The documentation was in some ways quite helpful, but in other ways, it was disheartening. It was woefully incomplete, for one. Mechanics he had not been exposed to (for example, the party system) were just not present in the help menu, probably to avoid overwhelming players with too much information.

Given that he hadn’t interacted much with the game, there wasn’t much information available. He read what little there was. It was presented in a dry, bare-bones fashion. Kyle supposed there was no reason to impress readers when their whole lives for the coming year would revolve around each word.

Mentally filing away what he read, he stood up. He braced himself for his legs to feel tingly and stiff after sitting on the stone floor for so long, but no such feeling occurred.

He started by testing his command menu. He picked the axe up from the ground where he’d laid it, and held it with his left hand. Doing so made the crystal on his wrist change color to green. He pressed it with his right hand. When the menu appeared, he tapped the ‘Skills” button followed by the only option in that menu; the “Examine” command. The menus disappeared as a chime of confirmation sounded in Kyle’s ears.

Following the directions he had read in the help menu, he stared at the axe. As he did, a donut-shaped progress bar appeared around the center of his vision, filling in clockwise. When it finished filling in, a small information panel popped up next to the axe with information about it.

It’s damage bonus was +5, an arbitrary number that held absolutely no meaning to Kyle. It’s durability was infinite, which seemed polite given that it was starting equipment. It was crafted by “The Ancients”, which probably implied the game had a crafting system that supported player-made items. It’s quality was 50, which Kyle took to mean average, but he couldn’t be sure. It was “Soulbound,” whatever that meant. Maybe that it couldn’t be traded to others? That seemed strange. What if he just handed it to a guy? How would that work?

Kyle tapped the command crystal again. The moment he stopped looking at the axe’s information, the info panel disappeared, for which Kyle was grateful. Augmented reality had never really been his thing; he preferred to see the world without informational overlays. He tapped the “Inventory’ command, followed by the only option in that menu, the “deposit” command. The axe shimmered, then flashed out of existence. It was now in Kyle’s inventory in some abstract game-like way, rather than being a physical interactable object.

Kyle gave himself a moment to feel smug and cool before realizing that he was in a dungeon, and that leaving his only weapon sheathed in a convoluted, unfamiliar hammer-space was probably a bad idea. He got back into the inventory menu, and tapped the newly present picture of his axe. With a shimmer, it appeared in his right hand, conveniently positioned blade outward. It floated in the air weightlessly until Kyle’s fingers wrapped around the haft, at which point Kyle felt the axe suddenly become hefty.

As much as Kyle hated the whole “trapped in a game” thing, the inventory system was pretty cool. Three out of five stars: “Would have loved playing had I not been kidnapped and forced to do so.”

Holding his axe, he walked forward down the hall. Time to see what else was in this virtual world.

In less than a minute of walking, he came to a door. This presented more interface problems. Kyle got the feeling that he should check it for traps or listen for monsters on the other end or something, but he wasn’t sure how such things worked. Did he just… look? What would he even look for? Traps in RPGs had always been abstract concepts to him, found and disarmed either with skill checks or mini-games. Should he be looking for tripwires? Pressure plates?

Kyle didn’t see anything of the sort, so he tried his only other idea; he used the “Examine” skill in his crystal’s menu on the door. After a moment of waiting as the circular bar filled up, the resulting information panel announced that the door was destructible, had an unknown number of hit points, was crafted by “The ancients”, and, most importantly, was unlocked.

Kyle took a deep breath, turned the knob, and pushed open the door a crack.

Nothing seemed to happen.

Actually being in a dungeon was making Kyle second-guess himself. In retrospect, it made sense that the designers wouldn’t put a hidden deathtrap on the very first door.

He opened up the door the rest of the way and looked into the room beyond. As he did so, a small figure holding a torch turned to face him.

It was a goblin, obviously. Most fantasy RPGs had such monsters, small humanoid creatures with limited intelligence and weak physiques. But the funny thing about goblins were their appearance: get a hundred such RPGs together, and you will have a hundred different forms of goblin, each with a unique look. This particular goblin had leathery brown skin, small beady eyes, and a ragged, unkempt mane of black hair. It stood about a yard high, and had a torch in one hand and was pulling a small rusted sword from a scabbard with the other.

The goblin slowly approached, growling slightly. Kyle took a step forward, just to see if he could. Nothing stopped him. Given that they were moving at the same time, whatever combat system this game used must not be turn based. He tapped his crystal with the back of his axehead, and punched the “Skills” button with his left hand. There was still nothing there but “Examine.” Crap. He was hoping actually being in a combat would have unlocked more options or something. He punched examine anyway. Might as well. The progress bar appeared around the goblin and started to fill.

“Hey, um… you wouldn’t happen to know how I’m supposed to kill you, do you?” Kyle asked the goblin. “I’m kind of new at this.”

The goblin screamed at him in response; a high-pitched, hoarse, feral sound that deeply unnerved Kyle. Kyle realized that he should probably be worried. Obviously, he was supposed to beat this thing, but what if he got hit during the combat? Stuff in this game seemed to be unusually real. Would it hurt? He imagined the sword biting into his arm, and decided he did not want to find out. He took a step back and held the axe in front of him in his best approximation of a defensive stance.

The progress bar finished. He got laughably little info. Name: Goblin. Race: Goblin. It’s level and HP were represented by question marks. The window ended with a note that more info would be available if he increased his “monster lore’ skill. It was the first time Kyle had seen the term.

“Um… wall-breaker? NPC guy?” Kyle glanced behind him to make sure he had a clear path of escape. When he looked back to the goblin, the info panel had shrunk until only the HP bar remained. “Um… Could I get a combat tutorial please? Do I… do I just hit it, or what?”

The goblin grinned and charged.