by Domino Finn
Respawned at Home
Tutorial is being processed...
Welcome to Haven!
"Fuck me two ways to Sunday," I hissed.
This was still the sim. Haven. I was in a sparse room. A bed, a bookshelf. Some neatly arranged personal effects. Not lived-in clutter but accessible clutter, like you'd find in a hotel.
Ding!
I rubbed my face and realized my mind was playing tricks on me. I wasn't really tired or hurt, I just thought I was. It was a sobering thought. People don't respawn in the real world. But here I was, wearing my black toga and golden belt rope and not-very-comfortable sandals. In bed. I sighed and stood up.
There were two doors in this room. The open one led to a private bathhouse. The medieval equivalent of a Jacuzzi. A sink and mirror, a wicker chest with towels in it, and a small basket of toiletries on a wooden stool.
Curiously, there was no toilet.
I flipped one of the levers by the sink and a stream of clear water flowed from the faucet.
"Huh, running water."
I shut it off and returned to the room for a look around. The shelves and bookcases were mostly empty. A hardcover volume lay on its side. I spun it around and read the title: Haven Terms of Service 0.9.21. I hefted the tome aside and picked up the next one: Haven User Guide. The cover showed a vast open field populated by players of all types. The bottom corner bore a Prima Games logo.
"I don't believe it. They're in the afterlife too."
The company was famous for making game guides and often worked directly with developers on content. It was a good bet Kablammy Games hadn't given Prima much access, though. This book was noticeably thinner than the terms of service tome. What had Saint Peter said? Residents were meant to learn about Haven organically.
I opened to the first page. The heading read, "So you've died and gone to Haven." I rolled my eyes and fanned the pages through my fingers.
My brain caught the trick as the pages flitted by. The sensation of pages flipping past my finger was real. Page by page, the snap of the paper and the scrape of the edge were genuine. But the book didn't behave like a book. For the vast majority of my browsing, whether I was near the beginning or the end, the pages were evenly split on either side of my focus. Essentially, I was always in the middle of the book, at least until I came to the end.
"Digital Reality," I murmured.
This wasn't a real book; it was a tablet styled as a book. A collection of ASCII characters and graphics in a soft-cover book interface. It seemed an odd concession in a digital world, but as a programmer I understood data storage and manipulation was the probable reason. Real books had fixed page counts and lacked hyperlinks. Text couldn't be resized, pictures couldn't be zoomed.
They didn't have a search feature.
I focused my mind on the [Imp] and turned the page, pleased to see a successful result.
Various imps and goblins claim the land as theirs and oppose any who attempt to cultivate it. Pagan creatures such as these should not be underestimated. They are devious, quick to panic, and very dangerous in numbers.
Hmm, not a whole lot of information at all. Rather than an actual section dedicated to the little beasts, this was a passing mention introducing the general concept of enemies.
I chewed my lip and shivered inwardly as I brought the [Boggart Witch] to mind and flipped the page.
Nothing.
I shook my head and absently flipped pages, randomly skimming whatever I landed on. This was less of a strategy guide and more of a primer to what awaited. A teaser of Haven.
Ding!
I huffed. That stupid noise was grating. I tossed the user guide into my inventory and scanned the room. I was interrupted by a text notification.
Your tutorial has been processed.
Your starting attributes have been set.
Congratulations, explorer!
I grumbled, unsure what there was to be congratulated about. It felt like I'd been given a participation trophy or something. Still, my curiosity was piqued. I brought the internal game menu up and was surprised by several windows jumping into view.
First off, the help and bug buttons were enabled again. They were part of a profile bar running along the top of my vision. The very left was emblazoned with a pic of my face and my game handle, Talon. A few icons trailed that. At the end was the time, showing it was still morning. About two hours after my car accident. The date was a numbered day in the hundreds, but the year was curiously the same as the real world.
The area underneath the profile bar was a splash screen of sorts. The main window.
Welcome to the beta!
Take a tour of the menu!
I canceled past the prompts and was pleased to see other tabs available for selection. Character. Inventory. I swiped ahead.
Talon
Level
1
Class
Explorer
XP
150
Kit
NA
Next
1000
Strength
12
Strike
25
Agility
14
Dodge
25
Craft
6
Health
19 / 19
Essence
8
Spirit
18 / 18
My attribute scores. This was what I'd been looking for.
Curious that I hadn't selected these myself. It was possible they were randomly rolled but I figured Haven was more sophisticated than that. The explorer class majored in agility and my stats reflected that. Looking back at the tutorial processing messages, I came to the conclusion that the scenario had been an attempt to gauge my play style and set my attributes accordingly.
I strained to remember the class cruciform. Soldiers and mystics were opposition classes, with their specializations in strength and essence. Artisans were opposed to explorers. That explained why my opposition class attribute of craft was so paltry. In truth, it represented me well. The last time I'd thought myself handy was after changing a particularly stubborn light bulb—it was a safe bet I wouldn't be building things in Haven.
