《Skillmaster : Haven》


 Preface.........(Version 2 revised)

    In the first half of the twenty first century, a retired British software developer, disenchanted with the direction the company that he had spent decades building up into the most important software company on the planet, was heading, invested his personal fortune into emergent technology, a fortune rumored to be in excess of sixty billion. Many people ridiculed Bob Norman for this decision, yet many years later his drastic change in company direction was vindicated when products developed from his companies expansive research started to hit the market.


    Within twenty years, Holobyne Technologies released, in rapid succession, a stream of new and innovative products onto the marketplace, including such items as the Hologram Display Unit, the BioStas Pod and BrainBots. The sales from these three products alone turned Holobyne Technologies into the richest company on the planet.


    The HDU, or Hologram Display Unit, revolutionized the entertainment industry, while also creating a secondary industry based upon groundbreaking development in Nano processors and Sub Particle Information Transference , commonly referred to as the SPIT protocol, which could transfer electronic data at a rate in PB/s without any measurable delay.


    The BioStas Pods utilised a natural chemical, Somnolene, developed from a previously unknown plant, found in the remains of the Brazilian rainforest, which allowed the medical profession to put severely injured people into a state near death within the Pod, where all the bodies functions were slowed down to five percent of normal. The brainbots, nanites developed to work in conjunction with the BioStas Pod, created a wireless shunt with the cerebral cortex to allow the brain, which remains active and unaffected by the Somnolene, to access reality imitators within the Pods. This supplied the brain with an artificial stimuli that imitated reality, to allow the mind of the patient to avoid sensory deprivation.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The first viable model of the BioStas Pod was developed just in time to allow a now ailing Bob Norman, now well into his eighties, to be ¡®podded¡¯, The slowing effect on the human body by the Somnolene, in conjunction with medical advancements, allowed him to survive for another 122 years, connected to the world through a computer developed virtual existence, interacting with his family and company via a Holotable. This one hundred and twenty two years being equivalent to six years of physical aging.


    From the first hand experiences he gained from his time in the Pod, and utilizing his software knowledge, Bob Norman was able to provide the information that was needed to improve the design of future Pods, as well as the interactive software environment


    From the experience he gained through his experiences within the pod, as well as his background in software development Bob Norman was able to provide neccessary information that helped to improve upon the design of the Pod and its processes, as well as assisting in developing the interaction software which linked it to external hardware and the Holotable. While doing this he also put into production his greatest achievement ever, knowing he would never see it completed before his death, the creation of SkillHaven, the greatest and most realistic virtual reality game world ever.


    This grand dream of his was only completed five years after his passing, under the direction of his daughter, Jill Norman, in the year 2164.

 Chapter one.........(Version 2 revised)

    CHAPTER ONE


    All the Holonews channels were full of it, and no matter how many times the young, dark haired man seated before the Holotable flipped the channel, the new channel constantly displayed the same news as the last one had. Skillmasters, the much anticipated, and long awaited virtual reality game world, was finally ready for release. Officially it was first announced ten years previously, and there had been many news reports regarding the world, released, as well as many advertising holovideo clips showing purported gameplay within it.


    It was also unofficially well known that the games design had been started many decades ago, and had undergone numerous drastic redesigns as newer technology came into existence, prolonging the announcement of its existence.


    But the wait was finally over. July 14<sup>th</sup> 2165 was the publicized opening of the gameworld to registered players and James Carter knew he wouldn¡¯t be one of them. The game required a player to own one of Holobynes Virtual Pods to be able to access the gameworld, but these were priced at twenty five thousand dollars, well out of the reach of his meagre savings. His holotable had cost him all of the money he had managed to save from the government stipend he received each week, as well as the occasional daily job he was able to pick up. His parents wouldn¡¯t help him, he knew, and he could just imagine what his father would say to him if he did ask. ¡°If you can¡¯t afford it, James, then you don¡¯t need it. You know the government will always find paying work for you if you apply. Just because no-one needs to work anymore these days, that doesn¡¯t mean there isn¡¯t work that can, or needs, be done.¡±


    James already knew that in the twenty second century no one needed to work anymore, unless they wanted to. The population of the planet was well above fifteen billion now, even with the implementation of worldwide birth control laws. With the creation of full automation and robotics, employment had become a luxury instead of a necessity, as all citizens received their weekly stipend from the government, but only enough to cover just the basic living needs. If you wanted something extra, or special, like the Holobyne Pods, you would need to apply for employment and earn the extra credits for it. Everyone knew that just because no one needed to work anymore it didn¡¯t mean that there wasn¡¯t work that couldn¡¯t be done. But the waiting list for one of these jobs was long, very long, and James wasn¡¯t prepared to wait for a year or more to have the opportunity to start earning the money he required to purchase a pod. It would also take him an additional two years working to earn the whole twenty five thousand.


    Sitting back in his chair, he sighed, slowly flipping through the holochannels yet again. Suddenly sitting forward he flipped back to the last channel he had passed over, realizing that while he had been daydreaming he had missed a news clip that he hadn¡¯t seen before.


    The Holotable cleared to display a young woman, looking like she was aged somewhere in her twenties and dressed in a casual business suit, lounging back in a padded chair, and talking to the channels interviewer. Even though he had missed the beginning of this interview James recognized the woman, for anyone up to date with the news would know instantly who she was. It was Jill Norman, the current CEO of Holbyne Technolgies.


    ¡°So, Ms. Norman, your grandfathers dream has finally reached completion and will open next month.¡± The interviewer remarked.


    ¡°Yes, Skillmasters will open to the public in a month, Damien, but no, it isn¡¯t complete. Skillmasters will never be complete because we will be constantly increasing and changing the content of the world, adding new items and features and expanding upon everything that is already there. The world, at this time, is fully capable of supporting anyone who wishes to enter it and that¡¯s why we are opening it up to the public. Also, you just called it a game, we do not. We look upon it as an alternative lifestyle, an escape from this world to a new one where there are no boundaries, no limits to what you can do there or be.


    ¡°So it isn¡¯t a game ?¡± the interviewer remarked, a confused expression on his face.


    A look of exasperation passed across the face of the woman and she sighed. ¡°Yes, you can call it a game if you wish, most people will. It was designed and operates on the theory of gameplay. All of this has previously been widely publicized. We have been promoting it as a game, and you explore and interact with it like a game, but it is much more than a game. I¡¯m sorry, it is hard to explain this to someone who has not had any experience with the world. Play it and then tell me it is merely a game.¡±


    The interviewer looks down as some notes he has on a tablet he holds in front of him. ¡°In all of the released information on Skillmasters, there has been nothing released about the game world, and by that I mean its name and size.¡±


    ¡°When the world was first envisioned by my grandfather, he knew that the design of it would take the most time to create, so he took a small shortcut, he used information that was already freely available to him. It is based on the design of our own planet here, Earth. Most people will recognize maybe about fifty five percent of it, but there were changes made to coastlines, some land was removed, or just moved and new islands and continents added. The planet now has ten major continents. All subsurface resources have been completely reorganized, so don¡¯t expect to find gold where it was here on Earth. To make the whole thing a little more interesting he also expanded the dimensions of the planet by a factor of three in both directions.¡±


    ¡°Three times the size of Earth ? ¡°interjected the interviewer


    ¡°Yes. Three. It¡¯s surface area is equal to nine Earths so far, so anyone who¡¯s trying to explore this world is going to have a big task on their hands. We don¡¯t expect any one person to personally explore more than ten percent of the surface if they spent fifty years at it. As time progresses and we make further additions, the available surface area will expand. Our aim is to add the equivalent of the earth¡¯s surface to the virtual world every ten years.¡°


    ¡°And this world is named¡­ what ?¡±


    ¡°Haven.¡±


    ¡°Now for the question many are wondering about, how much will it cost to play in your world ?¡±


    ¡°Twenty five thousand dollars, the cost of the Pod covers all fees. There will not be any additional fees at all. Of course there will still be the additional costs for special purchases. Do not ask me about those special purchases, for that is an area we are still working on.¡±


    The interview sat back in his chair.


    ¡°Thank you for your time today, Ms Norman, and for allowing us the opportunity to talk to you.¡± The interviewer turned away from the woman. ¡°And for those who may have missed the beginning of the interview, Holobyne Industries is running a raffle where one hundred lucky ticket holders can win a free Holobyne Virtual Pod for themselves. Tickets are available on the Holobyne Holosite for only five dollars a ticket.¡±


    The tabletop faded to display the Holobyne Logo, a glowing world rotating in a sea of binary code before fading away as the table was switched off. James sat back in his chair, one hand absently rubbing the back of his head, fingers bent to allow the fingertips to scratch the skin beneath his curly hair. So, he thought to himself, they are giving away some pods. He then flicked the Holotable back on and started looking for the Holobyne Holosite. After a few minutes searching he finally located it and, already knowing what the main site looked like from his numerous visits previously, navigated to the competition page that had been added since his last visit there. Quickly scanning the information displayed upon it, he was amazed to see that there had already been about a half a million tickets sold. The interview had only finished five minutes previously, so this many sales showed his chances of purchasing a ticket, and winning, were diminishing rapidly each second, in fact in the ten seconds he had just spent on his ruminations the counter had showed an increase of at least one hundred thousand additional ticket sales.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Making up his mind James rapidly started to fill in his details into the appropriate fields, including his account details for payment, then moved to select the complete button at the bottom, but hesitated for a moment before selecting it, thinking about his purchase. He nodded his head to himself in agreement with his internal thoughts on this subject, then went back and changed the number of tickets he had chosen from one to ten. They were only five dollars each after all, and fifty dollars wouldn¡¯t break his finances. The change made, he returned back to the complete button and selected it.


    Your purchase of tickets in the Holobyne Biostas Pod lottery has been accepted. This lottery will be drawn at midnight, Hawaii Time, on the 13th of July 2165. If any of your purchased tickets are successful, your prize will be despatched immediately.


    Please note that the purchase of multiple entries does not permit the chance of multiple wins. Once any entry allocated to you is drawn as a winning entry, all other entries purchased by you will be removed, automatically and immediately, from the lottery before the next winning entry is drawn.


    You currently have ten entries in the lottery. You may purchase further entries up until 8pm, Hawaii Time, on July 7<sup>th</sup> 2165.


    Thank You


    Holobyne Technologies.


    Leaving this message displayed on the table, he leaned back again and just sat there, watching at the glowing image. Across the top the number of entries rapidly changed, it was already displaying a number greater than one and a half million so far, changing so rapidly the last two display digits were just a blur. Two million now, he noticed a minute or so later, and wondered what the total would finally end up at before the lottery closed. Three weeks from now the chance to purchase tickets would be over, he realized, and considered purchasing another ten entries, but then decided against this. His extremely slim chance of winning wouldn¡¯t be greatly improved by spending the rest of his free cash on entries. Three million entries clicked over, and it only seemed to be speeding up. This is going to be the biggest lottery in history, the thought, Willy Wonka¡¯s Golden Ticket search was going to look like a small village church bingo game next to this. Sighing, he decided it was time he went bed and flicked the table off.


    .........


    Four weeks later found James parked in the same seat, the holotable flipped to a channel that was streaming live the Holobyne lottery draw. Seven hundred and sixty three million lottery tickets in total had been sold and now was the time to find out who were the lucky winners. Three point eight billion dollars, James thought to himself, not a bad return for Holobyne. All of it tax free too. Holobyne had purchased outright the island nation of Aruba a century before and now operated out of it, so technically Holobyne was the countries government, for they had no elections and all the population of that country were now employees of Holobyne Technologies. Rumor has it that the citizens of this small indepentant country have the most affluent lifestyle on the planet. You never hear any Arubrians ever complaining. Suppose I shouldn¡¯t call them Arubrians at all, as old Norman renamed the country Technis when he took over. Richest bloody country in the world as well.


    Jill Norman appeared on the table, smiling out towards the viewers. She was dressed, as usual in her grey business suit, blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Damn, she looks good. A walking advertisement for the BioStas Pods crossed through James mind. Jill Norman only looked to be in her mid twenties but everyone knew she was well into her fifties. A lifetime spent in and out of Biostas Pods had been good to her, delaying her aging process by up to ninety five percent for all the time she spent inside the pods. If she kept to this lifestyle she had adopted, she could expect to live for at least another 500 years, probably much more, health permitting. This kind of life expectancy had not been available previously, or even suspected, but with BioStas Pods becoming available to anyone who could afford them, it was expected that as long as a virtual interface was available, life expectancies of up to 1000 years were theoretically possible by using BioStas Pods.


    ¡°Welcome, ¡° she said, ¡°welcome to the grand drawing of the BioStas Pod Lottery. Before we begin, let me offer the best of luck to all of you who have chosen to participate. Half of the money raised from the sale of the entries to this lottery are being donated to help reforest the African continent. ¡° She paused for a few seconds , then continued. ¡° and as a special thank you from Holobyne Technologies, the other half is going to be used as special bonus prizes within Haven. If anyone finds one of these rewards, their account will automatically be credited with five million dollars. For those of you now trying to work out how many of these major prizes there are, well, there will be exactly three hundred and eighty three of them spread across Haven. Three hundred and eighty three¡­ five million dollar prizes, and there will be no limit to the number of these prizes that any one person can claim.¡± Again she paused to allow this news to sink in before continuing. ¡°The requirements for finding each of these rewards are different, and will not be solely based on being the first one to reach the rewards location. Further to these main rewards, we will also place in the gameworld, over time, many lesser rewards of varying monetary values, all of them funded from a percentage of the purchased value of all past and future BioStassis Pods sales. To date, we have sold in excess of two and a half million Pods, leading us to add over three billion dollars in lesser prizes. Have fun finding them, for they can be gained from doing virtually anything.¡± She looked down at the watch on her wrist, then continued. ¡°In exactly eight hours from now access will be granted to all of you who have purchased, or won, one of our game pods, and don¡¯t worry all you prospective lottery winners, as soon as your name is drawn your pod will be dispatched immediately and should be delivered to you within one hour. Please ensure that you remain awake, if you are in a time zone where it is night, to allow our technicians access to install it for you. Also, to ensure that this lottery is fairly and legally drawn, we have ten legal representatives from ten different countries here who have examined the whole process and will observe the draw.¡±


    The image on the table shrank to show ten people seated at a table behind her, then expanded until she was the only one displayed again. ¡°All Pods won in this lottery will come supplied with a full Somnolene cartridge, which allows for one month of BioStassis before the cartridge is exhausted and needs to be replaced. Somnolene cartridges can be purchased from any medical facility for the price of ten dollars a cartridge. This limit of one month under BioStas has been set after much discussion with the legal departments of the worlds governments along with a seventy two hour inbuilt cooldown on the pods between cartridge exchanges. These set restrictions have been put in place for the health and safety of the pods users. Any concerns or complaints regarding these restrictions must be taken up with your local governments, for Holobyne Technologies has no control over these restrictions within each country.¡± Jane Norman ceased talking at this point and turned to the legal observers behind her. Receiving some sort of sign or acknowledgement she returned her gaze to the front. ¡°In addition to the rewards and prizes that Holobyne Technologies have seeded the game with, we have also included an additional feature that may interest the people who join Haven. We claim no ownership over any monetary donations made for game credits or ingame purchases. These transactions will be credited to the players character in a special game currency called Creds. The only game currency that is permitted be transferred back out of the game into to a players account will be in this special currency. All other currencies in the game are locked into the game and can not be transferred out. I believe we have held up this lottery long enough, and some of you by now are no doubt yelling at your tables for me to just shut up and start the lottery, so¡­. let the lottery begin.¡±


    As the speech by Jane Norman came to an end and the lottery began, James mind turned to the unexpected news about the monetary prizes, making him look around at the three room government issued residence he lived in. If he found on of those major prizes, he could afford to buy himself a decent place to live, and afford better food to eat, rather than the artificial tasteless junk that his stipend could only just cover. He almost drooled over the thought of real coffee, and not that flavored powder he currently had in his kitchen, for he remembered the one time he had managed to taste the real stuff.


    James watched the lottery draw for two hours and every time an entry was drawn a surge of excitement rose in him, but each time it also rapidly receded when the name read out wasn¡¯t his. Finally the last entry winning entry was drawn and read out by the announcer. ¡°And the lucky last winner of a wonderful BioStas Pod is¡­¡­¡­ Marc Oliveira from Alicante in Spain. Congratulations Marc, you will be receiving your Pod sometime within the next hour.¡± The table suddenly went dark as James flipped it off, disappointed and no longer interested in the rest of the holocast. He hadn¡¯t won a pod, so the rest of whatever they wanted to say was of no interest to him. It was late, being now after four in the morning, and he knew he had waited up for nothing. Feeling slightly depressed with the results of the lottery, James made his way upstairs and went to bed wondering how, and where, he would be able to get the money for a Pod now.

 Chapter Two.........(Version 2 revised)

    CHAPTER TWO


    James was rudely awoken from a terrible nightmare which was instantly forgotten by the buzzing from his front door bell echoing around his small home. He opened his dry and itching eyes to squint blearily at the clock that sat by the side of his bed. The display appeared to be fuzzy, not permitting him to make out the time, so he scrubbed at his eyes to clean away some of the sleep, then took another look at it. This time it was clear and sharp and allowed him to now see that it was five sixteen in the morning, he had only been asleep for about half an hour. The buzzer indicating someone was at his front door sounded out again, annoyingly loud in the silence of night. Quickly swinging his legs over the side of the bed, reached down and pulled on the track suit pants that he had left there only an hour previous. The buzzer rang out again for the third time. ¡°I¡¯m coming, hold your horses.¡± He yelled out to let whomever was at his door know that he was awake and on his way, as well as to stop them pressing that damn buzzer again. He rapidly made his way down the stairs, muttered to himself that this had better be important or someone would pay for it. Upon reaching the front door he reached out and pulled it open, looked out to see who it was that was inconsiderate enough to be waking people up at this time of morning.


    Standing on his doorstep was two men, dressed in blue overalls, one older than the other. Neither one of them was familiar to him in any respect, nor did he have any idea why they were at his door. ¡°Who the hell are you ? Do you know what time it is ?¡± he snarled at them, looking both up and down scathingly. ¡±I had only just managed to get to sleep.¡±


    The younger of the duo took a step back in surprise at this verbal outburst but the older man just looked down at a clipboard he was holding, obviously familiar to receiving this kind of treatment. He tapped the board, then raised his gaze from the clipboard back up to James. ¡°Would you be James Carter ?¡± he replied simply.


    ¡°Yes.¡± James snapped back angrily, still annoyed at being woken up so early. ¡°That¡¯s me. What the hell do you want.¡±


    ¡°Apologies for disturbing you so early but we have an urgent delivery here for you that we thought you would be expecting, and awake to receive it. Now, if you could sign this for us¡­.¡± He turned the clipboard that he was holding towards James, then held out a pen with his other hand, ¡°¡­ we will bring it in and set it up for you. Sooner it¡¯s signed the sooner we will get out of your way.¡±


    James just stood there, looking at the clipboard in confusion. Delivery ? He wasn¡¯t expecting any deliveries and couldn¡¯t remember ordering anything. While thinking that, his hand automatically reached out and took the pen. Looking at the clipboard to see where he should sign he noticed the logo at the top of the page. Holobyne Technologies ? I haven¡¯t ordered anything from them. What the hell is going on here ? He pulled back the hand holding the pen without signing. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t understand what this is about but I am not expecting anything from Holobyne. Are you sure you have the right delivery address ?¡±


    The man holding the clipboard turned it around and flipped through a few pages, quickly scanning the information on them. Satisfied with what he found there, he looked up. ¡°You are James Carter, and this is number 34 East street, right ?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Was James hesitant reply, ¡°that¡¯s correct.¡±


    ¡°Well then, we have your Pod here. Sign the delivery note and we will bring it in and set the thing up for you.¡±


    ¡°Pod, What Pod ? I¡¯m not expecting a Pod.¡±


    ¡°The Pod you won in the lottery, weren¡¯t you watching the lottery draw ?¡±


    James blinked in confusion a couple of times, before reaching out to take the clipboard. Slowly he read his way through the paperwork. ¡°This must be a mistake.¡± was his reaction after finishing reading it. ¡°Yeah, I watched the lottery draw and I know for a fact my entry was not drawn. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on here, but that Pod is not mine, there must have been some kind of a mix-up.¡± He tried to hand the clipboard and pen back to the delivery man, but he just refused to accept it and held up a hand to indicate he wanted a moment .


    The delivery man pulled a phone from his pocket and typed in a number, then held it up to his ear. The phone must have connected to whomever he was trying to contact because he started to speak into it virtually straight away. ¡°Hey, Mick, Its Danny here. We are trying to deliver that urgent Pod delivery but the recipient doesn¡¯t know about it and won¡¯t sign. Could you confirm the delivery instructions for me please.¡± He stopped taking and stood there, listening to someone taking to him from the other end for a couple of minutes, only uttering ¡®Uh huh.¡± a couple of times before finally saying ¡°Ok, I see. I think I know what¡¯s happened here. Thanks Mick.¡± Then hung up. Turning back to James he asked ¡°Did you turn off the table straight after the one hundredth winner was announced, or did you watch the program right to the end ?¡±


    ¡°Only until the last ticket was drawn.¡± James replied. ¡°I hadn¡¯t won anything so I saw no need to keep on watching. The show was over for me.¡±


    The delivery man suddenly laughed out loudly. ¡°No, The show was definitely not over. You missed the best part, well, the best part for you anyway.¡± He stood there chuckling to himself, shaking his head slightly from side to side in amusement.


