It Gets Complicated

By now, a few other onlookers had gathered, pretending to mill about in the background. Apparently, a new arrival in the village was enough to pique some interests, but not cause concern.

As well, the village lacked walls - the road lead straight through the village center, and the houses and other buildings were clustered around it. Despite Angrea's claim about safety, they didn't seem to taking their defenses very seriously.

"Angrea," I began, "is it normal for villages in this country to not have walls?" I tried to sound as innocent as possible, which was easy, given that I was. But I did not deny the possibility of suspicion, being an armed stranger questioning their security.

"In this country? Heavens no," the old woman replied with a bitter laugh. "But as close as we are to the royal capital, no bandit in their right mind would attack us directly. Even the wild animals and monsters keep their distance...until you enter their domain, anyway." She waved her hand again. "It is not as though we are totally free of their influence, of course. Animals both human and otherwise conduct their business well enough on the roads."

I could only assume she spoke of highwaymen.

"Huh," I replied, looking around absently. Not much business was being conducted this far from the village center - only those aforementioned onlookers, and the occasional villager heading to or from their home, were around us here. "Do you live this far out, Angrea?"

"No, no, my home is further inside," she explained, shaking her head. "I was just about to head out of town, you see, when I came across a strange new face." I laughed awkwardly in response.

"CHALLENGE OPPORTUNITY:"

The voice exploded into my mind, catching me off guard. This was definitely not the one who had been guiding me thus far - that one, while oddly monotone and robotic, was notably female, where as this was...utterly alien, like a toaster had come to life and was trying to communicate.

"CONVINCE ANGREA TO LET YOU STAY IN HER HOME."

"Wha-what?" I thought back, confused. "Why would I want to do that?"

"COMPLETE CHALLENGE TO RECEIVE REWARD."

"Reward" definitely had me intrigued - though it was probably just more experience - but the likelihood of success did not seem great. Worse case scenario, I could damage my budding relationship with this nice old woman and potentially the village as a whole. I wasn't sure it was worth the risk.

"Not to keep you from your business," I began, deciding to bridge the topic as cautiously as possible, "but I have no place to stay, and I might be sticking around Troph for a while..."

"Oh, well, no worry there. We have an inn, and it's a decent one at that. Not too pricey, neither."

"Ah h-ha," I replied, sweat beginning to build on my brow. I had to keep pushing, but it was only going to get worse from here. "Well, unfortunately, I don't have any money. I don't think the inn would just...let me stay for free..."

Angrea raised an eyebrow. "No money? Well, I guess you did say you were new here." She looked up and down absently, thinking. "Have any sort of valuables you might be able to trade?"

"Nothing that wouldn't destroy my ability to continue adventuring..." I tapped the hilt of my sword to illustrate the point.

"Hmm..." Angrea hummed to herself, still wracking her brain for my benefit. "It might be best to move onward to the capital, then. Things are more expensive, sure, but the Adventurer's Guild is based out of there, which means you can find yourself some work. Do something for them, then come back here, if you'd like. Keeps the cost of living down." Angrea laughed, slapping me heartily on the back.

"CHALLENGE FAILED."

"Yeah, I gathered that," I thought back, bitterly. It was not an outright refusal, but I was in no position to press further without tanking the conversation further, and it seemed this new voice knew that.

"Objective fulfilled: Fail one of Zeta's challenges."

The female voice was back, apparently. But who was Zeta? The other voice?

"If that's Zeta, who are you? Don't you have a name?" I thought back, partly to myself, partly in the hopes that she would be able to explain. We had interacted directly before, but I had spoken out loud, which I didn't have the luxury of doing right now, if I wanted to remain sane in the eyes of the villagers.

"As previously discussed, I am Penta. Please do make note of all relevant information."

"When the hell did you-" I began, only to cut myself off. Something told me that wasn't the only information lost when she first started screaming at me...

"Well, I'm off to the royal capital, then," I concluded aloud, looking back at Angrea. "Could you point me in the right direction? I promise I won't get...too lost."

She nodded. "If you head through the village center and out the other side, you should see signs directing you to the capital. It isn't far, as I said - maybe, half a day, on foot?"

"Half a day, eh...?" I repeated to myself, trying hard not to act too disappointed. The thought of trudging across the countryside in this getup had me chafing already...though, to it's credit, my equipment did not seem to be bothering me as much anymore. I guess I just needed to get used to the added weight.

Something told me I'd be lucky if walking was all I'd be doing on the road, though.

"I'd recommend a horse, but as money's the issue, I'm afraid that wouldn't help much!" Angrea shot back, grinning smugly. I wanted to complain about how stingy this tutorial village was being, but given that it allowed me to figure out a few things before something tried to kill me, I guess I had no room to do so.

"CHALLENGE OPPORTUNITY: STEAL A HORSE."

"What? No! Challenge opportunity declined!"

"CHALLENGE FAILED."

"Huh, I guess when it knows I won't go any further, it considers it as good as done..." I noted mentally.

"Objective fulfilled: Maintain a clean criminal record."

More experience for something stupid, but Penta was back. Geez, how much are these two going to go back and forth?

I turned toward the path Angrea had indicated - the only other path beside the way I had come - and felt something brush against my hand at my side. Looking down, instead of the decently sized sword at my waist, I instead found a gnarled wooden staff, nearly twice its length.

And instead of chainmail, I was wearing a dark woolen robe.

"Woah, wait, what?" I spat, sweeping my hands across my body as if expecting more things to be wrong. I looked around, as well, to see if anyone else had noticed.

None of the onlookers seemed to care - they still kept their distance, side-eying me.

"What the hell?" I thought to myself, wondering, for a brief moment, if I was losing my mind. I was built like the typical depiction of a spellcaster, now.

But I had no idea how to use magic.

"Great, what a wonderful thing to have happen right before I hit the damn road!" I continued to fume internally, clenching my teeth. I had no experience with a sword - I think - but I still understood how to swing and which end was the sharp one. Magic, on the other hand, was a wild card that I didn't even know existed in this world.

"Objective fulfilled: Experience class frustration."

"Shut up."

"Experience threshold reached. Level advanced to 3. Spell learned: lightning bolt."

"Wait, what?"