Riley looked up at the Black Dragon towering over him. The bodies of his raid group lay sundered and smoldering across the battlefield. He gripped his greatsword in two hands and with a roar rushed towards the dragon.

Riley activated his Heroic Leap ability and screamed his defiance as he leap towards monstrosity before him.

The dragon opened its maw and in a single motion swallowed Riley whole.

[You have died.]

The guild com’s burst out in laughter, Riley with them. The raid was already lost, there was no way Riley could have soloed the dragon. But he at least was able to go out with a bang.

Thankfully dying in World of Heroes wasn’t too unpleasant. If this was a game from his teenage years his death would have been with full tactility on. He would have been able to feel the dragon's teeth crunching on his bones.

Riley cringed at the thought. Thank goodness his edgelord days were behind him.

A blue screen appeared before his eyes, its presence confused Riley. The screen itself was familiar, many games had such a thing, but World of Heroes wasn’t one of them.

Starting Integration…

Generating masks…

Prepare yourself to be transported to the Tutorial.

After a moment’s pause Riley was ripped out his game in a whirl of colors. The first thing Riley saw was a goblin standing in front of him. The second thing he saw was another screen which appeared in front of him.

System record! The first monster was killed within 0.02 seconds of the integration. Congratulations!

He dismissed the screen with a panicked thought. It worked as intuitively as it did in VR, which was good news for him.

The goblin showed no signs of aggression so Riley took a moment to check the surroundings. They were both standing in the center of a coliseum. Various weapons and weaponry were hanging from wooden racks.

In front of the goblin was a small table with a white faceless mask on it and a small wooden sign. The sign had three simple instructions.

Put on the mask

Kill the goblin

Inhale

Riley shook his head. While this game looked interesting he didn’t appreciate how it got him here. He tried to log out. Nothing happened.

Rolling his eyes Riley started hopping on one foot and spun in a circle. When that didn’t work Riley started to panic. He rushed through the next four emergency log out procedures built into the core framework of the VR pod he had spent his life in.

Procedures which could not fail.

So why wasn’t he logging out?

Riley had two possibilities before him. His fundamental understanding of the universe and it’s laws was flawed. Or goblins were real.

It was a lot easier for him to believe goblins were real.

Riley examined the three-foot-high monster more closely. It’s skin was a sickly green, mottled with yellow veins. It had large, tapered ears, a squashed nose only a mother could love, and the most gorgeous pair of cerulean eyes Riley had ever seen. It held what could generously be called a club in one hand while its other hand was exploring it’s cavernous nose for hidden treasure.

Riley backed away from the creature slowly, keeping it in sight at all times as he made his way towards the racks of weaponry. It didn’t react even when he grabbed a short sword and a small round shield.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

His mind was racing as he tried to figure out what was going on. The presence of the system wide alert for the first kill was also weighing on him. In games where there were system wide alerts like that there would usually be a reward. The longer he stood here the less likely he would be claiming one of those for himself.

But it wasn’t in Riley’s nature to rush ahead. What if by rushing forward he missed that potion hidden just out of sight of the spawn point? What if he didn’t find the letter which proved the Count was being framed? And most importantly what if he made a sub-optimal character?

Perish the thought.

The first kill advantage was already gone, there was nothing Riley could do about that. He didn’t know what other criteria they were judging on but he had hunch that he wouldn’t see such a message for being the first to eat grass.

Instead of playing that guessing game he would focus on what was in front of him.

Riley approached the table. The goblin moved its finger to its other nostril, but otherwise didn’t react.

The mask sitting on the table was smooth and completely unadorned. It had two holes for its eyes but there was no strap to hold it to his head.

Riley considered the possibility that this was a trap but quickly discarded it. The first message had mentioned a tutorial and that’s exactly what this looked like.

Without further hesitation Riley grabbed the mask and put it on. It stuck to his head on its own, molding itself to his face until he couldn’t even tell he was wearing a mask at all.

A blue screen appeared in front of Riley’s vision.

Bonding…

Bonding complete!

Status

Riley Pocket

Basic Mask: Level 0

Body: 20

Magic: 8

Spirit: 7

Abilities:

None

Locked

Locked

Locked

Locked

Riley was second guessing his decision to take this as reality. Holographic notification windows, instantaneous teleportation, and actual monsters was one thing. Those he could accept. But the status screen was straight out of a video game.

Before Riley could spiral too far the goblin turned towards him, its eyes widening as it noticed him for the first time. Its mouth split into a grin and it gnashed it’s razor-sharp teeth at Riley. Then it charged.

Muscle memory moved Riley’s body into a combat stance, his body turning the shield towards the goblin, his left hand readying his sword for a thrust. As soon as goblin was within range Riley exploded forward smashing the shield into its face.

The goblin, caught completely by surprise, died having never seen the thrust which took it in the heart.

Riley had spent his whole life playing fantasy games. The sword was like an extension of his body, the shield had been positioned perfectly to minimize his vulnerabilities and maximize the damage from his bash.

He had never done this in real life before but once his body knew what to do and in that moment Riley felt comfortable. This was right. He knew how to do this, and he was good at it.

A mere goblin had no chance.

Riley held himself at the ready but nothing happened. No more monsters appeared, no level ups, no nothing. He frowned. Then he remembered the sign.

Riley looked at the goblin corpse at his feet and, feeling a little silly, inhaled. Misty streams of blue light poured out of the goblin and flew towards Riley. The mask absorbed the light like a sponge.

A blue screen appeared.

Congratulations on your first monster kill!

You now have access to your first ability, Wild Strike. Abilities are key to building a strong mask so choose yours wisely.

Wild Strike

Strike out with greatly increased power at massively reduced accuracy.

Would you like to accept this ability?

Riley said no. He didn’t know if you could remove or replace bad abilities and there was no way he wanted to get stuck with something like Wild Strike as one of his only five ability slots.

Another box appeared immediately after he declined.

Enhanced Tutorial Detected! Defeat the waves of enemies to gather points. All injuries sustained during this phase of the tutorial will be restored at the end of the challenge so don’t hold back.

Are you ready?

Riley dismissed the notification without answering. He was ready to dive right into the fight, but if the system was giving him free time to prepare he would take it.

Riley started moving the weapon racks towards one of the walls, piling them together to make a makeshift barricade. There wasn’t much in the arena so the barricade was small, mostly just covering his two flanks. But having a place to retreat to where his back and sides where somewhat protected was a lot better than not having it.

Riley pondered his status screen while he worked but there wasn’t much he could figure out with his limited information. Was his Body score really high, or were his Magic and Spirit scores low?

He assumed it was the former, if only because the VR pods stimulated muscles while you slept keeping your body in peak physical condition.

Riley resolved to earn as many points as he could. Not knowing the value of the “points” didn’t matter to Riley. More points were better, it was as simple as that.

Riley accepted the prompt.

There was a flash of light and the first wave appeared.