Trials of a VRMMO Healer

Chapter 2 - Ourth Town

I'll spare you the details of my landing, but suffice it to say, Eternity Online's new player experience might turn off some newbies. I'm not particularly scared of heights, but until my fall slowed to a gradual descent, I was pretty sure it was the scariest thing I'd ever done. I stood in the town square of Ourth and got used to interacting with the system. I checked my equipment and inventory and skills. Sure enough, I had an [Apprentice's Staff] and a set of [Apprentice's Robes]. It wasn't exactly what I wanted for my character, but with the 500 Gul to my name, I couldn't buy anything better. Or maybe I could. I had no idea. A crowd of villagers, probably mostly NPCs, had gathered.

"Um. Hello." I said and waved, "Uh... could you tell me where the shops are? And where the best hunting grounds for new players are?"

A middle-aged man stepped forward. "Good Traveler!" he said and the inflection on 'traveler' finally made it click that this is what the in-character name for players is. "Welcome to our humble village. I'm afraid we don't have much in the way of adventuring goods, but we do have a general store down the eastern street. As far as hunting..."

He looked at his fellow villagers, who gave him meaningful nods.

"Might we implore you to help us? A nest of scorpions near the pass to the nearest city have made trade impossible for the last few weeks and we're running low on provisions."

It... sounded like a quest, but the way the villagers had gathered and the desperation in the man's voice made me wonder about something.

"Haven't any other pl—Travelers managed to clear the nest out?"

The man frowned. "Er, no. The found it to be too dangerous and left us for Illium. You're the first Traveler we've seen in days."

Ariadne had said that few Travelers had started in Ourth, but the man's story made me wonder. How much of this world was designed by developers and how much had been generated as time went on? Ariadne had been realistic enough that talking to her felt like talking to a human, but the fact that there were this many realistic AI characters was... I wondered how it was done. Still, something about the situation made me feel like I couldn't just run away.

"I'll give it a shot, but I'm new and I might not be able to do much."

"Oh, thank you, Miss Traveler!" he exclaimed.

"Gotcha. I'll head over there now, I guess."

"Now?"

"Might as well take a look and see what I can figure out."

"If you think you can, Miss."

I wondered what the death penalty in this game was, anyway. I pulled up the manual and looked through it. It seemed like dying in the game resulted in a severe penalty to combat abilities for the next 24 in-game hours. So about 8 hours of real time. Still, it didn't seem that bad to make players run away.

"Which way do I go?"

"Ah, through the west gate and follow the road. You'll see the pass about 20 minutes out. You can't miss the nest."

"Thanks. I'll give it a shot. Worst thing that can happy is I'd die, anyway."

"Er, if you say so, Miss," he said and the villagers gave each other worried glances. Well, that's pretty ominous.

Still, I set off down the road, confirming my spells as I went. I had the basic [Minor Heal] and [Cure Poison], which was to be expected. The default spellcasting mechanism was to hold out your casting implement and shout the name of the spell while focusing on its target. Apparently this could be changed, but the manual didn't say how, so I guessed it was a skill or item. With my current HP and MP I had enough to heal myself four times. I could swap out any of those heals for a cure poison, too. Neither of my weapon skills gave me any special abilities at level 1, though. I had just gotten stock of the basics when I saw a looming figure in the middle of the road.