    Now James was getting angry again. ¡°What do you mean missed, I watched the whole raffle ?¡±


    Stifling his mirth, the delivery man explained. ¡°You flipped off your Holo before they found out that three of the ticket holders had died before the draw and there was no one to accept the prize in their place. That Jane lady got into a discussion with all those legal eagles on the show and it was decided that the three pods should be drawn for again. You were one of the names picked this time round, and you missed it by flipping off.¡± He took a deep breath and thrust out one hand. ¡°Congratulations on your win, James Carter. You are now the proud owner of a top of the range Holobyne BioStas Pod.¡± Seeing a stunned James before him, he grasped one limp hand and shook it vigorously. ¡°Now sign the damn delivery docket and let us in, I want to get this installed so I can get home before my wife kills me for being late¡­ again.¡±


    James just signed in silence, and the two delivery men carried the obviously heavy pod through his front door. After a minute of just standing there, he came to his senses and followed them inside, shutting the door behind him.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    The delivery men had navigated the crate that held the pod through the narrow corridor of his house into the main living room. The room itself was quite small and the crate filled in all the space that wasn¡¯t already taken up with his holotable and furniture. Carefully placing it down on the carpeted floor, they started to make more space around it by pushing the loose furniture against the walls. The younger delivery man turned his head towards James and asked ¡°It¡¯s going to be a tight squeeze fitting it into this room, have you got any other rooms larger than this ?¡±


    James shook his head. ¡°No, I only have this room, my bedroom upstairs and a kitchen.¡± He examined the room helplessly, trying to work out where it would fit without being in his way. ¡°If we move everything from that side over to the side with the window, do you think it would fit against the wall ?¡±


    Both the delivery men stood up at this, looking around the room, sizing it up with an evaluating gaze, the older one scratching his chin in thought. Even though James lived alone and didn¡¯t have many possessions, the ones he did have mostly filled this room. ¡°Hmmm, maybe. The holotable will have to be shoved over a bit, and the couch pushed into that far corner, then if we stacked those chairs together¡­. ¡° he paused, surveying the room again, then continued. ¡°Ok, It looks like that will be the best option. You okay with that ?¡±


    Mentally moving the indicated furniture in his mind the delivery man was indicating, James calculated that the pod would just fit where he wanted it to go, and leave a little spare room to move around in. Not much, but just enough so he could still use the holotable when he needed to. ¡°Seems okay.¡± He affirmed. ¡°Look, while you start that, I¡¯m going to make myself a coffee to wake me up, Do either of you two want a one ?¡± he questioned. Both of the others accepted his offer graciously, then informed him how they liked their coffee. Squeezing past the crate he made his way into the kitchen to put the kettle on.


    While the kettle was heating the water, the full realisation of what was happening hit him. I have a pod. I will be able to play the game, and play it today, he thought excitedly while his now slightly shaking hands went through the actions of preparing three cups of coffee. From the other room he heard noises that let him know the two others had already started clearing the space needed.


    By the time James had poured the cups and carried them back into his living room the pod was already uncrated. The younger of the two was seated on the floor next to the side of a smooth metallic egg shaped pod, its gleaming mirrored surface clean and unmarred. James could see everything in the room was mirrored in its surface, slightly distorted by the curvature of the pods shell. The only thing that disrupted its smooth lines was a small open panel that the younger delivery man had his hands inside, working on something, LED lights illuminating his gloves in little flashes of red, blue and green. Handing one of the cups to the other man who was seated on his couch, he asked. ¡°What¡¯s he doing ? ¡° He placed the other cup on the floor near the one working on the pod, who only nodded his thanks without stopping.


    The seated man sipped at his cup before answering. ¡°He¡¯s just linking the pod to your table and making sure the link to Holobynes S.P.I.T stream is optimal. Only takes a few minutes. Once that¡¯s done The server AI will connect to the pod and upgrade the firmware in the pod to the latest one available, then install all the interface software you¡¯ll need. When the AI informs us the pods live we will show you how to mount, and change, the Somnolene cartridge.¡± He held up a small tube, cigar shaped, about ten centimetres long and three wide with Somnolene written in big red letters on its surface. ¡°You get two of these included with this delivery, and each is good for one month in the pod. You can only have one of these mounted at a time.¡±


    ¡°Why only one month ? I hear you can stay in Biostas for as long as you want to, even for years ?¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± the man continued, ¡°that¡¯s true, but that is under optimal conditions where you have someone to monitor you and make sure that the nutrients needed to survive is being supplied. Study showed that people who want to play the game will most probably live alone, or have no access to nutrients, so one month is a set time frame to force them out of the game to ensure they eat and drink, as well as perform other bodily needs. A Somnolene cartridge can not be removed until it is empty, and once removed a new one is blocked from being inserted for 24 hours. It¡¯s a safety feature to make sure no one accidentally kills themselves by staying immersed too long. If someone messes around with the pod to bypass this, breaching the agreement you will sign when you first use the pod, then any deaths in a manipulated pod is legally considered as the users fault. So don¡¯t bugger around with the pod.¡±


    Shocked by this revelation of possible death, James could only reply with. ¡°I definitely won¡¯t do that.¡±


    ¡°Oh, just remembered. You are also lucky in another way. We had run out of the latest version of pods, so the manager decided to supply you with one of the next generation pods we had sent to us by accident. You are the first outside of Holobynes Technis headquarters to have one of these, it was supposed to be send it back tomorrow but couldn¡¯t see any problem with issuing it to you. They are not due for release until next year. This generation pod is supposed to have a far superior Sense Software in them. ¡°


    ¡°Wow, ¡° was all that James could utter, ¡°I am really looking forward to this even more now.¡±


    The older man held out a thick booklet to him ¡°Here, take this and read it. This is the operating instructions for the pod, as well as a quick start for the game for new users, well, everyone¡¯s a new user at the moment, read it because I see that Donnie, ¡° he indicated the younger man working on the pod, ¡°has finished and we¡¯ll be leaving as soon as the AI gives us the okay.¡± The machine beeped and all the lights in the open panel turned green, and the man who was called Donnie closed the panel with a click. ¡°That panel is now locked and can not be opened, so don¡¯t even try. This is where you insert the Somnolene.¡± He reached forward and pressed a section near the fatter part of the metal pod and another panel opened. He then handed the tube to James. ¡°Take the tube and insert it into the hole until it clicks into place, make sure the end you are inserting first has the green circle on it, that¡¯s the top.¡±


    James looked at the tube, then after locating the green circle, turned the tube around in his fingers, then pushed it into the hole. It slid in smoothly until he felt a click vibrate through the tube rather than hear it. The panel that covered the entry point started to close, James quickly withdrew his fingers so they didn¡¯t impede the panels closing.


    ¡°That¡¯s it. Your all good to go.¡± He looked at his watch, then stood up. ¡°We have be going now, we should have finished this half an hour ago.¡± He reached out again and shook James¡¯s hand. ¡°Have fun, and read the manual. You only have another two hours before the world opens so if you intend to stay immersed in it for a long time, let the people who you normally deal with know you¡¯ll be unavailable. Otherwise you may get the police kicking your door down because a relative is worried about what¡¯s happened to you. If you have any issue, or problem, with the pod, please contact us and we will have a technician out to you straight away¡±


    James watched the two of them clear up all their tools, placing everything into the empty crate. As they squatted to pick it up James rushed to open the door for them. Weaving through the rooms obstacles they both gave James a little nod of farewell as they passed him, then once through, he closed the door behind them. He slumped with his back to the door and ran one hand over his face. The excitement he felt overrode the tiredness for lack of sleep, but he decided that he had better read that manual then get at least a little bit more sleep before he tried the pod. Then he remembered the advice, and decided to let his parents know about the pod and what his plans would be. No need to contact anyone else, he had not made any new friends since he moved last time, and all his previous friends hadn¡¯t even bothered keeping in contact with him since. The last contact he had had would have been at least six months ago, and couldn¡¯t see the condition changing anytime soon. Pushing himself away from the door, James sighed to himself, then slowly made his way back into the lounge and sat down of the couch to read through the damn manual.

 Chapter Three.........(Version 2 revised)

    CHAPTER THREE


    For the second time that morning James awoke with a start. Around him, the room was dark and quiet. His mind still a little fuzzy with sleep, he thought to himself ¡°Where am I ? Am I in the game ?. Why is it so dark ? I can¡¯t see a damn thing.¡±  Confusion clouded his reasoning and he started to panic slightly. Slowly, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw numbers glowing with a greenish tint floating in the air to the right of where he lay. Reaching out towards these floating numbers his hand bumped into something, jamming the tip of his middle finger back into the palm of his hand. In reflex, he pulled the hand back, but then carefully reached out again until his fingertips met the resistance he had felt before. Fumbling about the object, he used his fingers to trace out the shape of the object he had touched, then suddenly realized why it felt so terribly familiar. It was his bedside clock and it was displaying the time as being ten twenty-seven. He laughed in a slight barking way, as he realized that he was still at home, in his bed, and had only been dreaming about being in the game. Memories that he had laid down for a bit after contacting his parents, to let them know he was going to be unavailable for a couple of weeks, surfaced. He must have nodded off without realizing it. ¡°Ah, well, the sleep would have done me some good¡±, he thought.


    Getting up, he spent a few minutes in the bathroom refreshing himself by splashing water onto his face. After drying off he started to feel a little bit more normal, then made his way down towards the lounge room and the Pod, but just before getting there, he changed his and veered towards the kitchen instead. A coffee and something to eat would probably be the best thing for him before he got into the pod, he thought.


    After preparing everything, he sat down to drink his coffee and mentally go over what he knew about the game after reading the manual. The first thing he would need to do when he gets in the pod is to set up his game character, but the manual didn¡¯t give any hints or advice on this other than to follow the prompts. Once his character was ready he would be allowed to access the training zone, where a teacher of some sort would train him on the basics of the game. Until he had passed the training he wouldn¡¯t be able to enter Haven. After that, it was all up to him on what he wanted to do. Again, the manual advised that this process would take a couple of hours. He looked up at the kitchen clock, it was now about quarter past eleven. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation, but knew he had a few things he needed to do before he started playing. If I¡¯m going to stay in the pod for at least a week, I need to make sure that everything around the house switched off or secure. Don¡¯t want to come back later to find the foods gone off, or the house burned down from the kettle left plugged in.


    He spend the next fifteen minutes wandering about his small house checking everything, as well as unplugging or switching off unnecessary appliances until he felt satisfied he hadn¡¯t forgotten anything, then returned to the kitchen. Sitting down, he had another coffee, then spend a couple of minutes in the toilet, again, as advised by the manual. Finally the moment had arrived and he stood in the living room next to the pod, just looking at it. He couldn¡¯t help but run his hand over the smooth surface again, feeling the cool metal slide smoothly beneath his fingertips. After a couple of seconds he slid his hand down the side to the button that opened the pod, hesitating only slightly, then continued on to push it in.


    The mirrored egg split in half along its horizontal circumference and slowly and smoothly opened, hinged on the side that was facing the wall. It reminded him of an oyster, the two halves somehow reminiscent of the shells parting to allow access to the goodness within. Inside, it seemed to be lined with a cream colored quilted surface, and he couldn¡¯t help himself from reached in and placing one hand onto the padding. It felt silky to his touch before giving way beneath the pressure he put onto it, feeling a lot like one of those memory foam mattresses. Withdrawing the hand, he watched as the dimple that his pressure had put in it, slowly returned back slowly to its original unflawed state.


    The manual had informed him that when entering the pod a person should only be wearing shorts with no top, as various sensors set in the padding needed unimpeded access to the various parts of the body they required. Already dressed in such a fashion James lifted one leg and slid himself into the pod, positioning himself comfortably, with his head braced on a raised pillowed section with an indentation in it, obviously to support the neck and head while lying supine. Reaching across his chest, he unclipped a cuff, resembling those that are usually found as part of a sphygmomanometer, from the side of the pod and placed it on his left arm above his elbow. It was attached by two lengths of tubing to the side of the pod, and an experimental squeeze on one of the tubes gave James the impression it contained a cable of some type. He lay there for some moments, everything done as advised in the manual, except for the closing of the top half of the pod. The butterflies in his stomach started up again and he was sure that his palms were sweating profusely as well, so he nervously scrubbed them against his shorts. He located the close button that was set in the raised top half, and positioned one finger over it, closed his eyes and pressed down firmly on the button.


    After a brief moment of waiting, he opened his eyes to find that the top of the pod had closed and the darkness inside the pod was total. Blinking a few times didn¡¯t seem to make any difference and he would have tried waving a hand in front of his face to see if he could see that, but as the manual told him it was best to lay still once inside, so he held back on that urge. In the enclosed space, the only noise that he could hear was the sound of his own breathing.


    Suddenly on his left arm, the one on which he had placed the cuff, he felt a slight prickling sensation, almost ticklish in intensity, followed by a feeling of coldness spreading out from that point. He tried to turn his head to look towards where the cuff lay around his arm but his head suddenly seemed to be leaden and the effort of trying to turn it caused a spinning sensation to overcome him. It felt a lot like that time he had drank way too much then lay down on his bed. It was like the world was spinning around his helpless and unresponsive body, but the expected nausea hadn¡¯t put in an appearance. Slowly, against all his efforts to stop them, his eyes started to close, bit by bit, and the last thing he remembered was thinking that he hoped he wasn¡¯t going to soil himself.


    Slowly he came back to himself, as if his mind and thoughts were emerging from the sea of mist that filled his head. The darkness remained absolute and movement still seemed to be denied to him. In fact, it felt a lot more like he had nothing that he could move, rather than something was stopping him from being able to move, there was no sense of feeling, no body presence, nothing at all. It was as if he was a mind without a body, a mind that was stored in an extremely dark box.


    Then, without any kind of warning, the darkness that blocked his sight was overlaid with blindingly harsh orange-yellow words.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Welcome to Haven


    It had been determined that this is your first entry into Haven


    Is this correct ?


    YES / NO


    James saw the words, and understood fully what he was supposed to do, but was a bit puzzled on how he could do it, trying to raise a hand to select the right option didn¡¯t accomplish anything. He didn¡¯t seem to have any limbs to control, he still couldn¡¯t feel the presence of any of them. He thought about it for a bit and realized the only thing he had control over was his mind and thoughts¡­ so logically he should try to use his mind to make his selection. He concentrated hard on the YES option , but to no avail. He tried to verbalize his choice, but he found that had no voice. The whole thing seemed impossible, and it looked like he would be stuck here looking at these words until his month of pod time elapsed and he was automatically returned to real life. Mentally, he slumped back in defeat. After a wait of about three minutes, more lines of text appeared below those already displayed in front of him.


    If you are uncertain of how to make your choice, concentrate your sight on the option you would like to make, and state that option mentally to yourself.


    Thank bleeding hell for that, he thought to himself, I should have realized that. This choice operation is something that really should have been explained in the manual. He returned his sight back onto the YES option, then thought YES to himself. It must have worked, for all of the writing faded away. More text appeared to replace it.


    You have chosen the YES option. Is this the option you wanted to select ?


    YES / NO


    James repeated his choice of the YES option again. He also thought to himself that it was good to see that they double checked the choice selection here, especially for the new users of the pods. He could see how easy it would have been to inadvertently make a mistake. Just like the time before, the text before him was erased and replaced with fresh text.


    Connecting to Holobyne Haven AI¡­¡­¡­.connected.


    Detecting registered user¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­done.


    Configuring Pod to registered user.(James Carter)¡­¡­¡­¡­configured.


    Download and installing latest firmware¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­..failed.


    Detect BioPod Manufacture Version¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­..done.


    BioPod Version 2.1534 beta¡­. Current firmware incompatible


    Search for Compatable Firmware¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­done.


    Installing Firmware v2.01276a¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.done.


    All Tasks Completed.


    Enjoy your time within Haven, James Carter


    Time remaining in this session¡­.717 hours 32 minutes 16 second


    What ? Two and a half hours had already expired from his 30 days ? I have been in this pod for two and a half hours ? No way. I¡¯ve only been in here for twenty minutes at the most. The darkness that surrounded him slowly brightened until everything around him was a light grey. In front of him another line of text floated, this time in dark blue.


    Enter Haven ?


    YES / NO (Log out of Pod)


    James was confused, he was supposed to create his character before he entered the game, yet the pod hadnt asked him anything about this process. How could he enter the game without a character ? Ah well, James mused, maybe they have changed the process with this version of the Pod and it¡¯ll happen later. He then returned his attention back to the floating instruction. Making his choice by glancing at the YES option and thinking about it, the words slowly faded into the background. Now what happens ? he wondered. A few seconds later he noticed that the grey had started to boil about, as if being agitated by some other influence, like dark rainclouds roiling about the sky, slowly evaporating. It wasn¡¯t long before all the grey mist had disappeared, leaving him looking at a large brightly lit space about the size of a school¡¯s gymnasium. The perimeter of this area was lined with roughly hewn wood planks, the ground covered with what appeared to be coarse sand. He stood there, appreciating the view, amazed at the quality of the graphics, so realistic. Squatting down, he reached out and scraped up a handful of the sand, feeling the roughness of the grains as they gathered in his palm. As he let the sand slide through his fingers back to the ground, he was struck by the realization that he could feel each grain against his skin, individually and slightly sensual. He stood up again and scrubbed his hands together to remove the grains that remained stuck to his skin, seeing them fall, only to be blown off their downward path by the slight breeze that blew through the area. Sniffing, he found the air smelled much like a summers day at the beach that he had once visited, many years ago when he was only a small child, and he thought he could almost taste the salt on his tongue. He licked his lips, only to gain the bitter tang of brine within in his mouth. The realism on display was unbelievable, it was like he was really here, in person, and not just mentally.


    Touch, taste and smell, he thought, all of them so realistic and without any discernible difference from reality. This was much more than he had expected, much, much more than he thought was possible. He had played many of the modern virtual games around, even if they didn¡¯t have anything like the pod to access them, and while all of them had fairly advanced graphics, you could stillsee the pixilation within them. Haven, it seemed, had somehow managed to not only create graphics that were indistinguishable from reality, they also had the added bonus of touch, taste and smell, again all but indistinguishable from the real thing, as well as being accurate on what they were replicating so far.


    While he was contemplating the effects of his physical experiences so far, another one made itself apparent to him. The space around him started to grow brighter and he felt a gradual warmth upon his skin. Looking up he noticed there was no roof above him, the walls that surrounded the area he was standing in rising up to a height of about twenty five foot. Above the top of the walls was a brilliant blue sky. Small puffs of clouds drifted slowly from right to left, beams of sunlight, reflecting off motes of dust floating in the air, crept slowly down the wall that was behind him. It was this sunlight that was warming his skin up as the light bathed him. He thrust both of his arms straight out from his sides, and facing upwards, eyes closed, just stood there and basked in the warmth. This part of his game experience, he decided while standing there, was not the same as in the real world. In real life, the airborn detritius from centuries of technological development had permeated the air with an unpleasant aroma, and sunlight, even on the brightest of days, was greatly diffused by pollution before it reached the ground. This sunlight was far better than the real one.


    ¡°Hold on a minute¡± he suddenly muttered to himself, frowning as a thought entered his mind. Lowering his arms, he took a look around again. ¡°If this is the training zone, and I am now in the gameworld, then what the hell happened to setting up my character, and where is this teacher that¡¯s supposed to be here ?¡± From behind him he heard the noise of sand being scuffed around, as if someone was dragging their feet across the ground rather than lifting their feet.

 Chapter Four

    CHAPTER FOUR


    ¡°Joining Haven will be the beginning of a long lasting friendship¡± ¨C Jill Norman, 2165.


    In surprise, James whirled around, a surge of adrenaline striking him as he realised someone, or something, had managed to sneak up behind him without his knowledge. From the brief time he had been here he had already managed to look around all of it, and the area was devoid of anything that could be considered as an obstruction that could conceal something unseen. He also had not seen any doorways or corridors either, so it was a mystery on where anything could have come from.


    He instantly detected the young looking man that was advancing towards him. Who, upon being detected, stopped suddenly, his feet skidding slightly in the loose sand. About ten feet away from James stood a stranger, his advancement upon James halted. He appeared to be human, about five and a half foot tall, aged somewhere in his twenties and dressed in a simple white tunic top and pants. The tunic was the type you pulled on over your head, buttonless, with a deep V neckline displaying his bare chest beneath it, and short, mid bicep length, sleeves.


    As James stood there, his arms automatically raising in defence, evaluating any possible threat that this individual may pose to him, the stranger spoke, his tone soothing and somewhat reassuring. ¡°Whoa, hold on, take it easy, there. I¡¯m not here to harm you, or anything. I just saw you enter and came over to talk to you.¡± The man put his hands up towards James and took a slow step backwards.


    James, still not quite sure about the intentions of the man, didn¡¯t lower his hands and took a step backwards. ¡°Who the hell are you ? ¡° he questioned, then continued without waiting to recieve an answer. ¡°As far as I know, I am supposed to meet a teacher of some sort here, not another player¡­ You are a player, aren¡¯t you, and not an NPC ?¡±


    A look of annoyance flittered across the features of the young man. ¡°Before we continue with anything else, do not ever again refer to me, or anyone you meet in Haven, as NPC. That is one of the biggest insults you can give and will most likely result in someone pointing out your error with the tip of their dagger or sword. Everyone in Haven , whether from Haven, or from wherever else they have arrived from, make their own decisions and choices and all have equal opportunities to live and to learn. We are all individual entities and masters of our own destinies. Remember that and you could live a longer life. So please do not make this mistake again.¡± The man paused a moment, seeming to contemplate something while also reining in his ire, then continued. ¡°The people of Haven are known as Citizens, and those who come here are called Visitors. I am a citizen. If Visitors live here long enough, they may even be honoured by being called Resident, but I wouldn¡¯t hold out any hope of attaining that because Visitors are generally a selfish bunch who seem to bugger off back to wherever they came from at the drop of a hat. By calling someone an NPC you are basically stating they are mentally handicapped in some way.¡±


    The words he was speaking seemed to be working the man up again, as his voice was starting to gain an edge of anger the longer he talked, so James took the opportunity to interrupt his flow of speech and to hopefully calm him down enough to gain answers to other questions. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to insult anyone, I didn¡¯t know about that but will definitely remember in the future, so thank you for letting me know. So you are a citizen then, and not another¡­ visitor like me ?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I am.¡± came the terse reply. ¡°A citizen, that is.¡± He paused again to give James another rather querulous look. ¡°Are you sure you are a visitor, my scrutiny of you is telling me your status it yet undetermined ?¡± He squinted at James, as if trying to see something else. ¡°In fact, there is much about you that confuses me. I am supposed to meet a Visitor here to welcome him and teach him how to survive in this world, yet everything about you informs me that you are not a visitor.¡±


    All this confused James, as he had no knowledge about anything that this person was going on about to him. ¡° Look, I really do not know anything about what you¡¯re saying. All I know is I am supposed to meet someone here as well, and I think that¡¯s supposed to be you, so let¡¯s start over from the beginning, shall we. Hi, my name is James Carter, and you are¡­.. ?¡± he held out one hand for the other to grasp it in greeting.


