While Mason was going through the menus in his floaty blue trance, Kyle went back to see if more stuff had unlocked in his help menus. As he did, Jacob came and sat down on the ground next to him.

After a few awkward moments, he spoke up. “You’re always reading, huh? I can’t see it, but I can tell from the way your eyes are moving. Always reading, all the time.”

“Yeah, seems that way,” Kyle said, looking over his help window to look at Jacob. “You should try it too. I bet if you were to read, you could know more about this game than Mia.”

“I tried,” said Jacob, “but it’s like it’s speaking a language I don’t, you know? Terms and words that I just don’t get.” He shook his head, and remained silent for so long Kyle nearly went back to reading. “When I touch that crystal,” Jacob finally said, “it’s gonna ask me to make a lot of decisions, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “Race, class, starting skill, that sort of thing.”

“What should I pick?”

Kyle looked up in interest, then shut out of his menu by tapping his crystal. “Why ask me?”

“I mean, I bet you know everything there is to know about this game,” Jacob said. “And maybe Mia’s good at games, but she’s also, uh…”

“Scary?” Kyle asked.

“I was going to say stuck up, but yeah, that too. I think you know just as much as her. But I’d rather ask you, you know?”

“So, I’ve gotta admit, I’m not interested in winning,” Kyle said, closing his menu for the moment. “I just kinda want this game to be over. So I’ve been trying to think of how best we could support each other. You know, cheat the system by pooling talents and working together to get to the crystals instead of fighting over them. If you ask me, I’m not going to tell you how to be powerful. I’m going to tell you how to be useful.”

“That’s fine with me.”

Kyle sighed. “Then you’ll probably want to get the architecture skill. I think fighters can take it as a starting option. Maybe rogues.”

“So it’ll say that in the menus? Just pick ‘fighter’ when I see it and ‘architecture’ when I see it?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “And, uh… strength, I guess. And human. But you already knew my opinion on that.”

Jacob nodded. “Fighter, architecture, strength, human. I can remember that. Thanks, Kyle.” He got up and walked back to wait near Mason’s still-floating form. Mason came down a short time later, still human and still named Mason, thankfully. Jacob touched the crystal next.

Kyle opened back up his help menu. He meant to do more study on the Spellcrafting system, but found himself thinking, instead. He had never been one to give advice in games. Mostly, if some newbie was asking randomly for help, he’d send the guy a link to a wiki or youtube tutorial. He also wasn’t one to pioneer new strategies, but rather to research what was already there.

But he was starting to realize something. In a world in which everybody needed to be good at playing a game and was desperate for information, being “the guy that knew everything” was a position of great power. In these first few formative days, he could inadvertently change the entire culture of the game.

..or, perhaps intentionally change it.

He sat, mulling it over, absent-mindedly jumping between hyperlinks in the help-text, when he heard something off to his left. Glancing in that direction, he saw a teenage boy coming out of the forest, still in his starting gear. He had a bow and arrow, which Kyle had never seen in the game, and a quiver slung over his back. The boy had an arrow nocked, but his bow was neither drawn nor pointed at Kyle’s group.

Kyle thought for just a brief moment, then made his decision.

Dropping his axe on the ground next to him, he stood and walked towards the armed man, smiling. “Hey, look! This guy figured out how to build a bow! That’s gonna make hunting way easier!”

The boy nocked and pointed his bow at Kyle and drew the arrow. “It’s my bow, not yours.”

“Well yeah, obviously,” Kyle said, slowing his approach. “You’re the one holding it. How’d you make it, though? Our city’s gonna need a stable food supply so our architect can focus on building stuff. Bows like that would be useful.”

The boy lowered the bow, but kept it taut. “You’re not gonna try and kill me?”

“No, why would I do that?”

“To try and keep me from touching the crystal?”

“Nah, PvP’s not the meta in this game,” Kyle said dismissively. “We’re supposed to band together and form large guilds to explore the world.”

“So you’ll let me just walk up and touch it?”

“Yeah. We’re working on getting an apothecary set up so our herbalist, Dvorak, can start making potions and stuff.” Kyle was stretching. He knew Jacob was planning on taking architecture, and he thought he heard Dvorak mention he had picked herbalism, but he wasn’t sure of either.

The point was that he was trying to make sure this new fellow felt like they were an experienced, pre-existing group. He thought back to how he felt when he played his favorite online games, where he was full of confidence and knew everything about everything, and tried to channel it, smiling broadly and keeping his posture straight.

The boy kept the bow drawn for a disconcertingly long time before finally un-nocking the arrow and putting it in his quiver.

“Alright. Cool. You guys got any DPS yet? I kinda want to be a ranger. Does that exist in the game?”

“Guys! We’ve got ranged DPS!” Kyle shouted back to the group. Mia didn’t bother to look up, but Dvorak, true to form, started jumping and cheering, pumping his fists in the air. The boy smiled and strode forward.

“Welcome to the good city of Crystopia! Population: five. Six! Six, now.” Dvorak hopped forward on his strangely-jointed legs to shake the boy’s hand. “I’m Dvorak, the mayor of our fine settlement.”

“He’s kind of a figurehead.” Kyle said.

“The cutest damn figurehead you ever did see!” Dvorak said, pumping the boy’s hand up and down vigorously.

“I’m Maxillumen,” the boy said. “And you’re weird.”

“Thank you my friend, thank you.”

“Good to meet you, Max,” Kyle said.

The boy cringed. “If you’re gonna shorten it, call me Lumen.”

“Indeed, well met, Lumen,” Dvorak said. “May your weirdness never surpass mine. Seriously, I’m trying to hold a monopoly on it.”

“NPC?” Lumen asked quietly, leaning towards Kyle. Dvorak groaned in response.

“To be fair, this is entirely your own fault for choosing to play as a bunny.” Kyle told him.

“The Lagotherres have a noble and proud place in the lore of this world, which I will happily tell you as soon as I’m done making it up.”

Lumen chuckled and rolled his eyes. “So what’s the plan here?” he asked Kyle.

Kyle looked back at the others, and caught the barest glimpse of a cool stare from Mia before she was back in her menus.

Behind her, Jacob floated to the ground and lost his glow. He stood up, but something was wrong. He didn’t seem to reach his full height. Kyle came running over.

“Jacob?” he asked in alarm. Jacob turned to face him. He wasn’t hunched over, he was just short.

Jacob smiled broadly with his newly boyish face. “Kyle, man! I’m a halfling now! Until this is over, I get to be a kid again!”

Kyle tried not to be disapproving. “Jacob, you know that it isn’t affecting your actual age. You’re just a middle-age halfling now instead of a middle-age man. Being child-sized doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does. I’m half the size but an eighth the weight! It feels like I’m a little kid again!” And with that, he dashed off, leaving Kyle to stand annoyed.

Lumen approached from behind. “Well cool. We get a free race upgrade?”

“If you call it that,” Kyle said, motioning to Dvorak.