"Welcome to the world of the living, my creations. We are currently in quite an insane situation. A bunch of divine beings that call themselves The Collective have decided that they wanted to throw me in a game of their creation. The objective is to survive wave after wave of enemies. What are those enemies?
I have no idea; we will have to figure that out together. For now, I need you five to gather some more wood from the trees around us so I can make more of your brethren. Also, if you find some wild animals, be sure to hunt them for me, I am getting quite hungry. Don't overhunt though, it could affect the wildlife."
[Daily mission: Gather Resources
Day has requested that you gather resources so he can create more of your brethren and fortify the area around you in preparation for the waves. Gather some wood and or stone.
Hint: craft an ax or pickaxe for more efficient gathering of resources.]
[Daily mission: Gather food
You have been requested to hunt the wildlife in order to provide food for your budding community. Don't think that just because you are a golem that you don't need food either, you do as well, just not nearly as much. Your creator Day takes priority though.
Hint: crafting a spear, sword, or even a fishing rod would make life easier.]
Once we were issued those quests, I stopped to take in the fact that I could fully feel my body. It was interesting to have a body made of wood, but I didn't feel any discomfort. I could smell, I could definitely feel pain if slapping myself to test it was any indication. I don't know about taste just yet, but I'll find that out whenever I eat. Just all of this alone though beats any game available right now. Also the fact that we were basically building the starting town for the players that come after us was amazing as well.
[Day's POV]
After I finished my speech, I was able to see that the players were issued two quests. I'm glad that they are able to craft basic tools and weapons as well. I couldn't use the crafting system, but I could issue quests to the players. The players themselves were able to obtain experience and a fake currency my skill made up called Golem coins or G coins for short. They were able to buy skills with these coins as long as they met the requirements. They could also trade coins with each other as well.
For now, I will sit back down on this stump while I wait for the players to gather resources. I wonder if they could stack items in their inventory? It's only four slots, but that would still be pretty good.
[Valefor POV]
My first objective before I took on the quest, was to get used to moving around my body in the game. Feeling the environment around me, walking, stretching, and more felt fluid and natural. I started gathering sticks and rocks around the area like the other players. The first thing I crafted was a pickaxe since I feel like stone would be needed more than wood, although both were essential. The pickaxe itself took several sticks of wood and a few rocks to make. Once crafted in the system window, it looked like a pickaxe similar to that old game that people still play to mine diamonds and make crazy builds called Minecraft.
I looked for the nearest giant rock, since there were plenty around the surrounding area, and started mining it. I was only a few minutes into mining before I got a party invite from the other four players. I figured that I might as well accept since we have to work together anyway.
{Peaches} "Yo Valefor, we managed to find a river but it has a few slimes near it, wanna drop by and help us out?"
{Valefor} "Sure, I'll be there in a bit, but I'll need someone to guide me there since there isn't a mini map just yet. All we have is markers back to the home base."
{Gummies} "I shouldn't be too far away, I just dropped off some fruit and wood back at the base and got some GC and XP. The amount wasn't that high, but I didn't have that much so it makes sense. I almost have enough GC for the first healer spell 'Petty Heal' though.
{Old Swordsman} "Speaking of which, what class did everyone choose at the start? I think mine is pretty obvious, and Gummies is clearly a healer.
{Peaches} "Rogue."
{Dirt} "Warrior."
{Valefor} "Mage."
{Dirt} "So we have two frontliners, two dps, and a healer? That's a pretty good lineup honestly. Should have good synergy in the long haul. Although we may have to look into getting another healer at some point depending on how things go."
[Day POV]
The player Gummies already brought back some food in the form of berries, some wood, and stone. It's enough for two golems, but I will wait until I have enough for at least five again. Thankfully I have some food though, it will help stave off the hunger until the players can get something that can satiate me better. Turns out that they formed a well balanced party, and that they found a group of slimes near a lake. There may not be a mini map feature yet, but I have my own map feature that has a gigantic fog of war that slowly disperses as my players explore.
I can also check out the chat logs to see any finer details my players discover. I might as well continue to watch them in real time to stave off boredom. I'll probably assign a quest to build me a home when I build the next set of golems.
[3rd Person POV]
Once the group of players gathered, they hid by some bushes near the lake.
"I know that slimes tend to be the basic beginner mob in video games, but let's not just rush in there without thinking about the possibility of them being stronger than they should be. I say that we have Valefor do a 'Mana Shot' and see if we can aggro just one or two of them and test the waters since there is a gigantic amount of them outside of and inside the lake. Just using my basic Rogue skill 'Detect' told me that there are at least a thousand slimes, and even then it's still unknown. I'm not trying to die to the first mob we encounter because we got overconfident."
When Peaches finished speaking, the rest of the group nodded along in agreement because they also would not survive the embarrassment since at least half of them were taking screenshots of everything to post on the game's forum later.
"I'm ready whenever, just get into position and we can get this started." Valefor readied himself and brought out a wooden staff that he crafted earlier. Everyone else backed up into a small clearing nearby. Valefor concentrated as hard as he could on the timing of the spell. Everyone was sweating and felt like minutes had passed by, when in reality only seconds passed. Eventually Valefor let off the spell near two slimes and those two started heading their way, while the rest of the slimes ignored them.
The rest of the players let out a sigh of relief as the slimes slowly bounced towards them. Both of which were blue in color. Many of the slimes were a variety of different colors, but the majority were blue. Once the slimes reached the clearing, the remainder of the players charged towards the slimes with the exception of Gummies who stayed back and kept an eye on everyone's health. All of them were struggling to hit the slimes in the first place since they were too agile for them and the players couldn't time it right to hit them. Everytime a slime would dodge a player, they would bash one of them and take out a tenth of their health.
Valefor and Peaches were the only ones who managed to land clean hits after several minutes with no results. By the time ten minutes had passed, the party finally took out the two slimes, and fell to the ground in exhaustion. The slimes dispersed into totes of light and drops were distributed to the party. They didn't get anything special except blue slime gel that works like glue.
{Peaches} "Damn…That…Was a lot harder than I thought it would be."
{Old Swordsman} "I second that one. Of all things to be a struggle, why did it have to be slimes?"
{Gummies} "I mean if you think about it, this is the first full-dive VR that actually lets us utilize the five senses to 100% capacity. I think we just need to run that back a few more times and we will get more used to it. I don't know about you guys though, but I'm having the time of my life playing this. I haven't felt this excited playing a game in years."
{Valefor} "I can agree with that, we even got seven GC each with the gel. I do suggest we focus on stocking up resources first before we continue on with fighting the slimes. I have a feeling that this is a monumental task and we need way more people to take it on."
{Dirt} "I managed to find a smaller pond earlier and caught a few fish with the fishing rod I crafted. You guys wanna eat some of it in an hour or so? I'll cook one or two for Day as well since I plan on catching more. I also noticed that there is like a 128 stack limit on items in each slot.
You all should check out the small question marks on certain parts of the system, it's pretty helpful even though there aren't that many. I also suggest that everyone pay GC for the appraisal skill, since it's universal, and provides details on anything. Most of the time it isn't much, but more details are revealed as we discover more about what we appraise."