I would look through the tree cover and towards the mountain tops as the sun slowly started to make its way into the sky. It had just hit morning, around 5-5:30ish and I had not slept a wink, yet I felt no fatigue. My body felt as good as it had from the moment I had awoken. Running my hand through my hair, I would put my backpack down onto the forest floor, leaning down onto one knee, I would open the cover to my bag and look inside. As I was doing so, a weird grid like screen would pop up. Falling onto my ass, I would look at the screen. Touching one of the empty squares in the fifty slots my hand would pass through nearly causing me to fall face first into the tree I was sat under. Regaining my balance, I would notice the spear was sat in the first of the fifty slots. Placing my hand on the slot where the spear was, it would be taken out of the square and would be placed into my grasps. Surprised by how such a large weapon had been in such a small square, I put it back and experimented with the stone I had gathered. Grabbing onto it, I would pull out the whole stack of 200+ stone. In a perfect 1 foot by foot square shape, only one stone square appeared in my hand tossing one down, its perfect square shape in my hand would become roughed up and the stones were visible in this odd connected square of rocks.
Soon after I had placed down a single stone, within my hands another stone appeared and a message above my head read, "Stone Block (204)." It seemed that by placing it down, the stack decreased by one value. This seemed interesting. Putting the stone back into the slot it was before, I decided to switch what was in my main slot. Currently the 7th slot on the top row was a different color, a yellow color if you will. I wanted to see what made that slot have a different color, so I moved my axe from slot 3 to the yellow slot seven and lo and behold, the axe appeared in my hands similar to how the stone and the spear had except this time the axe stayed in the slot. With this knowledge, I guessed that the yellow colored slot meant what would be in my hands if I closed the bag, and to check, I did just that and vuala, the axe stayed in my hand.
I ran a few more tests with my bag seeing what I could and couldn't do like; taking an item out of my inventory and then closing it. When I did this, the item would return to the bag and be in one of the top slot. Switching which slot was the yellow one, I had yet to figure out a way to make one of the 50 slots excluding the first 10 the yellow slot, so I concluded that I couldn't, but I did find that by putting either of my hands over their respective shoulder I could switch between moving the yellow slot right and moving it left which could come in handy later. I also found that by leaving the flap open and having the bag on my back I could walk around with the screen up and it was not too obtrusive to my vision, like if I wasn't looking at it directly it would fade which was nice. In the end though, I opted to keep it closed and let work its magic behind the scenes. With my testing completed, I decided now was as good a time as any to inspect the items that had been in my bag before I had a good chance to look at them. One of the items was a brown satchel labeled "Starter Bag" and another called "family heirloom." The heirloom seemed to be a necklace which when I placed around my neck, it seemed like nothing had changed. Taking the "starter bag" out of my inventory, I would open it up and find that it looked like it worked in the same way I had originally thought the backpack worked. Inside I saw many different items all of various sizes. Taking out all of them and putting them in my bag, I would see two staffs, a broadsword, a bow and many different bottles with strange liquids in them. Deciding against drinking the liquids, I would put the bow in my second slot, the staff with the purple gem in my third and leave the staff with the acorn on it, the broadsword and my old short sword inside the inventory slots beneath the first ten.
With my starter bag opened and empty, and my new necklace around my neck, it was time to do some recourse gathering and exploring. Switching to my axe which was in inventory slot 9 I walked up to the tree I had just sat beneath and begun to smack away. Chipping at the wood it took around 10-15 swings into the tree's base before it fell onto the ground. Right as the tree top hit the ground though, the tree trunk that was falling to the ground soon changed form. It went from its barked and unrefined form to a planked and sleek state. As I made my way to these pieces, I would pick them up one by one. They were in the same shape as the stone blocks in my bag and were even the same weight, weightless. Tossing them over my shoulder and into the bag, I would make my way to the next set of tree continuing to smack them down with my copper axe.
After what felt an hour, I stopped. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I would look around me. With the chopping I had done, I had left around 6 or seven tree stumps in my wake, in my inventory I had around 300 wood blocks and I had accumulated what felt like my first bit of fatigue since I had woken. Placing my butt down on one of the tree stumps, I would place my hands behind my and look up into the light blue sky, the sun still making its way to the top of the sky. Letting out a tired yet fulfilling sigh, I would place myself back into a comfortable position. Something I had noticed earlier while looking through the bag was a folded item of parchment, with some new time on my hands, I decided I would finally open it up and see what it was. Placing my backpack in front of me, I would take this piece of paper out of it's holding spot within the bag and begin to look over it. On the map, there was a green indicator in what appeared to be the meadow I had just created. Standing up and leaving my bag where it was I walked around the meadow, the indicator following my every move. This confirmed my belief on what the marker was and soon on the left side of the map, a key appeared with the marker to the left and the name, "Eurs" right beside it. I let out a soft chuckle as it seemed this paper had a magic property attached to it. As for the world around the marker, it seemed rather bare. The map was in a tan color scheme with the forest being a deep tan, nearing a brown, and the ground area of the meadow being the same tan color as the parchment itself. All the was shown on the map was the meadow, a fair bit of the surrounding forest, not even the mountain of which the cave I had explored the night prior was there. This led me to believe that if I wanted to add more to this thing, I would need to explore around for myself. Letting a smile slip onto my face, I thought to myself, 'Seems the world is following my own personal agenda.' I had already planned to explore and this place had given me an even greater reason to explore, so I packed the map up and began to walk straight forward either deeper into the forest, or towards the exit.
