Wake up, shower, eat breakfast.

Brush teeth, take out the trash, go upstairs, hop in the Pod.

--Immersing, please don’t disconnect--

I could barely wait for the various loading screens to disperse so I could get cracking on liberating Bill’s Yard from God-knows-what. Unfortunately, my first pit stop had to be the ‘Options’ tome.

The gardener still marauded his flowerbeds, giving me a similar response to yesterday. He was a peculiar choice for the home screen, like a developer had misplaced him there then decided there was no harm in letting him be.

I shopped through the various body commands, noting the ones that Annette had taught me yesterday. There was one that would allow me to pull up the Options screen in-game, just in case I forgot how to disconnect.

Not a bad thing to know.

The other commands were useful, but one caught my eye.

‘Media Playback’

This command, a simple ‘L’ shape out from my chest, would let me access the archived files from the Olympics, and it wouldn’t just be lists of who won each event, it would be audio and video.

Everything I needed.

Temptation struck once more, and I forced it down. Today’s goal was to find myself a functional spear, a shield and a javelin. Bringing down one of the most successful global guilds could wait.

I couldn’t use the Character Select tome to enter the world this time, so I had to search a bit longer. As it turned out, the ‘Play Game’ scroll was the most grandiose, surrounded by an ornate garden with a rainbow of flowers and plants. It sat at the end of the corridor, and the bordering pillars reached high enough that the cloud-cover hid whatever roof they were supporting.

A simple brush of the scroll was all it took to catapult me back into Bill’s Yard. I hadn’t moved from the place I’d disconnected at, but people flowed around me like I was a boulder in a stream. I wondered what would’ve happened if someone had walked through my spawnpoint just as I joined. Hopefully not some kind of body-combination skulduggery.

I got straight to work. It wasn’t enough to fumble around day-to-day and steadily imprint my mark on the world. According to Annette, Joey was already making strides in the Fields, and whether it was a reasonable desire or not, I wanted to beat him. Not to hurt Joey, but to prove to his father that heavy-handed tutelage was not the way to do things.

Bill was at his gate, doling out information to those interested enough to approach him. Some came close, heard that the player before them didn’t receive a quest, then hurried away in search of something more captivating.

I knew better.

“Morning Bill!” I started. “I have some questions about the ‘Liberate the Yard’ quest. Are you busy?”

The overworked NPC was most certainly busy. Luckily, he had time for the player he’d entrusted the livelihood of his town to. It confused me how I’d been given this quest despite having no Friendship with Bill, but I think it had something to do with being ‘The First.’

“Never busy for you, Oliver! How can I help?”

“I, uh, I want to know what I’m liberating the town from.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, what’s wrong? Are there criminals? A plague? The drought? Otto said that drinking water was scarce, is that the issue?”

Bill’s face clouded over, and his body went stiff. He looked like a Lego character in a single frame of a stop-motion movie.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

What? I have a mega-quest lumped on me and then I’m abandoned?

“You gave me a quest called ‘Liberate the Yard’. Can you tell me anything about it?”

“Ah, yes. Of course. The rewards for completing the quest are four thousand EXP, fifty Friendship with all the townsfolk, the ‘Bard of the Yard’ title, and my sunhat.”

“And can you tell me what the town needs liberating from?”

Again, that sheen of confusion returned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I threw up my hands and left in a huff. Either I had to work it all out on my own, or some kind of ‘trigger’ was required.

The town looked different this morning, like the crowds of players from yesterday had left the place in a shocked, tired daze. There were less citizens on their porches, and a house just off the main street had been destroyed. Its bare roof-beams leaned down from their ugly perches, piercing through the furniture and floorboards they once protected. Valuables sat out on the road in small boxes, and an older woman sat next to them in the dirt. A short cudgel balanced across her knees in a way that, unfortunately, wasn’t threatening at all.

I’d like to say that I helped out purely due to the goodness in my own heart. But it wasn’t just that.

The scene was ripe for a quest.

Cudgel-Lady stood up when I got close, gripping the weapon like she’d lay down her life for her trinkets. I wasn’t looking for a fight, especially with my half-spear, so I raised my hands above my head.

“Are you okay? What happened here?”

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“I think it’s quite clear that I’m not okay. Now scram.”

Dale and Esko would tell me to get on my horse and go find someone or something that would give me some krad. I needed to have my full set of gear by next Tuesday so that I could take my learnings and apply them in B&B, otherwise what the hell was I doing it for.

Their perspective might’ve changed if I told them about Bill’s quest, but I wanted more information first. The impression I got this morning was that something needed to trigger the quest, like a large number of players accepting it. Only then would we know what we were liberating the place from.

Regardless, I’m a sucker for community service. Even for cranky ladies with blunt weapons.

“I’d like to help. Is there anything I can do?”

She looked suspiciously at my arms, not approving of their size.

“If you’re feeling stronger than you look, we need a hand getting these roof-beams down and out. Until they’re gone, it’s too dangerous for me to be in there.”

“I’d love to help.”

I strode forward and offered her my hand, willing to accept the quest. She looked at it, looked at me, then stepped back.

“Watcha doin there? I ain’t givin you my cudgel. I ain’t stupid.”

“I was, well, accepting the quest, I suppose.”

She chuckled, and I saw for a moment that under all the stress and panic of having her house fall apart, she wasn’t as old as I’d thought.

