Farming Carrots

The light faded away and Ferris found himself in a large stone plaza crowded with many other players. All the humans wore corse woven sacks as clothing, they looked especially ragged with unkempt hair and faces full of confusion tinged with excitement.

Those that had chosen spirit were now white balls that floated around, emitted phantom mist as they moved. They only had three black holes for eyes and mouth.

Ferris vaguely wondered if they could see normally or if their senses had been tampered with.

However before he could ask anyone he noticed a strange bunch of animals: cats, pigs, chickens and dogs. All frantically running between peoples feet in absolute chaos.

Ferris felt a terrible, terrible sense of foreboding.

He didn't want to look, but he had to know.

Looking down he couldn't see his hands or feet, or any other body parts for that matter. It was like he was floating above the ground. He almost believed he was a spirit, but the solid sensation beneath his hands and feet dashed this hope.

Hesitantly he looked behind, only to see a furry brown back attached to four hooved legs.

"This isn't a dragon! Shit! This isn't even a magical creature! I'm a fucking donkey!"

Again he was at a loss of what to do.

His first dive into VR could only be described as extremely unpleasant. The terror of being licked and almost eaten by that gruesome monster had severely traumatised him and he was only just feeling a little calmer. But now he was a donkey!

This wasn't solvable by simply getting a new avatar, Realms of the Twelve Forgotten Kings was a new game and the developers had yet to create any character reset or alternative account features, completely focussing on how the environment and characters interact with each other. They wanted a magical world that truely feels magical.

For example, right now Ferris could feel the warmth of afternoon sun shining down on his rump and the ticklish feeling when he flicked his tail. Even the previously warm stone tiles gradually cooled beneath his hooves. The level of detail was truely mesmerising but Ferris couldn't care less about that now as he was a freaking donkey.

Dejectedly Ferris began to leave the plaza, occasionally loosing his balance or tripping over one of his many hooves, he followed the flow of people through the exit.

The houses and shops surrounding him were built from a mixture of brick and wood. The outsides walls were often painted in shades of blue or green to compliment the grey-ish green thatch rooftops. Ferris didn't notice any of this, nor the bustling NPCs who greeted him and every other player that passed by. Instead he walked listlessly in a daze.

The problem was he truely had high hopes for this game. He wanted to play with his friends and show off to his older brother, but now he was to embarrassed to be seen.

Pondering the problem Ferris suddenly came to a realisation, this was only the beginning, even those that chose humans looked like beggars and the spirits a few wisps of smoke.

Maybe a donkey isn't too bad? After all he'd also seen chickens and pigs running around. There was even a rat but he couldn't be sure if it was a player or not.

"The most important thing is to increase my level. Every ten levels will have the opportunity to evolve, and every fifty would be a major evolution."

Ferris looked around only to find he'd left the outskirts of town. Small fields surrounded him with a few NPC farmers working on various tasks.

Ferris approached one, "hello sir, is there anything I can help you with?"

Luckily, being a donkey didn't effect his ability to speak and the farmer looked up from his work with a toothy smile.

"What a kind lad! Could you pull our cart while we harvest the vegetables?"

<Association: Farmers Union>

<Relationship: Neutral>

A second notification quickly followed:

Ferris happily agreed and Old Tim signalled the surrounding farmers to the barn. Where they fitted him into a horse harness and attached a cart. The farmers left their baskets in the barn and followed Ferris who walked up and down the field as they pulled out carrots and parsnips from the ground and threw them into the cart. One farmer sat in the cart, putting the loose veggies into sacks and neatly stacking them up.

Ferris found the task extremely boring and as the cart became heavier it was rather exhausting. However, the pace was quick and before long the cart was full and the field empty. They returned to the barn, unloaded the sacks and Old Tim asked if he would help with the next field. Ferris almost didn't hear him, as a sound notification indicated that he had levelled up! He was now at level 1 and could see his stats and character information.

He agreed to continue helping and inspected his stats while pulling the cart.

<Name: Ferris>

<Titles: None>

<Race:Horse>

<Level: 1 (5/20)>

<Associations: None>

<Magic: 1>

<Strength: 1>

<Agility: 1>

Ferris was rather surprised to find out that he was a horse and not a donkey. He was really starting to think that this might not be a bad starting point after all. Before long another four fields were cleared giving him a total of 75 experience points were enough to reach level 3. Every level required double the exp as the previous level and the exp used to level up was deducted from the useable amount. To reach level 1, 10exp was initially needed so to reach lvl4 required 80exp. Ferris had 5exp left over and would need to harvest another five fields to reach lvl4 and ten fields after that for lvl5.

Suddenly, Ferris realised farming wasn't so easy.

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