Yanet was waiting inside a chair in the corner of the shop. She looked exactly the same as she did in the real-world and was easy to recognize. "Finally," she said when she saw Muraya. "I've been waiting for ages!"
"Sorry but my mount was so slow, I had to ride a cow across the dessert to get to you." Muraya told her.
Yanet laughed at Muraya and told her she got a giant arachnid. "It's a little creepy but it's fast and eats leftover meats so I probably won't have to worry about finding food to feed it."
"How do you know what it eats?" Muraya asked.
"It said it in the tutorial," Yanet said with a confused look on her face. "When the NPC showed you the information about your current mount and explained all the system navigation stuff. Were you paying attention?"
"You got a tutorial?!" Muraya was shocked as she recalled her struggle to start the game. "I had to figure everything out on my own." Muraya told Yanet about how she started the game.
"You fell from the sky naked?" Yanet was surprised by Muraya's story. "Maybe you skipped it by mistake or something, but don't worry because the brave and knowledgeable 'Spark' is here to teach you everything she knows!"
"Ha, thanks Spark. That is an excellent name for a bright warrior such as yourself. My name is Murmayd and it is a such a pleasure to meet you," Murmayd said with a chuckle. "Well Spark, what should we do first?"
"Well first things first, we need to get you some better gear, Spark said. "You won't be winning any fights with what you're wearing. The only way to rise through the ranks and gain recognition, is to get your fighting stats very high. What are your fighting skills?"
Murmayd told Spark her skill level for melee, one-handed, two-handed, spellcasting and ranged. She neglected to mention her obviously her creation skill since it was not important, and she was almost embarrassed to tell Spark how high her creations stats were. Spark would only laugh if she knew exactly how much time Murmayd spent creating items and how boring her gameplay must be if her creation skill was so high.
Sparks eyes widened with surprise. "Wow, I didn't think anyone could get such low starting stats. We will definitely need to work on leveling those up and fast. Everyone can attack you outside of towns and will kill you with one hit. After you get some gear here and fight a few creatures, we can port to the Accrued world. This area is just a small Island for beginners and just has very basic items to help people get started. It's mostly made to help people who haven't played any games before and need a place to learn and catch up to everyone else, but I guess people with low starting fighting skills can benefit from this area too."
Murmayd sighed and reminded Spark how she only ever played games and improved her other skills but avoided the fights.
"Yeah, yeah...I know," Spark told Murmayd. "You won't be able to do that here though. So, let's just start by buying you some simple gear and we can just start with low level creatures. I started with some decent leather and all of my fighting skills are over 200 and I've already explored a bit, so I'm sure I can help you kill all the creatures around here."
Murmayd agreed and they bought some weapons before visiting the armor shop in the town. The shops in this town were very minimalistic and didn't sell any luxurious items. They were all cheap and low quality, so Murmayd just bought a sword, a bow with arrows, a backpack and some leather armor to work on her fighting skills. In order to buy better items, they would need to port to Accrued or slay legendary monsters to get better quality items. Murmayd was still too weak to leave the town and either way, she didn't want to risk dying since she had no idea what the penalty would be.
"Let's go in here," Murmayd told Spark as she ran into the 'Tools' shop. Spark rolled her eyes but followed Murmayd inside. Murmayd had spent most of her money on her armor and weapons so she had to beg Spark to borrow some coins so to buy a few basic crafting tools. She bought a bowl, a pickaxe, a saw, and a shovel for 4 copper coins. "That should be good enough for now. I'm sure I can find something around here to craft but I promise to focus on fighting. I'll catch up to you in no time!"
Spark laughed and said "you just never change, do you? The best weapons and armor in this game only come from monsters so you won't be able to craft anything that will help us during our fights. I guess maybe you can cook us some food at least so I expect top notch meals from you."
"I can manage that," Murmayd said with a smile. "I think I've got everything I need, so let's suit up and go find something to slay."
"I'm ready. Put on your gear and let's head outside to mount up," Spark said.
"Okay," Murmayd said. "Equip Leather Boots. Equip Leather Helm. Equip..."
Spark interrupted Murmayd, "What are you doing? Why are saying things out loud? You just need to think it and it does whatever you need, like every other game."
"What? How embarrassing!" Murmayd's face turned beet red. "I've been saying everything out loud because I didn't get a fancy tutorial like you. I fell from the sky in a panic, remember?" Murmayd opened her inventory, thought the correct sequence of words to equip everything and instantly she was wearing her new gear. She sighed and wondered why she agreed to play this confusing game. "Let's just go."
