Jessie took the headset off and rolled over to look at the clock. 10:24 it read. Jessie muttered a slight curse as he realised he had been in the game for 12 hours. Rolling out of bed, he failed to catch himself on his legs and fell on the floor and, cursing, pushed himself up and left his room. He had intended to cook himself something for dinner, but upon exiting his room and looking at the kitchen, he cursed again.The sink was full of dirty plates again and the counter was covered in grease and bread crumbs, while a pot of oil was still bubbling away on the stove. It was like his roommates were blind to the fact the kitchen had a dishwasher.
While he was rinsing off plates and cups to put into the dishwasher, Seth decided to stumble out of his room.
“Oh, hey Jess.” he said in a pained voice as he stumbled towards the fridge.
Jessie took one look at Seth's pale face and dishevelled hair and realised that he was suffering from an extreme hangover, it was clear that he had remained at the nightclub till it closed, then came back to the dorm and continued drinking.
“How much did you drink?” Jessie asked while taking a closer look around the common room.
“Uh, I dunno.” Seth mumbled. “Probably too much.”
“Yea, no shit.” Jessie said as he placed the last of the dishes into the washer. And began cleaning up the oil pot and the stove. “By the way, you don't happen to know who left this mess do you?”
“Not a clue.” came a new voice from a hallway that led to more rooms. “What the fuck was that for!?” the voice cried as something hit him in the head.
“You know perfectly well we have a dishwasher, William.” Jessie said. “Now bring that spatula back here.”
William looked at the spatula, then to Jessie, and back again. Jessie could see he was contemplating walking past the spatual to sit on the couch. Picking up a serving spoon from the counter Jessie prepared to throw it at William if he tried that.
“No, no, put that down.” William said as he picked up the spatula and brought it over to the sink.
“The dishwasher.” Jessie said as he continued to hold the spoon
William looked over to Jessie and when he saw Jessie still holding the spoon, he promptly put the spatula into the dishwasher before heading over and turning on the TV.
“See, wasn’t that hard, was it?” Jessie then walked over to a cupboard and took out some pain killers which he handed to Seth. “If you want to avoid the headaches, drink water.”
“Hmmm.” Seth managed to get out as he took the pain killers and returned to his room.
This was a typical weekend for Jessie, tidying up the kitchen and looking after boys who should have been able to look after themselves, after all they were all 18 or older and still couldn't cook a decent meal. How he had ended up with this job he didn't know, it just happened over time as he realised that the idiots couldn't do the basics. After wiping down the counters and putting away the pots, Jessie went to the pantry to figure out what he could cook, and found it a complete mess. He stood in front of the open pantry and just stared, the thing had been tidy 12 hours ago, why the hell did it look like someone had put a grenade inside it.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” William cried as the spoon Jessie had just taken from the drawer hit him in the head, turning around William noticed the pantry. “Oh, um, i was going to tell you about that.”
“And when were you going to tell me?” Jessie said as he turned towards him
“Uh, later?” came a sheepish reply
With a sigh Jessie got to work cleaning and reorganising the pantry. It only took him an hour and by that time it was quarter to midnight and he was feeling completely fed up. Not bothering to cook anything complex, he just threw some pasta into a pot and made a simple pasta dish, which he quickly downed and placed the plate into the dishwasher. Throwing himself into bed he fell asleep quickly and woke with the early light of the rising sun.
As the sun peeked over the buildings that surrounded Jessie's dorm, it threw a ray of sunlight through the gap in his curtains which stabbed him in the eyes. groaning, Jessie rolled out of bed, managing to land on his feet this time, and walked into the common room, looking around he noticed that it was exactly as he left it the night before and began unloading the dishwasher which had been running all night. As he was doing this he put some bacon into a pan and began making his breakfast. It was with the smell of bacon and eggs that the rest of the dorm woke up. As Jessie was plating up his breakfast he noticed the other 8 people who also occupied his dorm had gathered around the table. Knowing they were too tired, lazy or hungover to bother making a move to make their own breakfast, Jessie muttered a curse, and got to work cooking all the idiots breakfast. After cooking, plating and serving breakfast as well as eating his own rather cold one. Jessie decided to return to his room and just play The Star Of Fate for the rest of the day.
When he entered his room he first decided to check the official forums for the game. There were pleasantly more posts about people discovering just how immersive the game was, people getting killed by city guards for thievery or starting fights or killed by citizens after harassing them. It turned out that if the player was killed by the guards they respawned inside the prisons and had to serve a 24 hour sentence as well as the exp reduction. There were also posts about the death penalty, with people complaining that it was too harsh, while others were complaining about having to buy new headsets or pods because they had decided to try their hand at killing high level monsters. There were also many streamers posting clips of their adventures and links to their twitch or YouTube channels to try gain more viewers. Out of curiosity Jessie opened Twitch and searched for The Stars of Fate, selecting the stream with the most viewers. The stream was about a group of professional gamers going about quests in a way to grind out levels and provide entertainment to the viewers. Looking more closely Jessie could see that everyone in the group was over lvl 10, meaning that they were grinding exp with a lot of efficiency, but other than their teamwork and comedic commentary there wasn't anything that interested him. After clicking through a few other streams, Jessie closed his computer, lay in his bed and entered the game.
