Locke made his way towards the market to spend his starting gold. With 110 of his 125 gold, he was able to obtain three bronze short swords, leather armor, a medical kit, and an explorers pack. The medical kit didn't contain healing potions it was more for status effects, also there was not really any reason for him to buy healing potions. The healing touch spell should prevent any problems healing HP, provided its healing was half decent. The issue was he didn't know if it cured the bleeding condition. If healing touch doesn't stop bleeding then the medkit would. As for why he bought three short swords, it was always nice to have some backups just in case and they were cheap.

The explorers pack contained simple traveling equipment like a tent, bedroll, cooking utensils, rope, waterskin, rations, torches, hatchet, and a tinderbox. He purchased an explorers pack based on a recommendation from Frey who mentioned the dungeon tutorial cannot be entered without one in your inventory. This most likely meant that the dungeon tutorial will require food, water, and sleep unlike now.

Locke played around with the inventory a bit. To access your inventory you would open up your menus and select them. Then a large window which you could resize and move as you wish appears in front of you with several rows and columns of inventory slots. Shoving an item into one of those slots would have it enter your inventory which is only accessible by you. Taking out an item was similar where you click on the slot and then grab and pull. The interesting interaction is that you don't actually grab the item itself when doing so, you are grabbing onto some sort of inventory handhold.

For example, when he attempted to take the short sword out of his inventory he wasn't actually holding onto the hilt when it was fully out. The sword just hovered there until he let go of the weird inventory interface and then grabbed the sword. Once he held onto the sword it then regained its weight and no longer hovered. A few more tests showed the sword would only hover there for less than 10 seconds.

He was curious about a few other things so he questioned Frey a bit. Turns out only nonliving objects or dead creatures could be thrown into the inventory. Also, objects that are owned by another player or more specifically not owned by Locke cannot be deposited. He didn't get a straight answer on what determines ownership on items just that the system will decide in the fairest possible way. There is an unlimited amount of inventory slots, however, there is a limitation on weight which for the most part is based on your Strength attribute. Once the weight limit is exceeded your movement will become more sluggish and stamina drain will increase.

After some travel, Locke was standing inside the central area that contained the dungeon portal. Looking around he saw tons of new faces that he did not see previously. It made sense though since the next wave of participants joined the game recently. Some players were rushing towards the dungeon portal to begin their adventures in the real game while others were exploring the sights and taking their time. He also noticed that some players were moving away from the portal towards the market, they most likely forgot their explorer's pack.

When Locke got close enough to the portal an interface window appeared in his field of vision.

Dungeon – Tutorial Forest

Player limit 5

Difficulty Compared to Player - Minimal

Length - Long

Not much information seemed to be given about the dungeon itself from the outside it seemed. Locke was curious how it gauged the difficulty.

Based on the wording it seemed like the game was comparing my strength to the dungeon and spitting out a result. What determined the result though? Was it just my level? Maybe my attributes? Or was it just everything at once?

Once he was right next to the portal a second window displayed on his screen. It gave him the option to either tackle the dungeon alone or have the system put him in a random party. However, the option to go solo was greyed out indicating it was not a choice he could select. With no other choice, Locke chose the option to be sent into the dungeon with a random party. He would have made this choice anyway because he had been playing without any other player interaction for over a month in game.

Walking through the portal had an interesting feeling, It was best described as walking through a cold wall of water not even a meter in width. There were no crazy special effects that indicated he was being transported over a large distance or anything like that. Once he passed through the somewhat thin wall of water he was already on the other side. He took a bit of time to take notice of the surrounding landscape. Locke was standing in a somewhat large circular in shape clearing surrounded by sparse forest. Looking behind him a similar looking portal was also present on this side which he could not see through.

Notice: Player cannot leave the clearing until the party has gathered.

Dungeon - Tutorial Forest

Objective: Traverse to the center of the forest and slay the boss.

Reward: A class of your choosing.

Looks like the forums were correct, everyone will obtain a class here when they complete the objective.

There were no other players in sight so he decided to find a rock to sit on while pondering on a few things. The trees were quite tall stopping his vision from seeing how large the forest was, which made him curious about how big the dungeon was. Were there any boundaries that would prevent the players from going to far in a certain direction? What would they look like? What was the boss of this dungeon like? Would they be able to tell what it was?

Eventually, Locke heard a voice coming from behind breaking him out of his internal thoughts.

“Hello.......ummm.. I'm Jason, nice to meet you.”

After hearing the timid voice from behind him Locke looked back from his seated position to see a small man. The man was less than five feet tall with his right hand outstretched looking for a hand shake.

“I am Locke, nice to meet you as well.” He said while jumping down from the rock and then proceeded to shake Jason's hand.

Looking around seemed like the entire group was in the clearing at this point so everyone decided to introduce themselves. After some brief introductions, the group was now better acquainted. The system paired him up with four others two of which were male and the other two female.

Rae was the brother of Jason who was the first to introduce himself. She was shorter than six feet tall, short brown hair, hazel eyes, with the body of an athlete. Gear wise she didn't look like she had any weapons equipped and wore the same leather armor Locke had. Rae had that look of someone that was confident in everything they do.

Sheila was roughly the same height as Locke with long blond hair and green eyes. She was thin and looked fragile if you were to compare her to Rae. She was wearing wizard robes and a quarterstaff that you could buy from the merchant district. Her speech was soft and timid as well. Locke considered them both attractive but no overly so.