I focused on my middle-of-the-road attributes. I wondered why strength was the better off of the two. My class and weapon were explicit selections; my actions in the wild would have determined the rest. I'd climbed and scaled and sprinted. I'd stabbed a creature to death. I couldn't imagine how I would've taken advantage of craft or essence in that ravine of raging water, but maybe that was the point. The attributes reflected my standard responses to the world. Fight or flight. Or build. Or cast.
I figured strike and dodge to be combat scores. It pleased me to see my health at maximum again, but 19 didn't seem very high. And spirit appeared to be a mix of mana and stamina.
I remembered Saint Peter's message. Take things slowly. Learn as you go. His point was to not get bogged down in specifics right off the bat. Fair enough.
My inventory had reset, meaning I had my whittling knife again. Woo boy. Between that and the rest of the empty slots, there wasn't much to look at. I focused instead on my equipped items. Just my clothes and the woodman's spear. Try as I might, I couldn't find any hard stats for the weapon. I was sure it affected my strike and dodge ranks, but the spear didn't have a +5 attack score or anything obvious like that.
Come to think of it, my overall stats were somewhat simplistic. That certainly jived with Haven's design focus. Too many numbers would break immersion and slow the game down. This was an experience meant to be lived, not computed. I was just starting to think this wasn't much of an RPG when I swiped to the next menu tab. Skills. A smile played across my lips.
There were several skill categories, and I quickly understood these to be class based: Weapons. Awareness. Survival. Traversal. Stealth. According to the menu, I had 3 skill points to spend.
The weapons tree was straightforward and the only section to a
lready have a skill assigned.
Spear Handling
Level 1
You are versed in the basics of spear combat. This root skill allows you to use spear weapons without being a hindrance, but improvement and specific tactics require further skill point expenditure. Weapon specialization skills may not be higher level than their root.
I began to understand why my weapon didn't have a simple attack rank. As I progressed, I'd need to sink additional skill points into this to improve it. The quality of the weapon was just a bonus.
Besides spear handling, many other weapon types were available to me along the lines of the weapons I'd been offered during character creation. It was a waste of time to focus on those. Instead, I noted the branches leading off the root skill into various disciplines: Vanguard. Deadeye. Javelinist. Defender. These were different play styles leading to the aforementioned specialty skills I could purchase. The spear skill tree.
VANGUARD
Hard-charging, tip-of-the-spear combat
Headline Skill - Power Slash
A vicious strike to your enemy, causing up to x2 damage at level 1.
Spirit Cost: 10
Cooldown: 20 seconds
DEADEYE
Calculated, precision combat
Headline Skill - Deadshot
A targeted strike to a specific body grouping.
Spirit Cost: 10
Cooldown: 20 seconds
JAVELINIST
Flexible, ranged combat
Headline Skill - Spear Throw
A distance attack with a melee weapon.
Spirit Cost: 7
Cooldown: 15 seconds
DEFENDER
Measured, holding combat
Headline Skill - Crossblock
A two-handed parry with the spear shaft.
Spirit Cost: 4
Warm-up: 1 second
Even though it wouldn't be my bread and butter, I appreciated seeing weapon-based techniques. I wasn't a soldier and didn't intend to pound my way to victory. I wanted to fight smarter, not harder. But options were good. It was nice to see explorers weren't useless in a scrap.
From the list I could tell most skills had a spirit cost. Many had cooldown timers to prevent repeated use. The crossblock didn't have that limitation, allowing more frequent defense, but there was a 1 second warm-up. That implied you couldn't use the skill immediately after an attack or action, but rather it needed to be prepped.
Each skill set, when purchased, would open up a further set of skills. Haven kept things simple upfront and didn't reveal what was further down the skill tree, so I studied my current options.
Immediately, I was drawn to the Deadeye style. The vanguard was the power player. The deadeye was the tactical player. I had no interest in tossing my only weapon away so I skipped the javelinist. That left me with the defender. It wasn't the sexy choice but it wasn't stupid either. I thought of the boggart and decided I didn't want that happening again. After confirming I could delve into multiple combat styles, I purchased the crossblock skill.
Ding!
I ignored the notification and hungrily checked the next skill categories. Awareness focused on things like discovery, scanning terrain and landmarks, and other exploration techniques. Survival was hunting, trapping, and skinning. Traversal was scaling and tumbling and vaulting.
"Where were these when I was stranded on that mountainside?" I bitterly wondered.
The last section was stealth, a clear giveaway that these skill options were tied to my class. There were the usual choices one would expect: hiding, sneaking, stealing, lock picking.
When I'd finished scanning over the skill list I was... unimpressed actually. For a state-of-the-art digital-reality first-of-its-kind MMO, I'd kinda expected a wider skill selection. But then I considered how complex the spear skill tree quickly became and realized unlocking and advancing skills would open up others. These weren't all the skills in the game; they were just the starting options. I was only a level 1 scrub, after all.
