29 days remain of contest A, Sunday.

“Where is this place?” I ask. Bringing up my local map, I share it with the party—we have no quest markers. This is not surprising, as most of the local map is grey with what is called the fog of war. The only visible parts on the map are near the center, around the town.

“I guess we need to find it. Is there any clue in the box?” Kian asks. We look at the box for any clue—it has a wolf on the side and what looks like an island on the top.

Using my Inspect skill I see that there is nothing special about the box, so I put it into my bag. I pull my cloak tight and say, “We need to explore more to find what the area around here looks like so we can figure out where this quest starts.”

We set off away from the town of Kesmai and follow the road to the river and keep walking. Often, we pass a farmer in a cart or several huts on the side of the road. I inspect the farmers and most seem about level five or six. I remember we had notifications last night and I bring up statistics; it looks like I gained a level, and Hide and Slash both increased by one, which is nice, I also have a skill point to distribute. Seeing that dexterity helps with hide I drop it in there and immediately feel a little lighter on my feet.

“Where did you guys put your skill point?” I ask.

“We both put ours in strength,” Kian says. “After getting that disease it felt like having more hit points would be a good idea—"

”Whoa, umm hey, is that the… ocean?” Briar asks.

Ahead, down a slope, there is a fishing village on the ocean with a ship docked to a small pier. The ship’s flag snaps in the wind, and even from this distance I can make out the eagle claw emblem.

We walk the road in silence; I take in the ocean's sight, and the thought of a boat being able to take us places is great. I have never been on a boat in the real world, though most of this is something I have never done in the real world. It’s why you play these games: you can safely try new things you normally could never do.

Approaching the village, I can see that the mountains visible in all directions from direction of the town Kesmai. The mountains abruptly end at the edge of the ocean here, leaving a bay. The sides of the bay are sheer cliffs to the left and the right. This natural barrier seems odd considering the regular open nature of the world. It’s as if Kesmai is in a fishbowl, and this is the one way out. Looking at the dangerous cliffs, I laugh to myself while I try to remember if there was a mermaid starting class in this game.

When I enter the fishing village the now familiar rousing music starts all around me and the narrator begins, “Our hero finds a gateway to fame and adventure but faces many challenges to attain her goal.”

Wait, challenges, what?

“Her training not complete, the way forward is barred to her. What will our hero do?” The music trails off.

I start, “Do you guys have to listen to this stupid—”

“Halt!” A guard with the eagle claw emblem surcoat standing in front of the dock readies his weapon. “What business have you at the dock?”

“We would like to inquire about passage,” Kian says, looking back at us with a half-smile and then at the ship.

I inspect this guard and cannot tell anything about him. This simple-looking guard could be a level 100 gateway guardian, I need to watch what I say here.

“I see you are beginning your paths to glory still. To leave the island adventurers must have sufficient advancement. I am under orders from the captain, so I cannot let you pass,” the guard says proudly, right before we get the pop-up.

Quest: Reach puberty

You need to be level 10 to leave the starting area.

Success: Reach level 10.

Failure: Abandon the quest.

Time limit: Unlimited

“We’re in a starting area?” Briar loudly quips. . No wonder my map is all f—”

“You can leave the starting area once you have sufficiently advanced,” the guard repeats, boring his eyes into Briar. “Until that time, this dock is off limits. If you require help with your training, perhaps you could hunt animals in the woods of the valley or speak with the citizens. I have no jobs I need done.”

“That’s not a horrible idea,” I say. “We can search the woods in the valley.”

***

“Okay, which way should we go? We have walked thirty minutes from the dock and nothing looks familiar,” Briar says. " I vote right I guess,” as he waves his arm towards a fork in the road.

The road goes up to the mountains that make up the boundary of the island and split to the left and the right. “I vote for right,” I say, feeling we will get more of the map exposed this way.

As we walk to the right, the overhead branches lean in more and the trees' foliage become dense. The light reaching the forest floor is sparse.

“We should definitely practice our hide skills,” I say.

As we walk, we dart between the trees by the road and dip in an out of hide. Continuing like this, we all gain a level in our hide skill. Hearing a noise ahead, I motion for everyone to use hide as we climb into the trees, covered in darkness.

Approaching is a party of player characters: : two mages, two fighters, and a what looks like a cleric with a long hammer. The fighter’s weapons are much better than the ones we saw on the starting fighters in town. The mages also have on expensive-looking robes and each hold a spell book. Inspecting them, I see the fighters are each level four, as are the mages, and the cleric is level five. This party would wipe us out without even thinking about it.

“That was awesome,” one fighter said. “I can’t believe you blasted that guy like that”

“I got lucky—” the wizard on the left side said

“And I healed him,” said the cleric.

“You only heal a little drip of health.”

“No, dude, I healed you full.”

“Do you think we are ready to enter the opening-month raid yet?” Says the other fighter

“Stop, you guys,” says the right-side mage. “There could be more of those wolves around this area and I don’t want to get attacked just because you guys want to argue about healing. And no, that raid probably will require us to be at least level ten to beat it. We can try it while we still don’t get the resurrection debuff for dying, which we get at level ten. Once we hit level ten, we will probably start to lose item durability when we die.”

Continuing their squabbling, they leave our hearing range. After their passing I feel like we are way behind—these guys are already talking about the raid. As three rogues, how do we propose to handle a raid?

Dropping back out of the trees we continue on, more aware of our surrounds, and we stop to listen every so often.

New skill: Perception

You don’t want to have anyone get the jump on you, so you have learned to listen well. At higher levels, this skill allows you to passively find secrets.

Active rogue class bonus: +2

Well, that is handy, this game automatically uses an ability when you do something. So just by stopping to listen this ability will kick in. Skills .

We come upon a trail leading to the left, into a break in the mountains and surrounded by steep cliffs. it’s the first canyon break we have seen so far in the mountains so far. Looking at each other, we resume hiding and walk the trail to see where it leads us.

Soon I am on a trail with a swamp on either side of me and not much cover. Ten minutes later I see a raised knoll up ahead, and on that a two-story grey stone building. The trail leading up to the house has a huge cast-iron gate with alchemical symbols in relief covering the bars. There are weeds growing everywhere around the gate, which sits ajar as if someone just had passed through it. The top of the building has a spire with a cluster of lightning rods on it. Each of the rods has mystical symbols carved on them. It is finished off with a jutting clump of metal rods with a dangling silver quarter moon and brass sun.

Looking over the grounds, I can see will-o'-the-wisps to the right and to the left floating lazily over the cold water. Night is setting quicker here with the dense trees and steep cliffs. I’ve seen enough movies to know what happens in places like this in the dark. That stupid narrator will probably expound on the rise of the undead if we wait for night.

“I believe we’ve found our wizard,” Kian says.

Briar nods and looks ahead to the house, his face looking like he ate a sour candy.

“Who wants to knock?” I ask.