Jessie checked the pile of wolf parts he had harvested the night before. When he realised that he would prefer to walk back through the forest during daylight, he had gone and obtained the teeth, claws and pelts of as many wolves as he could before the sun fully set. Putting the teeth and claws inside the bag alongside the egg, Jessie gathered up the pelts of the 15 wolves in one roll, tied together with vines from a nearby tree, and began to make his way back to whitewater village. The trek through the forest was quiet apart from the sound of birds chirping throughout the forest.
Jessie paused as he reached a rise in the Forest, and looked down on the village of Whitewater. With the stone based wooden walls that rose 10 metres into the air, and the towers that soared over them, each flying the flag of the Star Dragons grave, a black flag with white stars placed behind a dragon of vibrant blue. Jessie also noted that while the town seemed cluttered and chaotic when walking the streets, there was method to the madness and it was shown that the village's walls were not the only form of defence it had. The raging river which flowed through the middle of the village seemed to be instantly tamed as it passed through the walls then was let loose again as it left.it took him another half hour or so to get back to the village proper, and after showing the guard his token entered the village and walked towards the smithy.
Rounding the corner onto the street with the smithy, Jessie noticed there was a small crowd outside it being held back by a couple of guards. Curious as to what was happening he decided to try and approach. As he made his way through the crowd, trying not to hit anyone with the rather heavy bundle of wolf pelts, he overheard some of the people talk about a knight or champion who was around the town, from what he could make out this champion was currently inside the smithy and the people who were crowding up the outside were trying to either get a look at him or get an autograph. As he approached the door to the smithy, he got a few muttered curses from some of the crowd who thought he was just trying to barge to the front and was stopped by one of the guards before he could open the door.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“The coal hammer smithy is currently closed until further notice.” the guard said as he looked over Jessie.
“But I have a delivery for the smith.” he replied, gesturing to the bundle of pelts he was carrying.
The guard took a closer look at Jessie then picked up a board that was lying next to the door and read over it. Looking back up at Jessie he asked.
“Claws, teeth and pelts of 10 wolves?”
When Jessie nodded his head the guard looked to his left and quietly consulted with the other guard who was standing by the door. After a few moments of deliberation the first guard turned back to Jessie.
“You may enter.” he said as he opened the door and let him through.
The first thing Jessie noticed as the door was opened was the man in what looked to be a very expensive suit of armour and travelling cloak who seemed to be in an intense argument with the smith and the elf over something that was on the counter before them. As the door closed after Jessie entered, the elf looked up confused but that was quickly replaced with relief as he realised who had just entered the shop, turning and muttering something to the smith the elf stepped out from behind the counter the argument was taking place at and wen to the another one on the side where the forge was located and gestured for Jessie to head there.
“I got what your boss requested.” Jessie said as he put the pelts on the counter and unrolled them. As the elf started to tally up how much Jessie was owed for the pelts, he happened to look up as Jessie was taking the claws and teeth out of his bag and noticed the egg.
“Is there something wrong?” Jessie asked as he noticed the elf staring at him.
The elf opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head.
“No, no.” He said as his face seemed to turn a light shade of red. Before counting out the teeth, claws and pelts and totaling the cost. The total came to 186 copper for the claws, teeth and pelt of 1 wolf and 2790 copper or 2 silver and 790 copper for the components of all 18 wolves. The elf placed 2 silver coins, 7 copper octagons and 9 copper hexagons on the counter, but when he noticed Jessies confusion he hesitated slightly before asking
“Do you not know the currency?”
“Um, no.” Jessie replied in embarrassment
“That's fine.” the elf said. “There is 1000 copper to a silver, 1000 silver to a gold and 1000 gold to a platinum, though i have never seen a platinum coin before, to avoid carrying around many thousands of coins the different denominations are split into three.” the elf pointed at the silver coins first.” circular coins have a denomination of 1, so each one of these is 1 silver.” the elf pointed at the hexagonal pieces. “Hexagonal coins have a denomination of 10, so each of these is equal to 10 copper, and finally the octagonal coins have a denomination of 100, so each of these is worth 100 copper.”
“That's complicated, but also simple.” Jessie muttered. “But why do the octagonal pieces have a hole in the middle?”
The elf looked at the octagonal coins for a moment.
“I have no clue, I think it might be a way to differentiate between hexagonal and octagonal coins. But I am unsure of that.”
“Huh. Well, thanks for the info.” Jessie said as he collected his money and absentmindedly patted the elf on the head before leaving the smithy. The elf just sat at the counter for a moment in shock, when he finally comprehended what had just happened, his face went red and he buried his face in his hands for all but a moment before.
