25 Meeting a new face after a murder

Sara returned to her dorm and threw herself onto her bed. She covered her face with her hand as she relived the embarrassing interaction she had just encountered with the shop owner.

'What the hell is wrong with me…' She chastised herself.

But, as the saying goes, there is no use crying over flayed fish. Sara sat up, throwing off the earlier interaction and focusing instead on the task at hand. She still had a fair amount of time before she had to go to her graduation ceremony and she had yet to gain any real benefits from the tutorial.

She didn't even know how to use her spells properly yet.

Sara's mind went blank as she realized she'd completely forgotten to go to the sparring rooms.

She hurried to leave her dorm, almost running into her roommate, once again on the way out. She'd been so preoccupied trying to check her map that she hadn't noticed him.

"Shit!" Her roommate cried out as he fell back. He scowled at Sara's retreating figure.

Sara didn't bother to apologize as she stared down at the slowly revealed map. She ran as fast as she could toward the building that housed the sparring rooms.

Sara heard a few Drow cry out as she rushed past, but didn't pay them any mind.

Finally, she reached the building that was used primarily for sparring sessions.

A new notice popped up in front of her.

Notice!

You've found the ranking and practice building. Many young Drow use this building for both practice and for ranking matches between each other. The northern side of the building is for young warrior Drow to test their merit and the Southern side is for the Drow practicing in the arcane to practice new spells and fight for ranking. Your status menu has been updated with your rank in your class.

Character familiarization +1

After reading the notice, Sara hurried to check her character menu.

Character name- Serendipitous Title- unassigned Reputation- None

Race- Drow Class- Mage (Rank 127 out of 334)

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. *

There, with her class was also her mage student ranking. Sara silently did the math…

'Oh? Looks like I'm above average…' Sara smiled down at the ranking as a laugh slowly built in her chest. As some passersby began to take notice of the strangely acting Drow, Sara hurried to stifle her laughter.

Unfortunately, Sara didn't realize that, although her ranking wasn't directly center of the rankings, she was still considered average in the world of Drow mages.

Sara felt much better after finding out her character wasn't some waste of space and held her head a little higher as she made her way into the sparring rooms, hoping to try out her spells.

Entering into the building, Sara found herself in a hall. On both sides of the hall, there were multiple doors, some open, other's closed. At the end of the hallway, there was a set of double doors. Sara peeked into the open doorways and found rooms that were perfect for mage study and practice. There was a desk in each room along with paper and pens. There were candles for light and chalk and other miscellaneous items that she assumed were for practicing and studying spells.

She walked past all the open doorways and pushed open the double doors ahead. There was a hall leading left, lit by low light sconces and another leading right, also lit by sconces, upstairs. After a brief deliberation, Sara decided to head right. As she climbed the stairs, she could hear the sounds of screams. Some of excitement and others of pain and still more of elation.

Slowly, Sara reached the top of the staircase. She found herself at the top of an arena shaped like a dome. A number of Drow were sitting in the bleachers, fixated on what was happening in the center of the arena.

Looking down, Sara found a fight happening.

Two male Drow mages were fighting it out in a gruesome display.

One Drow looked a little worse for wear, his robes were scorched and his hand was bleeding heavily, but on his face was a sinister grin that sent chills over Sara's body.

The other Drow cried out at that time, as a mass of black tentacle like ooze formed beneath him. He tried to move away, but the tentacles grabbed hold of his legs, keeping him from moving. The burned Drow made various hand signs as he chanted a spell. The mana in the arena fluctuated as he finished his incantation.

Dark energy crackled around his fingertips before abruptly vanishing as he extended his finger toward the other Drow. With a flash, dark purple and black crackling energy shot forth, slamming into the chest of the other Mage.

The mage hit cried out in pain as the energy exploded into him. His robes became tattered and torn from the attack as he fell back. The tentacles wrapped around his unconscious form, slowly dragging him into their mass.

Sara watched the end of the fight with dread. Nobody seemed concerned with the downed mage as the tentacles slowly dragged him down, until there some nothing left to see aside from the occasional bubble of sludge. Slowly, the black ooze began to shrink, the spell wearing off as it's time limit was expired.

As the ooze faded away, a pristine white skeleton was all that was left of the Drow was had been swallowed by the dark entity.

As the ooze disappeared, a voice rang out over the arena.

"Victory goes to Drex'le of the 256th mage class. Challenger defeated, advance in rank, from 12th to 11th, failed!"

