“That’s one way to make an entrance into town for sure my dude” Said the archer of the group.

The four of them were arrayed across from me, two women, a young man, and a teenage boy. One of them women was clearly the glaive wielding acrobat who’d charged past me, a short Chinese woman with bobbed hair and leather armor that came down to mid-thigh split up to the waist to allow her to move. The other seemed to be the source of the deadly icicles, a tall redhead with sharp features wearing a military style jacket, skin tight pants and a calf length skirt split up to her hip where a thick bound tome hung from a chain. The man talking was clearly the archer that had saved my life from the moose man, short with long messy blonde hair and a broad toothy grin. The teenage boy looked to be in home spun clothes like I’d started in, but he was strapped with every type of weapon imaginable, bandoliers ran across his chest carrying daggers and various swords were strapped to his hips and back. As I was looking them over the redhead stepped forward, looking me over with an air of superiority as she thrust a hand out.

“My name is Magdalena, nice to meet you.” She said with a sniff.

Walking across the battlefield I went to take her hand before realizing mine were still knitting themselves back together, a process that itched like crazy. “I’ll hold off on the hand shake, like I said I’m Gideon. I guess I should start by thanking you all for the save there, I’d have been a goner for sure.”

“Don’t worry a bit about it bro, we were going to kill these manimals anyways. I’m Quick by the way, and that little death dealer back there is Fan Hui. Oooh and the kid is her….” He stopped looking over his shoulder. “Are we calling him slave boy? Caddy? Anyways the kid works for her, his name is Thomas.” He said as he bounced over the bodies, stopping at each to pick something up.

“He’s my assistant.” Fan said with a dour expression.

“Well good to meet you all, I didn’t know if I’d run into any other players here on the island. Did you all spawn in the bay here or what?” I inquired.

Each nodded in turn, as I watched Quick pick through the bodies. Every time he’d bend over one it’d slowly seem to melt into what resembled a muddy puddle of clay. Finishing with all twelve he strolled back over triumphantly holding something in his palms.

“Alright I’ve got two for me, three for Maggy, and two for the new guy. That leaves five for you Fan.” He mused as he walked over dropping two small lumpy gold nuggets into my palm. “Spoils of war bro, we call these things manimals but they’re actually some sort of construct that if you…”

“That’s enough Quick.” Magdalena cut him off quickly as he took her share of the gold, keeping a keen eye on me. “Yeah we all spawned here in the bay, what about you where did you spawn? Out with the elves? And who was that man you came in with?” She grilled me.

“Uh, actually it’s a bit odd but I spawned in a cave up in the mountains. I actually just dug myself out it yesterday morning. The man I road in with his my friend Ardoar, he’s a carpenter who lives up at the base of the mountain, trades here in town sometimes.” I said trying my best to seem charming and unthreatening.

“We should probably get back to town, the mayor is going to want to know about this and I want to make sure that the wall isn’t delayed anymore.” Magdalena said as she jumped onto her horse without further hesitation riding for the town.

“Don’t worry about her man, she’s just super gung-ho about getting the village built into something. Once you break past her icy exterior you’ll find she’s actually pretty cool, at least from what I’ve seen.” Quick grabbed the reins of his horse, and started to walk it back waving for me to follow.

Finally my hands had healed enough to grip things again, I jogged over to grab my maul, tossing it over my shoulder before I ran to catch up with the three walking back to town. As we made it back to the road Quick started to ramble on about the comings and goings of the town, but I kept getting distracted by the fact that Fan looked familiar somehow.

“Hey Fan, this might seem weird but you look really familiar. Do I know you from somewhere; maybe you played SoE or something?” I asked having to slow my stride as my long legs carried me past the two.

“No I never played it, but you might know me from Immortal Gladiator.” She said quickly never meeting my eyes.

“Nah, I never played….Holy shit. You’re Fan the Fang! I remember that show match where you beat all of team Guardian each with a different weapon.” I tried to choke down my excitement as she seemed put off. “uh, sorry. Don’t mean to geek out on you, it’s just I thought you retired from gaming.”

“I had, but this all sounded too good to pass up. And seeing as my contract with IG ran out years ago I’ve got nothing but time.” She replied as she picked up her pace, moving ahead of us.