“You thought you had to shake my hand for that? Hehehe, that’s quite entertaining.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and I was granted a quest. The game must’ve known my intentions, because I didn’t have to do anything to accept it.

Quest Accepted!

‘Rowdy Rafters’

Reward(s)

+80 EXP

+5 Friendship (Lily)

The boost in EXP compared to Otto’s quest was appreciated. I’d found out how to view my stats, which revealed that I was 50 EXP from Level 1. When I levelled up, I’d be able to choose my first skill.

I had no idea what I’d be offered, but I was hoping for something that dealt damage. A lot of it.

“If you’re gunna help, get in here!” called a new voice.

A box of trash flew out the shutter nearest me. Or at least what was left of it. It splattered at my feet and a wave of mouldy books cascaded out onto the street, their pages flapping in the wind. Cudgel Lady was delighted to see them go.

I rushed in, pausing for a moment to cross a makeshift plank bridge before dashing down the stairs to where the voice came from. Its owner was knee deep in boxes, at times using them as props to clear away debris blocking a massive roof-beam. She worked in a flurry, stopping only to look at her new accomplice and disapprove of my arms.

These NPCs really don’t hold back, do they? Manners mustn’t be high priority in Bill’s Yard.

My new boss disappeared beneath the clutter, rummaging around for something.

“Excuse me, is there anything I can do? I don’t want to get in your way.”

“I dunno!” a voice called back. “What does your quest say? I’m just following mine.”

Ah. It wasn’t an ill-mannered NPC; it was yet another ill-mannered player.

A Yard player being rude? Who would’ve thought?

I used one of my newly discovered commands to pull up the quest data.

Quest Details: Rowdy Rafters

Lily’s home has been destroyed! Secure the area by moving all the unsteady roof beams out of the house and into the street.

Recommended Stats: Level 1, Strength (2)

I relayed the info to my newest companion. She grunted something unintelligible, so I picked a different section of the house to forge through. I’d come into this expecting to work solo, so I’d do just that.

The first beam to fall was a complete accident. I tip-toed into a room and nudged an overturned table with my foot, causing a chain reaction that resulted with about two-hundred pounds of wood bearing down upon me. I jumped out of the way as it crashed into the floor, leaving a significant mark but not breaking through.

My first near-death experience and there wasn’t a monster in sight. Except for the girl in the next room.

I lugged it out, sat it down next to Lily who gave me a double thumbs-up, then went back in. As I crossed the plank bridge, there was a crash like a tree falling off a twenty-foot balcony, and a muffled yelp in the next room before it was abruptly silenced.

Chances were the girl would be respawning right about now with a very sore head and a halved krad balance, or reduced stats. She’d be pissed, but with any luck she’d come back and help clean up this mess.

The huge beam she’d worked on was in two jagged pieces, both still larger than the one I’d come across. The first had fallen, crushing everything it could on the way down. When the second piece had tumbled, it finished off anything that remained, including the girl.

I picked around, trying to find a decent place to jam some kind of leverage under the rotten beam. An extra set of hands would’ve made the job a lot easier, and a wave of guilt struck me as I considered how I’d left the girl to her own devices just because she grunted at me. She was the first person I’d met who was willing to help an NPC, and I’d let this happen.

I tugged at a piece of the beam. Thanks to my Strength stat, it moved.

“WRONG WAY!”

She was still alive.

Shoving back the hunk of wood, I used the momentum to roll the beam the other way. It reluctantly turned around and pitched into a mound of wet books and crumpled boxes. Dislodging it from its new resting place would suck, but a life was at stake.

“Are you hurt?” I called, reaching an arm down below the floorboards where the girl had fallen.

“My character is completely minced, but I’m doing okay,” she replied.

I could tell by the strain in her voice and the quick glance I’d gotten of her chest that she was in bad shape. The pain sensors were significantly dulled down in B&B, but they were kept high enough that self-preservation was extremely important for anyone who wasn’t a masochist.

“Can you step up on anything? Grab my arm and I’ll pull.”

She held onto my wrist and I yanked her through the gap, the extra starting Strength on [Hoplite] working overtime.

She couldn’t support her own weight. I sat her down on a sturdy looking box and she pointed to a canvas bag in the corner. I brought it over and she stuffed her arm in, jingling around for a while before bringing out a red vial with a cork stopper. She unstoppered it, sucked down the globular liquid, then relaxed.

Less than a minute later, she was on her feet.

Her black cap had fallen as I lifted her up, and without it, a river of bright orange hair flowed down to the middle of her back. Her clothing was a mottled green and brown, flowing around her and blending in at times with our dirty surrounds. She held out a hand for me to shake, no longer bloodied and broken.

“Thank you, I suppose. Would’ve been handy if you’d helped when I’d asked.”

“I’m afraid I don’t speak Orc. That’s what those grunts were, right?”

She laughed and rescinded her handshake, replacing it with an arm punch.

“Shut up, I was working. I’m Claire by the way, and don’t judge the clothes, I’m a [Huntress]. Camouflage is kind of my jam.”

“Not judging at all, I quite like the colour. Like someone threw mashed broccoli at a brick wall.”

She looked down at her shirt and pouted. It was kind of cute.

“You’re weird.”

“I’m not weird, I’m Ollie.”

“Well, Ollie, let’s move some beams.”

For the next hour, we did just that.

And in that hour, I’m ashamed to say that I developed a crush.