I wanted to spend my last 2 skill points to see what else could be unlocked, but I stopped myself and worked over the strategy. I couldn't just buy things without a plan. Skill points were limited. My selections needed to reinforce each other. I needed my abilities to be synergistic.
Even if I could decide on a skill right away, the order I unlocked them in was significant. After all, picking any one skill could open up a new option. Should I first pick the skills I most needed, or should I focus on the skill trees with the most powerful potential further down the line?
Crap. I hated being indecisive, but at least I recognized when I was. No way I was comfortable committing to anything right now. I still had no idea how easy it was to level in Haven or how many new skill points I'd receive per level. I doubted it would be this many.
Ding!
Ugh, already. A pulse of movement from the profile bar caught my attention. The mail icon had a red 1 overlapping it. That would be the source of my continuing aggravation.
I selected the inbox and found a welcome message from none other than Saint Peter.
Apologies for that tutorial. No one lives through the pagan ones. No one. If it's any consolation, you're the last resident to run through the bridge encounter. Focus testing indicates being gutted alive might be coming on a little strong.
I rolled my eyes. "You think?"
The experience hadn't been especially traumatizing, as I'd been led to believe, but I hardly understood the design purpose of putting me through it. I barely knew more about the game afterward. Tutorials were supposed to equip players with the resources to succeed, not pound them to a pulp.
I continued reading.
Take your time to familiarize yourself with your room. You're in a safe space. You can study the user guide or relax.
Outside the closed door to my room, something banged against the floor. A scuttling sound followed.
Another interruption, and I'd just been addressing the dings. Hard to relax in conditions like this. Heaven wasn't turning out to be a very peaceful place after all.
I ignored the noise and kept reading.
You are now in Stronghold, one of nine starting towns in Haven. There's no combat within city limits. No enemies. You can take stock of things, make purchases, and venture out with adventuring parties as you see fit. Stay close to Stronghold until you grow confident of your abilities.
Until then, happy trails, explorer!
- Saint Peter
PS: Don't forget to introduce yourself to your roommate.
Another crashing sound came from outside. This time it involved glass breaking and a yelp as someone slipped and banged against the door to my room, no doubt eavesdropping.
"Roommate?" I muttered.
0080 The House of the Dead
I swung my door open to find a guy with the text [Kyle] over his head scooping up pieces of a broken bottle. The glass had only fractured into a few shards and most of the beer had been saved in the base.
"Oh!" he said, startled. He sprung to attention. "Sorry. I didn't know anybody was home."
I arched a skeptical eyebrow but didn't call him out. He waited uncertainly, shifting his balance from leg to leg. I guess I couldn't blame him for being curious.
Kyle was a large guy compared to me. Taller, thicker, rounder. The type who played football in school but never made the varsity team. More heavyset than muscled, but not too much of a caricature in any direction. A pretty normal guy with shaggy brown hair. College age.
"Kyle, right?" I said. I offered my hand and he slapped it.
"Kyle Grath. And you're... Talon," he noted, looking above my head. "What's that mean?"
"Um, it's like... a talon."
He nodded. "Cool. You wanna play beer pong?"
"Uh..." I glanced at the spill on the floor.
Kyle cursed and rushed to the kitchen to get paper towels. The mess and glass wiped up without any fuss. No sense making virtual spills a pain in the ass.
I moved into the common area. Compared to the modest bedroom, it was decadently spacious. Several loungers circled around a huge flat screen with game controllers. A modern kitchen and bar overlooked a dining table. There was even enough spare room for a sunlit beer pong table beside a bay window.
"This looks like a frat house."
"Phi Kappa Koopa," said Kyle. He tried for a secret handshake but I just hooked my hands on my hips. He shrugged and killed the rest of the beer from the jagged bottle base. "Can I get you a brew?" he asked, strolling to the refrigerator before I answered.
"We have drinks? I mean, you can get drunk in Heaven?"
"Sure." He grabbed two cold ones and popped them open. "You can get a buzz, at least. It's not quite the same but there's less projectile vomiting and nuclear farting. And it doesn't negatively affect your adventuring. When you go outside, you're clean." Kyle handed me a bottle and unpacked a set of red Solo cups on the beer pong table.
"I've been waiting for someone to shoot against. No offense to old people, but the last guy I was paired with was pretty crusty. An angry drunk, too."
I placed the full beer on the counter. "Last guy? What happened to him?"
He shrugged. "Moved somewhere else. I don't really have luck with roommates." He caught himself and froze up, a little uptight for your average frat boy. "Sorry—I mean... it's no big deal. You seem cool."
I approached the table with mock excitement. "Thanks. I hope it doesn't shatter your view of me, but I'm not really down for beer pong right now."
He paused. "No? Okay, how about pool?" He swiped his hand over the cups and the entire table shimmered and was replaced with a wooden billiards table, racked and ready.