“Gentlemen,” she said to the two guards. “Mr. Lennox’s bodyguard Mr. Smith will be passing through with Casper. Please allow him to carry his sidearm, but keep his phone and wallet please.”
“Yes, Ms. Zerne,” one of the men said with a nod.
“There. That better?” she asked me with a flutter of her eyelashes.
“Yes. Thank you.”
We continued for a few more minutes and then came to my room with the ‘LL’ engraved on the door. Zarra pushed her keycard up against the sensor and the door to the suite opened.
“Ky, are you ready for Leo? Jennifer? Trina?” Zarra asked as we passed through my living space and into the steel plated lab room.
“We are all ready Ms. Zerne,” Jennifer said through the speaker.
“I’ll give Leo his check up, and then he can enter the VRIU,” Dr. Dimopoulos gestured to the nearby stool, and I sat upon it.
“Okay. I’ll go take my spot in the observation room. Leo, I’ll see you when you get back from Ohlavar Quest, and I’ll have the contract ready for you to sign.” The woman smiled at me, and I wondered if Trina could hear my heart race.
“If I decide to sign,” I smirked at her.
“Oh, you’ll sign. I have no doubt about it.”
Chapter 13
I opened my eyes and stared at the dark blue sky. The large purple planet with the orange rings was hanging on the right side of the horizon, and I sat up so that I could stare at it for a few moments. I had forgotten to tell Zarra that it didn’t really fit with a ‘fantasy’ type environment. Maybe it wouldn’t matter once players got used to the visual. It really did look cool, and I felt a bit of comfort once I saw the purple globe with its orange rings. It made me think that I had come home.
I was naked for some reason, and I sat on top of the flat part of the church roof where I had logged out two weeks before. I looked down at my stomach, and almost expected to see the synthetic bandage that covered the assassin's cut, but there was only bare skin since I was in the game.
I was actually sitting on my starter clothes, and they lay on the roof tile as if I’d disappeared while I wore them. I reached down to touch them and gave a startled gasp when I pulled the pants out from under me. A semi-transparent light teal menu screen had popped up in my visual, and it identified that the pants were actually ‘starter pants.' They had a 0 level armor rating and a durability of standard. There were eight fields under the durability field:
‘Br--’
‘In--’
‘Wi--’
‘Pe--’
‘Ch--’
‘Co--’
‘Lu--’
I guessed that gear would be able to give stat bonuses, but since this was just a starter pair of pants, it didn’t have any magical properties beyond curing nudity. I slipped the underwear on and then pulled the pants over my legs. I saw a brief flash of light on the top right corner of my visual and I realized that there was a faintly lit user interface semi-imposed over my view. I hadn’t noticed it at first because the sky was such a dark blue color, and the UI parts were a light teal.
There was a compass on the top of my eyesight, and I saw it spin from ‘N’ to ‘S’ as I turned my head to look behind me. There was also a mini-map in the top left corner. It was a little too dim to see when I looked at the sky, and I wondered if there was a way to change its color or brightness. The top right corner had a small body icon next to a gear sprocket. I raised my hand into the air and tapped on the corner where the body was. Another menu opened in the center of my visuals.
It was an enlarged outline of my body, and I could see that the pants were equipped onto my legs. I kept the window opened and reached for the shirt on the tile. I slipped it over my head while the menu was still open, and it flashed for a second. Then I saw that my shirt was over my chest on the visual aid. There were little tabs on the top bar of the ‘equipped’ menu, and I raised my hand to press my finger in the air where the ‘stats’ tab lay on the floating visual.
The menu switched from an outline of my body to a spreadsheet of text and number rows.
Leo Lennox
Body (Overall) - 33
Body (Magic) - 0
Body (Stats) - 33
Brawn - 17
Quickness - 16
Mind (Overall) - 31
Mind (Magic) - 0
Mind (Stats) - 31
Intelligence - 15
Willpower - 16
Light (Overall) - 25
Light (Magic) - 0
Light (Stats) - 25
Perception - 12
Charisma - 13
Shadow (Overall) - 32
Shadow (Magic) - 0
Shadow (Stats) - 32
Comeliness - 16
Luck - 16
I noticed that my Brawn, Quickness, Willpower, Comeliness, and Luck numbers were in a bright green color, and they had a bit of a glow to them. My Body, Mind, and Shadow stats also had the same green glow. My Intelligence, Light, Perception, and Charisma scores were all a white color. I wondered why the other stats were green, and I guessed that it meant they were above average.
Did the game think that I was of average intelligence? What about Perception? It was my lowest stat. I found it hard to believe that the game would think I wasn’t very perceptive. I could read an enemy’s battle moves easily enough. I was the fucking world champion, and I couldn’t have gotten the title by being an idiot.
I took a deep breath and fought against my anger. The game couldn’t know what my mental stats were. It was probably just taking a glance at my other physical characteristics and counterbalancing them. It was probably setting me up to be more of a ‘fighter’ type class since I was so strong. I’d have to ask Zarra about it when I logged out of the game. For all, I knew they set all new players with a stat of ‘1’ in everything to start out, and she’d pushed up my power ratings to give me a bit of a head start. Still, if I was getting a little butt hurt by the game’s rankings, I knew that random players wouldn’t want to login and see their low stats.
