20 Tutorial: pt 1

Through her research Sara was able to find out more about the stats in the game. She'd originally thought she was rather unlucky to have such low skills, but a quick search online proved otherwise. One post in particular caused her to feel very, very lucky.

WHAT KIND OF DOG SH%&%T GAME IS THIS!!!!!

So, I start my character creation, I have everything figured out from the beginning. I choose my race (Mountain Dwarve for any one that's curious) and my gender (weird that they let you pick one) Then, I go to choose my class. I wanted to be a bad&*&ss battle dwarve that was able to smash through my enemies with my mighty hammer of steel! So, obviously, I chose one of the warrior classes. I chose Berserker because fukkkk yes, that's why. I'm in there, choosing my character's EVERYTHING, and then the images in the mirror change, they change to what I'm sure we've all now realized is your characters unique past. Obviously, I'm not going to get into how fukkking bada&87&*ss it is that they actually have unique and customized back stories for ALL players rather than having your character just fall out of the sky and become a legend over night. No, not this time. jWhy? BECAUSE I GOT SCREWED, THAT'S WHY! This *censored language* bat *censored language* Stick this *censored language* With a mpother *censored language* game that is seriously *censored language*

Ok, I know that none of that made sense because my language will DEFINITELY be censored in that last bit (I did'n't even know I had it in me) But, basically, I have a Charisma of 3 because my back story ended with half my face being MELTED off from acid, my strength ended up being an 11, which isn't too bad, but my intelligence? IT'S A *censored language* 2! *censored language* you, you *censored language* I was given a notification after the prologue that my low intelligence meant that there may be a language barrier in place for my character! Why? Not because I could only speak in dwarven, no, but because my ability to speak is LESSER than someone with a higher intelligence! APPARENTLY to speak without issue and eloquently, you need to have an intelligence of AT LEAST 4. FOUR!?!?!? I'm two away! You can't raise your intelligence without studying in magic and books, an I mean SLAVING OVER BOOKS in the game. It's supposed to be the hardest skill to raise if you aren't a freaking wizard! And yes I know they are called "mages" in this game, but screeewww you, they are feakin' wizards.

So, basicall, what I want to say is…WHAT THE ACTUAL FUKKKKK DO I DO NOW?!?!?!?!??!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!?

As Sara read the post, she sighed in relief. At least she didn't have that character.

The comments weren't any better.

-you must have done something dumb to have a charisma of 3 because your face was burned in acid. :'D-

-Can't relate-

-The prologue isn't supposed to be there to mess with your character, you were probably being a jakkk abs to the NPC's, they're like, some of the most intelligent NPC's in games, you got what you deserved.-

-Give a like for everyone that thinks this guy should post his character name so we can petition to have his character re-named to Leatherface:nospeak-

-to the guy above, I completely support this endeavor-

-to the poster above *thumbs up*-

As she looked further into the skills and what the basics were about, she found out that for the average adult in game, 10 was a base line for skills. Anything below was under average and anything above was above average.

Intelligence helped with verbal skills and learning-it could dictate how long it took for your character to learn something. Someone with a maxed out intelligence would even be able to glance through a book and retain everything within it. The uses for strength were obvious. It helped deal physical damage and carry weight. The uses for Charisma were mostly for social situations and looks. Someone with maxed out Charisma would be both beautiful, and also be able to move an audience with a single word to do their bidding.

So, Sara had two skills below average and one that was average for an adult. There was also speculation that the prologue ended when your character was roughly eleven years old, and that in the tutorials your character might already have higher stats. But, it was almost guaranteed that your character would be able to raise their stats during the tutorial.

For races that lived much longer than humans, their characters were suspected to have their back stories years before current game play, which meant they might encounter major historical events during the prologue and tutorials. People were waiting to find out if their hunches would be proven true or false in that regard, however.

There were three extra variant races that were unlocked.

One for elves, the Drow.

One for Humans, Islanders.

The last one was for Small folk, City small folk.

Aside from the Drow, which Sara already knew the benefits of, the Islanders made it easier for the player to learn boating for oceanic sea faring boats, rather than the small canoes and fishing boats that the river small folk had access to learn and the city small folk allowed for a character to be created similar to an assassin or thief, it seemed. Some that chose that race were given an additional stat called agility. They seemed to have unlocked it through some special means during the prologue.

There weren't many people posting about Drow, apparently, they weren't too popular because of something that had happened in another game.

The race was made unpopular due to the draw backs they suffered in a game called "Wildefare".

Curious, Sara looked up what was wrong with the Drow in Wildefare. She promptly felt her stomach drop.

