As his senses began to return to him, the feeling of touching something cold could be felt on his stomach, most likely being the floor he was laying on. His eyelids slowly began to inch their way open as he began to gain consciousness of where he was right now.
From what was made apparent to him, he seemed to be in a closed room made out of stone with a bed and a desk off to the side, with ink and quill placed upon it. Just from that alone it was clear to him that he was in a place not like that of Earth and seemed to still have old systems of writing utensils.
Aaron slowly pushed himself up and wincing, preparing himself to be in for a world of pain but to his surprise, the earlier pain he had experienced seemed to be only a distant memory, with no traces of it ever happening.
When he finally got to his feet he could finally get a full view of his surroundings and his earlier guess was correct, he was in fact in a room of sorts. Other than what was previously mentioned, there was also a door that led to who knows where and a window that seemed to show the outside world. Other than those items, nothing was worthy of mention in this room.
[Took you long enough to wake up]
In the middle of his face, a red box showed itself in his face and when he saw the message, he couldn’t help but frown. Trista…, he thought to himself as he began to recount his encounter with her, making him shiver.
[I am happy to hear you remember my name but the reaction you had would be considered a little rude, wouldn't it?]
‘Oh come on, you can hear my thoughts too?’ He thought in his head but not to himself as there was a certain someone now in his head that he wanted out. Having someone read your every thought no matter how bad they are is one of those things he would rather not have experienced in his whole life but that was then and now it is happening.
[A little here and there, the system does give you a little privacy if you really want some… just say the phrase, ‘Directed Mode’ and that should do the trick]
Letting out a massive sigh of relief, he spoke cheerfully, “Directed mode”. When the last word exited his mouth, a loud ding went off in his ear, for what he could only think of as confirmation to it working.
‘So… why did you choose me?’ Aaron decided to finally go for the hard hitting question that would get the most information as possible, he was a little concerned about her reasoning also because who knew why she chose him, everyone has a reason for everything right?
[Oh just a roll of the dice really, could of been any of you five, just turned out you were lucky enough to be in the presence of one such as myself]
Even though he couldn’t hear her voice, he could almost feel the cockiness in her voice, making him almost roll his eyes but through a little resistance that feeling passed. Seems as though these white haired women seemed to have a narcissistic view on things, and who wouldn’t want to have a snarky sarcastic voice in their head telling them what to do?
‘Well then can I ask what you are?’
[Of course you can, but will I tell you is more or less the correct question, and since you are going to ask it, the answer is no.]
Shaking his head in frustration, he breathed out a little and thought to himself, can’t win them all, and began to walk towards the desk that had the quill on it. Need to start somewhere he guessed as he crept up on it.
Upon getting closer, he saw a scroll of some sorts rolled up tied together by a red ribbon, seemingly dying to be opened and what was Aaron to deny a mysterious scrolls request? So he picked it up and slowly unfurled it, revealing the words that were written inside of it.
‘To whomever may find this note, I am glad to see you are in good health, at least enough to read this scroll of mine. How should I address you? Maybe as the Twin or even Trishta? Well that is besides the point, I wish you luck you two and I will see you soon hopefully, sincerely GB.’
When Aaron finished reading the scroll, there was no response from Trishta which was odd to say. It seemed that whoever wrote this letter knew who she was and acted as if she knew this GB person too, especially with signing with his name. ‘Anything to say for yourself?’
[I don’t need to tell you anything at all, it's just a small matter and someone like you should have no business in it.]
‘I think I deserve to know a little bit since you went into my head without my consent,’ He got a little more aggravated as he continued to speak to her. This woman went into his head, causing him immeasurable pain, and just thinks she can keep this big of a secret from him, one that could even be detrimental in the future.
After a slight pause, Trishta finally gave her response. [As I feel a little pity for someone such as yourself, I reluctantly say that… I can’t remember anything]
Right after hearing her reply, an audible THUD could be heard as Aaron facepalmed, not being able to hold back the frustration he was feeling. He swore that this woman would make him insane one day and he did not like that one bit.
[I am going to go silent for a while… I need to do some thinking]
And with that final message, silence soon followed Aaron, and he was left to his own thoughts. Putting down the scroll, he finally decided to make some progress in this world he found himself in and took a gander out the window, preparing himself for the fate that was creeping up on him, and that was... that he was so hungry he might starve to death!
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He did not know how long he had been out for when he passed out earlier, but he knew that it had to be a decent amount of time because his hunger was getting to the point where he could feel his stomach rumbling ever so slightly.
Once he could get a full view out of the window, he took in the breathtaking sight of what seemed to be a forest like when he met that group of people but was different in a way where it was almost radiating with an energy of some sort. Not one that he could exactly see, but it was almost as if he just knew it was there in some sense.
