"So I see you chose Scout." Drexel eyed Spencer as his beginner gear appeared on him. "Why may I ask did you chose that? With your stats I would think a front liner like a Guardian or a Warrior would have suited your stats better."
"Well in the military I was part of a unit that did tons of non-combat oriented tasks so scouting, tracking and survival seemed like a no brainer." Spencer paused as he checked out his new gear. "Also the weapon restrictions and armor restrictions on the class don't make it weaker, it makes it simpler, with Warrior I'd be beholden to learning to be good with the strongest weapon I could find. With the Guardian it seems like they spend a ton of time just getting punched in the face over and over again while others do the work. Seems tedious and boring to me. With Scout I have proficiencies in long swords, short swords, daggers, longbows and shortbows. I like the simplicity of it."
"That's fair." Drexel then opened his character sheet and pointed at the unspent points. "What do you plan to do with these?"
"I think I will hold off to find out which weapons I prefer before spending anything." Spencer shrugged.
"Smart move," Drexel scratched his smooth chin. "If I were you I would burn at least 1 skill point in each of your class skills and since you are a Scout I'd spend stat points in Agility, judgement, and perception. Those will do the most good for that character."
"Thank you I will take that into consideration once I have more of a hang of things."
"Suit yourself, By the way, did you ever choose a character name?"
"I am not sure, do I have to before playing for a bit?"
"That is required so people can recognize you in game."
"Why not use your normal name?" Spencer stated flatly as if it made all the sense in the world.
"Uh, because there are thousands of players with the same first name." Drexel could feel a migraine start to creep out from the bridge of his nose. "And its cool."
"Sure I guess." Spencer racked his brain for a couple minutes before his face lit up with joy. "Neza"
"Not available." Drexel replied immediately, "But I do like it, where did you get it?"
"Its Kinyarwandan for Okay," Spencer smiled back, "We did a peace keeping operation and built some infrastructure in a country call Rwanda. The village elder would always ask us how we were doing and he was always a really happy old man. Our reply was Neza which translates to Okay."
"That's pretty cool man," Drexel typed something in. "There I added something, what do you think?"
Spencer read the line and smiled and nodded. Drexel hit the enter button and a green check popped up verifying that it took.
"So where did you get the second part?" Spencer read the name over a couple times.
"You chose a name based on a kind persons actions so I added the word kind to your name, just in Armenian." Drexel smiled as he closed the page. "Now all that is left is to go open that door and it will act as a launch button for a load screen. You will be teleported to a starting town, although I'm not sure where your racial starting town will be. Good luck Neza Bari. I hope to see you around."
"Thanks Drexel, see you around." Spencer shook the slender hand of Drexel before heading to the door. Spencer stopped just shy of the door and turned and looked at Drexel. "Btw I will probably go by Nez going forward."
"That's smart." Drexel smiled and Spencer opened the door and disappeared.
A cutscene flashed in front of Nez's eyes explaining the world story. It showed epic scenes of war and alliances and betrayal and monsters. Most of the plot flew right over his head as his mind was focused on the feeling. His feet had hit the ground. His eyes were seeing one thing but Nez could clearly feel the ground thru the bottom of some sort of soft comfortable shoe or boot. With a flash that caused Nez to blink multiple times again, the Trahlenga Scout was standing before a massive wooden gate.
"Uhm," Nez stared at the gate and the surrounding wall. He was standing at the edge of a drawbridge over a moat filled with dark liquid that smelled like a swamp. nez stared around confused for a few moments trying to decide what to do next. "I guess it can't hurt to knock."
Nez took a step towards the gate and heard the thrum of something before it smacked into the bridges wooden deck in front of him. An arrow with grey and brown fletching stuck out of the decking. Nez look up to the tower next to the gate where a covering was tilted up and open. Two figures stood in the opening. One brandished a bow with an arrow nocked and drawn, the other brandished nothing but a cone made of paper.
"State your business creature of the wild!" The man with the cone yelled down.
"Creature of the wild?" Nez was confused.
"Its 10 gold to enter this town Creature!" the man with the cone yelled down while staring down his nose at Nez.
"Why do I have to pay?"
"Its insurance in case you break something or kill people." The accusatory tone did not go unnoticed by Nez.
"Fine give me a second."
A ringing noise accompanied by a blue phone icon appeared at the corner of Nez's vision. Nez concentrated on the icon and a screen popped up with the Name 'Alfonsi Raidsbane' emblazoned across the top.
"Alfonsi?" Nez chuckled at his cousins absurd name.
"What are you talking about, NEZA BARI!" Al retorted. "Where did you even think that up? Anyways what town did you get sent to?"
"Some shithole named Bahldren." Nez looked at the wall then back to his cousin.
"They won't let you in without paying insurance will they." Al smiled.
"How the fuck did you know?" Nez exclaimed as he looked at the gate again.
"You're a monster race. It is part of the system." Al shrugged. "Adds to the realism or at least thats what the dev team said when they added it. You should have a mission vender nearby, Just open your map and look for a copper sprocket emblem. They are the class quest givers."
"Thanks for the info cousin." Nez unceremoniously hung up on Al and popped open his map. The blue icon showed up again and Nez rolled his eyes before accepting that call.
"Was that necessary?" Al asked.
"Well I thought you were done talking."
