“Let’s do it!” Heather exclaimed, excitedly.
“Do it?” Kylie asked, while trying not to think of anything perverted. “Do which? Take the quest, or destroy the seed?”
“Let’s take the quest,” Heather clarified. “It’ll be something nice that we can work on together in game, and the end reward will probably be better than just grabbing the immediate experience. Let’s restore ‘The Tangler’ together.”
“Fine then, let’s do it.” Reaching up, Kylie tapped the button ‘Yes’ to confirm that she wanted to do the quest. Instantly another pop-up window appeared with some minor information on it.
Party Quest: The Tangler’s Restoration!
The Tangler was once a peaceful guardian of The Everlost Forest, before it was corrupted by an ancient evil. You, and your current companions, have all decided to undertake the great and difficult task to cleanse The Tangler’s seed.
Your first order of business is to discover The Ruins of Old Kalash, and see what you can unearth there about the corruption that has altered The Tangler.
?
?
?
?
* Other stages will be updated as progress in the quest is obtained.
“Did you get all that as well?” Kylie asked.
“I did,” Heather confirmed. “I’ve now got a quest that tells me to seek out The Ruins of Old Kalash, wherever they might be.”
“Then I’m going to go ahead and log out for a while. The game is going to force me to sleep or auto-log in just a little while, so this seems like a good place for me to take a break and fix something to eat. I don’t know if I’ll be able to log back in again tonight, so what say we plan on trying to find these ruins tomorrow evening?” Kylie suggested.
“That sounds fine to me,” Heather agreed. “It’s not like it appears to be one of those quests with a time limit on it. I’ll just hang around in game for a while longer tonight and see if I can get my fireball level up again, and gather up as many of those leaves as I can. If we’re going to be finding and exploring ruins, we’ll probably need some armor of some sort at that point. I don’t think I’ll simply be able to sit back and blast things like I have been with the vines around here.”
“Then it’s a plan. I’ll see you later.” Waving goodbye, Kylie finally gave the command to, “Log Out.”
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A few moments later, Kyle was pulling off his V-RIG helmet and looking around his room. Sera had gotten up and let sometime earlier, and he hadn’t even noticed. Walking over and glancing out his window, he could see her parent’s SUV in the driveway, so he wasn’t worried. She was wanting to talk to her father about the restaurant again this evening, and Kyle didn’t want to intrude on that. Even though he felt like part of the family, he could respect the fact that he wasn’t truly, and that sometimes Sera and her folks needed to work things out amongst themselves without him butting into it.
Going downstairs, Kyle headed into the kitchen and rummaged in the fridge for a bit before deciding to just settle for a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches. Trying to fry the ham was simply too much of a bother, so he grabbed a paper plate and tossed a few slices of ham on it, then covered those with a slice of cheese each, and then put a few more slices of ham on top of all that. A slight sprinkling of pepper over the top of the whole thing, and then he stuck it in the microwave and set the timer to sixty seconds.
While the ham spun around and popped in the microwave, Kyle rushed to fix mayonnaise, mustard, and some lettuce and tomato slices on his bread. The timer went off a few moments before he finished, so he popped open the microwave door and gingerly flipped the two ham-and-cheese stacks over and then stuck them back in the microwave for another thirty seconds to heat the other side.
With a rush of activity, he finished up his bread, and grabbed a bottle of soda from the fridge before the next round of dinging went off. One last quick moment to pop open the microwave once more, gingerly grab up the paper plate and ease the ham-and-cheese stacks onto his awaiting bread, and his sandwiches were done!
“Might not be a slop burger, but at least I won’t starve to death on mom’s salad junk!” He exclaimed proudly to himself before grabbing his plate and soda and going back up the stairs.
It was finally time for him to write his first report on his impression of Winter’s Tale so far, and send it in to his grandfather’s company.
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Getting back upstairs, Kyle went over and clicked the button on his old computer on. He hadn’t turned it on, or used it since his grandfather had sent him the V-RIG, but he still preferred to type out things with an actual physical keyboard from time to time. Sure, he could’ve created a virtual desk and keyboard inside the V-RIG environment, but then he wouldn’t be able to sit and enjoy his meal at the same time. Sometimes the virtual world was convenient, and at other times it was simply better to stay grounded in reality.
And so Kyle sat and tried helplessly to try and think of what to say in his report. He’d had fun in the game, but how the heck was he supposed to let his grandfather know that he was running around and streaking as a female all this time? What if his parents found out! Sera didn’t want her parents to know that she was running around as a ‘large-wormed man’ in game. He didn’t want his to know that he was frolicking around the forest as a naked girl! He’d never be able to live that down!