    The other approached, grasped the proffered hand, and shook it. ¡°My name is Coltain the Lorebringer, and I am the one you refer to as a teacher.¡± James was again struck by the realism shown. The pressure from the hand grasp was firm on his own hand, the creases and skin roughness easily discernible by touch alone. ¡°If you are here, then I suppose you are the one I am to teach, even if you are not a Visitor.¡±


    While they had been talking the sand beneath James feet had been gradually heating up from the sunlight that struck it, and now it was reaching an unpleasant level, stinging his bare feet. ¡°Can we find somewhere else to talk, Coltain, my feet are starting to burn here.¡± He briefly raised one foot at a time, trying to find a little respite from the pain caused by the heated sand.


    Coltain looked down at his own bare feet, frowning a little. ¡°Didn¡¯t notice it until you mentioned it, but mine are starting to burn a little now.¡± He looked up at James. ¡°Sure, let¡¯s move somewhere a little more comfortable.¡± He looked around the area searching for a likely spot, but the absence of anything at all, other than the walls precluded any possibility of finding some decent shade. ¡°Hold on a minute while I make something we can park our butts under.¡±


    This statement gave James a surprise with its normalcy. Normal to standard Earth slang, that is, not something he expected a computer-generated character to utter in general conversation within a game. ¡®Hey, are you sure you are a¡­. umm¡­ citizen of Haven, and not someone from Earth? You¡¯re not just one of the staff acting out a role, are you, having a joke with me ?¡±


    ¡°Earth? Is that the name of the place you are from? Never heard of it.¡± Coltain replied while flipping through a book, where he had produced the book from, James was unsure, but he couldn¡¯t have been hiding it somewhere in that skimpy tunic that he was wearing. It would have shown. ¡°Ah, here we go, this will probably do the job.¡± He muttered, obviously finding what he was looking for, then closed the book with a snap. Dipping one hand into a pocket in the pants he was wearing, he withdrew it, a small green jewel held between his thumb and forefinger. Raising both hands until they were side by side, palm down, he moved them apart quickly, each one curving downward as they separated. he started to speak words that James couldn¡¯t understand. Upon completion of the words he crushed the jewel between his fingers, a puff of glittering motes clouded his hand. The air was filled with an electric charge, fat blue sparks arced between his fingers and hands, then suddenly a transparent glowing blue dome came into existence above them. The dome was about ten foot in diameter and hovered about eight feet above the ground. Coltain turned towards a now amazed James. ¡°Basic missile shield, that should keep the sun off us for a while, a simple spell that anyone can learn to do, if they want to. It has a lifespan of thirty minutes, plenty of time.¡±


    James walked about underneath the dome, looking up at it in interest as he did so. It didn¡¯t really cut out the sunlight, but underneath it the light that passed through was the blue colour of the dome above, and the heat from the sunlight diminished by a large margin. The sand beneath his feet hadn¡¯t cooled down yet, but he knew it wouldn¡¯t be long before most of the retained heat would dissipate away. ¡°Cool. Will this keep the rain off you as well ?¡±


    Coltain looked at him with some amusement. ¡°It¡¯s interesting that¡¯s the first thing you should asked me about the shield, because most people ask about what missiles it stops and if they can learn it. The answer, though, is yes it would, for a short while. There¡¯s been lots of tests done on exactly how rain affects a dome of this type. Each object to hit the dome has a chance of being deflected or stopped by the shield, and each raindrop is considered a separate missile, so it would stop of the rain, but each object that strikes a dome will also reduce the shields lifespan. So in a major rainstorm a shield, like this basic one, would stop about ninety five percent of raindrops striking it, but the sheer amount of rain actually striking the domes surface would probably decrease the lifespan to approximately ten seconds, maximum, probably less.¡± Seeing the look of disappointment on James¡¯s face, he laughed. ¡°You are not the first to think it would make good protection if caught out in the rain and snow, but it would be a lot easier, and cheaper, to own a good raincoat, and warmer too. The shield is really only to protect against arrows, other thrown missiles and some spells.¡±


    Abashed at being caught out as being so ignorant, James just uttered the first thing that came to him. ¡°So, then, can I learn this ?¡± Then realised that Coltain had made reference to exactly this question earlier increasing the embarrassment he felt even more, then tried to save himself by adding quickly ¡°By that I mean learn it now, from you ?¡±


    ¡°No, not yet you can¡¯t. This spell, even being the basic one, requires the skill Arcane Magic knowledge at tier three, level one. You don¡¯t even possess Knowledge of Arcane Magic yet.¡±


    ¡°Tier three, level one ? What does that mean ?¡± The terms were unfamiliar to James, he knew what arcane magic was, but the classes and levels were new to him, ones he hadn¡¯t seen before in other games he had played in.


    Coltain pursed his lips in thought. ¡°It¡¯s really something I was going to talk about later, once we had got the basics out the way. Its probably best we get those done before I tell you, otherwise it may just confuse you. I only have a limited amount of time I can spend with you and I don¡¯t want to waste it without teaching you the things you will really need to enter into Haven.¡± He looked at James, expectantly, then asked ¡±Are you ready to start ?¡±


    ¡°Sure, let¡¯s go. I¡¯m dying to see what Haven looks like.¡±


    ¡°First off, you must choose a name for yourself. I suppose the name you call yourself now is the one you had from wherever you come from. We can not allow that. Your new name must consist of a first name and a second name, while each separately may be a duplicate of another¡¯s name, both together must be unique. You are starting a new life here, so you should start off with a new name as well.¡±


    James thought about this for a short while. Choosing a good name was important because it represented who you were in the game if you ever became famous. Many players of other games had chosen what they considered as a funny, or clever name for themselves, only to find out much later that it was ridiculous and totally stupid. It also had to be catchy as well. While he was trying to work this out Coltain interrupted his thought process. ¡°Oh, there are also certain names you are not allowed to choose, especially title names. You can earn a title, but you can not choose one for yourself.¡±


    ¡°Oh, right. I¡¯ll have to think about this.¡± With this James mused a little more before deciding upon a name he had used in another game a few years ago. ¡°I think I will call myself Edrik Darkfoe.¡± As soon as he had said this, he heard a light tinkle of bells, similar in sound to the small charm bells made at Christmas. The sound, while pleasant , caught him by surprise, making him look about himself to try to see where the bells were, but couldn¡¯t locate any. ¡°Where are those bells that ?¡± he remarked upon not being able to locate them. ¡°Can you hear them ?¡±


    ¡°Bells, what bells ? Oh, those ones.. you¡¯re only hearing the gods acknowledging that they hear you and they have accepted your choice of name. Every time the gods of the Aether send you an announcement you will hear those bells. If you don¡¯t want to hear them all the time, then you can stop them in your profile settings, or choose a different sound instead.¡±


    ¡°Profile settings ? I don¡¯t even have a profile yet.¡± James, knew what a profile was, but he didn¡¯t know how it was accessed in this game. ¡°Could you show me how to access my profile ?¡±


    Coltain looked a little confused by this, but then slapped his forehead with one palm. ¡°Oh, I must have forgot that, I haven¡¯t shown you that yet, have I ?¡± a sheepish look crossing his face, cheeks slightly reddening. ¡°Well, its simple, but you¡¯re going to have to practice a bit to get used to it. The process takes two actions that you must do at the same time. First off, you have to think Profile to yourself and then focus your sight at a point in front of you of about five inches, just like looking at the end of your nose. Everything in front of that point should become unfocussed. If you do it right your profile should be there, right in front of you, but still allowing you to be aware of what¡¯s going on around you. Once you allow your sight to correct its focus your profile will automatically close. Give it a try and see if you can do it.¡±


    James decided to sit down on the sand before he tried this, so he could put his full attention into the task. Profile, he thought and slowly tried to unfocus his sight. As everything around him began to get a fuzzy appearance about them , faint white lettering began to slowly appear, hovering in the air in front of him. Turning his head slightly, he realised the words had a fixed point and no matter which way he looked, the words would follow his eyes, always staying centred in his vision. He couldn¡¯t quite make out the words, and as he strained to bring them into sharper focus, he found his eyes starting to ache and lost them completely. It was just like learning to cross your eyes, he thought. Now knowing the right process, he spent the next five minutes practicing with his eyes until he could get a clean image of his profile every time. Finally comfortable with the process James allowed his profile to remain, then started to examined it.


    Name : Edrik Darkfoe


    Class : UndeterminedIf you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Status : Undetermined


    Title(s) : None


    Race : Undetermined (Attribute distribution will adjust upon race assignment)


    Age : 4 Hours 3 minutes, 26 seconds


    Level : 0 (Tier 1, Level 0) Beginner.


    Health : 100 points


    Physical Stamina : 00000


    Mental Stamina : 00000


    Money : None carried.


    ENL : 100 (Experience need to attain next level)


    Damage : 0 ¨C 1 points (Hand, Right), Melee : 0 ¨C 1 points (Hand, Left)


    Wgt. : 0 / (100Pd / 45k)


    <u>Attributes</u>


    Strength : 5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Strength base cost : 5 credits)


    Constitution : 5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Constitution base cost : 5 credits)


    Defence :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Defence base cost : 5 credits)


    Dexterity :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Dexterity base cost : 5 credits)


    Intelligence : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Intelligence base cost : 5 credits)


    Charisma :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Charisma base cost : 5 credits)


    Wisdom :  5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Wisdom base cost : 5 credits)


    Willpower :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Willpower base cost : 5 credits)


    Perception :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Perception base cost : 5 credits)


    Luck :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Luck base cost : 5 credits)


    Locked Attribute 1 : 5


    Locked Attribute 2 : 5


    Locked Attribute 3 : 5


    Locked Attribute 4 : 5


    Unallocated attribute credits : 0


    You will gain 10 credits per general level attained


    <u>Abilities</u>


    No Abilities gained


    <u>Skills</u>


    No Skills learned


    He concentrated on his Strength attribute and a new page appeared, replacing the profile, which was not overlaid, but totally vanished.


    Strength


    Base : 5


    Adjusted : 5


    Carrying Capacity : 100 Pounds / 45 Kilograms Maximum


    Strength ¨C This determines how physically strong you are and will affect how much weight you can carry. Strength also affects your maximum health , damage given, and what types of equipment you can equip or use. Strength may also influence the benefits/results of certain spells within Haven, from increasing/decreasing the damage output, through to the length of the spells influence.


    You can increase your base strength by using attribute credits. Each point of increase will cost you 5 credits more than the previous purchase in this attribute. Your current cost to increase your strength by 1 point is 5 credits, to increase it by two points will cost you 15 credits. You will earn 10 Attribute Credits for every general level gained.


    Again thinking on the profile, he pulled the page back into sight and concentrated on the first locked Attribute. It was something that puzzled him.


    Locked Attribute 1


    Base : 5


    Adjusted : 5


    This attribute is hidden from you at this time. No improvements on this attribute is possible at this time. This attribute will unlock when the appropriate conditions have been met.


    Well, he thought to himself, that¡¯s fairly understandable, all though some parts of it were different from the profiles he was used to in other games, other than the four locked attributes. He withdrew from the profile and focussed on Coltain. ¡°A few questions, first one being, what are these locked attributes ?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, interesting question, and one I find myself unable to answer. The locked attributes will affect something, whether that¡¯s now, or later, is unknown. Like everyone, including me, you will just have to wait and find out. I also hear that locked attributes will vary, from person to person.¡±


    James wasn¡¯t too happy with this answer, for things he know that would affect him in the game, and that he had no knowledge about, gave him grave concerns. ¡° What about race ? I have undetermined as race on my profile ? ¡°


    Coltain was surprised here, and showed it. ¡°You have no race chosen? You should have chosen that before you arrived here ? I¡¯m not sure I can help you with that, and you won¡¯t be allowed to leave this area without a race choice either. ¡° He paused a moment, thinking, then continued. ¡°I¡¯m going to have to leave you for a little while, to see if I can find some way to resolve this issue. You stay here¡­¡± then paused a moment before giving a small bark of laughter, realising what he had just said. ¡°Well, you can¡¯t go anywhere else, can you.¡± He handed James a thinly rolled scroll. ¡°While I am gone, just read though this, it should give you the rest of the basics about your profile and other things, like your inventory. Read through the scroll, it should fill you in on some of the things I now will not have time to teach you about. Don¡¯t worry about experimenting with anything, this is a training area and nothing can really damage you here.¡± Without waiting for any kind of response from James, he turned and walked away, his figure slowly gaining a transparent appearance the further he walked, until finally there was no indication he had ever been there, even his footsteps in the sand had vanished.


    At least the floating shield over his head had remained, protecting him from the sun which had progressively become hotter as time passed. He sat and made himself as comfortable in the shade as he could, opened the scroll and started to read.


    It didn¡¯t take James long to work through the scroll, most of it was straight forward to him, and the parts that were confusing could be assumed from the rest of the information that linked to it. His inventory was totally empty, as no items had been added or were already there, not even starter equipment, which he should have had. He found his ¡®Quest¡¯ page, but again it was deplete of anything, this he expected as he hadn¡¯t done. Or received, any yet, and that also was depressing. All the pages in his profile that he accessed were the same, empty. At the end of the scroll, he did find something that he had questions about, that being his level progression. It was a chart showing the list of progression that affected not only his general level, but also his skills, abilities, weapons and armour.


    Experience Progression Table.


    This table lists the path of progression for all items and statistics that are affected by experience. When you have earned 99 Tier levels in one Tier you will progress to the bottom of the next tier.


    Tier is the class of level attained and determines your Title


    Tier Level is the level of skill you have obtained within a Tier.


    (Tier number x 100) + Tier Level = Overall Level of the statistic/item that this applies to.


    Tier 1 - Beginner  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 2 ¨C Apprentice Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 3 - Adept  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 4 - Expert  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 5 - Master  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 6 - Grand Master Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 7 - Veteran  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 8 - Sage  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 9 - Champion  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 10 - Hero   Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 11 - Paragon  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 12 - Epic  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 13 - Legend  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 14 - Immortal Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 15 - Demigod  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 16 - Titan Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 17 - Deity  Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Tier 18 ¨C Lesser God Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Tier 19 ¨C Greater God Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Tier 20 ¨C Creator Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Ie: Tier 5, Level 12 informs you that you that a Master class has been obtained and you overall level progress is (5 x 100) + 12 = 512. If this was in the Skill of Crafting, you would be a level 12 Master Class Crafter .


    Now the scroll was finished James found himself becoming bored with waiting. He had already fiddled with all of the settings that he could adjust, including choosing the Imperial option for his displayed weights and measures. There was nothing else for him to alter. Looking around for something else to do, he saw absolutely nothing. Here he was, alone in a square, roofless room with bare wooden walls, and no exit. He wondered what was on the other side of them, whether he was in a town, a city, or just existing nowhere. An idea suddenly occurred to him. Why not see if he could climb the walls and see what was on the other side. They were rough, so maybe if he tried in one of the corners, where two sides met, he could use the angle somehow to help him climb. Pushing himself to his feet, he started over to the nearest corner to him, but quickly changed his mind as his feet started burning, and returned to the shade under the dome.


    As he stood there, feeling a little more comfortable in the shade, he considered contacting the support team, as he knew there was something definitely wrong with his character. The required character setup had not happened and he knew without this, his character would be unable to enter the gameworld. He suspected that the experimental Pod he was supplied with was the cause. Pulling up the contacts page he had located earlier, he quickly located the support link on it, which wasn¡¯t hard as there was only three entries in it. As he looked at it to activate it, the link suddenly disappeared from the list. ¡°What the hell ?¡± He thought, but was interrupted from further thoughts by the sound of a sucking pop behind him, so he closed the contacts page and turned about.


    About ten foot away from where he stood a hole in the air had appeared, its edges rippling and roiling like disturbed clouds, while the centre glowing brightly in the air. It was roughly oval shaped, seven foot high and four foot wide. He knew what this was, for he had seen similar things like this before in the other games he had tried. It was a teleport portal and stepping out of it was an elderly man, with white hair and a short beard. He was dressed in a brilliant white robe that fell down to the leather sandals that could only just be seen peeping out below the hemline. Gripped tightly in one of his hands was a six foot wooden pole, obviously a wand of some sort. The old man stepped out onto the sand and the portal, now behind him, quickly dissipated until no sign of it remained.


    The man looked at him, his expression one of annoyance, his eyes slowly roaming down James¡¯ form before he spoke slowly with a firm, deep voice. ¡°You. You shouldn¡¯t be here, your presence is an enigma.¡± Before James could react to this startling appearance, the old man raised one hand and twisted it, purple lightning forming around it before suddenly streaking from his clenched fist to strike James. The lightning played across his body, sharp stabbing pains appearing wherever it touched his skin. It felt like someone was pushing red hot needles into every part of his being, and one giant spike through his brain. The pain was indescribable, like nothing else he had ever suffered. The final thing he remembered was when every muscle spasmed uncontrollably, flinging him into the air, only to land on the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. As soon as his body had stopped twitching, it burst into a cloud of multicoloured sparks that winked out of existence one at a time leaving nothing behind to indicate that there had ever been anything here before.


    The old man stood there, observing this process, then took a look around, as if to see if he had missed something. Seemingly reassured by his visual search of the area, he waved one hand, bringing into existence another portal and stepped into it. As this portal swirled away out of existence, another one popped up quite close to it, disgorging Coltain the Lorebringer onto the empty sands. Stepping away from his portal Coltain looked about for James, head swivelling from side to side. Not being able to locate him, he shrugged his shoulders, called forth another portal, and disappeared.


    .

 Intermission One - Of Pinheads and Peabrains

    Intermission 1 ¨C Peabrains and Pinheads


    To imitate reality, as well as to provide a pathway of experience learning, with the citizens and creatures of Haven, a whole new concept of artificial intelligence was determined as being required. Having one overall AI in charge of numerous entities caused massive disruptions and failures within the game structure, often experienced as data lags and action loops. Bill Norman therefore created a whole new department at Holobyne to deal with this problem.


    The solution they developed, while not being unique, had never before been contemplated , let alone implemented, on such a large scale as was required for HavenLove this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    To ensure each entity within the game structure would operate as an individual, and act in unique ways when faced with choice or action, each and every one of them was allocated a micro Ai module, each with its own Nanoprocessor and memory storage capacity, along with hard coded heuristic operating system, that learned from experience.. Two type of these modules were designed and implemented, with the lesser one for creatures and entities that relied upon lesser intelligence and instinct referred to as Pinheads, and the greater one , to cater for entities of greater intelligence, called Peabrains.. In addition to separate AI controllers, all these entities were also coded with respawn, and memory of death.


    At the time of release, it was estimated that there was well in excess of 5 billion Pinheads and Peabrains active in Haven, with an additional fifty thousand contemplated to be added each week .

 Chapter Five

    CHAPTER FIVE


    ¡°Unbeing dead isn''t being alive¡± ¨C E. E. Cummings.


    For the third time in twenty four hours James found himself awakening in a strange place, his mind clouded with confusion. Unlike the previous times, this awakening was accompanied by intense pain wracking him from head to toe, slowly easing to a dull ache in all of his muscles. Rough hands grasped him around his biceps and lifted his to his feet, holding him upright until he managed to be able to remain standing unaided. As he stood there, swaying slightly, he opened his eyes and took a good look around himself.


    The first thing that was abundantly clear was that he was no longer in the training area, the second being that he was no longer alone. Surrounding him was what seemed to be about fifty individuals, only one of them familiar to him.


    ¡°You, ¡° James yelled angrily, pointing at the old man, the one he remembers electrocuting him, ¡°what the hell did you do to me, and where the hell am I ?¡± The act of raising his arm to point made James stagger forward a few steps before he managed to stop himself by grabbing hold of one of the watchers around him. Others reached out to help support him, but he just brushed the offered help away.


    ¡°I have only done what was necessary. Your existence on Haven is unplanned and, to be honest, unwanted . ¡±


    ¡°Unplanned ? Unwanted ? What the hell are you talking about ? I received my Pod legally and have every right to play this game. I don¡¯t even know why I¡¯m bothering to talk to you. This is pissing me off, I¡¯m logging out and going to complain to Holobyne about this.¡± James attempted to open his profile page, but failed, then tried again, and failed again. He gave an angry glance at the group of people around him, who were watching him, amusement apparent on a number of faces. ¡°What the hell¡¯s so funny.¡± He barked at them, still trying to get his profile open.


    ¡®He still thinks he is a human.¡± A tall thin woman with blond hair murmured to her companion ¡°How amusing. Do you think the High One will erase him, after all his presence will cause a little disruption ?¡±


    ¡°I am human,¡± demanded James, ¡°and can someone explain to me why I cannot open up my profile page ?¡± He was frustrated with everything that had happened so far, and all he wanted to do was get out of this damn game. While he had been talking he had lost attention to the old man, but was quickly reacquainted with his presence when a hand was placed on his shoulder.


    ¡°All these questions. Let us answer them for you. First off, at this time, you no longer possess a profile page, but this issue will be resolved quite soon. Secondly, where are you.¡± The hand on his shoulder changed into to a grip on his elbow and slowly turned him around in a circle. ¡°You are in null space, a part of the program that has not yet fully defined its parameters. What it will be when complete, though, is a small island retreat where the people around you can go to get away from the game. It will have all the luxuries and amenities that you would expect to have in the real world. It will become their home away from the game.¡±


    All this made James even more confused, and slightly alarmed. ¡°So if they want that, why don¡¯t they just log off ?¡± A sudden thought passed across his mind at that point. ¡°Can I log off ?¡± he questioned.


    The old man looked at him in pity. ¡°No, I am sorry, but you no longer possess the ability to log off. The game is now your world. You can only exist here.¡±


    Hesitantly he spoke, ¡°Am I¡­¡­.dead ? Have I died in the pod and this is all some type of temporal existence ?¡± James had read stories before, fantasy novels, that propositioned that the main character died in some weird way to gain eternal existence in some virtual reality world.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    ¡°No, your real body, and mind in fact, are perfectly happy and at this time¡­¡± the old man hesitated slightly, eyes unfocussed. ¡°¡­.playing some dwarvern character, called Edrik, and have just entered a lair in some Noobie area.¡± His eyes slowly refocused on James. ¡°No, James Carter is happy with the game, and is definitely not dead.¡±


    ¡°What the fuck are you talking about ? I am James Carter, and let me tell you, I am definitely NOT happy.¡± He wondered what all this drivel he was being told was about. It was really starting to piss him off. ¡°If James Carter is alive, happy, and playing a dwarf then who the hell am I, a figment of my own imagination. If I click my heels twice and twinkle my nose, will I disappear up my own backside ?¡±


    While he had been talking, the crowd of people that had surrounded him has begun to disperse, until only a few of them remained to listen to the discussion between himself and the old man. This thinning of bodies permitted him to see what lay beyond them. The old man had not been totally lying, he thought, remembering what he had been told only a couple of minutes ago. A modern street lined with futuristic buildings lay before him, palm trees growing before them. By this time, he had stopped talking and was slowly turning around to see everything. His inspection was interrupted by the voice of the old man.