“Oi, get over here we have a job to finish.” his boss yelled at him from the other side of the room where he was still in negotiations with the man in the fancy armour.
Jessie took a browse of the general merchants shop which was located on the corner of the main square, before heading over the the inn for a meal, not because he was hungry but because he had noticed he got some buff from eating food such as an increased stamina and health buff, not that it did anything from him and his -50 level that had barely gone up as he hadn’t killed any of the wolves he harvested materials from. He had however gained the skill for skinning and breaking apart animals which had awarded him 1,000 exp for getting the skill to lvl 1. Approaching the inn, jessie noticed a covered board to the left of the doorway, looking at it he noticed that it contained requests for aid posted by either the residents of the village or the soldier who were guarding the village or the soldier who were passing through and needed supply runs or errand run. It seemed like a good way to earn some coin and exp, the exp he badly needed as he reminisced on the fact he was still lvl -50, as he entered the inn, the overly friendly server approached him once more.
“Greeting good sir.” she proclaimed in her cherry voice. “Are you here for a meal again?”
“I am.” Jessie replied. “Also how do I accept the requests out front?”
The server seemed to perk up a bit when Jessie asked about the requests.
“You take a request from the board and take it to the town hall, the big building to the left opposite the temple. The board outside is for more mundane tasks such as errands or herb collections while the one by the town hall is more about monster extermination and the like." She took a pause to catch her breath a bit. “Please sit anywhere you like, it not that busy at the moment.” she continued in a much more controlled voice than the rush her words had been when she was discussing the request boards.
Taking a seat near the back wall, Jessie waited for his food to arrive, looking around he noticed that the inn was indeed quiet, though that was easily explainable by the fact it was around 11:30 and the lunch rush was still to come, at least according to what he managed to over hear from the kitchen. Pulling up his stats he looked over it, though he mainly focused on the exp needed to return to lvl 0.
‘Current level: -50
Exp needed to return to level 0: 425,081,000,143
Current exp: 1105/425,081,000,143’
“Well, could be worse.” Jessie muttered to himself as he looked at the screen.
“What could be worse?” a voice said as someone sat opposite him
Looking up Jessie raised an eyebrow at who he saw sit opposite to him.
“Does sitting and waiting for a meal at this place just summon people?” he asked in a somewhat bewildered by sarcastic voice
“First I've heard of this phenomenon.” the elf said as he made himself more comfortable. “But what could be worse than stealing a dragon egg, how’d you even manage it?”
“Uh.” Jessie hesitated while he thought of the best answer. “Can we start with introductions first?” He finally resorted to.
“Yea, i got ahead of myself.” the elf said. “My name is Astra, I'm 19 years old and, well, it's obvious but I'm an elf. I have worked at the coal hammer smithy for five years now.”
“I’m Je- Ghost, I'm 19 and have just been wandering around exploring.” Jessie said, correcting himself as he was about to say the wrong name. “Also, you’ve been working since you were 14?”
“Um, yea.” Atsra said sheepishly. “I kind of needed money after I was abandoned.”
“Huh!?”
“Yea.” As Astra said this Jessie noticed his hair slightly shift from blonde to a very light yellowy green. “Their claim was that I was too much of a hassle to look after, though I’m pretty sure they did it due to how different I was to other elves.”
“Different?”
“You probably noticed the first one, but I’m more outgoing and curious than other elves, basically no elves ever leave the dominion outside of military manoeuvres. There's a couple others as well, but i don't usually speak of them.”
“Like your hair changing colour?” Jessie said as he looked at Astras hair which had started to turn green over the course of the conversation
“Um, ye yes.” Astra stuttered, getting slightly more embarrassed. “But, but anyway, how did you manage to steal a dragon egg, there aren’t any dragons nearby.”
“Um, I didn't steal it.”
“Then how did you get it?”
“It was given to me.”
“By who.” Astra seemed genuinely interested in who had given Jessie the egg.
“I’m not telling you. Well, not till I know you better anyway.”
Astras hair started to turn an orange yellow as Jessie said this, the expression on his face seemed to pull at something inside Jessie and he was overcome with the desire to pat the elf on the head,
“Why are you so interested in the dragon egg anyway?” Jessie asked after a moment's lull in the conversation.
“The only dragons you will find on this side of the planet are domesticated by the various powers.” Astra said a look of sadness entering his eyes. “I really want to know how smart a non-domesticated dragon would be.”
“That's, actually a fair answer.” Jessie said, looking up he noticed his meal being brought out of the kitchen. “Also, aren’t you meant to be working at the moment?”
“Hm? Oh shit.” Astra suddenly had a look of panic on his face as he realised he had been talking with Jessie for far longer than he had thought, with that Astra ran out of the inn,though he did pick up the whispered words of Jessie as he left due to the enhanced hearing the elves had.
“Damnit, why does he have to be so cute.” was all Astra heard before he left the inn, flustered not only by the fact his boss would likely be annoyed with him, but also because Jessie was the only human he had met that thought that of him.