The next morning, I woke up with the usual sound of my alarm drilling into my skull. I had breakfast, and then a quick shower before I headed out. Today was the day and I didn't want to be late.
Arriving at my private capsule room, I got changed into the form-fitting suspension suit and got into the capsule. Once it booted up and I was fully immersed, I opened up the virtual shop and scanned for programmes. After moving through several questionable programmes, I finally found it. 'Realms' sitting right next to 'Big Booty Babes'.
Awkwardly coughing, I quickly bought 'Realm' for a cool 100 maq and waited for it to download and boot it up.
The familiar grassy meadow faded away and was replaced with a vast landscape filled with mountains and valleys. With an endless blue sky. A welcome message appeared along with an orchestral swirl.
To be honest, it was a little too much. But some people go crazy over things like these.
[Welcome player to the world of Realm. Explore the lands and become who you are meant to be!]
I clicked the massive start button and came to character creation, ignoring the strange welcome message that was strangely on the nose for someone who knew what was coming. But then again, then again, I guessed whoever made this game got a kick out of doing something like that.
In 'Realms' existed all manner of fantasy races and creatures. However, you could only create a human character, which caused many to complain about it online. Of course, nobody knew the developers, so those people just shouted into the void of the internet.
But I was someone who could be called boring, as I always played as a human in fantasy games, so I didn't care much.
Anyway, I created my character to look pretty much like the real me, from what I can remember, that is. I was someone who you would call an immersive gamer, I created characters who looked like me, as I enjoyed the idea of living inside the world of the game. And with this game in particular, it felt like you could.
And seeing as 'Realms' didn't give you any bonus attribute points to distribute, or any classes to select. You were encouraged to live how you wanted to be.
In fact, 'Realms' didn't have anything like classes at all, instead, you simply learn and practise skills and distribute attribute points as you like. However, there is something called paths, which gives the person a focus for their character. People often called them careers, or jobs, as it was the easiest thing for them to think of them as. But that didn't mean you had to follow the norm, of course, it would be better if you did, but you were often rewarded for taking the initiative.
Still, many people made the mistake of wasting their attribute points and going against their path, only to regret it later. Like adding strength when they were a magic user, or vice versa.
Not to mention that you can only have one character, so if you screwed up, then, bye-bye, see you later, did you have fun?
Once the game finished creating my character, I was enveloped in bright light once again. Then, a nice cool breeze met my skin, and the smell of grass tickled my nose. I was lying on my back in some meadow, looking up at the clear blue sky.
I was in the familiar starting location, the village of Bracken, also known as the village of beginners.
There wasn't much in the way of danger here, but you got to learn the basics of hunting from the local poacher, weapon skills from a retired soldier and magic from the local seer. Not to mention some basic crafting professions. But I didn't need any of that, I had other plans.
[Name: Cain]
Level: 1
Path: None
Health: 100
Mana: 50
Strength: 5
Strength governs the amount of power your muscles can handle. As well as how resilient your body is to damage.
Vitality: 5
Vitality governs how strong your health is and how fast you recover health. Poison resistance and recovery. And how much stamina you have and can exert.
Agility: 5
Agility governs the body's flexibility, reflexes, nimble fingers and how quietly you can move.
Intellect: 5
Intellect governs understanding of items, magic, and the world in general. Increases magic power and defence.
Mind: 5
Mind governs how to spot holes in falsities and resistance against mind altering abilities. Increases total mana and mana recovery rate.
Looking at the starting stats I felt a little weak, but I also felt a little excited. Last time around, I was one of those who messed my stats up, though not as bad as some. But I couldn't really call myself a first-rate fighter, when I had a decently high Intellect stat.
So, this time, the only thing I decided to keep was the same nickname. It was the same one I always use in games and after the incident in the real world, I actually keep it as my name. After all, the world became a very dangerous place where people became close to wild animals.
[None]
Well, that was to be expected. I have never heard of anyone starting the game with a skill before. This game was fair in that everyone started off equally weak.
[Old worn dagger]
An old dagger that has a chipped blade. Rust has started to appear at the hilt.
[Waterskin]
A watertight leather pouch filled with water.
[Travel rations x4]
A portion of dried tack. Each serving is enough to fill the stomach.
[Coin pouch]
A small leather pouch, containing 50 copper pieces.
'Just a basic dagger, huh' I clicked the icon of the dagger, and it materialised in my hand.
The dagger was just like its name, a dull iron colour that didn't look like it could cut anything. The chips in the blade didn't fill me with confidence about its durability. Still, it was better to have something than nothing at all.
The other items in my inventory were just as they sounded.
In this game, you have to eat, drink and sleep. If you didn't, you would get negative status effects and could even die. And death in this game was really bad. Simply put, every time you die, you gain a permanent wound. Anything from a badly healed scar to loss of a limb. Once you get enough of them, your character will be crippled, or even permanently dead.
And seeing as you were only allowed one character per person, a dead character meant you couldn't play anymore. Of course, there were revival spells and items. But unlike most of games or media, they were incredibly rare. Or incredibly expensive and required a sacrifice of something in return.
But for now, I planned to monopolise as much as I can before anyone else could. And seeing as no other players have seemed to have spawned in yet, I had a head start of a few hours, If I remember correctly, so I have enough time to at least start to make some headway.