    ¡°You are nothing, a ghost of a memory that shouldn¡¯t be. Let me take you from here, to a place where I can explain a few things to you and discuss your future, or whether you even have future.¡± The old grasped James¡¯ elbow yet again and clicked the fingers on his free hand together.


    Great, thought James to himself, this is becoming too much like a regular feature of my life. as the world around him started to dissolve into darkness yet again


    An unknown amount of time later the darkness segued smoothly back into reality, or whatever passed as reality to James lately. He was aware he was seated in a wooden chair facing an old oak table, behind which sat the old man , who was looking at him with his arms crossed on top of the desk top. The room around him was small and the walls were covered with hundreds of ancient maps.


    ¡°Welcome to my¡­ office, let¡¯s say. I am going to talk, and you are going to listen. Don¡¯t ask me any questions because I¡¯m not going to answer them until I have finished. ¡° He paused, looking at James, waiting for a response of some type, which James supplied by nodding. ¡°First off, just like you are not James Carter, I am not Robert Norman, the creator of Haven.¡± He quickly held up one hand to stop an anticipated question before it could be uttered, then continued. ¡°We are cloned intelligences., not real, not artificial. Both James Carter and Robert Normans brains were mapped and electronically cloned into an available Peabrain. I was cloned on purpose, you, on the other hand, were not. You do know what a Peabrain is, don¡¯t you ?¡± here he paused.


    ¡°Um, sort of. Isn¡¯t it an AI module that was developed for the game ?¡± James hesitantly replied, unsure of whether his response was allowed, and because he really wasn¡¯t confidant in his understanding of the Pinhead and Peabrains that Holobyne created.


    ¡°Exactly. It is a module that is used to store an intelligence, just like a brain. We designed the Pinhead and Peabrain Modules to be replicas of the brain and operate along the same paths. Before he died, Robert Norman cloned his brain into a Peabrain module, which led to the creation of me. Your creation, on the other hand, was totally by accident. James Carter should never have been sent a second generation Pod, especially one that was still in experimental phase. We have exchanged that pod now, and this should never occur again.


    You are only one of fifty seven cloned intelligences in this game. In game I am Hanortan, the High God, the others you saw when you awoke are the other fifty five lesser gods in the game. All of us have been learning and training to play these parts. You, on the other hand, have no purpose. Even though we are cloned intelligences, we still have the opportunity to log off to our island for a break from the game, watch some TV and a few games while downing a few drinks. You do not have that¡­.. yet. If you want to gain the right to be able to virtually log off to modern luxury sometimes, then I can grant you that opportunity if you want it¡­. Do you want it ?¡±


    ¡°If all this is true, then of course I bloody want that chance. Just tell me what I need to do, and I¡¯ll do it.¡±


    The old man nodded to himself. ¡°A few things you need to know. Your new character and profile will be of my choosing, as well as your name. You will not try to contact any people who knows James Carter, or try to pretend you are James Carter. I will be your patron god, so don¡¯t disappoint me of there will be consequences. As a cloned intelligence, you are neither a citizen or a visitor in this game, you will be a resident. There will be many advantages to being the sole resident in the game, but you must find out way they are yourself.¡± Again Hanortan, the High God, paused before continuing. ¡°Are you ready to go back ?¡¯


    ¡°Not really, no. ¡°


    ¡°Well, tough shit.¡± Was the last thing he heard before his lights were extinguished yet again.

 Chapter Six - Down the Ratpit Hole

    CHAPTER SIX ¨C Down the ratpit hole.


    ¡°If you eat in a Virtual World , would you need to take data dumps ?¡± ¨C A stupid author, circa 2017


    At first all he could hear was the sound of dripping water, slow and steady, the plop¡­. plop¡­. plop as each drop struck an unknown surface every two seconds. He seemed to be sitting down in a wooden chair, he believed this as he could feel the rough grain of the wood beneath his fingertips, but remained seated, unmoving , hoping his sight would return. A cold breeze suddenly swept across his body, making him shiver, while also allowing him to realise that he was totally naked.


    Naked ? Why am I naked ? he thought to himself, I was wearing clothes before. I¡¯m getting a real bad feeling about this. The unease that was gradually growing within him did not get any better after a rather foul and musty smell made itself apparent to his olfactory system. ¡°My god, what is that reek,¡± he muttered, raising one hand to cover his nose and mouth in a vain attempt to block it out, but failing due to its pervasive nature. He kept his hand over his nose and decided to only breath through his mouth for the present, as this seemed to be the best way to reduce the potency of the smell, and hopefully reducing the nausea he was feeling.


    Suddenly, without any warning, two torches on opposite sides of his position burst into light, sputtering slightly while illuminating the area he was currently in. So bright appeared even this dim light source, after the absolute darkness he had been in, that he was momentarily blinded. Blinking rapidly as his eyes teared up, partially from the aroma in the air, as well as from the light, he slowly managed to focus on his surroundings.


    The room he was in, for now he could see it was a room, seemed to be about twenty foot square and constructed of large, roughly hewn, stones. A thick layer of moss had somehow managed to cover a large portion of it, and moisture dripped onto the floor from one rather large clump of it. This must be the source of the drips he had heard, when everything was dark, he realised. Against the left hand wall was a wooden crate, its surface covered with rot and fungus, while the right hand wall held a wooden door with a small barred window, somewhat reminiscent of a dungeon cell door. The door was closed and the breeze he felt, along with the nasty odour it brought, was obviously entering through the small open and barred window located in the top half of the door.


    A couple of arm lengths in front of him stood a wooden table, unadorned, and looking quite new. He could see that it was new, purely by the fact it was the only thing in the room that wasn¡¯t covered with a layer of crud or grime, and he included himself in that statement. From his seated position he couldn¡¯t quite make out whether there was anything on the surface of the table.


    Looking down at himself, finally, he saw that he was indeed sitting in a wooden chair, a poorly made, mouldy chair at that. This looks that old, I better be extremely careful getting up from it or it may fall apart beneath me. He carefully placed both hands on the sides of the chair seat and slowly pushed himself up, easing his way onto his feet. He took a deep breath, then regretted it as he broke down into a coughing fit, his lungs showing their displeasure at the tainted air he had drawn into them. I know I¡¯ll get used to it eventually, but what the hell is that smell, it¡¯s so bad it¡¯s even burning my eyes and throat. Don¡¯t know why, but for some reason it reminds me of my old cat.


    Now he was on his feet he could see that there was something on the table top, he was also aware of the ground beneath his feet as well as the slimy ooze that was being squished up between his toes, he hoped it was only mould. Evaluating his options within the room, he chose to see what the table held first, and took a step in that direction. As his weight came down upon his leading foot, it slipped smoothly across the beslimed stones, twisting his hips and knees as he tumbled down into a heap on the cold, dirty stone floor. He heard the distinct popping sound when his left shoulder dislocated as it struck the ground. Pain radiated out from the joint and he grasped instinctively at it with his good hand.


    ¡°Ahhh¡­fuck.¡± he exclaimed through gritted teeth, cradling the damaged limb and rocking back and forth slightly in agony. He had dislocated his shoulder before, and his memory of the pain at that time was a lot worse than on this occasion, but it still hurt¡­. a lot.


    He knew he couldn¡¯t do anything about it at this time, so struggled back to his feet, being extremely careful to not repeat his accidental gymnastics, one painful pirouette was enough to teach him that the pain threshold in the game, for Cloned Intelligences anyway, was quite low. Carefully placing one foot in front of the other, he made his way across to the table.


    The items on the tabletop were¡­. surprising to say the least. A scroll with a wax seal lay next to an envelope, which had Read Me First printed on the outside, and a Flexi-Data strip lay above both of these. Talk about being out of theme, a data strip of all things


    Reaching down, he took the envelope and flipped it over, unsealing the flap with one fingernail. Inside was a folded note, which he withdrew and opened and then started to read.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="background-color: #f5f5ae">


    The data strip on the table contains your new character details and profile. Hold it to your forehead for three seconds and it will be integrated into you.


    The scroll on the table is my personal quest for you, Don¡¯t open it immediately, as this quest can not be accepted or rejected by you, it will automatically be included in your profile as accepted once the scroll is unrolled. Store the scroll in your inventory until you have escaped Ratpit, then open it.


    You will see a wooden chest against the wall. Open it. Anything within that chest is yours. Don¡¯t leave anything behind for once you have departed Ratpit you will be unable to return.


    Remember, I am your patron god and I shall be watching you. The path you follow from this point is of your own choice, so may luck befriend you.


    Farewell


    Hanortan


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    He flipped the card back onto the table after he had finished reading it and studied the data card leaving it where it lay. Bugger the data card, he thought, I¡¯m opening the chest first. Who knows how that thing will change my details. I don¡¯t even know what it could change me into. He wasn¡¯t looking forward to opening the chest, but it was the lesser of two evils in his eyes. The chest could only kill him, at worst, but the strip could change his whole personality. This Hanortan person is one nasty and evil bugger and I don¡¯t trust him one whit.


    The chest proved to be quite harmless, once he had reached it. He had expected at least some trick or trap to be attached to it, but it opened up without any problems at all, other than having squeaky hinges. He gave the interior a quick scrutiny, extremely pleased to see a number of clothing items, neatly folded, within it. At least I know that I won¡¯t be running around bare assed. He quickly withdrew them, one at a time, and proceeded to dress himself. System messages started to flash across his vision with each item of apparel he put on.


    You have just equipped Cotton Underwear !


    Cotton Underwear : Fashion Accessory.


    Classification : Clothing / Underwear


    Requirements : None


    Durability : 10 / 10


    +0.5 point Cold Weather Protection


    +0.5 point Defence


    You have just equipped Thin Socks !Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Thin Socks : Fashion Accessory.


    Classification : Clothing / Socks


    Requirements : None


    Durability : 5 /5


    +0.5 point Cold Weather Protection


    +0.5 Point Defence


    You have just equipped Cotton Shirt !


    Cotton Shirt : Fashion Accessory.


    Classification : Clothing / Torso


    Requirements : None


    Durability : 15 / 15


    +0.5 point Cold Weather Protection


    +1 point Defence


    You have just equipped Cotton Pants !


    Cotton Pants : Fashion Accessory.


    Classification : Clothing / Legs


    Requirements : None


    Durability : 15 / 15


    +0.5 point Cold Weather Protection


    +1 point Defence


    After all these items were equipped, he did notice he felt a little warmer, not much at all, but just enough to register on his consciousness. I suppose a +2 Fahrenheit bonus isn¡¯t much, but once I get more clothing and armour equipped, it will be a fair bit higher. I better keep an eye on that because I know that when it¡¯s hot this heat bonus could become unbearable and be a problem. Let¡¯s pull up my profile and see what the clothes have done for me. He concentrated but a system message flashed up, in red this time.


    < Havenhost Error Code : 31dd x 567ff >


    Profile page unavailable or unexecuted


    .


    He first felt confused at this message, before annoyance overtook it. Pulling his head back in an attempt to distance the words from his view, it was a vain attempt, as the words remained at a set distance in his eyesight. ¡°What the shit is ¡­¡­.¡± his words trailed off, the outburst and his annoyance petering out into nothing as he suddenly remembered the Data Card on the table behind him. That was his profile, or so Hanortan claimed it to be, and he had not yet integrated the card into his character. ¡°Damn it.¡± He growled, knowing he was going to have to wait.


    Resigned to the fact his profile wouldn¡¯t be available until he had departed this place, he looked back into the chest to see what other items had been left inside. Let¡¯s see, he thought, a pair of leather boots, two red vials, one wooden dagger, one golden crystal and a large bag. He took the boots out and attempted to put them on, only to be faced with another red system message


    You are attempting to equip Leather Boots. You fail to equip Leather Boots. You do not meet the requirements to equip Leather Boots.


    Leather Boots have been placed into your Inventory


    Crap, he thought to himself, then tried to open his inventory to get the boots so he could inspect them. I should have checked them out before I tried to wear them. He was startled, but pleased, when his inventory page opened up in his sight. Mustn¡¯t be linked to my profile, at least one things gone right for me since I got in that damn pod. He selected the Boots and they appeared in his hand. As he stood there a thought just occurred to him, so he replaced the boots in his inventory, dismissed the page and turned back to the chest. Reaching his good hand into it, her grabbed one of the red vials and examined it.


    Healing Vial, Small : Health Potion


    Classification : Magic


    Requirements : None


    Durability : 1/1


    +5 Heath Points when taken.


    Popping off the cork with his thumb, he raised it to his lips and quaffed the contents. Tastes like rusty water, he thought to himself, as he licked the last drops of the potion off the base of the cork. I hope this works, he wondered as the now empty vial and cork slowly evaporated away, leaving no sign behind that it had ever existed.


    A warmth slowly made its way down his throat, settling into a comfortable feeling in his stomach. His dislocated arm gave a painful twitch, then in one agonizing spasm, clicked itself back into place in the shoulder socket.


    You have drank a Small healing Potion. You have regained 5 points of heath. You have regained use of your left arm.


    The pain of healing teaches one to be more careful in future


    ¡°Ahhhh¡­¡­fuck!¡± escaped through his clenched teeth, the pain of the healing felt greater than the pain caused by the dislocation. If this is what healings are going to be like I can see myself running away from a lot of fights. He had grasped at the damaged joint when the healing pain had struck, but beneath his fingers the agony rapidly eased away until it was just a memory.


    ¡°There must be some way to decrease this pain, or avoid it somehow,¡± he muttered quietly to himself, ¡°no-one is going to put up with this for too long, it¡¯s too realistic, too strong.¡± He rotated the healed shoulder carefully, then with more vigor as nothing untoward occurred. It was like he had never injured himself.


    Plucking the large bag from the chest, with the expectation that it could contain coins, he was surprised at the lightness of it. Undoing the drawstring, he opened it an peered inside, to find it was filled with items of food, such as bread rolls, cheese and dried meat. Not foreseeing any immediate urgency to know anything about these items, he just closed the bag and stored it in his inventory. Next, he picked up the dagger and hefted it in one hand while looking at its description..


    Dagger, Wooden : Weaponry


    Classification : Daggers


    Type : Common


    Requirements : None


    Durability : 10/10


    Damage: 1 ¨C 4


    If the name Ratpit means what I think it does, this little thing is going to become very important. He then realised that he would have to carry the dagger, as he had no belt or dagger sheath to place it into, so he just put it with the other things into his inventory and hoped he would have time to retrieve it when it was needed. He knew what the remaining red vial was, so that went straight into the inventory. All that was left was the golden crystal. It was about the size of a pea and glowed slightly, and as it sat , cupped in one hand, it emanated a slight warmth. Its properties, when studied, were quite interesting, as well.


    Golden Skill Orb of Daggers


    Classification : Skills


    Type : Rare


    Requirements : Possession of a Profile.


    Durability : Unbreakable


    This Skill Orb has been magically imbued with the knowledge of Daggers and, when swallowed, will add the Dagger Skill to the person ingesting it. Only works if Dagger skill unknown


    You do not meet the requirements to use this item.


    ¡°Damn¡± he muttered, ¡°Seems like everything depends on this bloody profile that¡¯s being forced on me.¡± He raised his head up and looked up at the roof, then spoke loudly. ¡°I don¡¯t care what you are trying to make me do, but I¡¯m not going to do it until it suits me. That profile can bloody well wait.¡± Returning his sight back down, he sighed, and dropped the crystal into his inventory.


    Time to take stock of my situation. He looked himself over, checking each item that he had equipped, items obviously not profile required. They gave him a slight defensive benefit, he saw from their details, but not enough to make a lot of difference if he was facing a strong opponent. Three points defensive bonus, great. At least that¡¯s three points less damage if I am attacked. The problem is, with no profile, I have no stats, and also no apparent health. Will I die if I get any damage at all from an attack ? I didn¡¯t die when I dislocated my arm, but¡­.. the system didn¡¯t tell me I had received any damage then ? I¡¯m confused. He blew out his breath and scrubbed his face with one hand, perturbed by the whole thing. Lets just give it a go and see if I can get out of this place, and worry about any issues later, he decided to himself.


    He pulled the wooden dagger out of his profile and advanced to the door out of the room. Looking out the barred window of the door all he could see was a rough stone corridor leading directly away from the door, how long the corridor was he couldn¡¯t see, for there wasn¡¯t any light sources along its length to show him. Weird, he thought, and turned around to look at the room again. For some reason he had not taken any notice why, or how, the room was illuminated. Turning in a circle, he looked up and down as he rotated. It was only after the door had passed him twice that he realised that there was no source of illumination on this room, it just¡­was.


    He shrugged, knowing that there was nothing else he could do, either within the room, or in regard to the mysterious light, and decided it was time he manned up and ventured forth. He quickly reached out and yanked the door open before he found something else to delay his departure.


    The breeze flowing towards the room made the door swing open faster than expected, causing it to slam firmly against the wall and sending echoes up the corridor in front of him . Wincing at this disturbance to the silence, hoping it didn¡¯t call any creatures or monsters to his location, he stepped forth into his first dungeon experience in Haven.


    It didn¡¯t last long.

 Intermission Two - Skills

    Intermission Two ¨C Skills.


    Skills within Haven have been designed to be the major influence in most endeavours, where a skill is determined to be an ability that must be learned , as opposed to an attribute, which is a physical, or mental, trait one is born with, but can only be improved upon by the allocation of points.


    Unlike other incarnations of skills within Virtual Realities, a skill must be taught to the player by either a skillmaster with the knowledge of the skill being sought, or by the use of a rare Skills Crystal. An unknown skill can not, and will not, suddenly be available to a player, just because they have performed some repetitious task or action.


    Once a player has gained knowledge of a skill from a skillsmaster they then can concentrate on training it up, which does not require a skillsmaster, but training and use of a skill.


    For example, a warrior may not be a skillmaster and therefore be unable to impart the skill of longswords on a player, but can train any player who already has obtained the skill elsewhere.


    Any skill will advance rapidly in levels at the beginning, as the experience needed to advance in levels is low, but a point will be reached where the amount of experience needed to gain a level will occupy a long period of a players time. Level gaining is a game of diminishing returns


    Each skill progresses in Tiers, which are comprised of 100 levels each, the first Tier being the Beginners Tier. So a newly learned skill will start off at Beginners Tier, Level 0. When the player has advanced up in levels of a skill to be at Beginners Tier, Level 99, their next level will move them up to the next Tier Category, that being Apprentice Tier, Level 0. It is at this point the player will require the services of a Skillsmaster again, for a player can not move up to a new Tier category but must be promoted by a Skillsmaster in the skill to be promoted, and also must be of a higher tier standing in that skill than the Tier that the player wants to be promoted to. Higher level Skillmasters are far and few within the gameworld.


    Abilities, on the other hand, are different than both attributes and skills in that they can be self taught, and do not require a skillsmaster to obtain. These are things that require attributes in their use, but can not be improved by training but by using the ability


    There are twenty Tier Categories that any skill can attain, and each of them encompasses 100 levels in a skill. This means to gain the ultimate height in a skill requires a player to gain 2000 levels in that skill, a feat that could require more than one hundred years of training.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Tier progression Table


    Tier 1 - Beginner  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 2 ¨C Apprentice Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 3 - Adept  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 4 - Expert  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 5 - Master  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 6 - Grand Master  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 7 - Veteran Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 8 - Sage  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 9 - Champion   Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 10 - Hero   Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 11 - Paragon   Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 12 - Epic  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 13 - Legend   Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 14 - Immortal  Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 15 - Demigod   Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 16 - Titan Tier Levels 0 - 99


    Tier 17 - Deity   Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Tier 18 ¨C Lesser God   Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Tier 19 ¨C Greater God Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    Tier 20 ¨C Creator  Tier Levels 0 ¨C 99


    As a normal player within the game may never rise further than Tier seven or Tier Eight, due to time / life restrictions, the developers of Haven, Holobyne Technologies, have so far refused to enter into any discussion or explanation on why it has been designed in such an expanded manner.


    *** Notes from a Journalistic Adventurer ****

 Chapter Seven - Out and About

    Chapter Seven


    The first thing he encountered upon entering the rough, stone corridor was the knowledge that the mysterious light source was following him. As he carefully made his way forward more of the corridor in front of him was lit up. After a brief hesitation as he processed this, he crept forward slowly , his sight racing about, checking everything for any possible danger. Occupied looking elsewhere, he wasn¡¯t concentrating on the ground in front of him, unaware that the paths surface was gradually becoming more rough, with occasional rocks jutting dangerously from its surface. It was inevitable then, that he would trip over one of these, which he did after one of his feet, only clad in socks, smashed painfully into one stone firmly embedded in the ground.


    Landing sprawled out on his belly, the knife in his hand was knocked free, to fly away into the darkness in front of him. A cloud of dust billowed up filling the air, obscuring his sight. As he lay there, winded by a particularly large rock that had punched him in the stomach, he heard a noise from in front of him, the sound of a number of small feet slapping against bare rock. He could tell that whatever it was, probably rats from the name of this place, must be moving fast as the slaps were extremely close together. With no other warning than the footfalls, or paws as it turned out, three large rats, about the size of a small dog, burst through the concealing dust and fell upon him, savaging him instantly. Pain blossomed at different parts of his body.


    You have been bitten by a giant rat. You suffer three points damage


    You have been bitten by a giant rat. You suffer five points damage


    You have been bitten by a giant rat. You suffer three points damage


    You have died.


    Darkness¡­¡­¡­¡­


    He suddenly sat up, the memory of pain lingering in his mind. Looking around in panic, he looked for the giant rats, but didn¡¯t see them, so relaxed. Then he noticed he was back in the room with the chest and the table again, but something was different this time. The room was not as bright as it was the first time he awoke here, and now a couple of lit torches were hanging from the walls. This isn¡¯t going to make things easier, those rats were fast and now I will have less light to see them.


    He pushed himself up to his feet, and inspected himself. No wounds and no pain, but his clothes were a little worse off. His shirt and pants had both lost two points of durability, but thankfully had not lost any of their defensive benefits. Not seeing his dagger anywhere, he opened his inventory and looked for it in there, with no luck. He slapped his forehead as he remembered seeing it disappear into the gloom of the corridor when le dropped it. It must still be there. Note to self, keep a grip on your weapons, now I will have to try again without one. Taking a torch from the sconce that held it, he advanced to the door to try again.


