowly lightened as until he was standing in a forest, a very dense Forest with foliage all over the place.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Huh, it’s not so bad.” He muttered as he looked around at the forest. Before promptly getting impaled by a random unicorn.
**********
Somewhere off-world and elsewhere, the Ancient god of death Fulorbayan-Shingon looked out with his senses to watch the mortal he had blessed. The moment he appeared in a forest of the kingdom he had selected, he began to laugh loudly. He thought this mortal would be able to notice the sound of a charging, enraged unicorn. Though it appeared that he was too focused on what was around him than the noise of branches getting broken, he laughed even harder when the enraged unicorn charged straight up to, and through the confused mortal, impaling the corpse on its horn. The corpse remained on the unicorn's horn for a whole minute, before dissolving into motes of light and dissipating into the air. Oh he couldn’t wait to see the face of the mortal once he reappeared.
*****************
After five minutes of standing still, confused as to what just happened, Jessie was respawned into the forest in the same spot as last time. Only this time he could see the trail of destruction that the unicorn had left in its path as it rampaged through the forest.
A message popped up information of him as he was timing in the details he had some who managed to miss when he had first spawned in.
‘You have been killed by
Unicorn(Enraged) lvl: 100’
Another message popped up after the first one, this one confused Jessie even more than the fact he had been slain by a lvl 100 unicorn
‘Your former level (0) was vastly lower than your opponents. Due to this difference and an exp modifier of 1.5x, you have lost 50 levels.’
‘Your level is now -50
All attributes have been reduced to 1
Your attributes will not increase until you reach level 1.’
“What the actual fuck?” Jessie was so confused he couldn’t think straight and just stood there for a while. After a couple minutes he finally came to his senses. “I should find the village and do some basic quests.” After muttering this rather obvious fact, Jessie made his way in the direction of the village, assuming it was in the direction of flowing water, which he very much hoped it was.
After walking for another minute in the direction of the running water, he suddenly realised something, and had a minor panic problem. He had completely forgotten about the time, and when looking at the top of his HUD, he noticed that the time displayed there read 10:43 am. At which point he promptly found a place under a rather large tree, and logged out of the game.
Jessie took the headset off and began changing out of the clothes he had worn the night before. In his excitement to see what the game had in store for him, he had immediately logged in without changing into something more comfortable that the clothes he had worn to the club. After changing into a grey tee-shirt and loose black pants, Jessie made his way out of his room and into the shared common room where the kitchen was. He had expected to see other people in the room, but upon further consideration he realised that they were either out at work, because college students needed money, or in Seths case, he was pretty sure, still over at someone's house or in his apartment, well, not that his apartment was used for anything other than his own entertainment.
Walking into the kitchen Jessie noticed a bunch of cups, plates and cutlery just sitting in the sink and on the counter, at least it meant the other people who shared this space were back, not that they would be of any help when cleaning up the mess they themselves made. With a resigned sigh, Jessie got to work filling the dishwasher and cleaning down the countertops and the stove, as whoever had cooked Mac n cheese the night before had left the pot on the stove, without cleaning it. After closing the door to the dishwasher, with slightly more force than was necessary, he got to work making himself breakfast, a simple meal of scrambled eggs on a slice of toast, it wasn’t much but he didn’t feel hungry.
He returned to his room after cleaning up and decided to check what the player base thought of The Stars of Fate. After a bit of searching Jessie found a forum set up by the developers of the game. Many of the posts were about people enjoying the landscape, towns and environment, the combat systems or how life like to NPC’s were.
After filtering the forum by most viewed, Jessie realised what the most viewed post contained. It was the conflict between the gods he had witnessed.
The post titled, Fight between gods, had garnered over a million views within the few hours since the event had occurred. The video, Clearly captured by someone with a front row seat to the fight, showed the entire interaction from start to finish. And the comment section had gone insane.
“I missed this by being on the other side, FML.”
“I wish I could have seen this.”
“What rank was that god that got punched?”
“Who was the raved figure at the end?”
“Nooo, I wanted to see more.”
“I wonder if you can get a blessing from one of them.”
“How long till I can get strong.”
“What level are they?”
“That punch was so fast.”
There were thousands of comments wondering who the gods involved were, what level they were, how to get a blessing from them and so on. There were also the people who claimed that they got a blessing from one or the other and demanded money to give out the information, and then there were the people who claimed that this video was faked and was only an animation. Those people were utterly obliterated by people calling them old dinosaurs and other rude insults. But that was the way of the internet. It did make one wonder though, how long would it take for the dinosaurs from the ancient homophobic era, and the arrogant peacocks from the mid-money is power era. Maybe that was why the rumours of the currency exchange system had been shut down almost instantaneously, those who held the money didn’t want others to earn it. And on that somewhat depressing thought, Jessie prepared to log back into the game, though before he could even pick up the headset his phone began to ring.