Spark snickered and agreed. They walked outside, jumped on their mounts and headed straight out into the forest. Spark realized she had to keep stopping to wait for Murmayd's cow to catch up, she suggested that they walk instead. Spark told Murmayd everything she learned during the tutorial as they walked out of town so she wouldn't embarrass herself in front of other players. They kept walking through the trees and came across a pack of wild dogs that wasn't very far from the town.
"Okay. Let's fight these," Spark told Murmayd. They aren't the weakest creatures I've seen here but they definitely won't be able to kill you. They won't attack all at once and I'll be here if you get in trouble. I'll add you to my team and set the options for you to get all the experience points for our kills."
Murmayd accepted the group request and snuck up behind one of the dogs with her sword in her hand. She swung at the creature and caused some minor damage. The dog attacked her, and she yelled as it bit her arm. She instantly regretted the upgrades she added to the Cerebral console when she felt the dog's teeth dig into her flesh.
"Keep going! That won't be enough to kill you and we can always go back to town to heal you with the medic and potions there," Spark told Murmayd.
Murmayd continued to slash at the dog over and over again, causing minor damage every time. The dog always responded by biting a different body part. Every time he wrapped his teeth around her flesh, searing pain shot through her body, and she shivered thinking of the pain that higher level creatures would inflict. She was second guessing her decision to play this game but Spark continued cheering for her and Murmayd felt a surge of energy every time she did. She kept slashing and stabbing the dog for several minutes with little effect.
After fighting the wild dog for some time, Spark charged in and stabbed it in the neck. The dog let out a high-pitched whine and fell over. Blood spewed from his body as he lay there, dead. He dropped a few coins and some items that Murmayd picked up.
Murmayd was exhausted, she had been fighting the dog for so long that she wondered if she would ever be able to kill it. She was tired, hungry, thirsty and in pain. When she checked her status she saw her hunger and thirst were under 50%. She drank some of her water and ate part of her meal and filled both back up to 100%. Her health was all the way down to 30%.
"Well, uh, let's go back to town and get you healed. I think you would have been able to kill it eventually, but it was getting too hard to watch that for another second," Spark told Murmayd. "We can try your ranged attacks instead. You might do more damage that way but when it runs at you, you will still need to finish it off with your sword. I can always just kill it for you since you'll get all the points, but you'll only get points for the weapon I use, not the one you are trying to level up."
They headed back to the town, bought some food water and a healing potion before returning to the pack of wild dogs.
When they reached the pack of wild dogs again, Murmayd equipped her bow and arrows. She pulled back on the arrow as the string stretched. She aimed carefully and released the arrow. It flew straight at one of the wild dogs and hit its target. She hit the wild dog right in the chest but missed its heart. The dog ran towards her, teeth bared. She placed another arrow in her bow as she stepped back. She pulled back and let the arrow fly, this time she missed her moving target and the dog was able to run up and bite her leg. She screamed in pain and pulled out her sword. Again she started the process of attacking the dog for several minutes and was able to kill it with 40% health remaining.
"That was a little better I think," Spark told Murmayd. "We won't be able to use spells until we port our of here and go learn some but I think if we get your skills up a little bit we can..."
Murmayd interrupted her, "listen Spark, I know you want to help me but I don't want to keep you on this island longer than you need to be. I can keep killing these low level creatures on my own until I'm strong enough to go meet you."
"Don't be silly, the only reason you are playing this game is because of me. I want to stay here and help you," Spark replied.
"I know but if you wait for me to level up, you'll miss out on discovering all the amazing things about this world," Murmayd told her. "You can go explore and tell me all about it later. Get some good items and more money that will help me when I go join you. I promise I'll stay here and build up my weapon skills until I can at least kill a dog like you. It might take a while but I know I can do this."
"Are you sure," Spark asked. Murmayd nodded with a determined look on her face. "Alright, but I promise to have amazing items for you and I'll take you to all the amazing places I find! At least take some of my silver coins to help you buy potions since I won't be around to save you anymore."
"That would be fantastic. Thank you, Spark." Murmayd told her. They headed back to town to heal and buy more food and water before going to the portal to leave the island. Spark gave Murmayd a hug and said goodbye before walking through and disappearing in a flash of light.
"Group disbanded"
Murmayd stood there staring at the portal, wondering when she would be able to leave this boring island and join Spark in the magical world where the real adventure was. She had to get all the weapons stats, past 50 to leave and who knows how long that could take? She also wondered if she could deactivate the sensory upgrade on her Cerebral. She couldn't imagine fighting a dragon and getting burned alive while feeling every single nerve in her body reacting to the intense pain that would cause. She plopped down on the floor unaware of the people walking by staring at her. Her first battle experience was done, and it was a total failure. She wasn't ready to go right back to fighting so she looked up at the sky and wondered what she should do next.