    Three respawns later, he had managed to kill one of the rats by setting it alight with the torch, and had managed to retrieve his wooden dagger. That had been on his second respawn. The furthest he had managed to get along the corridor was about ten foot, and from what he could see before the rats had dispatched him, it went at least another twenty foot or so further. His clothes were close to losing all durability, and he was tired. He had dragged the chair to the table and now sat, slumped with his head resting on his arms, his eyes leaden. Slowly his eyelids flickered up and down, up and down, until finally they closed¡­


    BANG


    He jerked upright, eyes snapping open. ¡°Wha..¡± he muttered intelligibly, drool stretching elastically from his bottom lip to one hand. His eyes were still bleary from sleep and he couldn¡¯t make out where the noise had come from, but panic made him look rapidly from side to side.


    ¡°Wake up, you idiot. What the hell do you think you are doing¡± yelled someone at him


    Blinking profusely to clear the sleep, he finally saw Hanortan standing in front of him, one palm flat on the table top. It was this hand that had woken him when the god had slammed it down onto the tabletop. Seeing the angry expression upon the face of the god, he uttered the first think that he could think of ¡°Umm¡­ What are you doing here ?¡±


    ¡°Four hours, four damn hours I have been watching you fumble about stupidly in the simplest of dungeons. Do you know why the hell you are still here, scratching your arse, like a bloody useless fool ?¡± Hanortan snarled. ¡°All you need to do here is walk the bloody hell out. It¡¯s that easy¡± The hand on the tabletop clenched into a fist, fingernails peeling curls of wood from the surface.


    Looking up at Hanortan in confusion, he could only reply. ¡°I have been trying, these rats are nasty little buggers, and this wooden dagger is worse than useless.¡± He lifted the indicated object. ¡°Look at it, its durability is down to two and the only rat I have managed to kill suicided on the end of my torch.¡±


    ¡°That is because you are too pig headed to do what you are told. Of course you are not succeeding, you do not have a profile. So let me tell you exactly what to do. ¡° He clicked the fingers of his right hand and the Profile Data Sheet appeared in it. He thrust it forward. ¡°Integrate the damn Data Sheet now.¡± Glaring, Hanortan stood there, waiting for the sheet to be taken from his hand.


    With a curse, he snatched the proffered sheet and slapped it against his forehead. Holding it there he stared, challengingly at Hanortan, while the required three seconds passed. The Data Sheet suddenly evaporated against his skin, and a massive pain erupted behind his eyeballs, it felt like someone had just hit him in the head with a sledgehammer. Both hands went to his temples, holding firmly as he thrust his head backwards against the pain, eyes screwed up. It only lasted for a split second, but it seemed like it had lasted for far longer. ¡°Ohhh, jeez. This feels like a three day bender.¡± Maybe it was the lingering effect of the profile that had been crammed into his skull, for he felt ripples and shivers run up and down his body, somewhat like those you get in a small pond that a stone is dropped into.


    Hanortans hand struck out and grasped his chin, forcing the head up so that he could get a clear look at it. Whatever he saw in it must have pleased him, for he let it go. ¡°Good. It¡¯s worked just like it should have. Now, don¡¯t waste anymore time, get out there, kill those rats and get started on my quest. Do not make a habit of forcing me to come down here and baby you along., for I will not be pleased¡± He scowled all the time he was talking. ¡°The others are watching me, and you also, in fact. If I hold your hand too much, they will make this life of yours rather¡­ eventful. You really don¡¯t want that to happen. Now, farewell.¡± His form became ethereal, then vanished from sight.


    He opened the profile that had just been forced upon him, to see what all the bother was about


    Name : Tam Starland


    Class : Jack of all Trades


    Status : Resident


    Title(s) : First Disciple of Hanortan, High God of Haven


    Race : Elder


    Age : <Error Code 4543jx976>


    Level : 0 (Tier 1, Level 0) Beginner.


    Health : 100 points


    Physical Stamina : 100%


    Mental Stamina : 100%


    Money : 0.


    ENL : 100 (Experience need to attain next level)


    Damage : 1 - 4 points (Dagger, Wooden)


    Wgt. : 3kg / 100kg


    Bind Point : RatPit Hole, Eastern Wilds


    <u>Attributes</u>


    Strength : 5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Strength base cost : 5 credits)


    Constitution : 5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Constitution base cost : 5 credits)


    Defence :  5 base / 8 adjusted  (+1 Defence base cost : 5 credits)


    Dexterity :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Dexterity base cost : 5 credits)


    Intelligence : 5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Intelligence base cost : 5 credits)


    Charisma :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Charisma base cost : 5 credits)


    Wisdom :  5 base / 5 adjusted (+1 Wisdom base cost : 5 credits)


    Willpower :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Willpower base cost : 5 credits)


    Perception :  5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Perception base cost : 5 credits)


    Luck : 5 base / 5 adjusted  (+1 Luck base cost : 5 credits)


    Locked Attribute 1 : 5


    Locked Attribute 2 : 5


    Locked Attribute 3 : 5


    Locked Attribute 4 : 5Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Unallocated attribute credits : 0


    You will gain 10 credits per general level attained


    <u>Abilities</u>


    No Abilities gained


    <u>Skills</u>


    No Skills learned


    <u>Spells</u>


    No Spells known


    Well, that¡¯s a bust, Tam, as he was now known, thought to himself, most of that is just garbage to me. What the hell is ¡°Jack of all Trades¡±, never heard of such a class before. Elder as a race ? What the fuck is an Elder ? Ah, who cares, no doubt I will find out if it becomes important.


    He suddenly remembered the items in his inventory, and wondered if he met the requirements for them now. First he selected the boots in his inventory and studied them


    Boots, Leather


    Classification : Armour


    Type : Common


    Requirements : Strength 2 / Defence 2


    Restrictions : None


    Durability : 20/20


    Defence : +2 Defence


    Attack : 0 ¨C 4 points damage


    Great, he could equip them now he had a profile. Quickly he slipped them onto his feet


    You have just equipped Boots, Leather!


    Your Defence has increased by 2


    Your Defence is now 10


    Ha, those rats are in for a hard time, he thought, admiring his newly protected feet. I can kick the living shit out of them now. Wish I had listened to the old goat earlier. Next he withdrew the glowing golden Skill Orb and held it, contemplatively, before his eyes. He knew what it was, and what it would give him, but hesitated, thinking about the monetary worth of something like this. Shrugging, he flicked it into his mouth and swallowed.


    You have just gained the Skill of Daggers.


    This skill will permit a person to train and gain experience with all weapons classified as Daggers. A greater knowledge in Daggers will allow a person to inflict more damage using weapons of this classification.


    Your current Level in this Skill is 0 (Beginners Tier, Level 0)


    A quick look at his profile allowed Tam to see it had been added under the Skills area, but had not changed anything else in the profile. I suppose I will have to get some experience with this thing before I see any changes. Hefting the dagger in his right hand, he pushed the door open with the other, sighed, then started out on his fifth attempt at the corridor.


    The first rat appeared after Tam had travelled about five foot into the corridor, three strides at most. Its red eyes was the first thing he saw as it charged towards him. It hadn¡¯t leaped at him this time, so he calculated it was going to go for his legs, so swung one booted foot in its direction. He was amazed when it connected with a satisfying crunch of rodent ribs.


    You kick a Giant Rat, causing four points damage to the creature.


    This announcement in his sight was pure heaven, especially as this was the first positive attack he had managed to make, not including the accidental torch incident, but his delight was even greater when a following announcement appeared.


    Giant Rat suffers secondary damage as it hits the corridor wall. Giant Rat suffers five points of damage. Giant Rat has died. You gain ten points Experience.


    Tam stood there. Just savoring the success. It was his first kill, well first real kill that gave him experience. Looking around for the rats carcass to see if it remained behind for him to search, he couldn¡¯t see it anywhere. His initial thought was that this creature didn¡¯t drop anything at all, but then his eye caught on a little glowing chest symbol, floating in the air near the wall of the corridor to his left. He reached out and touched the symbol.


    Giant Rat Chest


    Contents of Chest : Rat Skin x 1, Rat Tail x 1, Rat Meat x 1


    Nice, Tam thought, realizing the potential that this had to increase his wealth once he reached somewhere civilized. May not be worth much, but as I have no money, yet, every cent counts. He chose to take the lot and they disappeared into his inventory. Tam considered something, then took a peek at his profile. He had realized there was a limit to how much he could carry in his inventory, and felt he was getting pretty close to the limit of different item types he could shove in there.


    Inside the inventory was the Health potion, the Quest scroll, and the three rat items he had just put in there. Five items types, occupying five inventory slots. No problems, he knew at this level he only had six slots, but most items stacked, like the rat parts, so he wasn¡¯t overly worried at this point. As soon as he could afford it, he would get a bag. That would add extra slots to his inventory


    Well, It¡¯s time to finish this place and get out of here. He made sure that he had everything packed and prepared, then continued on down the rat corridor, hopefully towards freedom.


    It took him another eight rats and forty minutes travelling to reach the end of the corridor. He could see the opening to the outside world only a couple of yards in front of him, a fresh breeze blowing inwards. Blocking the entrance was the largest rat he has seen, at least twice the size of the ones he had killed so far. Upon seeing him, it crouched snarling at him, teeth bared. Tam stepped back, taking a moment to examine the situation. While the previous rats had been pretty much a cake walk, he has still suffered a few nips and bites, causing his health to drop to sixty two points, as well as picking up his first Ability, Pain Tolerance. The information on this didn¡¯t sound great, but over time he saw that it could become very useful


    Pain Tolerance ¨C Gain 0.2 % reduction in experienced pain per level of ability gained. Maximum reduction of 60%, or to Adept Level 99


    While he had been contemplating the state of his health, the rat hadn¡¯t budged from the entrance, not even to attack him, which was peculiar. He knew that it was aware of his presence, and he had been within its zone of attack, so why the hell hadn¡¯t it done anything ? To Tam, this was unusual behavior by any NPCs he had encountered before in other games. He supposed it was just another one of those inexplicable things that this game seemed to be filled with. Behavioral coding generations in advance of what he had encountered before, he was absolutely in awe of it.


    He lifted his rather battle damaged dagger before him and slowly advanced upon the rat. The closer he got to it, the more agitated the rat became. It must have reached a decision, for without warning it leapt at Tam and sank its yellow teeth into his shoulder.


    Rat Queen bites your shoulder. You receive twelve points of damage. You have forty eight points health remaining.


    The pain from this rats bit was far worse than any he had received from the other rats. Even though the attack had surprised him, he still managed to thrust the dagger into the side of the rat queen as she still hung onto him.


    You hit Rat Queen for four points of damage. Rat Queen health remaining, sixteen points


    The queen let go with her jaws and as she fell to the ground, she raked his body with her claws, leaving three bloody furrows down his chest. Quick to react, he stomped down on the rats body as it landed on the ground, but his aim was off and his foot struck the back of the rats neck instead of the head.


    Rat claws you for three points damage. You have forty five points health remaining


    You stomp attack Rat Queen for four points damage. Rat Queen has twelve health remaining. Rat Queen stunned by stomp attack.


    The stun to the rat queen allowed Tam time to make another attack, so he stabbed down wildly with the dagger, not taking the time to target any specific area.


    Your strike pierces the Rat Queens eye for a critical hit. Rat Queen takes eight points of damage. Rat Queen has four points of health remaining.


    Wow, a lucky critical hit, Tam was elated. This fight hadn¡¯t been as tough as he thought, so far, one more attack should defeat the rat. These stupid system messages are really annoying, and distracting as well. Tam thought. When this fight is over, I¡¯m going to see if there is any way of disabling them. Too late he realised that he should have been concentrating on the battle, for the rat slipped between his legs and performed an attack from his rear.


    Rat Queen attacks, unchallenged, from the rear, gaining double damage. Rat Queen bites your unprotected neck for 18 points of damage. You have twenty seven heath remaining. Your Physical Stamina is at thirty percent. You are suffering a bleeding wound. Your Physical Stamina will fall five percent per second until bleeding staunched.


    ¡°Shit,¡± Tam uttered, partially at the pain that the bites were causing him, but also partially at his falling heath and stamina. He better finish this off quickly, for another lucky attack could spell the end for him. He reached over one of his shoulders until his fingers met something furry and moving, and gripped it as hard as he could. Quickly he ripped the rat away from his neck, losing a large chunk of flesh in the process, and threw it down into the rocks in front of him. Another system message popped up, this one something to do with an excessive bleeding wound, but he didn¡¯t have time to read it, he had to deal with the queen The rat lay there, stunned momentarily, and before it could recover, he leapt onto it, both feet together. He felt the bones of the body shatter beneath his heels.


    You have defeated the Rat Queen. You have earned twenty five experience.


    Congratulations, You have gained a new Level. You have gained ten attribute credits. You can allocate these in your profile.


    Congratulations you have gained a new Daggers Skill Level.


    As the Rat Queens body disappeared, leaving behind the treasure chest symbol, he slumped down against the corridor wall, all physical stamina depleted. Here he was, only a couple of feet away from leaving this hellhole, and he couldn¡¯t move until the bleeding wound had stopped and his physical stamina recovered. This was another feature of the game he was unfamiliar with, for usually all wounds and stamina were healed or refilled when a new level was earned, obviously this wasn¡¯t the deal in Haven.


    It was at this point he realised he could still die again before getting out. The excessive bleeding wound was lowering his health as well, and he knew if he didn¡¯t stop it he would die. Thinking furiously, he remembered that bandages helped stem blood loss. His shirt was already in tatters, so he ripped a few strips from it and wound them around his neck a couple of times.


    Attempt to staunch Excessive Bleeding Wound fails. Bandages do not work against this level of wound. You are losing 5 points of health every fifteen seconds. You have twenty one points of health remaining.


    He was almost resigned to respawning again when he remembered the small healing potion he had placed in his inventory. Moving as quick as possible with his diminished stamina he managed to open the vial and drink it before his health ran out


    You have drank a Small healing Potion. You have regained 5 points of heath. Excessive Bleeding Wound has now changed into Bleeding Wound


    Your bandage staunches your Bleeding Wound. Bandage must remain on for thirty minutes for Bleeding Wound to be healed.


    The healing pain this time wasone he was happy to experience, so hejust sat there, in the dust on the floor, and allowed his body some time to recover. His health was at six points and was recovering at a rate of a one point every two minutes. He knew that if he wanted to improve this rate he would have to raise his Constitution.


    He decided it probably was the best time to open the queen rats chest, that wouldn¡¯t interfere with his recuperation. Reaching out, he selected the glowing chest.


    Queen Rat Chest


    Contents of Chest : Rat Skin x 1, Rat Tail x 1, Rat Meat x 1


    You have received an award. Rat Scourge.


    You have found a bonus reward : 1 x Gold Cred, 1 x Silver Cred


    It all went into the inventory, except for the two Creds, which he left in his palm. Looking at them he saw they were quite different from each other, one being gold and the other silver. These were the currency that could be transferred out of the game into real cash, Tam knew that, but laughed sarcastically to himself, knowing this action, for this currency, was of no use to him now. He rolled the coins about, feeling their cool smoothness. The gold coin was eight sided, and had a ten stamped on it, indicating it was worth ten Technis dollars. The silver coin was identical in shape but had a one stamped on it. I now own eleven Technis dollars, Tam chuckled, wondering if there was actually a way to use these for himself in the real world. With a final shake of his hand, he pocketed the coins.


    By this point Tams health had risen to forty five, and his physical stamina was back up to 100 percent. He decided this was enough to brave the exit, and the unknown that lay beyond it. Rising to his feet, he automatically brushed the dirt off his pants, as he had done so many times before in the real world. He stopped, and shook his head and stepped through the dungeons exit.


    Stepping from the gloom of the dungeons corridor into the bright sunshine of the outside world momentarily blinded Tam. There wasn¡¯t anything he could do until his eyes had adjusted to the light so he just stood there, hands shading this face and eyes, hoping that nothing nasty was lurking about, just waiting to take advantage of his temporary helplessness. The he heard something that made his heart nearly stop.


    ¡°It¡¯s about time you got out of there, I have been waiting and you took your sweet time appearing.¡±

 Chepter Eight - Heading off

    Chapter Eight


    Tam staggered back on hearing these words, until his back struck the rough stone doorway that he had just walked through. Still dazzled by the sunlight, he called out ¡°Who¡¯s there ?¡± while turning his head, trying to locate the direction the voice had come from It must have been from somewhere close at hand as the voice had not spoken out loudly. It was musical, feminine, but still frightening. It was not a voice he knew.


    ¡°Why, I am here ? Who else would it be ?¡± The tone used in this statement was one of humour, Tam could hear the gleeful guile beneath the words, but his mistrust and concern overrode any light-heartedness that the speaker was trying to impart.


    Tams eyes had acclimatized enough by this point that he could make out his surroundings, so long as he kept his hands blocking the direct sunlight. The dungeons entrance, or exit, came out into a shallow depression in the surrounding countryside. Trees grew up all around, but not quite thick enough to call a forest, but more like a collection of copses. They seemed to be deciduous trees, somewhat similar in appearance to oaks. And ranged in sizes from mere saplings, all the way up to giants of the... copse forest ? The dappled sunlight kept the air cool, and the breeze that blew across his skin was refreshing. Insects buzzed through the air, flitting among the flowers that grew within the small clearing he stood in.


    Turning around he spotted the owner of the voice, seated upon a mossy pile of rocks. It was a young woman, about mid twenties of age, with long brown hair. She was dressed in tight leather pants and vest, with a white shirt beneath it, the sleeves puffed out. Her boots were black leather, rising to mid thigh, similar to the boots that pirates used to wear in the old films of the twentieth century. Finishing off the ensemble was a thick leather belt with a rapier slung from it.


    Not at all concerned with the scrutiny that Tam was making of her attire, and her figure, she actually seemed to be delighted with it enough to stand up and pirouette slowly so that he got a better look.


    ¡°Just perfect, don¡¯t you think so ? It took me ages to choose the right ensemble.¡±. Finishing her rotation, she gracefully perched back down upon the rock, carefully repositioning the rapier.


    Tam was confused by this performance. He had a nagging feeling he had seen her somewhere before, but couldn¡¯t remember where, or when. He had a slight headache, mostly due to the fact he had not yet fully recovered from being in the darkness for hours, and he was still wary of her presence. She does look good, though, he thought.


    ¡°Yes, you look just like a pirate queen, but that doesn¡¯t explain who you are, and why you are here ? ¡± It came out grouchy and a little rudely, and Tam instantly felt apologetic about it, but didn¡¯t express this to the lady. He hadn¡¯t taken his eyes off her, searching his memory for something, anything, that would jog some remembrance. Then it all clicked into place. And he blurted out ¡°You are Jill Norton¡± before he could help himself.


    She laughed, amused and pleased at this. ¡°No, Tam, I am not Jill. I am like you, a cloned intelligence. Yes, Jill was my progenitor, but that was many years ago now. Here I am Athelia, the goddess of whatever takes my fancy, and at this moment your presence, and its repercussions, have taken my fancy. When my father took you under his wing, he started a trend among the godlets he has gathered around himself.¡±


    ¡°A trend ? What trend ? I have only been on Haven for less than six hours, I think. How could I start a trend in that amount of time¡° He looked at her askance. Not fully trusting of her words.


    ¡°When Hanortan made you his disciple, and gave you that quest, they all wanted their own disciples with the same quest, including me. He has agreed that each Cloned Intelligence God can choose one new player each and have them cloned into their own personal disciple.¡± She pointed up at the Silver moon that could just me seen on the horizon. ¡°It¡¯s bedlam up there at the moment. You have a head start on all of them, but your advantage won¡¯t last long, Tam, make the most of it. Factions among the gods are appearing, and you will soon find yourself with possible allies, and a lot of definite enemies.¡±


    Tam was staring at the indicated moon while she was speaking. He knew there was five moons above Haven, so what was so special about that one ? ¡°The moon ? Why did you point at that moon ?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s where we live. It is called Insulam, which means island. That, Tam, is where we can go to get a taste of the reality we no longer can access. That is what you can earn by completing the task you have been set.¡± Athelia was watching him closely as she spoke, observing his reactions to the news she was imparting. ¡°I know you have not yet opened your Quest scroll, so I will give you a little advice in regard to it. When you open it, it will not display the whole quest, but only one step. When you have completed that step, then the next step in the quest will reveal itself to you. Complete all steps and the quest is complete.¡±


    Tam nodded, not yet sure of how to take Athelia. Could he trust her, or was she just setting him up for a trick of some sort, he wasn¡¯t sure. He was pretty confident that all she had said so far was true, but would that always be the case with this woman. ?


    ¡°I can see your mind working on this, Tam. Let me guess one thing going through your mind at this moment¡­Can I trust this woman ? Am I right¡­.. I can see I am right from the expression on your face. No, Tam, do not trust anyone, let the people and the gods earn your trust. I like you, Tam, so I hope you come to trust me and see my disciple as your friend and ally.¡± She reached into a pocket in her vest and withdrew an orb. It was yellow and glowed with a pink internal light. Tossing it to Tam, who caught it tentatively, she spoke earnestly to him. ¡°Take this orb of summoning. It will allow you to call me to you, no matter where you are. Use it carefully, for it can only be used once.¡±


    Tam glanced at the orbs properties to check the item. It was just as she had explained it to be, so he dropped it in the inventory, realizing that this now filled all the available slots he possessed. If he found anything really useful he had a hard decision to make about what to discard to make room.


    Athelia continued talking after he had finished his examination. ¡°Now I know my father quite well, and I know he wouldn¡¯t have told you anything helpful to you at this point. He has dropped you in one of the most remote points on this continent. There are no other players within four weeks travel of you here, but to the north are a couple of small villages and to the south is a large town. Read your scroll and then make up your mind which way you wish to travel.¡± She looked around the area, wisfully it seemed. ¡°This is a beautiful part of the continent, you will be safe here for a while. Once a dungeon, or lair, has been completed the area surrounding it becomes a sanctuary until the dungeon creatures respawn. The Raptpit has a twelve hour respawn, so you can rest here until then without concern.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Suddenly there was a loud bang, causing all the birds in the trees around them to take off in flight, raucously squawking as they left the area hurriedly. The figure of a dark man, dressed in chain mail appeared to the left of Athelia, looking around with some interest.