“Yes?” He said as he picked the phone up without looking at who was calling him.
“You seem a bit irritated this morning Jess.” Came the reply
“Morning James.” Jessie said, slightly sighing as he did so.
“Oh, now something is definitely wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not only do you sound fed up with something, but you said my full name.”
“Did you call just to see how annoyed I was, or was there another reason?”
“Well, I wanted to know if you had started playing the Stars of Fate.”
“I have. What of it?”
“You're a bit standoffish.”
“I suppose I am, aren’t I.”
“Yea, What planet did you start on by the way?”
“Alecious. What about you?”
“Damn, I started on Dorlundon. It’s pretty much covered with continent spanning metropolises and mainly focuses on technomany.”
“That sounds interesting, Alecious is a barely occupied planet. I’m not sure what magic they focus on.”
“Why not?” James asked, a bit confused.
“Well, because I spent too long in the divine bazaar, and then got impaled by a level 100 unicorn right after spawning in.”
“Damn.” James said as he struggled to stop himself laughing. “Well. It’s the weekend, I’m going to get back to the game.”
“Yea, I just need to not get killed by the unicorn again.” Jessie muttered after hanging up. He put his phone back onto the charger and threw himself onto his bed, put the headset on, and re entered the game.
************
Looking around more thoroughly than he did the last time, Jessie made sure that there weren’t any monsters or rampaging unicorns around. Though one thing stood out to Jessie as he thought more about the appearance of the unicorn.
“Was it a roaming field boss or something?” He muttered as he continued to walk in the direction of the river. He had spotted the river just as he was logging out an hour or so before. Upon peering into the river he could see a very clear reflection of him, and his hand immediately flew to his chest, the same spot where he had been impaled. Instead of the wool he expected to feel, he felt only the skin on his chest, in a minor state of panic he pulled up his status screen and had a look at the durability of his shirt.
‘Tunic(wool), common, poor, 75/100’
Jessie breathed a sigh of relief, his shirt wasn’t broken, but it did need repairing and he did still need to find the village. Looking around Jessie took note of how close he was to the mountains, and began to walk down stream and further from the mountain. The reason he did this was because he remembered that the village was several kilometres away from the mountain, thus he had to walk down stream.
“Several kilometres, my ass.” He muttered after an hour of walking along the river. It was at this point that he was beginning to think he had been walking in the wrong direction, and that the village was actually closer to the mountains than he thought. But he kept walking, and after another quarter hour he finally noticed a wooden wall appearing in the distance. The closer he got to the wall the more detail he could make out, the water wheel that powered the mill and the lumber machines. The watch towers that lined the wall and the gates stood tall over the surroundings. Jessie was noticed by the guards on the wall and shortly thereafter by the guards at the gate. While they didn’t show hostile intent, they were wary of the lone stranger who was travelling towards their town.
“Greetings wanderer.” One of the guards in front of the gate called. “Can we assist you with anything?”
“I would like to enter the village.” Jessie said with respect, he had not started with the identify skill, or any skill for that matter, and thus could only take a guess at the guards level. Even if they were only level 3 or 4, he still didn’t want to anger them.
“The cost to enter the village is 10 copper, that will allow you to stay for 5 days, after 5 days you will need to pay another 10 copper, during this time you may enter and leave as often as you like.” The same guard who had greeted him replied. But after looking at Jessie’s face for a moment he continued. “But if you don’t have the coin.” The guard paused and looked at the guards who stood on duty before turning back. “If you could get us 5 rabbits from the forest nearby, I will grant you entry. You will have access for 5 days, but after that you will need to pay 10 copper for the extended stay.”
As Jessie considered this problem, a message appeared in front of him.
‘Quest:
Hunt 5 rabbits in the Forest nearby: 0/5
Reward: access to the village of Whitewater for 5 days.’
“If it gets me access into the village, sure.” Jessie said as he accepted the quest.
After Jessie had walked away towards the forest, Another guard walked over to the speaker.
“Why are you charging him in rabbits?”
“Because look at him, you can tell just by how he’s dressed and also by his presence that he doesn’t have any coin to his name, also I’m over charging him, fresh caught rabbit costs 5 copper in the market.”