"Of course I wasn't done talking silly." Al laughed heartily.
"Of course not, what was I thinking." Nez retorted in a monotone voice to accentuate his feelings of contempt for his cousin.
"Be careful around town. Some NPCs can take out bounties and often do take then out on monster race players. If your starting gold is low you can transfer money into or out of your account later. Remember 100 silver equals one dollar."
"Well that makes it easy." Nez clicked the inventory open and located the currency screen. It didn't just show his in game currency which was 50 silver but also it showed his bank account and savings as well as his retirement account he had in real time. 'Huh, I guess I can do full money management inside the game. That is good to know.' Nez thought to himself.
Nez quickly transferred enough cash to give himself 1000 gold coins in the game. He then stepped forward.
"I can pay for the insurance!" Nez yelled up as he crossed the bridge with his hands up. As soon as he arrived at a smaller door on the left side of the main gate a prompt popped up.
-PAY 10 GOLD FOR INSURANCE-
Nez clicked the accept button and heard a jingle of coins and the door clicked and then swung open. As he stepped thru all of his armor and starting gear was transported into his inventory. He stared at his character creation clothes in confusion.
"That's another downside of being a monster race. you don't get gear in town unless you prove your standing with the lord and receive a title and that is a time consuming task." Al chimed in.
"Shit! Al I forgot you were still there." Nez turned his attention to his cousin.
"Figured as much. I will let you play. Let me know if you have any questions." Alfred hung up the call and Nez spent some time to accustom himself to the layout of everything around the main gate he had entered.
To the left of the gate was a massive fenced yard with multiple soldiers drilling and sparring. Many of them stopped to stare at the teal skinned Trahlenga standing there staring at them. Some of the men puffed out their chest and stepped towards the fence to try and intimidate the "Creature of the Wild" but Nez stared them down with a smile. He turned his gaze away from them and scanned around. At the center of the open area was well about six feet across and had a large structure built over it with a large bowl hanging from 4 ropes that looked to attach to a single hand crank.
As Nez scanned from left to right he saw an Inn with a stable attached, then a blacksmith shop next to it, clanging away at some piece of iron. Then across a small street what looked like a general store was set up in a two story building. Right next to it was another building that was four stories tall and stood out from the other buildings as the best maintained. Across the top of the door the words "Adventurer's Union" in bright clean white letters.
'That looks like a place I should visit.' He continued his inspection of the area and his gaze landed on the last building to his right. A large stone building that looked like an old cathedral stood just shorter than the Adventurer's building. Multiple men in matching armor and robes roamed the grounds speaking to one another but stopped and stared at the monster standing there at the gates wearing his simple clothes. A couple exchanged glances and smiles before moving on. Nez noticed them and had a bad feeling in his gut.
"Better get some gear before leaving. This was a mistake to come here." Nez moved quickly towards the Blacksmith. He entered the open patio and eyed the multiple weapons and armors laying on the different racks and tables. The front shop area was a lot larger than it looked from the outside. The shop keep was busying herself with organizing something behind the counter and yelled up in a gruff but girly voice.
"I'll be right with you adventurer!"
"No rush ma'am." Nez replied as he walked around inspecting the items. He eyed some chainmail armor that looked loose fitting but had great coverage. He touched the armor and immediately a stat sheet and price popped up over the item.
-Common Chainmail Shirt.
Durability 100/100
Stat Benefit +3 to AC
Stat Detriment +10 to Threat
Simple steel chainmail shirt. Woven in a four in one linking pattern.
'I wonder why the pattern is added to the gear info box.' Nez thought to himself.
"If you damage it you buy it greenling." Nez heard a soft voice from behind the counter that was clearly not the shop keeper. Nez turned to see a middle aged woman wearing a sleeveless shirt and a leather apron. She wore heavy leather gloves up her arms just past her elbows and in one hand, she carried an intimidating looking forging hammer laid across the top of the counter.
"How much for the shirt?" Nez asked ignoring the woman's obvious threat.
"For you? 100 gold." The woman stated flatly. Nez had a feeling the woman was trying to swindle him. He had researched the market within the game the night before and remembered a handful of prices. It had been running for about a month now so the markets were starting to see slight fluctuations but this woman wanted double the base price for the item.
"Are the minerals that scarce?" Nez asked eyeing the item before continuing, "The price can't be that high for the quality, its a very basic chain shirt."
"Excuse you!" the gruff store keeper blurted out angrily. She was quieted by the upraised hand of the blacksmith who had not taken her eyes off Nez.
"You heard me miss." Nez put the armor back on the rack. "I am starting to get irritated with how you people think you can get away with being disrespectful." Nez turned his head as he spoke and glared at the two women.
"If you want to make trouble greenling we will just have you thrown out of the city." The blacksmith replied arrogantly.
"Have a nice day." Nez turned and left before anything else could be said.
"Yeah you better leave!" yelled the shopkeeper who was again silenced by the blacksmith.
"Shut up Aila." The smith kept her eyes on the monster as he walked away.
"But Claire!"
"Shut up!" The smith turned towards Aila. "He just walked away and let us keep our lives. That was a player. Not a citizen. A player. Remember what we were told, they are temperamental and strong. To avoid them at all costs."
"I remember." Aila shied away from Claire and made herself smaller before the imposing smith.