Maybe this was why Zarra hadn’t wanted to show these things to me when I first logged in?
There was an ‘Abilities’ tab next to the ‘stats’ tab, and I raised my finger to select it. The window shifted to a slightly different format. It was cut into two frames with a thinner vertical column on the left. I saw only one skill listed there. It was named Impart. I clicked on the skill and the space on the right filled with a sphere that reminded me of a ‘color wheel’ design. The top part was ‘Light, ’ and it had a kind of yellowish glow. On the left side was ‘Body’ and the area around it was red colored. On the right was the ‘Mind’ label and that area was blue. At the bottom was the ‘Shadow axis’ and it was a dark purple color. There was a glowing white dot in the center of the sphere and a line emerging from the dot led to the side and indicated that Impart didn’t pull, or use, it wasn’t quite clear, any of the four different types of magic.
Returns the user to Earth. The description read. Beneath that part was the writing: User lies down and closes eyes for 20 seconds.
“Seems straight forward,” I said out loud. My voice startled a bird, and the creature jumped off of the roof with an angry squawk. The motion made me laugh and shake my head. This world felt so damn real.
Ohlavar Quest was going to be hugely popular.
I closed the ability window and then gestured over the gear cog next to the outline of my body on the top right. As I predicted, this opened up a settings menu. I was able to adjust the color of the UI, and its brightness. There was also an ‘auto’ setting for brightness that was not clicked in the default setting. I decided to test it out and saw that the UI got brighter when I looked toward the sun. I played around with the colors a bit and decided to go with an orange display. I’d probably switch it up a bunch later, but the color was what I used in Astafar Unlimited, and it was also the hue I normally dyed my armor. It kept with the whole ‘Lion’ persona that my fans loved.
; There were a few other settings to show combat numbers or drawing distance of enemy/NPC health bars. I left them how they were in the default settings and then closed the windows. When I stood from my spot on the roof, I noticed the sword I had taken from Kimmel’s guard. The blade was kind of kicked over to the corner of the roof tile, and I bent over to pick it up.
The weapon felt good in my hand, but I noticed that the steel of the blade was a bit rusted. I ran my fingers over the metal where the rust spots were and felt the change across the surface. As I twisted the weapon in my hands, a window popped up, and I almost yelped with surprise. Then the window disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared in my visual.
“Hmmm,” I said as I twisted it around in my hand again. The semi-transparent orange window jumped into my vision again, and I realized that it appeared when I held the weapon in my hand with my palm facing up, and the handle angled so that the blade pointed downward again.
Longsword
Durability: slightly rusted
Damage: standard - long blade
‘Br--’
‘In--’
‘Wi--’
‘Pe--’
‘Ch--’
‘Co--’
‘Lu--’
I moved my left hand over the ‘standard-long blade’ part of the item window and clicked on it. A sub-window popped up that detailed a more expansive array of weapon speed, reach, damage numbers depending on if I thrust, slashed, chopped, threw, or did the same actions with two hands instead of one. The numbers didn’t make much sense to me, and I guessed that Zarra’s team had decided they didn’t want players to be seeing how the sausage was made as their default settings. It was cool that the info was displayed, and I hoped there would be a way to compare weapons stats easily.
I moved to put the sword away, but then I realized I didn’t have a sheath for the blade. I thought about carrying it with me in the town, but while that kind of activity would be fine in Astafar Unlimited, I was going to guess that the NPCs in Cutno would give me strange looks if I was walking around town with the weapon at the ready. They might call the guards, and I was sure they were still searching for me.
I’d have to get a scabbard for the blade, or maybe a towel or blanket to wrap around it. I didn’t see anything I could use up here, so I peered over the edge of the church roof. I saw the guard station below me, as well as the fountain of the small city. I didn’t see a clock anywhere on my UI display, but I remembered seeing one inside the other windows. I clicked up over the body in the top right corner and saw that the time was up over my status bar. I’d have to ask Zarra to change that.
The clock said it was nine in the morning, and the city square was alive with the movements of its citizens. They all had green health bars over their head, but instead of their names it just said Cutno Citizen. The label wasn’t a good idea. It would be hard for players to identify useful NPCs without their names easily displayed, but maybe Zarra’s AI wasn’t quite done picking out names for its inhabitants? I’d ask the woman as soon as I logged out.
Sandbox games done well were a joy to play. The world felt free, open, and it seemed like anything was possible. The issues arose when players didn’t have a clear quest path, or when the world didn’t seem rich enough to offer interesting activities. Even something as simple as making it too hard for most players to know what to do next could ruin a sandbox game. The result was that most developers in the last ten years had followed Astafar Unlimited’s example. They’d made the games linear quest driven, with only the smallest of sandbox elements. This kept players happy, but it also meant that boredom set in once players felt like they did all the quests they could.