Kyle knew when he created the character that they might find out he was playing a female – he just never expected a female to be so anatomically correct inside a game! You’d think there’d be an under-18 setting somewhere which would disallow such graphic elements, but Winter’s Tale didn’t have those. All players had to have a valid credit card to play, and for the makers of the game that was sufficient enough to claim that their product was ONLY truly intended for consenting adults to experience. If children like Kyle and his friends played, then it had to be with their parent’s consent, since they were being billed a monthly fee through the credit card companies to play.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Kyle had the same full-adult content when playing Kylie that any of the other adults could have, and this gave him a sexy, curvaceous female character with all the properly working woman parts inside the game – but how the heck could he explain that to his parents. “Umm, mom… You might hear from grandpa later about me being a perverted girl in Winter’s Tale and running around naked all the time..”
He figured he’d just die from embarrassment, if something like that ever happened!
Several frustrating hours passed without Kyle being able to think of a way to properly describe his character and game experience, before he finally said ‘Screw it!’ and started typing furiously on his keyboard.
Gramps,
Here’s my report on my experience in game, for this past week:
On the first day, I created a character and entered into the world – an unclassed elf with a strong talent for healing and not much else. I acquired a quest nearly as soon as I logged into the game world, and quickly found myself magically transported to the forest. There I was secluded from the rest of the players and had to adventure solo for a while.
My first opponents that I encountered in game was some sort of squirrel-like monster that proved simply impossible for me to defeat with just my powers as a healer. I could out heal the damage they could cause, so the were no real threat to me, but they grew frightened easily and ran before I could close the distance and attack them with a staff. My first day’s game experience was basically just wandering around and being annoyed by those guys.
The next day, I managed to wander out of the squirrel’s area and found myself in the area that I’ve been currently camping and fighting at since then. The monsters around are called a ‘Tangleroot Creeper’, and even though they hit harder and seem to be more dangerous than the squirrels, they can’t run away. I’ve been killing these creatures, and it’s been a slow process as I’m primarily a healer-type character, but I’ve slowly been earning and learning some fighting skills which has helped me improve my rate of killing.
These vines seem to drop green and (rarely) red leaves, which are used for crafting purposes. I don’t know what all they can be used for yet, but I have discovered that they can be used in tailoring. The process to craft is time consuming in game – it’s not a simple click of a button and wait three seconds for the results like a lot of other games – so trying to become a tailor has also slowed my progress in gaining levels and rocketing up in levels like I’d first wanted.
One of my friends (you know William, I think), has already managed to pass level ten in game. I’m still just now level two – but I have now managed to get my identification skill and tailoring both up to a point where they’re working as much as failing now. I imagine in just a few more days, I’ll be able to make something actually useful from those leaves which I’ve been farming – Leaf Armor is what I think they can be tailored into, which seems to be as good, or perhaps even better, than normal leather armors.
Another friend of mine (I don’t think you’ve ever met Heather; she attends the same school with me and is friends with Sera who I know you’re familiar with.), has finally found a way to travel through a set of ‘Fairy Rings’ to come join me in game. She’s a wizard and very proficient in fire magic, and with her help I’ve been able to quickly and easily destroy those Tangleroot Creepers.
Between the two of us, we finally cleared enough of the vines that an epic named creature – The Tangler – spawned for us today. It was quite a powerful beast, and without a tank to soak up the damage for us, we had quite a hard time killing it. Mages and Healers don’t make good walls for friends to hide behind, but we managed somehow. I basically had to stand in front of Heather like a human shield and cast my healing spell over and over on myself so I wouldn’t die, and she kept casting her fire magic over and over at The Tangler.
Defeating it gave us a rare item drop – a corrupted seed – which had the options to destroy it or cleanse it. We both decided to cleanse the seed and were given our first party quest: Tangler Restoration. Now we’ve got to find a set of old ruins somewhere and try and uncover what we can about the cleansing process, but it was getting late after we defeated the named creature, so we called it a day.
I’ll let you know what we find out about the ruins, about how my crafting is going, and about what all happens next in Winter’s Tale for myself and my character. So far, I can say that I’ve actually been having a lot of fun playing and experiencing life as someone else in this virtual world, and I’m truly grateful for you giving me the opportunity for me to do so. (I’m also looking forward to my first paycheck! MuHahahaha! I’m going to be richer than you soon, gramps!)
From my first impressions, Winter’s Tale seems to be a very fun game with unlimited potential. I’d definitely tell everyone to give it a shot and see what they think of it – even you, gramps! Who knows, you might even enjoy being young and wrinkleless once again!
Love ya,
Kyle, the Awesome!
Taking time to read over his short report, Kyle was satisfied. It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it fulfilled his obligation for his job and it didn’t cover any of the truly embarrassing things which might get him in trouble. And, since he’d written it and made it sound kind of dull and tedious, hopefully no one would bother to pull up any actual in-game footage of Kylie as she tromped along naked in the forest with equally naked Heather.
Kyle wanted his character to become famous and well-known, but as things currently stood, he wanted a little time to at least get a proper outfit of some sort before he gathered the national spotlight! It was funny in its own way how the game had changed his perspective outlook on life:
‘Clothes first, fame second!’ was going to become his new motto for life!