Last Chance

Chapter Two

Why does this town seem so familiar? I swear I have seen it somewhere before. But where? Those were but a few of the thoughts that ran through my head as I tried to understand where I was.

The town look amazing. Although it was a bit overcrowded, the atmosphere was magnificent. Most of the people were kind and polite yet there was always those few who were either too arrogant or to self-involved that they didn't care about those around them.

The area of the town where I awoke must have been a town center of some sorts. It was large and in a circular shape. In the middle was a small, maybe one meter radius, floating circle structure that rotated clockwise continuously. Upon the circle were strange symbols that reminded me of Celtic runes of sorts. Within the circle was a sphere, the size of a basketball, of a vibrant blue energy that rippled every so often.

Now that looks familiar. It couldn't be, could it? I thought as I glanced around me once more finally understanding why everything seemed so familiar. This was Guild Stronghold. But how is it possible that I am here? I never signed in. The last thing I remember is jumping off the roof. Why is this happening?

I looked down, wondering what I would be wearing in this world and found a very basic set of clothes. I didn't even have any armor. Just a white tunic shirt laced at the top loosely. A pair of dull grey trousers and dark brown sneakers. Why didn't I have any armor?

Noticing the strap across my chest I reached behind me to find the handle of a thick short sword with a gold plated handle and hilt. I tried to unsheathe it but as soon as I tried a notification appeared in front of me within a floating cloud bubble stating:

Town Limitations

Sword Use: Disabled

Wow. I thought. Maybe it's because this is the beginner town so the reason it is disabled is to allow the beginners and novices a chance to survive within this new world. Smart. Every other game that involved player killing consisted of the spawn killers that camped outside the spawn areas.

I began to walk around until I had finally managed to exit the city. I was expecting lush green grass and a vast mountainous region in the distance. I mean, why couldn't it be like that game anime I once saw. But no, it had to be deep within the mountain region where the game began.

It was dull and bleak and the caverns and cliff faces gave off a dangerous aura making me wary of travelling to close. I unsheathed my sword and noticed a quick ping near the top right of my vision:

Iron Sword: Equipped

That was when I noticed the Health, Mana, and Stamina bars in the top left of my vision. If I focused on an enemy or some spot in front of me, I found that I could zone out the status bars to allow me to focus on the matter at hand. Of course they never actually disappeared and if I needed I could just glance up to see my current statuses.

I tried finding the skill window but nothing I tried worked. Nothing happened. Not even a notification stating that it was disabled or a Hint notification showing how to access it. I did, however, manage to open the menu which I appreciated greatly.

The menu appear within the bottom middle section of my vision and moved as my head did. It consisted of five rectangles with a dull green glow outline of each option. The options included: 
Continue, Inventory, Skills (which was disabled and made me realize why all my previous attempts to access it failed), Friends, and Log Out (which was also disabled).

Why was the Log Out option disabled? Is this a bug? Is it meant to be like this? Movement ahead of me caused me to look up. I spotted two other players who were travelling back to the town. One had a bulky looking metal set of armor that gave off the aura of power, but any gamer would know that its stats weren't that high.