    ¡°Ah, Athelia, so this is where you disappeared to.¡± He wrapped one arm around her, pulling her in close to his body, then kissed her. Noticing Tam standing there, mouth agape at this display, he continued. ¡°Is this your disciple then ?¡± But then he squinted at Tam and his eyes took on a nasty gleam. ¡°No, this isn¡¯t your disciple, is it Athelia, I recognize him. He is that fool that Hanortan has taken. ¡° The smile he had worn on arrival had morphed into a sneer. He then addressed Tam. ¡°I should do all of us a favor and strike you down right now.¡±


    Athelia slapped the arm holding her. ¡°Stop it, Mathan, he¡¯s not responsible for his misfortunes, nor yours. Don¡¯t be mean.¡± Tam could see her affection for this individual. ¡°Also, turn off that silly noise to announce your arrival, it¡¯s annoying.¡±


    Mathan returned his gaze back to Athelia, his expression regaining that possessive affection again. ¡° Ah, darling, It is expected of me, for am I not a god of battle. Hurry up with whatever your task is with this¡­ worm and come back to me at the island.¡± He gave Tam one more threatening look, then disappeared, again announced with a loud bang.


    She looked irritated at the noise, ¡°I am starting to hate that noise.¡± Tam heard her say to herself. ¡°Now, Tam, I too must be off, have you anything you would like me to answer for you¡­ only one mind, I am in a rush.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I am curious about my class. Jack of all Trades ? now that is just confusing. What¡¯s the deal with that ?¡±


    Athelia just laughed. ¡°It¡¯s simple, and complex as well. It is also part of the reason some of the Godlets are angry with you. Basically all the classes that have been allocated to you disciples are determined by your personal gods position in Holobyne. I can tell you this, because you are already aware we gods are clones of Holbyne employees. Your class is because Hanortan was knowledgeable in all aspects of the coding, my disciples class is Crafter because Jill Norton helped create the crafting system in this world. Mathans disciple is a Dark Paladin, because he helped program the battle system and he prefers the evil side of the game.¡± She looked expectantly at Tam, waiting for him to connect the hints she had just given him.


    ¡°I see,¡± he mused. ¡°so basically, I can do anything ? ¡°


    ¡°Yep, that¡¯s correct, and that¡¯s why some detest you. They think you have too great an advantage, and will do anything to hinder or stop you. Now I must go. Take care, Tam Starland, You have much to do.¡± With that, she just popped out of existence, but a final statement reached his ears. ¡°Just remember, you are the disciple of a Creator, the rest of them are just disciples of Deities.¡±


    Tam was left, standing alone in the middle of a forest, with no idea on where to go, so he made his best decision so far. He saw from the suns position that he had about an hour left before it set, so he decided to stay put until morning. Athelia had said he could expect twelve hours protection, with about eleven of that time remaining, so he should be alright until then. With no tent or bedding, he expected it to be a very uncomfortable time and made himself as comfortable as he could.


    The mornings sun awoke Tam as the light from it pierced the trees to strike him in the face. Rolling over to escape it, he opened his eyes to greet the day. His sleep had not been disturbed during the night, and surprisingly, he felt quite refreshed as well, but also quite hungry. Remembering the sack of food that had been in the chest, he started to choose his inventory to get the sack out when another memory surfaced, this one of him taking it out after one of the rat fights yesterday and no memory of him placing it back in there.


    ¡°Damn.¡± He muttered. ¡°Now what am going to eat. I¡¯m definitely not going back into that hole to retrieve it, that¡¯s for sure.¡± He scratched at his chin but didn¡¯t feel the expected stubble. Normally he would have developed a thick crop of rough stubble that needed to be shaved, but all he felt this time was a light indication on his fingertips that the growth was far slower than his normal growth. That¡¯s one bonus, he thought, then another important issue arose, one he had not suspected. He needed to empty his bladder, urgently.


    Stepping away from the tree and tying his pants back up, he was again marveling at the depth of reality he was experiencing. Hunger, thirst and the need to release bodily wastes¡­ who would have expected it. I wonder if the real players, those that could leave the game anyway, experienced these things as well. He suspected not, as that would interfere with their gameplay, and no players liked things that detracted from their fun. Talking of thirst, I had better find a stream or something soon, or I will start losing heath.


    Gathering together all of his belongings, which didn¡¯t take long as he didn¡¯t have that much, he stood and contemplated his best travel option, the villages, or the town. It all depends on the quest, he then slapped his forehead after thinking this. The quest, he had not checked the scroll yet to see what his quest was. What a moron I can be.


    He broke the wax seal on the scroll and unrolled it.


    Quest - The rise of a new faction ( Step 1 of 5)


    Your quest is to start a new faction and have Hanortan ordained as its patron god. To do this you must obtain ownership over a suitable castle, register your faction at any Skillmasters Guildhall, and finally install a chapel dedicated to your god . If Hanortan is pleased with your endeavors he will become your Patron God


    Success = Ownership of a guild dedicated to Hanortan, Experience, Unknown bonus


    Failure = Total destruction of Castle and Chapel and Quest reset to beginning.


    Next he took a peek at his profile, and realised he had also forgotten about the attribute credits he had received. I have ten credits, this means I can increase two attributes by one point, but don¡¯t have enough to raise one attribute by two points. Now which attributes should I raise ? My main concern at the moment is inventory space and amount of damage, and adding to strength will help both of those. Tam added one to his Strength, raising it to six. He knew that each point of natural strength he had equaled one inventory slot, so this made seven slots he had, six for strength and the one bonus slot all players got. It also added an extra 0.2% bonus to damage, not much at this point, but later on, when this bonus grew, it could be a very important addition. There was many other things that strength affected, but they didn¡¯t rate any concern at the moment.


    Next he considered was his health, and Constitution increased its recovery rate, as well as adding to his maximum health by ten points. He put the last five credits into raising this by one point. Happy with the changes, Tam closed the profile.


    Making sure he had everything tucked away securely, for he didn¡¯t want another accident like the food sack disaster, he thought about which way his travels should take him. He wished he had an automap feature which would give him access to a visual map of where he had been and any purchased inclusions, but that would have to wait until he reached some form of civilisation. not being able to decide, he took the Gold Cred and flipped it. Heads I go South to the town, Tails I head north to the villages. The coin spun up, then down, landing on the ground to roll around until it ceased moving, Tail side up. Its north and the villages. Tam headed off.

 Chapter 8.1 - The Profiles Progress ( and quit or continue poll)

    The state of Tam Starlands profile upon departing the Ratpit Dungeon


    Name : Tam Starland


    Class : Jack of all Trades


    Status : Resident


    Title(s) : First Disciple of Hanortan, High God of Haven


    Race : Elder


    Age : <Error Code 4543jx976>


    Level : Beginner 1. (Tier 1, Level 1)


    Health : 110 / 110


    Physical Stamina : 100%


    Mental Stamina : 100%


    Money : Gold Cred : 1 / Silver Cred : 1


    ENL : 150 (Experience need to attain next level)


    Damage : 1 - 4 points (Dagger, Wooden) + 0.4%Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Bind Point : RatPit Hole, Eastern Wilds


    <u>Attributes</u>


    Strength : 6 base / 6 adjusted


    Constitution : 6 base / 6 adjusted


    Defence :  5 base / 8 adjusted


    Dexterity :  5 base / 5 adjusted


    Intelligence : 5 base / 5 adjusted


    Charisma :  5 base / 5 adjusted


    Wisdom :  5 base / 5 adjusted


    Willpower :  5 base / 5 adjusted


    Perception :  5 base / 5 adjusted


    Luck :  5 base / 5 adjusted


    Locked Attribute 1 : 5


    Locked Attribute 2 : 5


    Locked Attribute 3 : 5


    Locked Attribute 4 : 5


    Unallocated attribute credits : 0


    You will gain 10 credits per general level attained


    <u>Abilities (1)</u>


    Pain Threshold : Level 1 (0.2%) [36/100 % completed until Next Level}


    <u>Skills (1)</u>


    Daggers : Level 2 +0.2% damage when using daggers [5/100 % completed until Next Level}


    <u>Spells</u>


    No Spells known


    <u>Awards (1)</u>


    Rat Scourge

 Chapter Nine [Revised Version]

    CHAPTER NINE


    Three days later found Tam Struggling through thick undergrowth, following the path of a stream he had come across the day before. While this had provided him with an ample water supply to slake his thirst, his stomach was aching with hunger. Over the past couple of days, the only thing he had managed to eat was some berries from a bush. He knew the berries must be safe to eat, as he had observed various creatures eating them. Unfortunately, the bushes didn¡¯t produce many berries and only grew rarely.


    He had managed to kill a rabbit he had come across, but his dagger had broken during the kill leaving him unarmed. The rabbit was just an ordinary rabbit, no fight in it at all. He had gained no experience at all, but had received a piece of rabbit meat and the pelt, though, but didn¡¯t have the skill to start a fire to cook it. It resided in his inventory, awaiting either sale or cooking.


    As he ambled along, looking for any threat or food possibility, he took a peek at his health. It sat uncomfortably at fifty five out of one hundred and ten. While he had been travelling he had also had the time to mess around with the settings of his account, which made him laugh as the account really didn¡¯t exist at all. He had altered many of the settings, as the default was rather poor. His health bar now floated permanently in the upper left of his vision, small, but easily observable if needed, and he could also see the health bars of others if he concentrated. System messages that obscured his vision had been disabled and now only seen when he had time to. A little light to the right of his vision flashed when a message was awaiting his attention, he had set different colours to different message types. In fact, the red blinking light of a system message had been there for quite a while now, but he knew it was only warnings of his hunger state.


    Passing another berry bush, he stripped it of its ripe berries and continued on his way, occasionally popping a berry into his mouth. So far, he realised, he had been extremely lucky not to have come across any encounters, for he knew that he would be destroyed and returned to his respawn point, the ratpit. Until he acquired a new weapon he hoped it remained that way. Also, his clothes, still the rather poor quality cloth items, had started to deteriorate even more and were at the point of falling off him. I am one poor excuse for an adventurer, he humorously considered, nearly bare arsed and unarmed, even a tame bunny could take me down at this point.


    Looking ahead, he could see something among the trees, rising up and blocking the light in that direction. Whatever it was, it wasn¡¯t natural, for it had straight lines in its shape, indicating it may be a man made structure of some type. Listen to me, man made, hah, It could be goblin made or elf made for all I know. Whatever it is, I better be careful from now on and approach it without being detected. Tam chuckled at his automatic assumptions, but only a quiet chuckle


    As he crept forward through the trees, keeping as many tree trunks as possible between him and the structure, he listened intently, trying to detect any unusual sounds. All he could hear was the rustling of the leaves and the sounds of birds calling out to each other, as well as the sound of dried twigs cracking loudly underfoot. I definitely need to find a skillmaster for this kind of stuff. if there is anyone at all over there awake, they must know by now that someone¡¯s trying to sneak up on them.


    The closer he came to the structure, the more confidant he was that the place must be abandoned. The trees grew right up to the stone walls, which he saw possesses the marks of fire upon them. Old blackened stones rose upwards, and he could see, far above, the remains of a tile and timber roof. He needed to find an entrance into the place, so he walked around the outside, looking for any breaks in the stonework. By the time he had travelled what he calculated was halfway around the building, he realised it was, or used to be, a tall stone tower.


    Finally, he located the entrance to the tower, and realised it was almost at the same point he had originally approached the tower from. The doorway gaped empty and dark, for he had passed no windows in the tower to illuminate the interior. Approaching the entry he stopped just before entering and listened. He heard nothing from the interior, but the soot and scorch marks above the door showed the fire that had occurred here, had happened a long time ago.


    Leaning forward, he stuck his head into the doorway and had a look about, but could barely make out anything in the interiors gloom except shadowy outlines of what he thought could be timbers leaning precariously about. The aroma of burnt and scorched wood was not present, another sign that this had happened a long time ago. He wished again he knew how to light a fire, for he could make a torch then, and this place may provide him with some protection from the rain he was expecting later, The sky had been overcast all morning, and the clouds looked heavy with moisture.


    His fear of dark places stopped him from entering, and he stepped back from the entrance to consider his next move. As he did so, his heel caught on something and he stumbles backwards, trying to retain his footing, arms windmilling about. Succeeding in avoiding a tumble to the ground, he looked down to see what he had almost tripped over, but couldn¡¯t see anything because of the build up of dirt and dried leaves that had accumulated over time. Sticking the toe of one of his boots into this composted material, he stirred it about in an attempt to clear it away.


    Underneath the thick pile of detritus, was a skeletal arm that was so decomposed it was almost powdery. Out of interest, Tam started to clear away all the rubbish around it to see how much of the skeleton remained. It proved to be almost a whole skeleton by the time he had finished. The skull and ribcage had been crushed into fragments and one leg was missing, Tam suspected some forest creature had made away with that. If it had been wearing any clothes, these had either been taken, or just rotted away, for no other items remained with the bones, other than a small decaying leather pouch. Tam eyes this interestedly, but was loath to touch it for the leather was covered with a greenish grey mould.


    Tam searched about until he found a sturdy stick and returned to the bones. Prodding one end of the bag with the stick he was surprised when the leather parted under the touch of the stick, and he managed to scrape away most of the mould affected material.


    Left behind was a number of items, some of which he had seen before, skillstones. Rolling them out of the depression they lay in with the stick, he picked each one of them up and examined them. The results were quite useful. He had obtained Skillstones that gave the skills of Campfire, Cooking and Fishing. All useful skills that he knew he would use so he screwed up his courage and, hoping that no mould remained, swallowed each one of them.


    You have just gained the Skill of Campfire.


    You have just gained the Skill of Cooking


    You have just gained the Skill of Fishing


    After waiting a few seconds to see if there would be any nasty effects from swallowing three of these at once, and experiencing nothing, he opened his eyes with a sigh of relief, and exaltation at finding such useful skills. Looking down again at the place the pouch had lay, he noticed some other items he had not seen before. They must have been beneath the stones and therefore unnoticed. One was a verdigris stained brass key. Picking it up, he polished it against his tattered short and examined it


    Melchants Brass Chest Key


    Use to open Melchants Chest


    ¡°Duh, you don¡¯t say.¡± Tam stated, its use being so obvious, before thunder rumbles across the sky as he placed the key into his inventory slot. The remaining two items were a flint and steel, which he also took. Looking up the horizon, he saw that it had that misty greyness to indicate that rain was falling there. It wouldn¡¯t be long before the wind blew it overhead so he knew he had better prepare for its arrival straight away. A flash of lightning dazzled his sight momentarily, punctuating the importance of speed.


    Now thankful he had a skill to start fires, Tam quickly explored underneath the surrounding trees, looking for dried wood that he could use. Each time his arms were full he returned to drop the wood inside the door of the tower. By the time the rain started to fall on him five minutes later, he had managed to pile five armfuls inside the tower. Taking one last look behind him, he entered the tower.


    Inside, it was dark, but not the pitch blackness of night, so he managed to avoid walking into anything. He stood looking away from the door until his eyes adjusted enough that he could start work on making a fire. Gathering together a small pile of dried twigs and dried grass, he made a small pyramid of them. Taking the flint and steel, he struck them together a few times producing sparks that flew into the dried grass.


    It took about ten attempts before there appeared a small glow as the grass finally caught the sparks and a small wisp of smoke rose upwards. Blowing gently on it, Tam managed to coax the small glow into flame. He kept placing new twigs on the fire as the older ones were consumed until he had a small bed of glowing ashes. Onto this he gently placed larger branches, waiting each time for the fire to catch them, finally ending up with a nicely roaring fire. He was exultant at this, for this was the first time in four days he had managed to be warm, so he held his hands out towards the flames, his primeval urge satiated.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Finally now free to examine the tower, he looked around from his position near the fire. The room he was in occupied the whole of the towers base completely gutted by the conflagration that had occurred here. Nothing remained except charred timbers and piles of old ash. The walls were obviously bare, for anything that had been on them had disappeared in the fire, and no traces remained. Tam could see the hole in the roof where stairs would have gone to reach the second floor, but there was no way up there now, and he couldn¡¯t be bothered trying to scale the walls at this time. He would have a look in the morning.


    His stomach rumbled in synch with the thunder outside, reminding Tam that he better get something to eat. He withdrew some rat meat and skewered them onto a branch, then held them over the fire to cook. He could do this now without destroying them as he had the cooking skill. If he had tried this without the skill it would have just failed. While the aroma rising from the cooking meat wasn¡¯t the most pleasant, his mouth still watered, and he turned them occasionally until he was satisfied they were fully cooked.


    He plucked one of the pieces of meat off his improvised skewer, and flipped it from hand to hand until it was cool enough to hold. He gave it a sniff, his nose wrinkling at the rank odor, and took a tentative nibble.


    ¡°Euggh.¡± It was terrible and he spat it out onto the ground. Well, he thought, the stories of everything tasting like milk and honey in virtual worlds are definitely not true, that tasted like shit. Looking at the greyish lump of cooked flesh, he knew he would have to eat it, as he desperately needed something to improve his ailing health bar. He could see that it was hovering at the twenty point mark and it seemed to be contemplating falling further. Gathering his courage, he took another bite and chewed stoically while his stomach pointedly showed its displeasure with an acidic burning pain, then swallowed the half masticated lump. It was not pleasant and tasted oily as it went down.


    It took Tam ten minutes to finish the meat he had cooked, and he regretted each and every mouthful. His stomach had rebelled and was making some rather unpleasant gurgling noises. He wished he had cooked that rabbit meat he got yesterday morning, but decided to leave that for breakfast. He didn¡¯t even have any water to wash the aftertaste out of his mouth I had better get some rest before this lot makes a reappearance. From now on rat meat is only going to be used as fishing bait. Tam put another load of wood on the fire and tried to find the most comfortable position to sleep in. He did his best, but couldn¡¯t find it.


    The last thing Tam thought before he finally fell asleep, a protesting stomach still acting up, was I hope someone has invented toilet paper in this world.


    The next morning Tam awoke, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a familiar feeling, unexpected, but still familiar. He groaned, realizing this was going to be an awkward experience indeed. Pushing himself up to his feet, he quickly stepped outside, scanning around for an suitable spot. Spotting a broad leaved plant that looked perfect, he urgently rushed over to it, dropped his pants and squatted. His next five minutes were spent with bouts of mild discomfort and much muttering about the stupidity of an unknown coder and what he would like to do with the same. Tam did find the broad leaved plant to be fairly useful, though.


    It¡¯s a digital world, so I should have expected data dumps, he reasoned to himself. I was only joking last night, but there better damn well better be some toilet paper ingame. Pulling up his pants, he returned to the tower. Overnight, the fire had settled into a small pile of glowing embers. Acting quickly, he placed a few branches on top of the ashes to get the fire back into action. He sat there, waiting for the flames to catch, then removed the rabbit meat and roasted that over the freshly jumping flames. He only had the one piece so, after he had consumed it, only the edge had been removed from his hunger, he was in no hurry to try the rat meat again¡­.. ever.


    Tam took a glance towards the second floor entrance and decided he should attempt to reach it, it wasn¡¯t as if he had anything else urgent to do, after all. First, he wandered about the room checking all the piles of trash, just to make sure there wasn¡¯t anything concealed within any of them, and found exactly what he expected he would find, absolutely nothing. This task complete, he collected all the loose timber beams and positioned them against the wall below the hole, creating a rough ramp upwards. On completion, he gave the structure a quick shake to test its stability. Other than a couple of minor trembles, it seemed secure, so he grasped the largest beam and started his ascent.


    Around the middle part of the climb, his weight caused beams around him to slide apart, the outer ones falling to the floor with a clatter, sometimes occasionally against other timbers. It was like standing on a landslide, as the beams quickly fell away dropping Tam roughly onto the floor. In his sight Tam could see his health bar suddenly plunge down as his health points fell to ninety


    Damn, twenty points lost and I had only just managed to get that back up to max. I need to find more bunnies to eat. Only slightly deterred by his point loss, and the family of splinters he found lodged beneath the skin of both palms, he regathered the beams and created another ramp, but with more care. This time his ascent was more successful, as he managed to get a firm grip on the protruding beams of the second floor before his makeshift ramp collapsed, again, beneath him. Left there, dangling, a surge of energy, fueled by his fear, helped Tam drag his body up and onto the floor above, the jagged edges of the boards scratching deep cuts across his chest. The pain he received was indescribable, and almost made him lose his grip. With one final surge, he managed to swing his legs up and onto the floor, then rolled away from the hole, dust and dirt liberally smearing him as it mixed freely with the blood that oozed from his cuts.


    Tam wasn¡¯t happy as he lay on his back, his chest stinging from the cuts. Here he was again, in darkness, which was something he was definitely not fond of at all. He was sure he could hear the sounds of something scratching about in in this gloom filled room, but then he noticed the room wasn¡¯t quite in total darkness, for he could see a slim line of light on what heoriginally thought could a wall a couple of feet away from his supine position.


    Rolling over, he raised himself to his hands and knees, then crawled in the direction of the light, one hand sweeping carefully ahead of himself to make sure he didn¡¯t crawl into anything. His hand touched many small objects that lay scattered about, but all were unidentifiable in the darkness. Reaching the area beneath the crack of light, he found it was indeed located on a wall. Reaching up, he felt about, and from the feel of it, it was a shuttered window with the sunlight peeking through the join where two shutters met.


    Using his forearms, Tam supported himself against the wall as he rose to his feet. He placed both hands against the shutters and pushed. They didn¡¯t budge a bit, so he leant against them with all of his weight and pushed as hard as he could. The shutters burst open beneath this force, and Tam almost followed them outwards through the window, but managed to catch himself in the nick of time on the window frame. The sunlight that streamed in was wonderful and he visibly relaxed in its warmth. This lasted only until the noise behind him suddenly became much louder, it was a nasty high pitched squeaking sound that sent spikes of pain into his brain.


    Suddenly, the air around him was filled with fast, shadowy creatures as they swirled and streamed past him, out through the window and into the bright sunshine. He instinctively recoiled in fear, but suddenly recognized them for what they were. They were bats, hundreds and hundreds of bats, streaming out of the window around him. He dropped to the ground to get away from them, and sat, waiting, until the very last one flew out a couple of minutes later.


    Tam sat there while his heart raced inside his chest, a cold sweat appearing across much of his skin, Tam was forced to stay there until his panic attack eased. Bats, I fucking hate bats. Stinking flying rats. He gave the room about him another look to make sure none remained, as it was now only in light shadow with a window open. Tam noticed another shuttered window on the opposite wall, so quickly went and threw that windows shutters wide open as well.