It seemed to him after taking a close look that he was in a cottage of some sort, in a small clearing, surrounded by trees and overgrown shrubs. All of these signs were pointing towards one thing, that being no one has been here for a while.
Great, just great, now I am stuck in the middle of nowhere with not even a snidbit of civilization, so much for a tutorial when starting out a game. After taking that look out the window, he began to move about the room, trying to sort out his situation. Just as he was in the middle of those thoughts, a blue box popped into his vision, making him feel a surge of relief flood through his body.
Tutorial Initiating, please stand by Player.
After reading the message, a huge smile appeared on his face because Trishta didn’t mess everything up on the bright side. Though after seeing the blue box, he began to figure out Trishta, or at least what she became. From what he has seen, it seems that the red box is her talking, like how those error boxes appeared before, most likely meaning that Trishta was the one who affected his results. Once Trishta did that thing to him, she must have not combined herself with the system but instead became like a separate entity which had limited access to the system to his understanding.
Welcome Player to the World of Algar…]
And with that message, many more followed it, giving Aaron a basic rundown on how things worked with the system, and he was right, it was exactly like a game.
In Algar, there were several different races around the world, including but not limited to humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and the rest of the creatures you could expect in a normal fantasy game.
The humans seemed to be in control of most of the territory for what he could only assume was because of how humans could reproduce if he was basing it off the normal setting. Following this, elves and dwarves seemed to have their own kingdoms, though it seemed that they were not as vast as the human empires.
Though after this basic information was given, after a little probing done by Aaron, he was not able to get any more information from it other than what it already gave him so he could only move on to how the system worked.
With the system, there were three major functions with it, the status menu, the quest menu, and what seemed to be a “legend” tab, but even after asking the system, it stayed silent either not being able to give the information or just did not want to. Though he assumed it was more of the former than the latter because the thought of having two different “people” in his head would really give him a headache.
Though he could at least say that he understood how the status menu and the quest menu worked so he couldn’t complain in the end, something is better than nothing right? The status menu was the same thing as that of a video game, seemingly giving stats of the Player, obviously referring to himself. It can be opened with as long as he thinks about the word ‘status’ which he already figured.
The quest menu is a given just like the status menu, periodically quests will show up either from getting them from certain encounters with the world, including people. There are also different forms of quests, ranging from killing to exploration, destroying to protecting.
Well time to check out the status screen, he thought to himself as he said ‘Status’ in his head.
Name: Aaron Cyprus
Level: 1
Race: Akrian
Ideology: The Twin
Class: Shadow Weaver
Health: 25/25
Stamina: 60/60
Mana: 50/50
Strength(STR): 5
Vitality(VIT): 6
Endurance(END): 6
Spirit(SPI): 7
Intelligence(INT): 9
Agility(AGI): 8
Perception(PER): 6
Charisma(CHA): 8
Skills: Shadow Control(C)(1), The Twin’s Gift(L)(1)
Titles:
Stat Points: +3
After giving the list that popped up in front of him a few looks, he scratched his head as he began to question if his stats were good or not. Without a real reference, there isn't a real way to tell if they were good or not so he could only assume that it was pretty bad for the fact that he was level one.
Once the gloomy thoughts about how weak he was passed, he thought of the skills he received and their descriptions popped up, putting him into thought as he tried to think of what they could do specifically.
Shadow Control(C)(1)-Grants the ability to control the shadows around you(Mana usage varies on what you try to do), ability to control increases with each level and consumes less mana.
The Twin’s Gift(L)(1)-Bestowed upon you by the best person in the world (EDITED), it allows you to learn at a faster rate than would be normal and some other benefits.
As he read through shadow control, he gave a satisfied look because the things he could do seemed to just be based off of mana so the ways the shadow could be manipulated were pretty high, though there were some other questions he had such as could he move stuff with it.
For the other skill he got from she who shall not be named, he put on a contemplating look as he tried to understand what it was supposed to do. Such as, what does it mean by ‘learn at a faster rate’ and ‘other benefits’ but after a minute of trying to understand it, he put it off for a later day.
Once he was satisfied with looking at his Status and Skills, he brought up the quest menu and raised his eyebrow as he looked at a quest that he seemed to have already finished.
Quest: Tutorial to your new world
Status: Completed
Rewards: 100 Experience. Would you like to claim your reward? (Y/N)
Immediately after reading through the quest, he immediately did what any normal person would do and clicked ‘Yes’ immediately. As he did this, he felt a sensation pouring into him, almost like what someone would feel after a good day's rest!
Level Up!
When he saw the notification on top of it all, he couldn’t help but give a grin. Who doesn’t like to get a free level while giving minimal effort?
Now that he was all situated with the whole system thing, he finally walked over to the door, giving out a deep breath as he slowly opened the door to the outside and took in the view of the forest before finally walking out.