The Drow in Wildefare couldn't see in the light! At all! The sun blinded them almost entirely. They also couldn't join in regular game play, instead having to fight AGAINST the bulk of the players because they were essentially treated as "monsters" by the system. To the point that you couldn't walk around in the open with people being able to see that you were a Drow or else guards and players would attack you. There were bounties placed on them! What kind of a game lets NPC's place bounties on you when you hadn't done anything wrong!? When a major event happened in the game, the Drow players weren't allowed to take part because they were "monsters". They couldn't get any benefits from hunting because they could only deal in the black market. The average prices for them and the average prices for others were vastly different, so different that many people spent real money outside of the game for items to use in the game! There was speculation that the Drow race was created in order to help boost out of game trading and buying.

The reason so many people were hesitant to choose the race was because one of the major developers that chose that particular system for Drow in Wildefare was actually one of the main developers for IronAge!

How did that developer end up working on this game as well? Because he worked for the company that had produced both games. That's right; the company that created Wildefare was the same one that created IronAge.

The more Sara read about the injustices the Drow players in Wildfare had to suffer, the further her stomach dropped. What did this company have against Drow!?!?!?! They were just like everyone else, they still bled red! They still felt pain and the sting of rejection by society!

At this point, Sara desperately wished she had chosen a race before the system had chosen one for her….

What the hell was she going to do!?!?

When the time came for Sara to load IronAge, the excitement that she felt before was replaced with anxiety. She worried that the system would force her to fight against all the other players. In Wildefare, at least it took some time before people realized the unfair treatment of the Drow, in this game, people were already wary of the race, so there were very few that chose it. Because of this, the player pool that Sara would be able to be friendly towards was quite low. She didn't want to have to fight against the majority of the games inhabitants….

Sara closed her eyes and breathed in a calming breath.

It didn't do much for her, but she remembered seeing something in a movie once about it and it seemed to help the main character.

Sara opened her eyes to find herself standing in a small room. The room was dark, but it didn't bother her at all. There was a faint glow beside her, produced by a floating orb that "sat" atop a desk. There were four beds in the room, apparently she have three roommates. Slowly, Sara saw flashes of memories through the eyes of her character.

She saw herself being brought to the Rudimentary Academy for Young Mages. Saw herself learning magic, finding herself average in her class. The man that had tested her seemed not to remember her, she saw him come and go from the academy a few times, but he never stopped to talk with her.

Sara saw herself heading back to her home, seeing her sister that had scared her face, arm and back. She was mean; she never had anything nice to say to Sara. Always looked at her with disdain and if Sara ever did anything that displeased her, she wouldn't hesitate to use physical means to teach her a lesson. Sara's mother had almost no time for her, and only wanted her to do better in school or else the next boy would take her place as their family's mage.

Sara saw her father; he was a male that her mother had brought in to have children with. Sara saw that after her mother lost interest in the man, she had him executed and given to the Spider Queen as tribute.

The Spider Queen. Lolth.

The demoness they called goddess.

The one her people worshipped.

She disdained the males of their race, so her people also disdained them. The males for Drow were smaller than the females; almost exactly as human men were larger than human women.

The Spider Queen was an existence that was all powerful in Drow society.

If she gave an order, it was carried out as perfectly as possible. No one ever dared to go against her.

Sara's family was in turmoil. There was suspicion in her family that the Spider Queen was angry with them. That they had fallen out of favor. This information could not be leaked. If it was, another family would possibly use the opportunity this presented to eradicate Sara's family, and take their place. Take anything their family had left behind. It happened often in Drow society. They were a wicked bunch.

No, wait, that wasn't right. Sara wanted to be a hero. Hero. So…Drow would have to just be considered misunderstood.

If they were a wicked race, then Sara would do her best to show that they were also good. At least she was good.

As the memories ended with her coming back to finished up her last year or so in the Rudimentary Mages school, Sara opened her eyes once again.

She looked around, before starting to try to move her body around. It felt exactly as if she were actually standing there, in that room. As if, everything around her was physically real, and not something created in a VR headset and body suit. She could feel the robes that brushed against her as she moved, could feel the desk at her side. Even her sense of smell was integrated with the system. It smelled of parchment and a bit of incense. Not strong incense, as if it'd been a few hours since it had been burnt.

Sara stood on one foot and hopped twice, then switched feet and did the same. She lifted her arms and moved them around and around in the air at her sides. Then, she rocked back and forth, before jumping to one side, then the other.

The system seemed to respond perfectly. Sara nodded in satisfaction.

As she finished her strange movements to test the system's reaction, she saw a notification pop up in front of her.

-New Mission-

Priority- 1

Difficulty-1

Reward- Character creation finalization and familiarization.

