Three nightmares through the night and I could barely breathe. Hooray. I have a massive depression spike and spend a few minutes in paralysis on the bed, just trying to get some bearing on the situation. After what seems hours, I get up. My little script tells me it's only been ten minutes. Time crawls without distractions to take the edge off the sadness. I quickly grab a drink from my bag and my medication, antidepressants and ADHD meds. I should check if Rootmart™️ has affordable groceries. I grab a change of clothes from the wardrobe and get dressed. It all fits, though I could swear the colours are different from yesterday. My dirty laundry lands on the chair and I head into the common area.
Before I can get to the shop, I notice that the common room has a cooler in the door area, letter on top. I put the full box on the table and read the letter.
"Good morning and Nikopol. Since you don't have access to the remainder of civilisation in the main stage of the game, we'll give you some free food based on your dietary requirements. It should tide you over until you have a chance to earn your own food through completing quests and finding food chests placed around the stage. In a pinch, there's also food for sale in the shop, but you should really think twice about it. After your meal is finished, the first main quest will be announced, and it'll be a hard one, so eat up and enjoy your meal! You'll need that energy."
I don't get quests according to the introduction letter and I doubt food boxes are part of this prison slash execution dimension. I also have zero survival skills, can't hunt or have the attention span to set up crops... let's just hope I earn enough coins for food.
Over the next half hour I prepare the food and get a box to put my sandwiches in. The bread sucks, cheap ham and no pickles. Ugh. I resist the urge to buy more stuff before checking out the door. But first, the scroll. Unrolling it, I read it, but it's not in letters I recognise, after accepting it in the way I open my terminal, it disintegrates, leaving behind a floating holographic eye thing. Not sentient or sapient, but it's my new friend, eye-sphere. Either that or Marbol. Marbol it is.
Okay Marbol, let's head out and hope the bathroom is just outside and wasn't forgotten. They usually don't mention potty breaks or showers in those stories. Guess that's glossed over. Anyway, let me equip my scavenger module before we head out. Honestly, I'm surprised how well my two decades old attempts to make a game held up. The usual trio of warrior, rogue and mage type classes, but somehow I had the inspiration to make a fourth class that's a hybrid of all three and I'm rambling. I sigh, equip the scavenger class module into my free module slot and head to the exit door. It's not even been a full day of isolation and I'm talk thinking to myself. No offence Marbol, but until I get you a sapiens module, you're just equipment. I do enjoy the silence, not having to speak is relaxing.
Before me looms the main quest door. With a deep breath, I put my hand on it and start pushing. The runes flare up, light blinds me, tingling and the door is gone. What I see... It's... eerie, to say the least. Long stone hallways, pillars, lots of walls and little twisty paths. It's comparable to a dream, unnerving, slightly unnatural and extremely familiar. I am stepping outside the door and the air is completely different. Dank, musty, not dirty but earthy, like a tourist cave, or a long tunnel through a mountain. It should be claustrophobic, but it's not tight spaces, so no issue there. There are no plants nor fungi visible right here, but I only just stepped outside the obviously maintained starting area. The air is a bit dusty so I grab a face mask out of my bag and put it on. Allergies suck. I turn back and, boy, I'm relieved the door is still there and not mysteriously gone. With some music on my headphones, I head out and start making a mental map of my immediate surroundings.
I regularly check my time and make sure to remember the way back. There's a lot of water flowing, canals that carry it down to who knows where. The walls are made from solid rock, no signs of tools used but have the quality of built structures. Echoes and splashing is all the sounds around me that don't originate from me. It's a lot more boring than all those stories made it look. A lot safer too, nothing really. After ten minutes my adrenaline ran out and patience starts wearing thin, so I decide to head back to base and prep some more scripts to keep me sane.
I spend 1000 coins on two things I now consider essential. Upgrading my headphones and getting Bluetooth for SysLink. I copy all music from my phone to the system storage through file drops, pair it with my headphones and use the built-in music playback program to make me autonomous, I also spend two whole hours writing more ease of life scripts, mostly for taking notes, and my first attempt to use the API properly, which I really hope to try out soon.
It's hilarious that I could barely spend ten minutes exploring this strange place but can sit down for two hours to just mess with coding. That was sarcasm. It's awful. Time to go back into the actual stage. I decided to toy with my class and species modules on my second outing, just so I don't go nuts. I register that I'm starting to treat my situation like a game, but I can't be bothered to treat it seriously. In fact, my blood boils and I get flashbacks to my teens, when I regularly got told off for being so invested in games. Well, funny how the world is now forced into a giant game. Yeah, I think treating it like a game is the right approach for me.
With those thoughts of determination I get a small popup that MetaModder leveled up. Okay, now that is actually hilarious.