The opening sequence of the game played.
It was just a black screen that had words scrolling down the screen, and even then, it wasn't much.
[Do you want to become the hero that defeats the demon king?]
[Do you want to become a weaponsmith known across the land?]
[Perhaps you want to just explore the vast world or cultivate crops?]
[Live the life you want to lead.]
And that was it. No sort of lore dump. Just those lines.
The screen went completely black.
The next time I opened my eyes I found myself standing in what looked like a ghost town. The fountain next to me looked like it hadn't been used for a long time. The cobblestone roads had greenery all over it. Even the buildings around looked boarded up.
"Did…that guy trick me?" I asked aloud.
"I know right? I'm starting to feel like my sister duped me into starting at a ghost town…" A voice said from beside me.
I quickly turned on my heels. I found myself face to face with a boy who had dark blue shaggy hair that reached below his shoulders. He had a set of matching wolf ears and a fluffy tail. His eyes were a dark purple. He wore a black shirt, a pair of light blue shorts, and black boots.
"Liam?" I asked. He didn't sound like my brother, but his attitude was definitely like his.
"Hey, Florence!" he replied, tail wagging behind him.
"You chose the wolffolk?"
"Yep! I look pretty swanky right?" he replied as he motioned to himself.
"..."
"W-wait! Please say something! I'm feeling self conscious!" he cried.
"Uh, you look great, Liam," I tried to lie.
Liam started grumbling to himself. "Well at least I don't look like I spent five minutes in character creation!"
"Least I didn't change to a furry."
He shut up for a while after that.
---
"What class did you choose?" he asked.
"Alchemist, what about you?" I replied, fiddling with the ugly dress I had been forced to wear.
"I chose Thief," he said, holding up his dagger.
"Didn't get the option for Ninja, huh?"
"...no."
We found ourselves waiting for another 30 minutes by the fountain. Just when we had begun to lose patience with our younger brother, a tall elf boy with neatly cut black hair and amber colored eyes warped in next to us. He wore an oversized black robe.
"Quinn?" I called out.
The elf boy snapped his head in our direction.
"Florence? Liam?" The elf boy tilted his head to the side.
"Yep," the two of us replied at the same time.
Quinn told us that he had chosen the tamer class. He held out a stick, and I mean literal stick, that was supposed to be used to control his monsters once he tamed them. He had something called a tamer contract he could use on enemies once they were weak enough.
I probably would've chosen tamer if I had been given the option.
"This place looks…uhm, abandoned?" Quinn said.
"Yeah, starting to feel like that employee screwed us over," I muttered.
We spent the next two hours wandering around. There was absolutely no one in the town. We even split up and broke into numerous houses. It was even more evident that no one had lived here for a long long time as there were rotting fruit and moth-eaten clothes in most of the houses I broke into. It was like everyone had just up and left in the middle of what they were doing.
Dejected, the three of us decided to try exploring outside of the town.
"Next time I see that lotto guy, I'm gonna wring his n-"
"H-hey! Is that a person!?" Quinn yelled in disbelief pointing off to his left.
Sure enough when Liam and I looked in that direction there was a figure with long white hair. I couldn't tell what gender they were from where we stood, but they wore a brown shirt with suspenders that hooked onto black slacks. They also had on a pair of brown shoes.
"Let's talk to them before they leave," I suggested as we started running towards the person in question.
The person must've heard us running at them because they turned towards us. They had vibrant blue eyes. They were so absolutely androgynous it was hard to tell what gender they were exactly.
As soon as they locked eyes with the three of us they let out a yelp and turned and started running from us.
"Hey!" Liam yelled after them as we began to pursue them, "Don't run! We just wanna ask some questions!"
If the person heard us at all, they made no show of it.
"Let's split up," I suggested.
Liam and Quinn nodded before running off to the left and right.
I, however, kept running straight after them.
I had to distract them somehow so at least one of my brothers could catch them.
"Hey! Quit running! We just wanna talk to you!" I yelled.
They made no attempt to slow down, though.
They looked over their shoulder at me. Suddenly I saw Liam up ahead holding some rotten fruit in his hand. He tossed it just as the person turned around and it hit them square in the face. They let out a grunt as they fell sideways into some dead plants.
I caught up within seconds.
"Are you okay? I'm sorry we had to resort to that," I said, bending down beside them.