Possible additional rewards- Spell incantations

Mission information- Attend graduation ceremony early tomorrow morning.

Sara stared at the mission before scoffing at its contents.

"I just have to attend? Psh, easy."

Sara closed out of the mission's alert. She stood for a moment, before realizing something was off.

"Wait, what spells do I even have?"

Sara stood in place as she searched in her visuals for something that she could open that would tell her how to check her spell list.

She looked left, she looked right. She looked up, then down. Still, she saw nothing in her vision that could be opened to a spell list.

"Shit…isn't this a fucking tutorial? How do I do anything!? Fuck it, Spell list; open. Menu; open."

Abruptly, a menu was brought up in front of her.

"There we go…."

Character name- Serendipitous Title- unassigned Reputation- None

Race- Drow Class- Mage

Sex- male Background- mage student

Spells learned- 4 Spell levels attained- 1

Strength: 9

Intelligence: 13

Charisma: 10

Equipment:

Apprentice robes- no benefits granted

Leather shoes- no benefits granted

Cloth gloves- no benefits granted

Common clothes- no benefits granted

*Additional equipment and items that are not in use can be stored in the inventory tag at the bottom. This message will be deleted after tutorial is completed. *

At the bottom of her menu, Sara found additional tabs. She moved her finger to tap the one at the bottom, only to have it open the moment she intended to open it.

She paused for a moment in shock, before she began to rifle through her characters possessions. Strangely, she felt as if she were going through someone else's possessions rather than her own....

Inventory:

Notebook

Pen

Spell book

Carry Capacity: 1.3/45 reached

*Items in red cannot be traded or sold. This message will be deleted after tutorial is completed*

Sara frowned down at her carry capacity. First, she thought that it was the number of items that she could carry, before she realized she had three items on her, but the carry capacity said she had 1.3 items…which didn't make any sense.

It didn't take her long to realize her inventory went by weight. She knew her carry capacity was based on strength, so if she divided 45 by her strength, she was roughly able to carry five pounds for every point in strength.

Her spell book was in red, which meant she couldn't trade or sell it, which made sense; she was a mage after all. Her spell book was probably the systems way of explaining her list of spells that she could choose from.

She made to tap on it, only to have the system do everything for her once again. A spell book landed in her hands.

It was heavy, heavier than a single pound…which probably meant her spell book was not taken into consideration for equipment weight.

Opening it, an alert popped up in front of Sara.

-Spells that are to be used more than once must be recorded within spell book. All spells that are not recorded cannot be re-used. To place a spell within book, one must copy down their incantation. Some spells have a cool off time and a warm up time. These are noted in the descriptions. One can choose to further study a spell after acquiring more stats in intelligence, but this process can take time. Libraries and missions can sometimes reveal new spells for your character, so a thorough search is recommended when playing through any missions. Magic power is not given a numerical value; instead a magic using character that is running low on magic force will instead feel drained of energy. If one tries to use a spell that requires an amount of magic force that exceeds the magic force in a character's body, the character can experience fainting, chronic illness and death. This message can be brought up again throughout tutorial, but will be unavailable after tutorial is completed.-

Sara cried out as she read the message.

"What the hell? You can die if you use more magic force than you have available…and they don't even tell you how much each spell uses, or how much you have?!?"

Sara re-read the message, unsure if she was reading it wrong, but, nope, she definitely read that your character could die if they exceeded their magic force in their bodies.

She shook her head before closing the message and flipping through the spell books pages.

Flipping through, it seemed to be divided by spell type, which was a pain, since she didn't know what spells she knew.

The first one she wanted to look into was the fire spell she had encountered in the character creation process.

She flipped to the fire spells and found the small fire spell she was familiar with was the only one in that section.

Small flame; level 0:

This spell produces a small flame.

Sara stared down at the minimal information she was given.

Who writes these spell descriptions? They had no imagination….

At the bottom of the page, Sara found another note.

*Spells must be chanted and studied the first time used, as done in the character creation process, before they can be recorded in a spell book. Some may find this process more difficult than others. This message will be deleted after tutorial is completed.*

Sara blinked down at the information.

Did that mean every spell she came across, she might not even get to learn it? Was that something most games did?

Continuing through the pages, Sara was able to find her other spells with a bit of effort.

Water summon; level 0:

Summons a pint of water.

Force arrow; level 1: Warm up time needed. Cool down time suggested.

A small, fast moving, invisible force flies out toward a target within range. Attack: 2-7

*Intelligence over 10 has revealed that this spell can increase in attacking ability*

Wind Blade; level 0:

A blade of wind slices anything within range. Attack: 4-6