[Solo] Ugh, my head hurts...

[Ringo]

Screams. Sobs. Fear. Wonder. When Ringo opened his eyes he was not in his comfy room anymore. He was in a middle of a square, next to an ancient looking fountain. After slowly rubbing his eyes, he looked around. The place was packed- people of different shapes, sizes... Everyone was confused. So was he. Just a second ago he was looking at a loading screen of a video game, now he was where he was.



"Oh god! Where am I!? MOM!" screamed a little girl standing just few meters from him.



"Is this a dream?" asked a cat standing nearby as it looked at its hands... or rather pawns maybe...



Cat ?



He rest his sight on the weird creature for a while. A spike of fear went through his gut. Cats did not move on two legs. Cats did not wear cloths. And they certainly did not speak. He quickly looked around once more. While most of the gathered looked like your everyday humans, some were strange to say the least. Cat tails and ears, fox tails, dog ears, spiky ears. It was strange. Then something struck him. At the back of his head something told Ringo he already saw some of those creatures. On screenshots.



He finally made a step forward.



Strange.



Something was amiss. And it wasn't only the world. It was him. He quickly turned around to face the fountain and took another step, almost falling down. His balance was off... extremely off. He was certainly shorter. And lighter. And not as broad as he used to be. Grabbing the fountains edge he peered into its waters. He saw a vaguely familiar face, a face of a joke character made by that bastard Amir. He was going to delete it and make a new one after getting familiar with the game he was going to play. The cute face, cowlick... everything was the same as on his screen. He patted his cheeks, so did the boy reflected in the water. He pinched his cheeks. So did the reflection. He felt pain. This was certainly him... but not him at the same time.



The square he was at. Just now he realized it was something he saw already. In press releases, just two days ago. Londonium. The starting city of Elder Tale. Could this really be it?



"Bloody hell..."

_____________
Words: 392

[Ringo]

A week has passed. In this time Ringo had to learn how to use his new, smaller body. He practised walking, jumping, running- he became accommodated with his new "self". Now, he sat in a small alleyway, twirling one of his bangs with his fingers contemplating all what happened. The situation was as follows: few thousand of players, including him, were apparently trapped in a world that resembled Elder Tale. In this world you could not die and when you did, you imminently came back to life in the cathedral. It lead to people committing crimes they would never do in real life. In town Ringo heard about people killing others justifying that "they can not truly die anyway" and that "they are probably already dead".



Foolish.



He was not sure how the dying thing and re-spawning worked, but he was not so keen on finding out. Another thing worth mentioning where the menus. You could check your character's status screen, equipment and skills. There was also a friend list, in his case completely empty. As much as he would rather stay alone, as he did in the past week, he knew it wasn't the smartest choice. He needed friends... or rather a group to stick with. It was obvious that with all the crazies roaming the area he would need some back-up. There was also the logout button, alas, no matter how many time he clicked it, it did nothing.



Most of people he encountered so far seemed to be on verge of despair. They seemed like empty husks, incapable of interacting with others. He did not wish to be like them. He needed a goal. It was clear he wasn't going anywhere for a while, at least not as long as he haven't figured out how to leave this world. He might as well spend this time doing something. When he was getting into Elder Tale he read about the game extensively. He has played MMOs before but non of them was quite like Elder Tale. He moved his hand over the menus and opened his character status screen.



"Ringo, level 1 Bard, level 1 Mechanic, Level 1 Berserker" he read as if to confirm what he already knew. Bard- he enjoyed music. He could play the guitar and his singing voice was not that bad. Good choice. Mechanic- in real life Ringo was an engineer, a computer one but an engineer non the less. Berserker... this was... curious to him. Back at home he never showed any signs of himself losing temper or anything like that. Some said even that he was unnaturally patient. So why did that asshole pick Berserker? Maybe for the same reason as to why his character resembled a girl - cause "f... you". Or maybe its some sort of a meta build used by pros at Elder Tale... who knows?



Being level 1 was not something Ringo was keen on. The game's level cap was 100...

"Level cap? Hmm..." he rubbed his chin. This might be it. "Alright!"



It was decided. In his head he pictured a sheet of paper and himself writing "Goal's list" at the top of the page.



"1. Achieve level cap"



This would be his primary directive. He did not know whether or not it would help him in his situation but it certainly would make him feel better. Knowing that you're kind of BA would be quite pleasing.



"2. Get... "friends""



He did not know how to go about the second point. He was told he's good at dealing with other people, especially children. However, since this was not real world that might not be the truth. From what he saw most people here were not your average Joes he used to deal with. The ones who did not behave like those emo kids from a while back were rather eccentric. Role-playing their characters, talking about those Chinese cartoons... he was not into that sort of stuff. This created a barrier he had to force himself through. However, the first point of his agenda might be the answer. If he had a satisfactory level then maybe people would come to him themselves, whether to ask for help in questing and dungeoneering or simply to add another strong ally to their peers' list.



In Elder Tale there were few ways to gain levels. The most obvious one was killing mobs- he could gather the loot from them and sell it for profit to an NPC merchant. Another one was questing. For killing few bears and hauling their asses back to the quest giver he could get himself a decent amount of exp and even some equipment pieces. Sadly, he had no clue where to start with this one. In game there would be a giant exclamation mark over the head of an NPC with a task for him. It would even be visible on the minimap! Sadly... there was no minimap and no quest marks. The 3rd way was crafting- using material to create items for him to sell or use. The problem with this one was that you needed either the material or money to buy them... non of which he had. After considering those 3 options it was obvious which one he would choose. He heard that people explored the area surrounding Londonium. He recalled someone mentioning a place called Windsor Greatwoods- a place ideal for beginners like himself. He equipped his hatched. After giving it few swings, Ringo got up and started slowly marching towards the main gate. The sun was at its zenith.



"This will be a long, long day..."

______________
Words: 936