For Ohlavar Quest to work, the world would need to have guided quests that felt as if they were sandbox-like. Players would have to stumble into situations where they were needed, but they also had to know that there was more available if they dug into the conversations. It was a strategy that some of the first role-playing games, like Ultima, did really well, but the modern culture had turned away from the practice once the Asian developers took over the market.
Fortunately, I had a quest in mind for this log-in session. Acquiring a sheath for my sword could be a side quest, but what I really wanted to accomplish had to do with Artus. I wanted to find out my friend’s fate.
There were no green or yellow arrows on my map telling me where to go, but I kind of remembered the area of town that Jerjay’s cooking supply shop was located. I didn’t know if Jer would be able to help me, but I figured that it was the best place to start.
I pulled away from the edge of the church roof facing the plaza and walked over to the other side. This part backed up to a grass covered cemetery, and I didn’t see any citizens walking around the park. I leaned over the edge to check the lay of the stone walls, and then I began to climb down the side of the tall structure.
As I climbed, a progress bar appeared at the top of my UI under the compass. It was just a faint outline of one, but as I moved down the wall it slowly filled. As soon as my feet touched the ground at the end of my climb, the bar faded from the UI. It was a cool touch, and I wondered how the system figured out what my intentions were going to be. What if I had planned to only climb half way down? What if I jumped when I was three-quarters of the way to the ground? I was probably looking too deep into it. I’d asked Zarra for a progress bar, and her team had put one up. I’d have to test it out a bit more before I gave her feedback, and I didn’t feel like spending the rest of the day climbing on the church wall.
I needed to hear about Artus.
I had seen the bulk of the small castle from the top of the church, and I’d also seen the distant ends of the city wall. I guessed that Jer’s shop was in the southeast quarter of the city, and I turned my head until the compass pointed me in that direction. Then I began my walk through the more narrow streets.
I hadn’t made it more than three homes away from the church before a group of guards passed in front of me. The trio laughed as they walked across the street, but they didn’t turn to see me. I crept to the edge of the alley and then turned to watch them walk away. Damn. If I came across three guards after only a few feet of travel, how many more would I have to evade before making it to Jerjay's place?
This might not be as easy as I thought.
Chapter 14
After about ten minutes of wandering through the alleyways of the city, I came upon the main thoroughfare that Artus’ wagon had traveled up when Kimmel and his dick bag friends stopped us. Perhaps “thoroughfare” was the wrong word, since I recalled that the first street we had been on was much larger than this, and my friend had actually picked this avenue with the hope that he would avoid Kimmel.
I poked my head out of the alley and glanced around the street to see if I could spot any guards. None of the sunlight gleamed off of any armor, so I guessed that the patrols must have lessened the further away I got from the outpost. Perhaps it was risky to travel on this main road, but I didn’t want to spend all day roaming the back alleys of Cutno.
The townspeople smiled at me when I walked past them, and I returned the gesture. None engaged me in conversation, though, and I wondered if the AI was set to not speak to me unless I talked to them first. I finally decided to test my theory when a man rolling a small wooden cart made eye contact with me as we approached each other on the street.
“Excuse me, friend, I’m a bit lost. Could I trouble you for directions?” I asked when we reached each other on the cobblestone street.
“Sure! Where are you looking to go?” He set down his cart and wiped his brow. The man had a lean face and thick head of dark brown hair.
“I’m looking for Jerjay’s Cooking Supply Shop. Do you know where it is? I apologize for interrupting your journey,” I said as I pointed at his cart. It was covered with a burlap tarp, but the scent of vegetables and fresh dirt drifted to my nose. I’d forgotten all about the smells in the game, and I tried to keep the stupid grin off of my face.
“Great! Thank you so much for your help,” I smiled at the man and almost held my hand out, but then I recalled that Artus hadn’t really understood what a handshake was.
“No worries. Are you looking for work? Your accent makes me think you might not be from around here.”
“I’m always looking for quests. Do you need help with something?”
“Yes, actually. I’ve got to wheel this delivery all the way to the castle. I’m taking this road to avoid the worst of the hill, but I’m not looking forward to the rest of the trip. It is still plenty steep. If you give me a hand, I’ll pay you a copper. Should only take us an hour.”
“Hmmm. I don--”
“Tell you what; I’ll even walk you to Jerjay’s street afterward, so you don’t get lost. I kind of like that noodle shop near his place, so I planned on visiting it anyway.”
“You said you are delivering this into the castle?” I asked. I didn’t know if the city guards were still looking for me, but this might be a good way to test out their programming. I also wanted to see the design of the fortress up close.
“Yep. To the kitchen. I make a delivery to them every other day. Last night I was drinking with my friends a little later than planned. I’m feeling it a bit today, and I won the dice, so I’ve got a copper to spare.”
“I will help you. Thank you for the work,” I said as I moved to take the man’s place at the cart handles. A progress bar appeared below my compass, but it hardly moved as I began to push the cart.
“Ha. You’ve got a good spirit. Most don’t thank for work nowadays. What is your name?”
Lion's Quest: Undefeated: A LitRPG Saga Page 21