I had no way of telling which way was north, or which way was south seeing as the map couldn't tell me and the fact that I had no idea where I was, so I just walked in the direction of which I thought was the right way. Walking through the pathless forest, I would come across low hanging fruits and wild berries along the way. Picking some which looked appetizing and leaving the ones that seemed either rotten or poisonous, I would stuff the starter bag that I had kept full with the berries and left the fruits to fend for themselves in the bag, though I knew they would be safe in one of the bag slots. Chomping down on berries from the bag and filling in the vacant space, I would continue to walk through the roofed cage of the forest, the air that blew through the forest seemed to be coming head on and it was a cool breeze, though I wasn't sure what any of this had to do with pinpointing my location. Soon though after noticing this breeze, in front of me the blinding light of what seemed like open space shone into the forest. Picking up my pace, I would step over tree roots and duck beneath tree branches, hastening my escape. Coming up to the edge of the forest, I would shade my eyes and I came upon a large plains with rolling hills. Walking towards further into the plains, I would turn around to look at the way which I had come from. The forest was surrounded by large mountain scapes, and it seemed as though the spot which I had woken up in was a valley between the ends of two mountains. That is why there was such a cool breeze blowing through.
Spinning around, I would notice a path far off to my right. It was a dirt road which led from the mountains into the plains. Walking through towards the road, I only hear the sound of my labored breathing, the birds, and the tree rustling in the blowing winds. There seemed to not be a soul around besides my own, which should have saddened me a bit, but I rather oddly liked this. It was calming and had a nice feel to it. Once on the roadway, I would begin to walk further into the plains, this time with an end goal in mind. As I walked down the beaten down highway, I would look to my left and to my right to see if there was a town or anything of the like along the way, thus far there was no civilization, but there were more mountain peaks that appeared more towards the right of myself. Deciding to stay on the path I continued my travels. As I walked, I whistled to myself a soft tune that of which I had no idea where it came from. It felt like I had heard it somewhere prior, but thinking long and hard on it, I could not pinpoint where I would have heard it before.
Soon on my left and right, a field of what looked like a weed began to appear and large windmills placed beside these fields came into view, I could see people tending to these fields and areas where large patches of crops seemed to be missing. Smiling and waving towards these people, they would return the greeting though once the quick pleasantries were over, we both quickly went back to what I was doing, this seemed like a good indication that I was nearing a large group of people and quite frankly, I was happy to finally be able to meet new people. As I conuntied a huge stone wall came into view and before long, I was standing in line, waiting to get through the gateway. The person in front of me was a fair bit wider and taller than myself, so I felt a bit intimidated, but over coming this sense of inferiority, I would tap him on the should and he would turn around. Mustering up my courage and I would say,
"U-uh excuse me, could you tell me what city we are about to go into."
With a bit of a surprised look on his face, he would ask me,
"Kid where are you from."
When I had looked at my reflection on the water, I hadn't thought of myself as looking like a kid, sure I was in a state of panic when I looked at my reflection and yeah I had a young looking face, but I didnt think that I was a "kid." Answering his question honestly, I would say
"Uh the forest in the valley not too far behind us."
This yet again left him with a baffled look,
"You're from that mountain scape kid? Makes sense as to why you don't know where we are. We're about to go into the capital city called Trugend. You'll need an ID to get in, but I'm sure they'll let you register, now all ya gotta do is wait here kid."
Thinking to myself about how the fact of that mountainous area being where I had come from being a location which made it seem like I wouldn't know anything seemed too convenient, but I wouldn't dwell on the small stuff for too long. Waiting for my turn to try and get into the city seemed like it took way more of a toll on my body than walking miles had. Standing in the hot sun and moving a few feet every 2 minutes was so much more tiring than walking. As I stood, carts pulled by four legged creatures passed by me many times, some with a lot of items and some with next to none. Not once did I see any come back the way they had come which I assumed meant that they had made it in. Before long, it finally fell on the man before me's turn to enter the city, flashing a small bronze card, the men in shiny metallic armor would nod and he would walk past them. Looking at me, one of the guards would say, "Identification." Telling them I had none, the guard that had asked me to show them ID would signal for one of the guards standing in the shade to come and take me somewhere. With a kind young face, this guard that escorted me would ask me to follow him in a polite tone.
Following close behind him, he would ask me some small talk questions like, "What is your name," and "where are you from," answering truthfully, he would listen into my answers and nod while seemingly taking note on what I had said. Not too long after I was told to follow him, we ended up inside a small building just along the walls to the city. Inside there was a small teal ball fashioned to a stone pedestal. Walking towards it the guard would ask me to place my hand on the ball, doing so, it would lite up. On the side by where the guard was standing, a small wooden plate would appear and he would hand it to me. On it it had my name, Eurs, my age, 16, my sex, male, and my place of origin, Ialas. Smiling the guard would say "Welcome to Trugend." and would walk me towards a doorway at the back of the building, walking out of it, I would step into the city and see the many people walking down the main highway and walking through the streets. On this street that the doorway led to, there were street vendors, kids running around and people doing some everyday shopping. Time to do some more exploring!