    The first thing he noticed in the now well lit room, was the absence of any fire damage, which he thought peculiar, as the room below had obvious played host to a major conflagration. While clean of any fire damage, the rest of the room was still quite messy, but easily identifiable as a workroom of some type, mainly due to the variety of tools that lay scattered about. Benches lined two of the walls of this room, and a third wall, the one behind Tam, occupied by a long bookshelf. It was fairly obvious that someone, or something, has searched here, for everything was scattered on the floor, rather than on the benches and bookshelf, and small footprints of dried mud lay everywhere. Even Tam, with his limited knowledge, could see the prints were definitely bestial, not humanoid at all.


    The place was a dump, and Tam didn¡¯t expect to find anything here that would be of use to him, but he still performed a perfunctory search. By the end of the search everything had been piled up in the center of the room, all of it garbage. Bat guano and urine had destroyed any usefulness that the items may have once possessed, and by disturbing things Tam had only stirred up the foul smell of the bat droppings.


    As Tam looked dismally at the rubbish, and thought of the time he had wasted here, he heard a noise outside of the foliage of the forest floor being disturbed. Being careful, he peeked downwards. At first he was unable to detect anything that may have cause the disturbance, but then a bush shook chaotically and a group of small, furry creatures emerged. They stood about two and a half foot in height, and were definitely canine in appearance, but unlike all the dogs Tam had seen before, these stood upright on hind legs and had dirty rags tied about their bodies. Rather than walking, they seemed to lope along, occasionally with small skipping steps. Their elongated snouts displayed a good crop of sharp, long teeth, and were presently sniffing the air with aforementioned snouts. It didn¡¯t look like they were armed, which was perfectly agreeable to Tam, but their forepaws looked dexterous enough to manipulate tools, and, no doubt, weapons.


    Their appearance worried Tam. Were they trailing him, had they come across his scent ? None of this really mattered, Tam knew, for they were here, now, and there was nothing he could do about them. Slowly and as quiet as possible Tam lowered himself out of sight, and tried to work out what he could do. He didn¡¯t even know what the creatures were.

 Chapter Ten

    Chapter Ten


    Tam sat, back to the wall below the open window, listening to the noise of the creatures passage become louder as they drew closer to the tower. He hoped that they would just pass, without detecting him or entering the towers base. He once again searched the guano stained floor for anything that could be used as a weapon, already knowing that it would be futile. He didn¡¯t just want to sit there and possibly die without at least trying to take some of the creatures with him.


    The guttural growls and yips suddenly became louder and faster, almost frantic, making Tam tense up. I have to know what the hell is going on, he thought as he eased himself up just enough to be able to see over the windows bottom edge. He could see the dog like creatures milling about beneath his position, but he couldn¡¯t work out why, thankful the doorway was on the opposite side of the tower.


    The creatures froze, and Tam jerked back in surprise as a hunting horn sounded out suddenly from somewhere within the trees of the forest. The noise was deep, long and loud, vibrating inside his ears and momentarily deafening him. Whoever was sounding that horn must be very close, and this became a certainty when Tam saw an arrow flash out of the trees, striking one of the creatures through its throat , causing it to tumble backwards.


    As Tam was watching the creature tumble through the air, he missed seeing two armored men step into the small clearing, but he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and they were already there when he had returned his sight onto them. They appeared to be elven in appearance, and were dressed in green chain mail and leather pants. Both had longswords in their hands, drawn and ready, as they rapidly approached the remaining canine beasts. From his position, he could see that the beast wouldn¡¯t post much of a challenge to the swordsmen, but the beasts must have thought otherwise.


    Whether it was their normal behavior, or whether they just fell back to a more primal urge, Tam didn¡¯t know, but the remaining beasts dropped onto all fours and charged, their sudden speed boost impressive. This seemed to catch the swordsmen by surprise, for they were caught there, flat footed, as both creatures leaped, one at each swordsman, mouth agape and teeth flashing.


    Then Tam saw that the swordsmen had seemingly planned their own ruse, one to get the beasts to act exactly as they had done, for in what seemed a well rehearsed action, both swordsmen leaned backwards, out of the path of the leaping beasts, then both swords swung around in synchronized arcs. One sword arc bisected the neck of a beast, separating it cleanly from the torso, while the other was a fraction late and only connected with the last beasts hips. While late, it was still effective enough for the razor sharp blade to slice deeply into the body, spraying blood profusely around. The wounded creature fell to the ground, and before it could make any move to run or attack, the swordsman gracefully turned his weapons arc into a lunge with a smooth twist of one wrist. The lunge punched the point of the sword through the beasts chest and deep into the ground, pinning the dead body there, like an entomologists specimen.


    The skills of both swordsmen astounded Tam, and he would have stood up and applauded the exhibition he had just observed, if it was not for the small fact that he had no idea who these people were, or their intentions. My best option is to sit here quietly and hope they depart without detecting me. He watched as they collected the loot from the creatures chest icons.


    He felt a small tap on his shoulder, then the sound of an attention seeking cough. ¡°Ahem.¡±. the shock and utter surprise of this caused him to freeze, which may have helped save his life. He could tell from the sharp edge that grazed his neck that it was a sword that had been used to attract his notice, and any sudden moves could result in a swift strike to his throat. Tam didn¡¯t fancy visiting the rats again, or the walk back here, so he didn¡¯t move


    The voice spoke again, it was a light male voice. ¡° I said ahem. That usually means someone wants your attention, so please turn around, and slowly would be appreciated..¡± The tip of the sword prodded him gently in one shoulder to emphasis the point that any false move would result in punishment. Tam lifted his hand up, to show he was unarmed, then slowly stood up and turned.


    The person he saw facing him, a drawn longsword pointed directly at his throat, was definitely an elf. What kind of elf, Tam was not certain, but he knew without doubt that it was a dangerous one. The elf was dressed pretty much the same as the others outside, except this one had a longbow slung over one shoulder. His eyes followed the blade upwards to the elf¡¯s face. It held a look of mild inquisitiveness, with one eyebrow quirked up enquiringly., the green eyes beneath glinting as they watched him carefully.


    ¡°Ummm¡­.. Hi, how are you ?¡± Tam inanely uttered, his brain suddenly incapable of coming up with anything appropriate to say .


    The other eyebrow on the elf arched up on hearing this , somehow wordlessly expressing unexpected bafflement. The eyes flicked to the window, then back to Tam. ¡°Why are you hiding in this tower, watching us. Were those Grolls here because of you, or are you just here to spy on us ?¡± This had been asked civilly, but Tam could hear a slight note of distrust in the voice.


    ¡°Sorry, Grolls ? What are Grolls ?¡± The name was as unknown to Tam as were the creatures to whom it applied.


    The elf again gave him a peculiar look. ¡°Those creatures outside, those were Grolls. You claim to have never heard of them ?¡± While he spoke, the two elves who had fought outside, climbed up into the room and stood behind the first, all of their eyes fixed on Tam. ¡°If you are not familiar with the world Groll, they are also known elsewhere as Growls. I suppose you¡¯re going to say you have not heard of those, either, eh ?¡±.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°No,¡± replied Tam to this, ¡°I have never heard of either of those, and no, I also wasn¡¯t spying on you.¡±


    ¡°So then, pray tell, what were you doing skulking around in Melchants Tower. No one from town comes here, and we know there is nothing of value for scavengers. You claim not to be spying, yet here you were, concealed,¡± his eyes scanned Tams appearance, ¡° and unarmed.. The fire below informs me you have been here more than a short while, yet remain untouched by the Grolls. What else are we to assume from this but you are either a spy, or an agent of the dark lord ?¡± The elf poked him with the point of the longsword, pinking his shoulder and giving him one point of damage. ¡°Speak and allay our suspicions, before we dispatch you to your gods.¡± During this speech, the elf¡¯s features had slowly changed from its initial inquisitive into distrust.


    ¡°I¡¯m only a traveler,¡± exclaimed Tam ¡°I stopped here yesterday to get out of the rain. The only reason I was hiding was because I heard those creatures you call Grolls, and feared they would find me. I didn¡¯t know anything about you at all, and your appearance surprised me, and most probably also saved my life. I don¡¯t know who you are, or why anyone would want to spy on you at all.¡± He slumped back against the wall, dejected, realizing that there was no way he could prove anything, or disprove. It looked like this was going to end up with a ratpit respawn.


    The three elves glanced at each other, than back at Tam. One of the elves at the back shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know, there is truth in his words, but how much or little, I can not tell. We need to take his to the village headsman to get a proper reading.¡± He withdrew a leather thong from around his wrist. ¡°Put you hand out, together. If we are wrong in not trusting you, I will apologize, but until the truth is revealed you shall remain in bondage. ¡° He tied Tams wrists together, firmly, with the thong.


    They quickly made their way out of the tower, helping the helpless Tam navigate his way to the ground floor by the simple method of dropping him down the hole, to be caught by one who went first.


    Tam was forced to wait while an elf went over to the Groll bodies and removed their ears. As they were placed in a pouch, Tam asked ¡®Why are you only taking the ears ? Is there no value in their pelts, or teeth ?¡± This gained him a brief puzzled look from his guard.


    ¡°No, Grolls are foul beasts, no part of them retains any value. The meat is inedible, the pelt useless. We only gather the ears to receive the bounty that has been placed on them.¡± Seeing that his fellows had finished their gathering while he had been talking, he pushed Tam. ¡°Go on, get walking. Follow the others, and remember I am here behind you, so do not try to escape.¡±


    Tam started walking, but continued to talk to his guard as he did so. The mention of a bounty had garnered his attention and he wanted to know more. ¡±Bounty ? How much is the bounty ? Also, how far is this village we are going to. ¡°


    The elf gave a small smile. ¡°For a stranger in a dangerous position, you sure ask a lot of questions. Answer mine first, and I will give you the answers you are seeking.¡± Tam looked back and nodded. ¡°First off, stranger, what name shall we address you with ? I can not keep on calling you stranger. Also, what race are you, I have never seen anyone of your race before.¡±


    Hesitating slightly, but unable to see any harm , he answered. ¡°My name is Tam, Tam Starland, and I am of the Elder Race.¡± On saying this he heard a gasp behind him and turned. The elf had stopped walking, a shocked expression on his face, the sword handing limply from his hand. As he looked at the elf, confused, he was roughly thrust aside as one of the other elves pushed past him to grasp the other by a shoulder and shake him firmy.


    ¡°Brother, What ails you.¡± he asked. ¡°Tell me, what have you seen that alarms you so.¡± He now gripped both shoulders and looked about to see what may have shocked him. ¡°Are we facing danger ?¡±


    The guard elf, still with a shocked expression on his face, just pointed a shaky finger at Tam. ¡°Him.¡±


    Tam squirmed about in an attempt to find a more comfortable sitting position, but was finding it hard to do trussed up as he was. The elves had not taken long to decide that he needed to be more firmly restrained, and now he was tied up, hand and foot. They had taken the unsteady elf aside and were now in a meeting of some sort, for they sat in a circle, or triangle, seeing it was only three of them, and had been discussing something animatedly for the past hour. Many looks had been made at Tam during this time, and he knew that whatever was disturbing them was connected to his presence.


    The ropes had been tied too tight, his hands were numb and starting to get that pale whitish look that informed one of the lack of a blood supply. It was a painful numbness, which sounded ridiculous, but totally true. This concerned him a lot, for if this went on too longer, he would suffer sever damage to his hands, even if it was only until they healed themselves. Tam didn¡¯t like unnecessary pain, and he definitely couldn¡¯t understand any reason why they should be in such a panic. He just wanted to get these ropes loosened, or removed..


    Congratulations, You have gained a new level in Pain Tolerance. You are now Beginner 2. You now receive a 0.4% reduction in pain


    Great, thought Tam sarcastically at this announcement. That will really make a difference. Movement caught his eye. It seemed the discussion was over because all of the elves were approaching Tam now, stern expressions on their faces. He watched them carefully to get an indication of their intentions.


    The main elf with the bow, bent over to untie his hands and noticed the condition of his hands. Quickly removing the ropes he spoke. ¡°Tam Starland, I apologize to you on behalf of myself and my brothers. We have acted in haste, and caused you pain. It shames us that we have acted so thoughtlessly. Can you forgive us.¡±


    Tam rubbed his wrists, at first a bit rubbery as he had no feeling in them, then more firmly as the returning blood started to cause them to ache. ¡°Sure, I forgive you, as long as you tell me what it is that I have done that has caused you so much problem.¡± He still could see the rope strand impressions in his skin, and it stung when he attempted to rub them away.


    The elf looked grave at that. ¡°No, Tam Starland, this is not something I can talk to you about, you will have to wait until the headsman has time to talk to you to gain an answer to that question.¡± The elf stared thoughtfully at Tam for a few moments. ¡°But I have been rude to you. We know your name, but we have not given ours in return. I am Alarand Telendeth, and these are my brothers Emerion and Daeron.¡± He indicated the other two. ¡°We shall be taking you to the village of Oakengate. It¡¯s not a long walk from here, about another two hours travel. Along the way we will answer the questions you have already asked.¡± He held out one slim hand to Tam, and assisted him to his feet after he had grasped it.


    ¡°So,¡± Tam asked as they continued on their way, ¡°What¡¯s the bounty on a Groll, and what the hell is a Groll ?¡±

 Chapter Eleven

    CHAPTER ELEVEN


    A Groll, it seemed, was a rather nasty amalgam of a number of wild creatures, created somehow by magical mishap many centuries ago, and being quite enthusiastically fecund, they were constantly in plague proportions. The bounty was placed upon them to reduce their numbers, as well as to provide some safety to travelers in the region. Groll ears would earn anyone five coppers a pair when handed in. Being of low intelligence, they were unable to create anything useful, but were cunning enough that they were capable of using many small weapons, such as dagger, that they may have found.


    The full explanation that Tam had received had taken up the full two hours it them to travel though the forest, with the occasional rest to restore their stamina, with the unspoken reality that ¡®their¡¯ really meant only Tam, his physical stamina being much less than the elven brothers. They had come across another band of Grolls, who usually seemed to travel in groups of around four, and Tam, using a dagger he had borrowed from Emerion, had managed to earn a set of ears and, as he only assisted in the kill, very little experience.


    Finally the trees ahead were thinning out and the elven brothers constant attention to their surroundings was scaled back to an occasional glance, the village must be quite close now, Tam considered, for the elves to relax so much. Daeron walked next to Tam, so he diected a question at the elf. ¡°Are we nearly there, Daeron ? I am starting to become a little fatigued and don¡¯t really want to stop if it¡¯s not far to go, now.¡±


    Daeron answered, his attention still on the trees around them. ¡°About two minutes. We should see the walls of Oakengate about then.¡± To his left Alarand quickly whipped his bow off his shoulder, knocked an arrow and let it fly. Thinking they were under attack again, Tam dropped to one knee, borrowed dagger drawn, eyes scanning for danger. Laughter broke his concentration and he looked up at the elves, who were still standing casually around, watching his antics.


    ¡°Tam, what are you doing, you look silly down there.¡± Daeron asked from his standing position above Tam, amusement apparent in his expression.


    ¡°I thought we were under attack. Alarand fired that arrow.¡± He slowly rose to his feet again, not bothering with the dirt on his tattered pants. Looking at Alarand, he continued. ¡°What were you shooting at, then, Alarand ?¡±


    ¡°Dinner.¡±¡¯ The elf replied as he casually walked over to where the arrow had flown, then quickly bent over and picked up a dead rabbit, the arrow lodged in its side. ¡°Saves paying the Tavernmaster for a meal.¡± The rabbit disappeared into Alarands inventory.


    They continued on their way, and it wasn¡¯t long before the trees gave way to small patches of farmland, unidentified crops growing profusely. As promised, the walls of the town were easily located and the path the party was traversing wend its way between the growing plots heading towards some gates that could be seen in the wall. The wall itself wasn¡¯t that tall, standing only about twelve feet in height and constructed of tree trunks.


    As they approached, the crowd of people waiting to enter the gates became noticeable, and it was obvious that it would be at least ten minutes before they would have their chance to enter. Alarand turned to Emerion. ¡°Emerion, go to the guards at the gate and inform them we have brought a stranger that the headsman needs to see urgently. All the guards in Oakengate knows who we are, so let them know I think this shouldn¡¯t be delayed.¡± Emerion just nodded and sped off down the line.


    The line slowly diminished in length, and it wasn¡¯t long before Alarand stood before the gates guard, Tam and Daeron behind him. Tam was a little surprised the guard was human, and not elven. For some reason he had assumed that the town would be an elven one, maybe because the brothers had spoken fondly of this place.


    The guard, though, was poorly equipped with armor and weaponry, wearing a rather dirty and cracked leather set and carrying what looked like a dull pointed spear. Sniffing, he swiped a wrist across his nose, the leather coming away darker where the moisture from his nostrils had soaked into the surface. ¡°Ah, the hunters return.¡± He spoke in a nasally high pitched voice. ¡°The captain has taken your brother to the townhall, he said to meet him there.¡± And stepped aside to let them through.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Alarand nodded at the guard, and wordlessly entered the town, Daeron close behind him. As Tam, stepped forward to follow them the guard thrust out a fist, connecting with the side of his head, knocking him backwards and reducing his heath by ten points. .¡°Where do you think you are going, scum.¡± the guards growled belligerently, his jaw thrust forward in challenge. ¡°Get back in the line and wait your turn, before I teach you to show some respect for the laws.¡± The guard looked Tam up and down, sneering at his disreputable appearance., then spat at Tams feet. ¡°Stinking derelict.¡±


    Tam was shocked by this treatment, he had never encountered this type of behavior before from a game generated character, especially one of so little importance within the game. Didn¡¯t his position as a player earn him some respect at all ? He also knew the helplessness of his current position. ¡°But, im with Alarand¡­¡± Tam started to say before the back of the guards hand stopped him as it struck him across his cheek.


    ¡°Shut your puking hole.¡± The guard roared in Tams face and raised his hand to strike again, but it was halted from falling as a hand suddenly gripped the guards wrist from behind. Tam raised one hand to rub at his now stinging face, and saw Alarand behind the guard, his face suffused with anger.


    ¡°What the hell do you think you are doing, Sham.¡± Alarand demanded in a stern voice.


    The guard pulled his hand out of Alarands grip, and gave the elf an annoyed glance. ¡°This vagabond tried to sneak in behind you. You know the rule, all new visitors to town must pay a gold coin entrance fee, and this one, ¡® he indicated Tam with a jerk of his chin, ¡°was trying to avoid it by pretending to be with you.¡± He spat again at Tam. ¡°The dirty begger deserved the beating I was going to give him before you stopped me. Look at him, dressed in filthy rags, and I bet not a coin in his pocket. We don¡¯t need this type of rabble in our town. ¡° obvious disgust and distain growing in his speech as it progressed.


    The elf gave the guard a hard look. ¡°He is with me, Sham, and as a companion of mine, he deserves to be shown the same respect you show me.¡±


    ¡°You damn well show him respect, if you want, elf, I am under no obligation to show him anything but the back of my hand.¡±


    Alarands reply to this was interrupted by the arrival of the captain of the gates, who was returning after escorting Emerion to the townhall. The captain looked from Alarand the guard, Sham, and seeing the tension between the two spoke. ¡°What¡¯s going on here, then. Who wants to tell me why both of you are puffed up like roosters about to have at each other ?¡± Still looking between the two antagonists, he reached forwards and pushed them firmly apart.


    Sham quickly spoke first. ¡°I was doing my job, and refusing entrance to the tramp near the gates, when Alarand interfered, stopping me from performing my legally required duties. If he had stayed out of my way, the tramp would have got what he deserved and none of this,¡± he indicated the standoff between him and the elf, ¡±would have happened. His tone had lost its bluster and now was only whiny.


    The captain held up one hand, showing that he had heard enough from Sham, and quirked one eye at Alarand, as if indicating it was his turn to explain.


    ¡°The tramp, as Sham calls him, is the stranger we are bringing to the headsman. He is with us and Sham denied him entrance, even after I stated he was with my party. He even struck Tam on two occasions, which I do not think this situation required or warranted.¡± All the while speaking, Alarand just stood there, arms crossed glaring at the guard. ¡°I am considering the offence that has been given to me, and may seek satisfaction.¡± He rubbed the sword at his waist, illustratively.


    The captain pursed his lips in thought, then turned to the guard. ¡°Sham, you are an idiot. You are only on gate guard because you have stuffed up every other position you have served in, no one wants to serve with you, and now you are starting problems with people trying to enter the village. When your replacement shows up, you can consider yourself transferred to the armory. From now on, until I feel you have learnt something, your duties will only consist of you cleaning all the armor and weapons until I am satisfied they gleam.¡± He looked at Sham until the smaller man just nodded in understanding and acceptance, then turned to Alarand. ¡°I apologize, Alarand, for the actions of my guards. I hope you forgive the insult that you have received, and if you wish to speak further on it, meet me in the Golden Goblet after nightfall. Now, please feel free to take the stranger to the headsman.¡±


    Alarand nodded at the Captain, gave the guard, Sham, one last glare for good measure, then gathered up Tam and they all entered the village.

 Chapter Twelve

    Chapter Twelve


    As Tam passed through the gates a system message icon flashed to gain his attention. As nothing of import was occurring, he decided to open it .


    You are entering the Village of Oakengate


    Oakengate is a small independent, mixed race, village on the edge of the Eastern Wilds.


    Current population of the village - 412 Citizens, 1 Resident, 0 citizens.


    Do you wish to purchase a basic map of the town and the land under its control ?


    Why, yes I would. thought Tam at the message, hoping his meagre collection of one gold cred and one silver cred would somehow cover the cost.


    We are sorry that we can not complete this transaction, you do not have your Map Making feature activated. Would you like us to activate this feature for you? Activation costs 50 Gold.


    Tam waved the request away, he knew he couldn¡¯t afford this, yet, and wasn¡¯t going to waste any more time on it until he had the funds. With that out of the way, he now concentrated his attention on the village he had just entered.


    The best way he could describe how the village looked was¡­. quaint. Whitewashed single story stucco buildings lined a beaten dirt roadway, their roofs covered with thatch, villagers wandering about everywhere. For a village, it seemed to be quite large, consisting of about a hundred buildings in total, all neat and tidy. Tam eyed the villagers, wondering if he could pick himself up a little quest or two to earn some money. Once the headsman had seen him, he would come back and ask a few of them if they wanted any help. That would surely generate a quest.


