First steps in a new world [solo]

[Stryke]

"What the..."

Leonardo remained stunned as his field of vision suddenly changed, he could only remember a bright white light and then being in the center of a plaza somewhere. The shift of perspective rendered him slightly ditzy and all the new information his brain was gathering wasn't really helping. Feeling sick, Leonardo closed his eyes for a moment and tried to calm down a bit,

"Okay...Seconds ago I was at my computer screen...and now I'm..."

Leonardo reopened his eyes, since he calmed himself down that feeling of sickness quickly faded away. Watching his surroundings with a more rational eye, Leonardo found out he was in the middle of a plaza in London, or what appeared to be a post apocalyptic version of London anyway. Leonardo watched in disbelief his surroundings, this whole mess didn't have the slightest sense, he heard some noises, some people shouted or looked as confused as he was and....there were GIANT STANDING CATS in the streets. Leonardo then looked at himself, his body felt normal to him, the only real surprise was that his clothes were changed into a sort of mail armor and also there were 2 swords wrapped around his back.

Leonardo couldn't ignore those hints, he sighed, put the palm of his right hand on his face and curled his mouth in a grunting expression:

"Let me guess...I'm inside that stupid game..."

Leonardo said to himself. Hours ago Leonardo found out that this online game called Elder Tale was getting its own British server, he always heard from other people about how good this game was and in the end he was convinced to try it out. Fortunately Leonardo had a habit of reading the essential info about the world and the plot of the game, so he was fairly certain that the place he was now was inside the game.

This city wasn't a mythical city like any other normal online game, no, it was simply an abandoned version of London where nature got to cover every sign of modern technology. At least he was inside a place he sort of knew well enough since he was living in London for quite some time already.

Leonardo managed calm down but that wasn't true for everyone around him, there were many people who shouted and looked confused while others simply sat in a corner and cried. Leonardo knew that getting overwhelmed by the situation wasn't going to do any good so he tried to think about what he knew about this matter and what to do to reverse it.

In that moment his mind became the center of an apocalyptic fight that only resulted in a major headache, there were simply too many questions to be answered and there was absolutely no way of getting them right now. Leonardo sighed, put his hands in his pockets and started walking around, a little walk always helped him clear his mind whenever it was overwhelmed by questions. In this particular situation he needed answers and so he decided to ask around and find someone who might have those, or at least an hint on what to do from now on.


WC: 526

[Stryke]

Dwelling for good half hour in that city Leo only got sure of one thing: that place looked like the epicenter of an apocalypse. The buildings were all covered and swallowed by the nature that in this world destroyed almost every evidence of a once modern society, the streets were empty, only few people remained there and looked as confused as Leo if not more. The air was stagnant of bad feelings, nervousness and fear, apparently no one knew what exactly had happened and it was clear that no one would give them the answers to their questions anytime soon.

Leo walked through the empty streets of London and traversed some of the parts he could somewhat recognize, if he remembered correctly the game was based around the so called "Half Gaia" project where the programmers recreated the earth in this game in half scale. Surely he could recognize some of the parts of the city despite the post apocalyptic look, but the difference in scale made it a lot more difficult for him, it felt like he was on some attraction based on real world landmarks.

After a bit of walking Leonardo raised his sight and stopped his walk, a sign on a building caught his attention, a sign with "Inn" written on it.

Leo entered the decaying building without expecting much and he was definitely right, that inn looked as decayed as the building itself. The first thing a new traveler would notice is the almost nonexistent source of light, the inn was enveloped in a dark light that made it look like a place for gathering smugglers and thieves. The inn smelled too, the smell of something stagnant was impregnated within the walls, Leo wandered when it was the last time they cleaned up this place.

Some dark figures were sitting around at different tables, as Leo entered the place they all began looking in his direction, only to divert their focus on something else once they saw nothing particularly interesting.

Leo took some steps and looked around, there were indeed some decorations though, some swords hung up on the walls, antler's horns over the fireplace and some pelts that looked to belong to a bear, maybe it were those pelts that emanated that stagnant smell.

At the counter there was a middle aged woman, one of those liven women that solely by their looks you could tell they wouldn't really have a problem kicking your butt if you gave them the chance. The woman looked up and down at Leo, by the way her wrinkles furrowed and made her expression look somewhat annoyed she wasn't really happy to see him.

"What can I do for you?"

The woman spoke with a roughed and nasal voice, somehow she had the same voice Leo had imagined her to have,

"I was wandering, how much do you charge for a room to rest and some food?"

Leo said while standing tall with a serious expression, he wasn't the kind of guy to get intimidated by a witch looking woman. Even though Leo had just gotten in this world he knew he had to at least get his priorities straight and they were to get food and a place to rest above all else since it appeared he would be staying in this world for quite some time.

"Humph, of course..."

The Inn keeper snorted while placing her arm on the counter,

"5 gold, room and the house's specialty included, are you paying right away?"

Leo looked in pockets and his bag hoping that he'd have some gold on him, every mmorpg made characters start out with at least a bit of gold for every necessity. Apparently that wasn't the case, Leo sighed and looked at the woman,

"Actually... I don't think I have any gold right now, do you know how can I get some?"

The woman looked at him surprised, like he had asked a ridiculous question, then she burst into a sonorous (and manly) laugh,

"That's funny, an adventurer asking me how to make gold! Go kill some monsters instead of asking stupid questions"

Leo looked at the woman annoyed, he scuffed and turned around, then he exited the inn while the other people in the inn laughed with the woman.


WC: 714

[Stryke]

It was interesting to know that this world played some of the common mmorpgs rules straight, killing mobs here apparently granted gold like any other game out there. This might sound a bit obvious but this whole situation didn't really make any sense anyway.

That thought made him actually realize something though, if this was a game then the people he met at the inn must have been...NPCs.

Leo couldn't believe it, they felt so real, that woman from before really looked like she had a rough life weighing on her shoulders. Leo started thinking, if this world retained drops from mobs and NPCs then it had to retain the other aspects of the game, even something like a menu screen to let him see his stats if he had any.

Leo thought a bit and then tried something, it was a stupid idea but trying would do him no harm, he actually wanted to see if he could summon a "stat screen" of some sort with his mind. It was indeed a stupid idea and so the surprise was greater when he found out that his idea might have been not so stupid after all. Just when he concentrated a green screen appeared before him, there were some tabs you'd usually find on every other normal rpg including the inventory and the status screen along with a battle tab.

"Woah, that's pretty cool"

Leo exclaimed while playing around the menu, as he thought he had no items other than his starting gear and also no money.

In the end he wasn't doing so bad, at least he was gaining some precious information to his survival and he was making slow but steady progresses, if he continued to make these preogresses maybe by the end of the day he would be resting in a warm bed with a filled stomach instead of sleeping in the cold London's streets.

Leo gave one last look at the inn,

"Let's see, right now I need 5 gold to at least survive this night, then I can think of a way to get back"

he thought while turning around and finding the way to the city's outskirts, he didn't know how combat worked and he was sure that he couldn't ask no one around since they surely knew less than him on that matter, he had to learn it first handedly it seemed.

There were still a load of unanswered questions, he didn't if he died in fields he would resurrect like in every other mmorpg or if it would mean his end, right now it was best if he didn't think about it too much anyway. Leo needed food to survive and killing mobs was the only to gather gold around this early in a game, everything else needed to wait, the only way for him to survive was to set his priorities.

Feeling the breeze messing his wild hair, Leo closed is eyes and raised his head to the sky, it was a sunny day and there no clouds whatsoever in the distance

"Just one step at a time..."


WC: 516