“Whatever you say, captain.”
******
It took Jessie about an hour to find and shoot all 5 rabbits, a lot longer than he thought it would take him. In his defence he had also had to fight two wolves that had stalked him throughout his hunt, sure he cheesed the fight by climbing a tree and shooting the wolves in the head, but it had delayed him for a while as he tried his best to harvest some materials from the wolves. It was early afternoon when Jessie made his way back to the gate, carrying the five rabbits in his arms. It did cut a confusing image, a figure walking towards the gate, with five dead rabbits in their arms.
“Five rabbits.” He said as he approached the gate. Another guard took the rabbits to inspect them for their quality while the guard captain walked forwards and handed Jessie a rectangular wooden token.
“Your payment has been accepted.” He said as he stepped back. “Welcome to Whitewater village.”
‘New location unlocked: Whitewater village.’
After the notification faded Jessie walked into the village. The first thing he had to do was find somewhere to seek the claws and teeth he had harvested from the two wolves he had killed earlier. The village was larger than he had originally thought, but it did make sense as the short description of the village told him that it was a resupply post for the fortress located in the mountains, it would also indicate why there were many guards who were better equipped than most villages. As he was wandering through the village he noticed a blacksmith, alchemist and many other shops that sold or created items. As he thought about where to sell the claws and teeth, he absentmindedly walked toward the blacksmith. By the time he came back to his senses he was standing in front of the shop portion, deciding to just enter and see what was for sale, Jessie pushed open the door.
The walls were lined with weapons and armour, as expected of a blacksmith, but what caught his eye the most was the person behind the counter. He was a young male, probably around 19-20 years old, going off looks, had an average build, though his muscles were well defined. He was quite tall, and Jessie guessed he was around 6’6 or 6’7, with blond hair that flowed down his shoulders, his piercing green eyes were looking down at a book he was reading. But what really caught Jessie’s attention were the pointed ears that poked out from beneath the hair. After looking around the shop for a bit, Jessie decided to ask the elf a question.
“Um, excuse me.” Jessie said, a bit of nervousness in his voice
“Hm?” The elf looked up in surprise and looked at Jessie for a moment, then swore in a language he couldn’t understand. The elf quickly looked around the shop and behind the counter, and after seeing no one else he let the tension relax from his shoulders.
“Can I help you?” The elf asked, his voice was soft, but he also sounded a bit nervous.
“Um, yes, do you buy materials here?”
“Hmm, it would depend on the material”
Jessie took out the wolf claws and fangs, placing them on the counter between him and the elf. The elf raised an eyebrow when he saw the materials.
“Hmm,” he muttered as he separated the fangs from the claws. “I can offer you. 36 copper for the claws, and 40 copper for the two fangs.” Jessie really didn’t know what the conversion rate between the currencies, he assumed that it was the standard 100-100-100 conversion rate many other games had. But 60 copper seemed like a decent deal for materials he really didn’t have to try hard to gather.
“Sure.” Jessie said as the elf put the coins on the table. Jessie pocketed the coins and thanked the elf, before leaving to explore more of the village. He walked in the general direction of the centre of the village where he saw the spires of what seemed to be a temple. Stepping into the square Jessie noticed a large market in front of what looked like a temple to the gods of this world, and the town hall which was where the village chief resided. After wandering the market for a while, Jessie decided to find somewhere to sit and eat something, he at least wanted to know if the food also had taste in this game. He was aware that the game had some sort of pain receiver as he had been impaled by a unicorn, but he was unsure if that translated to food and drink. A divine smell drifted out of an inn nearby as Jessie was lost in thought, and without really intending to, he began to walk towards the inn. Upon opening to door he realised that it was more of an inn and tavern cross, and he was quick let approached by a serving lady who had such a spring in her step for some reason, that her bosom was bouncing up and like a bouncy ball, this drew the attention of the few drunk men who had a greater addiction to alcohol they were nearly penny less, or copper less Jessie though.
“Greetings stranger, what can I do for you?” The woman, who Jessie now realised was still a girl, asked in her slightly high pitched voice.
“A meal please, also direction to a tailor.”
A slight frown crossed her face. “Well, the only tailor in the village is Grelod, but she can be quite grumpy with people.” Then her face lit up again. “But take a seat anywhere, I’ll bring you out some food and drink.” And with that she bounced back to the kitchen to put the order in as Jessie made his way to one of the tables along the back wall of the dining room. As Jessie crossed his arms on the table and lay his head on them facing the door and prepared to relax for a while. Someone dropped into the chair across from him.