    Alarand passed among the villagers, handing out a greeting now and then to those he must have known. Tam couldn¡¯t work out where they were headed, for it wasn¡¯t towards the center of the village, where the larger buildings were located, but along a pathway that followed the village wall. As they walked a question popped into Tams head, and he spoke of it to Alarand. ¡°Hey, are there any skillmasters in town, I don¡¯t know many skills, and I need to learn a few more if I am to survive in this place.¡±


    Alarand kept on walking but in a thoughtful manner, obviously thinking on the answer he was preparing. ¡°There are a couple of low level ones in the village, but I don¡¯t know how useful they will be to you. After the meeting I will take you to the ones I know and you can work out whether they are suitable to you..¡± He stopped in front of a blacksmiths shop, the forge outside protected by large eaves. Turning to Tam, he asked ¡°Wait here a minute while I speak to Gordor.¡± With that he entered the blacksmiths.


    Tam was left in the road with Daeron, wondering what was so important here that delayed them from seeking the headsman of the village. He looked at Daeron inquisitively, but the other just stood there , at ease, without answering the unspoken question. He received an answer of sorts when Emerion pooped his head out of the doorway, saw that they had noticed him, and waved them inside.


    The inside was dark, only lit by the light of a small wood fire burning in a fireplace against the rear wall. No windows graced the walls of this room, and the smoke was thick enough to bring tears to Tams eyes. Rubbing his stinging eyes to remove the tears, he managed to make out a few features, one of them being the hulking shape of some huge humanoid Holding a massive hammer. Tam stepped back in alarm, but a reassuring grip on one shoulder by Emerion, along with a whispered ¡°It¡¯s all right, Tam, this is Gordor.¡± From Daeron eased his fears slightly, but the seven foot frame was still a bit of a shock.


    A rumbling, deep voice spoke. It was Gordor and even though he seemed to be speaking as softly as he could, the words were still quite loud. ¡°We had better step into the back room, for I see your little rabbit here is not accustomed to the fine atmosphere found in a smithy. A giant hand reached out and opened a door behind the smith. Bright light entered the room, and the fresh air caused the smoke to swirl about . ¡°Quickly enter, we don¡¯t want all the smoke from here to fill my kitchen.¡±


    The kitchen was just that, a kitchen. A table dominated the center of the room and from the beams of the roof hung bundles of drying herbs and vegetables. Around the perimeter of the room were benches , with cooking utensils hanging from the walls behind them. A massive cooking fireplace dominated one wall, with a good bed of glowing embers slowly cooking the full carcass that hung over it by hooks though its rear legs. Just a normal kitchen, except everything was of larger than normal proportions. Tam thought if he sat at the table it would just be like a seven year old sitting at any normal table.


    The blacksmith, Gordor, entered, and Tam realized his first impression of his height was wrong, for the man was closer to eight foot in height, and at least four foot across the shoulders, muscles rippled everywhere, and Tam was sure there was not an ounce of fat on him. He looked like a dwarf, but in giant proportions. His hair and long beard was black, not only in color, but also from the soot that coated the hairs. Tam couldn¡¯t see any hairs on the bare arms, but he knew if there had been any, they would have been burnt off a long time ago. Dark piercing eyes stared at him from beneath overhanging bushy eyebrows, examining him just like they would for any flaw in the metals he worked with. The eyes flicked to Alarand.


    Alarand turned his gaze upon Tam. ¡°Tam, this is Gordor. Don¡¯t be put off by his appearance, but he is the headsman of this village.¡±A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Tam, whose eyes had not left the imposing figure of Gordor spoke without considering his words. ¡°He looks just like a dwarf, a bloody big dwarf.¡± Then suddenly realized how inappropriate this remark was and turned his eyes down to the ground. ¡°Ahhh, sorry.¡± he muttered.


    Instead of feeling any insult, the large man must have been amused, for a booming laughter suddenly filled the room, the abruptness of this response surprising Tam, who looked up to see Gordor leaning over, slapping one meaty hand on his thigh. Tam winced, considering himself lucky, for if that blow had been aimed at him he would surely have been sent to respawn.


    Gordor stood upright, wiping away a tear from one eye, still chuckling a little. ¡°It¡¯s amazing that such truth can come from ignorance.¡± His gaze returned to Tam. ¡°Yes, small one, I am like a dwarf, a giant dwarf. That is because I am a giant, and the dwarves are our smaller cousins, so why should we not resemble each other ?¡± Then he waved one hand, the breeze from it quite impressive. ¡°No, don¡¯t bother answering, for I can see you were not aware of this relationship. They used to be as big as the rest of us, but when they went burrowing around like rabbits many generations ago, they slowly grew to be of lesser stature. It¡¯s a pity that their temper only grew to replace this loss in height.¡± He shook his head sadly, but perked up just as quick. ¡°Now what was it you wanted with me and this stranger.¡±


    Alarand looked at Tam. ¡°We found Tam out by Melchants Tower. We killed some Grolls that were lurking in the region and found him after, hiding inside the tower. He claims to be of the Eldar race¡­.¡± Here Alarand paused, expectantly eyeing the giant, but seeing no reaction continued,¡± so we thought it best to bring him here for your examination.¡±


    Gordor, just stood there, considering the words of the elf carefully. ¡°Yes¡­. I thought he had the looks of an Eldar. Haven¡¯t seen one of that race for many a generation. I thought they had all perished in the great war.¡± He once again perused Tam thoughtfully. ¡°Seems they may be making a comeback.¡± He pulled a large crystal out of a pocket and held it before his eyes, and blew across it. The crystal turned bright blue. Looking a Tam he asked ¡°Which god do you follow, Tam?¡±


    Tam was startled by the question, it wasn¡¯t one he was expecting at all. ¡°What do you mean ? Here in Haven or where I originally came from ? ¡°


    ¡°The giant looked annoyed, and repeated the actions with the crystal again. ¡°Which god of Haven do you follow. Speak truthfully.¡±


    ¡°Hanortan. I follow Hanortan. I am his first disciple. Is that what you want to know ?¡±


    The crystal in the giants hand brightened at these words, until the brightness made it look white. Gordor placed his other hand over the crystal, hiding its glow from sight. ¡°Ahhh. One of the new gods, that¡¯s good. The crystal shows the truth of your words, shows there is no taint from the old gods in your aura.¡±


    ¡°What old gods ?¡± Tam asked, as he was unaware there was any old gods in the game. He looked from Gordor to the elves, seeking an answer to this, but they all stayed quiet, reluctant to talk about this subject. It was obvious they had just tested him for something, but now they didn¡¯t want to talk about it at all.


    Gordor clapped on hand on Tams shoulder, making him buckle at the knees with the power of it. ¡°Some things are best left unknown, friend Tam. To speak of terrible things is to risk bringing them back. This is a subject you should not pursue, lso et us speak of better things. I hear you are seeking skills ?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I need to find skillmasters.¡± Tam replied


    ¡°Well, you are in luck, for I am a skillmaster myself, and can teach you the skill of shortswords if you wish. The cost is quite reasonable at five gold.¡±


    Tams initial excitement plummeted at hearing the cost. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but I have no money. Can I come back when I have earned the money ?¡±


    Gordor just laughed. ¡°You can come back anytime you wish, but is there anything else you have on you that maybe I can take in place of coin ?¡±


    Tam emptied out his inventory onto the tabletop. It wasn¡¯t much at all and Gordor fingered though it listlessly until it came across the old key he had. ¡°Whats this ?¡± The giant asked, curiously.


    Tam looked at it. ¡°Oh, that a key I found at the tower. It¡¯s called Melchants Brass Chest Key, so I suppose it would have opened something at the tower, but I didn¡¯t find any chest there. The fire probably destroyed it.¡± His gaze moved to the giant, and was amazed to see a glint of interest in one of the eyes. This key meant something to Gordor. ¡°Why ? Are you interested in it ?¡±


    You have just gained the Barter Ability


    The higher your level in this ability the greater your chance to gain the advantage over anyone you are bartering with. You gain 0.1% chance to bartering per level gained in this ability.


    Experience in Barter is gained by use of this ability in trade negotiation


    Momentarily distracted by this announcement, Tam missed Gordors reply. ¡°Pardon ? Could you please repeat that ?¡±


    ¡°I said, yes I am interested in the key. It opens a chest that holds an item that was stolen from me..¡±


    Tam was interested now, this could be a quest of some sort. ¡°Where¡¯s the chest¡±


    ¡°At the bottom of a barrow outside town. It¡¯s the barrow of Melchant himself.¡± Alarand interjected. He looked at Godor. ¡°You can¡¯t be serious. You know the rumors about that place. I know of at least four people who have gone into that place, and never returned. Even the wild dogs take a wide detour around it.¡±


    This didn¡¯t put Tam off. ¡°So you want me to go with you on a quest to the barrow and retrieve the chest. ?¡± He got goosebumps just thinking about it, but come one, he thought to himself, another quest, finally.


    The giant looked at him, puzzled. ¡°What the fuck are you going on about. There is no bloody quest, whatever that it, I¡¯m taking the key and going down there myself. You, you are going to stay here and wait. If there is anything in the chest of value, I¡¯ll bring it back for you, but you are definitely not going with me.¡± He stuck out one hand, waiting for the key.


    Tam put the key away in a pocket. ¡°No way. If the key needs to go, I¡¯m going with it.¡±


    The giant just grunted and scratched his chin. ¡°¡±Ok, if the only way I¡¯m getting that key is if you¡¯re attached to it, then come if you want. If you get killed, then I will just remove it from your corpse. Don¡¯t get in my way, and stay behind me, I won¡¯t have time to worry about you.¡± He looked at the elves. ¡°You three want to come as well ? You can babysit the keycorpse so I don¡¯t have to waste my time with him.¡±


    The elven trio looked at each other, then back at Gordor. ¡°Count us in.¡± they chimed. Tam, meanwhile, just stood there, totally ignored and considered as insignificant. What the hell happened to quests ?

 Chapter Thirteen - edited

    Chapter Thirteen


    The elves gathered around Gordor, planning their expedition upon the barrow of Melchant. Tam, who at this point had not been included in any of the planning or decision making, was feeling a little disappointed with the treatment he was receiving. ¡°Damn them,¡° he muttered to himself, deciding that he wasn¡¯t going to put up with this crap. If they wanted to assault the barrow, then let them, he was going to have a look around the village instead, to see if he could cash in his Groll ears, and to clean out the rubbish that had accumulated in his inventory. Quietly, he made his way out through the smoke filled foundry and back on to the street.


    Standing on the road outside, he glanced each way, realizing that without a guide he had no way of knowing where he was going. Seeing a villager passing by, he hailed him and asked for directions to the center of the village, thinking that any important buildings would definitely be located there. The villager gave him a look like the question confused him, but finally pointed towards a smaller road off the one he was currently on, about twenty foot away . ¡°If you follow that road, it will take you to the village green, that¡¯s in the center of the village.¡± The villager didn¡¯t hang around to see if Tam understood him, but continued on to whatever it was he was doing before Tam interrupted him.


    Before he followed the indicated path, Tam turned and took a last look at the blacksmiths. His absence obviously had not yet been noticed, for no-one had come out to see where he had disappeared to. This only convinced Tam that his importance to that group must be extremely low indeed if they didn¡¯t care at all. He patted the pocket where the key lay and muttered to himself. ¡°Their loss, if they don¡¯t want me, I¡¯m not hanging around.¡± then turning his back on the smiths, he strode off down the road.


    It took Tam only about five minutes to reach the village green, a square of grass located in the center of the village, surrounded by the village shops. The two story village hall stood proud, occupying one whole side of the green, the side opposite from the direction which Tam had arrived. Seeing other villagers casually walking back and forth across the green, he took the quickest route to the hall by simply following their example, he walked across the grassed area. He reached the stairs that led up to the halls doorway, and with only a slight hesitation, strode up and through the doorway.


    The entry room in the hall was quite small, furnished mainly with only a simple wooden office table, at which sat a greenish wizened creature that Tam could only describe as being sort of gnomish. It had large pointy ears , which perked up at the sound of his entrance, followed more slowly by the lifting of its head from a large tome it was perusing. It removed an ornate pair of bone and glass spectacles that was perched on its rather bulbous nose. Squinting at him from small, rheumy eyes, the creature spoke to Tam in a querulous tone. ¡°Yes, can I help you ?¡± Its eyes blinked rapidly, as if the light hurt them.


    ¡°Is this where I can hand in my Groll ears for a reward ? ¡° Tam replied, not at all put off by the manner, or appearance, of the creature before him. He pulled out the pair of furry ears that he had been carrying about to illustrate the point. The gnome, if that is what it was, sighed and lifted a bucket from beneath the table it sat at, and held it out. Looking into it, Tam could see a number of other Groll ears within, so he added his two into it as well. Five copper coins slid across the table towards him, clinking and chiming cheerfully as they struck each other.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± Tam offered to the gnome as he pocketed the copper coins, the first coins he had earned in the week or so that he had been locked into this world. This made him think of everything that had happened to him since his real self had logged into the game, and realized that he still didn¡¯t know what he looked like, for he had yet to have an opportunity to see his reflection. First opportunity he got, he promised he would take the time to have a look. I wonder what my real self is doing right now, he mused. Whatever it is, it must be more interesting than my experiences to date.


    While he pondering upon his new life, he had slowly made his way out of the hall and now stood at the base of the stairs that he had just descended, absent mindedly rubbing the copper coins together in his pocket, a sight that any observer might have taken incorrectly. Thinking further upon this new life, he realized he was more than a little disappointed with it so far, for he had yet to participate in anything really worthwhile, and his progression so far was pitiful. I hope the real players are getting a better deal than I am, the thought, or they will be leaving the game in droves. I have virtually no money, no equipment and I can not see how I can improve on this anytime soon. If I had the chance I would have packed this in days ago. One week and I have not seen hide nor hair of another player, not even a mention, and there must be at least fifty million players online by this time.


    A shout broke into his reverie, his name was being called out, he looked around to see if he could locate where it had come from, and who it was that had called out to him. Spotting Emerion across the green, waving to catch his attention, Tam waved back, then waited for Emerion to make his way over to him. He wasn¡¯t long in arriving, and the elf, a happy grin on his face, clapped him on one shoulder. ¡°Tam, why the heck did you leave ? We were all worried about you.¡±


    Tam just laughed sarcastically. ¡°Yeah, right. You were all worried about me, what bullshit. All you lot were worried about is me leaving and taking away the thing you are all really interested in¡­ the key. That greedy giant spoke the truth when he said all he wanted the key and I could go and take a hike. You all talk about me being an Eldar, and act as if this is something not to be trusted.¡±


    The elf looked quite upset at this, as if the words had hurt him. ¡°That¡¯s not true, Tam, not true at all. Gordor may havespoke a little hastily, but you have just got to understand him, and why he has a great interest in that chest. Come back with me to the smithy and we will explain it fully to you. If you still don¡¯t trust us after that, then no one will not stop you from leaving.¡± Emerion looked pleadingly at him. ¡°Please, Tam, come back with me.¡±


    Tam took the time to think upon this, and coming to the realization that he didn¡¯t have anything else he could do, he made the only decision that realistically could have made. ¡±Ok, I will come back with you, Emerion, but if this is just some ploy to get the key away from me, I will leave and this time I will not return.¡±


    Emerion brightened up at this. ¡°That¡¯s fantastic, after we have explained everything, you will see you have no reason to want to leave. Come, the others will be waiting for our return.¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    The smithy was just as it had been earlier, so the two of them passed through the smoke filled room and into the kitchen. On entering Tam found the rest of them were seated around the table, the giant, Gordor, occupying the chair at the head of the table, looking rather annoyed. Tam gave him a look of distrust before climbing onto one of the free chairs, his head just managing to rise above the level of the tabletop after he was seated.


    Tam turned his gaze upon each of them in turn. ¡°I¡¯m here, so now explain.¡±


    Gordor coughed a couple of times, clearing his throat, before speaking. ¡°I didn¡¯t reveal the full truth to you, Eldar, when you surprised me with the existence of that key, along with the revelation of your race. For that I do apologize, but your race is one that has caused mine, and many others, much trouble in the past. Your appearance right now, after the belief that the Eldar race had been totally wiped out from this world, concerned me greatly. The Eldars followed the old gods willingly, they being terrible dieties who almost destroyed Haven with their beliefs. Everyone rejoiced when they were defeated in the great war, along with their willing subjects, the Eldars, and both wiped out. Your race alone makes you untrustworthy, irrelevant of which gods you now follow, for the fear is still there that you could summon back those old gods to this world.¡± He looked meaningfully at Tam.


    ¡°I know nothing of any old gods, Gordor, nor do I have any intention of seeing if they can be brought back to Haven. In fact, as far as I know, I may be the only person of this race that exists today. Trust me, or not, I can not change your choice, but do not attribute to me any of the problems of the past. ¡±


    Gordor nodded. ¡°At this point, I must take you on your word, but be aware that many in this world will kill you on sight, if they know what you are. No one is prepared to take the chance on whether you may be deceiving them, for the old gods required blood sacrifice and mass torture from their followers, and the Eldar were the greatest of all the races at following these requirements. They will fear that the age of the old ones will return if you are allowed to continue in your existence. I can see from your appearance that you must be of full blood, and not some hybrid, so hide well your race from others, for they will not be as forgiving as we have been. I still hold reservations about allowing you to leave here alive.¡±


    Tam was startled by this statement, the giant talked as if he had personal knowledge of the Eldars. ¡°If the Eldars have been gone for centuries, how do you know what an Eldar looks like ? I don¡¯t even know what I look like, yet ?¡±


    Gordor smiled, a rather unsettling look on such a large face. ¡°I am much older than I look. We giants are a long lived race and I was there, as a child, when the old gods ruled this world four hundred years ago.¡± He turned pensive at the memories, not pleased at recalling the horrors he had hidden away inside his mind. ¡°I will not allow such to return to the world, if it is within my power to stop.¡± He got up and opened a cupboard that was on the wall behind his chair, then withdrew a large mirror from its depths. ¡°If you wish to see what a full blooded Eldar looked like, take a peek in this mirror¡± He placed it on the table in front of Tam. ¡°My memories may be old, but I will never forget the features of a race that almost destroyed the world.¡±


    Tam leaned the mirror so he could get a better look at himself. The reflection showed a human looking individual, with a suntanned tone to its skin, the hair was unusual, being shoulder length but bluish grey in color. The one striking feature that made Tam lean back in surprise was the eyes. They were of a greenish yellow hue in color, with the pupil being cat like in appearance, split from top to bottom rather than round pupil that humans, and most other creatures had. Other than the eyes and hair, he could pass for a normal human. He knew he wasn¡¯t of feline descent, for he would have noticed if he had claws by now. He actually liked the look of his new face. He placed the mirror down on the table top.


    ¡°So,¡± Alarand commented, ¡°now you have seen yourself, the face of a dreaded Eldar, what do you think.¡±


    Tam rubbed his face with one hand. ¡®It¡¯s a bit of a surprise, but not as bad as I thought it would be, except for these eyes. You would think with eyes like this I would be able to see in the dark.¡¯ He blinked his eyes a few times, but his sight remained the same.


    ¡®Yes, the Eldar were rumored to have been able to see in the dark, sure, and also to be able to see far distances as well, but other than that I have no idea if it either are true or not.¡± said Gordor. ¡°But let¡¯s now turn to why I want that key, and why I don¡¯t want you along with me in the barrow. First, I don¡¯t want your company, mainly because you¡¯re just useless. You are dressed like a tramp, you have no weapons or armor, and on first impression, are also relatively weak and untrained. Why would anyone want someone like that to help them in a fight with powerful creatures ?¡± He indicated Tam with one hand, palm upright.


    ¡°We do agree with you, Gordor, but it is his key after all, and how else will he manage to get any better if he just stays back and watches ? If he participates he will gain some experience, and also might manage to pick up better equipment from within the barrow as we travel. Give him a chance, for we will be along to help protect him.¡± Daeron earnestly explained.


    ¡°Fine, bring him along, if you wish, he will be your responsibility, not mine.¡± The giant looked slightly displeased at this, but continued on. ¡°My interest in this whole thing is simple. I am the sole survivor of the leadership line of my clan. Many years ago the one you know as Melchant, conquered this region, killing off the ruling family and razing their castle to the ground. His plan was to take control of everything, to rule with an iron fist. The inhabitants of this region, my clan among them, rose up and fought against him in a war that lasted for ten years.


    During the last battle, members from Melchants army managed to steal into my clans village late one night, killing off all of my family, except me, and absconding with the clan ownership rock. They returned this to Melchant, who stored it in his magic chest, with the intention of having himself named as the new clan leader. Luck was with us on that day, for he was slain before he could perform the spell that would change ownership of the rock to himself.¡± Gordors face was expressionless as he remembered these times long past.


    ¡°Melchants death brought a time of chaos to this region, for the people were left leaderless and without direction, different groups acted as they wished, with one group raising a great barrow over the corpse of Melchant, burying him and all his possessions within. As this was done without my knowledge, I did not manage to regain the clan ownership rock before it was complete, and there it sits, still within the magic chest, of which you now possess the key to.¡± He looked at Tam. ¡°Without that rock, my clan has fallen on hard times and we roam the hills and mountains as lost individuals instead of a clan, waiting for the time the stone is regained and the clan can be made whole again. I need that key, Tam, to gain the stone, and join my clan back together. I do not care what else is within that chest, I only seek the stone.¡±


    Tams mind had fixated on the mention of a castle, and had missed most of the rest, for he wondered if there was any way he could find out the location of the ruins. He wouldn¡¯t ask that right now, for he didn¡¯t think that this was the appropriate time, but later, when the giant owed him a favor after the stone was retrieved, he would call in that favor and request that knowledge.


    ¡°Fine, I will support your attempt on the barrow, as long as the elves come with us. I will do my best to help you regain ownership of your clan again, but before we go, can I have something to eat, for I am famished.¡±

 Temporary Hiatus for evaluation of currently completed material

    will be temporarily be in hiatus, to allow me to re-evaluate and edit the current material, Including a possible name change to theoretical book


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    My aim is to somehow add a little more action into what has obviously just become 13 chapters of someones boring life. Hopefully this change should not drastically alter what has already been written


    ... not too much action, as I was about to do the Barrow Battle chapter with the black boned skeleton.....(Now delayed until re-editing complete)


    Hmmmmmmmm. ...