Using the sleeve of my ugly dress, I started wiping their face off. The person stared at me with their bright blue eyes. As I wiped their neck I noticed they had an Adam's apple. I saw his cheeks start to grow a little tinge of red and decided to back off.
I noticed a name appear above his head in yellow lettering. This meant he wasn't a player but an NPC. His name was Ven.
"I thought you were thieves," he said.
"No, we are just…adventurers," I replied, "We're trying to figure out what happened to this town and why no one is here."
I stood up and offered my hand to him to help him up. He took it and stood in front of me.
"Oh, of course!" He clapped his hands together. "I was born and raised here but I haven't visited in over three years. When I came back the town was already in this state. I've been here for a few weeks trying to figure out what happened."
Quinn was the first to come to my side. I could see Liam hiding off in the distance, probably not wanting to face the man he had just thrown rotten fruit at.
"Do you have any leads?" I asked.
"W-well… I do but I haven't been able to look into it. You see I'm not much of a fighter," he trailed off.
"Is this the start of a quest?"
"We can help you with whatever you need," Quinn spoke up.
"R-really?" the NPC Ven nodded.
"Yes."
"Yeah."
"Me too!" Liam shouted off in the distance.
A purple screen popped up in front of Quinn and I. I assumed Liam had one show up for him too.
[QUEST: LIKE MOTH TO FLAME]
[QUEST GIVER: VEN]
[VEN WANTS TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS HOMETOWN. HE HAS A FEELING IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE SHRINE TO THE NORTH OF TOWN. ESCORT HIM TO THE SHRINE AND ENSURE NOTHING HAPPENS TO HIM.]
[REWARDS: ???]
[QUEST FAILURE: VEN IS KILLED]
"Let's escort him!" Liam yelled from his spot ahead.
"I was already planning too," I said, but I doubted he could hear me. I hit accept.
"You'll help me? Oh, thank you, thank you!" He grabbed my hand and shook it repeatedly.
It was a quest in a town meant for newbies, how hard could it be?
After meeting up with Liam, who offered many apologies to Ven, the four of us set off through the north gate. The forest surrounding Fiole Town was foggy and strangely enough, it seemed to be stuck in perpetual night. Now that I thought about it, even though the in-game time was around in the afternoon, the town itself also had the same kind of feel to it.
We had Liam at the head of the group then Quinn and Ven, followed by me.
"So Ven, I'm sure other adventurers came through here. Why didn't you ask any of them for help?" I asked after we had been walking for twenty or so minutes.
Ven hung his head low. "Well, I tried, but no one seemed interested in helping me get here. They'd call me a stupid NPC, whatever that is, and then just run off saying something about killing monsters and leveling up."
I could see Quinn scratching his cheek at this.
Ven told us a lot about himself as we continued through the forest. He had left the island to become a historian at the prestigious Lumine Academy. He seemed very proud of this and none of us seemed to have it in us to tell him that we didn't know where it was or what was so special about it.
When Ven had finally achieved his dream of becoming a historian, he decided to come home and share the news with the villagers. Apparently he was an orphan, adopted by the village elder.
It wasn't as if the town was already in a barren state when he left. If it had been he probably wouldn't have left in the first place.
"Hey, Ven, where are all the monsters?" Liam asked.
Now that I thought about it, we hadn't run into any sort of monster or just life in general.
"Well… that's what I'm trying to figure out… When I tried to come out here yesterday there were the usual slimes and mandygora," he told us as he began rubbing his chin.
"That makes things easier for us," Quinn said.
—
"We're almost there," Ven said.
We crossed over a small stream and navigated through some trees before we came to a small clearing in the woods. In the center of the clearing, there was a small purple and blue japanese-esque shrine. Nothing looked off about it to me.
Ven started to run off towards the shrine and the three of us began looking around for any clues.
Suddenly a blood curdling howl echoed through the forest.
"What the hell was that!?" I screamed.
"I-I don't know! Ask Ven!" Liam yelled, covering his ears.
The three of us turned in the direction of Ven.
My face paled.
On top of the shrine was a huge white wolf and I mean huge. It had two shimmery purple ribbons hanging from its neck. It had the same shimmery purple color marked into places on its fur.
Ven had fallen backwards and was trying to scramble away from the wolf.
[FIELD BOSS MANGETSU THE LUNAR WOLF HAS ENTERED ZOSIMOS SHRINE]
"So, like, what are the chances this isn't Zosimos Shrine?" whispered Liam.