Jason was shorter than Rae with shaggy brown hair and brown eyes. He didn't seem very active, unlike his sister. He was also wearing the same wizard robes and quarterstaff that Shelia was. Do they both like quarterstaves? Were they trying to RP a mage? The staff offered no magic bonuses. Another thing to note was that he didn't seem like he met the minimum recommended age requirement to play this game which meant the parents gave authorization for him to play. Jason couldn't be much older than fourteen where the game recommended players to be eighteen years of age.

Thomas was the tallest among them with long black hair and black eyes. He was very muscular to the point where Locke imagined he hit the muscle cap on avatar creation. Which meant in real life he could be even bulkier than this. There were also quite a few scars visible on his body. Honestly, Thomas was pretty damn intimidating.

“All of you look like you just started the game so I will take the lead, I have actual gear and skills to front line here,” Thomas stated with a slightly cocky tone.

Even without Thomas saying anything just based on what he was wearing anyone could tell he spent most of his time in the previous tutorial gaining rewards. Sporting decent looking armor that protected the body, a very large shield, and a well crafted one handed battle axe. None of the items he wore could be purchased from the standard market making it clear that he was among the first wave of participants. It was easy to tell for Locke that Thomas must have spent quite some time in the combat tutorial area doing quests.

“I don't mind you taking the front, but don't go looking down on me because I don't have fancy gear like you have” Rae blurted out while performing the gesture of punching the palm of her hand with her other fist. “If you want we could duke it out right here so I can show you.”

She didn't seem to have a weapon so it seemed like she might be an experienced brawler or martial artist in real life.

“Heh, don't worry there will be plenty of monsters to fight in this forest to prove your skills. Don't worry though I will be able to save you if you take on too much.” Thomas laughed.

Locke expected to see anger on Rae's face but the expression seemed to be more like a challenge accepted sort of vibe. She didn't seem to be the hothead type being quick to anger like her initial impression gave off.

“Come on Rae you always do this, stop picking fights with everyone that you just meet,” Jason spoke out while tugging on Rae's shirt.

Rae slapped Jason's back. “Lighten up Jason I'm just having a little fun, it's a game after all.”

“Jason and I will stand back and support with magic.” Shelia quietly said to the group while pulling Jason to her side.

“What about you Locke? are you experienced enough to fight up close like me?” Rae asked.

“Sure that should be no problem.” Locke quickly replied.

The roles were settled as Thomas being the tank, Rae/Locke being the melee damage dealers, and Jason/Sheila being the ranged dps/casters. These roles were more guidelines than anything, at this point everyone's stats were not very specialized and probably could fill any role. The main reason for this is to have a slightly more organized effort in tackling the dungeon.

After that was settled the group decided to move towards the center. Thomas led the party into the forest with Locke guarding the rear. What was interesting is that everyone in the party instinctively knew which direction to proceed towards the objective. This instinct most likely came from the game's guidance, which was quite nice to have as they were surrounded by forest in all directions. It would have been a pain to determine the direction through other means.

After a few minutes of travel, Shelia heard rustling in some distant bushes and halted the group. Not long after a boar came charging out of a bush. Thomas dug his feet into the group and imposed his shield between himself and the rampaging creature ready to accept the charge head on.

“Come here you dumb beast, bring it on!” Thomas yelled.

The boar took on the challenge and slammed hard into the shield which pushed Thomas back a few inches but he received no damage. Thomas recovered quickly and raised his axe and chopped downward attempting to split its head in two. The axe connected onto it's head which caused the creature to howl in pain however the cut wasn't that deep. A boar in real life would have been killed quite easily with that kind of attack but alas this is an RPG game and its HP and Endurance were high enough to keep it alive.

Thomas took a few steps back and waited for another opportunity to strike as the boar was wildly thrashing about. It had very large pointed tusks that could gore someone if you were not careful. Eventually, it stopped and prepared itself to charge again. Thomas was ready to receive his charge the same as before however just as the boar was about to take off it changed its target launched forward. This time it was going towards Rae, looks like it didn't want to slam into the large shield a second time. Locke was about to intercept but looking at her face she didn't seem caught off guard at all.

Just before the creature landed it attacks Rae she quickly dodged to the right and a loud crack could be heard as her boot impacted the side of its head. The boar kept moving forward with momentum until it stumbled and crashed into the ground as it lost its balance. Shortly afterward several firebolts from both Jason and Shelia were launched into the boar finishing it off. Since Locke heard them both saying firebolt each time they cast the spell showed that they were using trainer learned magic.

The first thing the group noticed was the corpse of the boar did not disappear on death. It just looked like a charred boar carcass with its blood, gore, and smell tugging at their senses. Locke turned to see Jason's reaction which showed a bit of disgust on his face.

The realism here is intense, is it really okay for someone as young as Jason to play this game? Sure a dead boar isn't the most grotesque thing ever but what happens if the monster is humanoid....or just another human. Can he really handle that kind of disturbing scene? Hell can most people? I have played my share of games but most covered it up with fancy effects.

Locke opened up his notification panel to see that he gained 10 experience from the party killing the boar. The notification panel will store up in game notifications that would normally display in your field of vision. Locke turned off the automatic display of these notifications before heading into the dungeon to avoid distractions.

Everyone quickly scanned the area to make sure no more enemies were around before relaxing.