Sara balked at the announcement. She knew from her memories that she was in the 256th mage class as well, but she had no idea what sort of magic that other mage had used to kill his competitor. Sara turned her head back and forth, trying to find SOMEONE that was bothered by the apparent murder that had happened in front of them.

She found herself to be the only one that seemed bothered by the display. Sara felt her stomach roll as she glanced back at the bones on the arena floor. A goblin was coming forward, intending to clean them away.

She hurried to find herself a place to vomit.

Sara rushed out of the bleachers, entering the hall just in time as her stomach emptied its contents.

It had to be said that IronAge was incredibly realistic. Although Sara had encountered a limited amount of brutality in the game, she'd yet to experience an actual murder. The realistic nature of the game caused the entire experience to feel as if it were actually happening right in front of her.

Sara wiped at the corner of her mouth as she hurried back down the steps.

She entered that long hall once again as she heard others following behind her to come down.

"What the fuck…?! Did someone throw up here!?"

Sara heard a man yell from above. She hurried into one of the open rooms, shutting the door behind her so as not to be seen.

'These people are fucking crazy…' She thought as she leaned her head against the door, trying to catch her breath.

"Um…excuse me, I was using this room…" A meek voice called out from behind her.

Sara froze, slowly turning to find a small male Drow standing next to the desk.

Sara's first instinct was to run, but she was able to stop herself when she heard more Drow walking by outside.

"Ah…yeah." She replied without paying much attention.

Her reply seemed to irritate the Drow whose practice she had interrupted.

"Yeah…so…find another room?" He suggested.

Sara turned looking at the Male Drow as if she'd just noticed him.

"What? Oh! Right, sorry, I'll go in a minute."

Sara listened at the door, waiting for the spectator Drow to leave before daring to walk out.

"Wait…are you a player?" the voice came again.

Sara balked at the question. She whirled around to face the other Drow.

"Huh?"

The Drow shook his head rapidly, regretting his question immediately. "Sorry…"

Sara mirrored his action of shaking his head. "No, no, I mean, yes?"

"Oh?"

"Yea, I am." Sara stated.

The other Drow seemed to light up, at least as much as a Drow could given their races features and gloomy nature.

"That's awesome! You're the first I've met!"

Sara wasn't sure how to react to this new found player. Her brows furrowed.

"Wait, isn't this MY tutorial? Why are you here?" She asked, confused.

The other Drow's expression shifted with realization.

"Oh, that's a unique feature in the game. The character creation is done solo, but the tutorial includes multiple players. They couldn't make a different Drow or elven society for each player, that'd be too much, so they make players with the same race start off in the same society, or at least, they put groups of them in the same society. So, there is probably another Drow society with more players there as well."

Sara shook her head. "What about when you die? You have to start the tutorial all over again, how does that work?"

It was the other players turn to become confused. He laughed. "Who dies during the tutorial?"

Before Sara could respond, he went on. "They probably just have some sort of system in place, like, the NPC's that you interacted with might not remember that you died or something."

Sara nodded, still not understanding. She glanced at the clock in her menu that counted down until her graduation. She realized that, although the tutorial started all over again, the time she'd expended in the game had not in fact changed.

"So, your tutorial mission is probably the same as mine. You just have to attend the graduation?" She asked.

The other player looked at her in awe. "You already have your fourth spell!? Shit, it's taken me forever to find another spell to learn. Where did you find it? How long have you been in the game for?"

Sara blinked, but wasn't sure how to answer. She realized that her character was a little different than the other player before her. It turned out, you needed four spells to graduate to the next class and Sara was just given four spells, while he had to find one. Life really wasn't fair….

"Weird…" She said, staring at the other man.

The other player, unsure how to respond, gave a nervous laugh.

"A..haha…well, I'm in the process of learning my fourth spell, once I do, I can head off to graduate from the tutorial. My character's name is Perseus, let's add each other to our friends lists once we enter the live play."

Sara nodded slowly, then turned to leave. She slipped out of the room like a burglar slipping out of a house it'd just robbed.

After quietly shutting the door behind her, Sara sighed.

"Hoo…that was close."

She wasn't sure why, but she felt like she'd taken something from the man in the room. Her earlier feeling of nausea from watching the murder in the arena was gone and she hummed to herself as she made her way to another open room.

This time, she glanced in to make sure she wasn't disturbing someone. Finding no one inside, she slipped in, quietly shutting the door behind her.