“I did the same thing too man when I first met her, it’s still hard not to freak out a bit when you see her fighting but she doesn’t really like the attention so I just try and play it cool.” Quick reassured me as he walked side by side. “It’s great to have another dude around, I mean there is Thomas but he hasn’t really said much since Fan won him in a duel. And we had another player when we first started but he road to the legion camp to try and recruit them to help with everything that’s been going on.”

“What exactly had been going on? It’s only been three days and I already feel like I’m way behind after spending my first two in a cave.” I said not trying to sound too dour.

“Well, when we all woke up here things were going nuts. I guess the Legion had magical contact with the mainland and after that big storm it went dead. Guess they got enough information to spook them because they all pulled back to their fort and are demanding the townspeople here rebuild their ships that were wrecked during the storm. The people here are freaking out, their mayor is a bit of a boob so Magda has sort of taken over, now she’s got all the slaves building a wall around the town and all this other stuff. I don’t know man, but I’ve sure been having fun.” Quick rambled on

Well shit, if Magda had already taken control of the town and another player was embedding himself with the Legion that didn’t leave too many options for me to build with for the guild. There were the elves, but I wasn’t sure how willing they’d be and trekking all the way across the island to chance it on the Ulcragg didn’t sound appealing. I guess if I could stomach the Arachnia I could go there. Either way I needed more information first. As we made it to the town I saw a bunch of sun kissed men and women working to dig long trenches out around the town as others piled the dirt up on a large berm on the inside edge. Waiting on the other side of the trench Magda was talking to older portly man with a bald head that seemed to be arguing with Ard as well. Jogging up behind them I laid a hand on Ard’s shoulder.

“Everything alright here?” I asked as I shouldered my way next to him.

“Everything is fine.” Snapped Magda “I was just telling your friend here that we need raw wood, not rocking chairs. Clearly he has a way to get it without the other elves getting pissed off.”

Throwing up my hands I looked to Ard raising an eyebrow at the implied question.

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you, I get my wood from up the mountain.” Ard stated

“No one goes up there, not even the elves. You expect me to believe you survive treks up there to bring back enough wood for your little arts and crafts.” The mayor fumed.

“Whoa whoa whoa, he’s telling the truth. I met him up on the mountain, I mean sure there are some monsters up there, but he’s telling the truth.” I stepped between the three of them, suddenly finding myself the center of attention.

“Well good, then you can take us up there. We need wood to finish the walls and the Legion are demanding we rebuild their ships so we’ll need more for that as well.” Magda said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t need the whole fucking empire stomping up and down stirring up all sorts of shit around my house!” Argued Ard.

“Let’s just bring it back down here, look I get that things are a little nuts right now but we can be reasonable about this.” I tried to intervene.

Magda leaned over whispering in the Mayor’s ear for a moment before stepping back folding her hands over her chest with a triumphant look on her face.

“I’d like to offer you a quest then, we’ll reward you for every ten trees you bring to the town, and I already gave this quest to Magda and her group but she said I should share it with you as well, if you find the source of the recent attacks on the town me and the town council will reward you.” Spouted the mayor, puppetting her words.

You have been offered the quest (Gather Wood) for every 10 logs you bring back to the Mayor of Silk Bay you will be rewarded 40 gold pieces and 500 experience. This quest is repeatable.

You have been offered the quest (Mysterious Attacks) find the source of the recent attacks on Silk Bay. This quests rewards will vary based on the level of success.

I read quickly as the quests scrolled over my vision, this is why she’d looked so cocky. She had control of the quests presented, and figured that like any other gamer that dangling the carrot would be a sure fire way to get me to do what she wanted. To be fair part of me wanted to go chop down a shit ton of trees just to abuse the repeatable part of the quest. But my year here wasn’t about me leveling up, I needed to lay the ground work for the others.

“You’re not going to bribe me into going against my friend’s wishes, seriously read the fucking room. We might be able to come to a deal but it’s not going to just be you saying jump and me saying how fucking high.” I grumbled, gesturing to Ard at the wagon. “Come on man, let’s go find a place to stay. We can always discuss this later.” I shot the pair a warning glance as Ard and I set off down the street with the wagon in tow.

I saw the others joining Magda as we moved towards the town square, Ard directing us to the Inn he usually stayed at when he came to town to sell his goods. The Drunken Goose was pretty nice, off the main square it had a walled in courtyard with stables and a wash house out back. As we left the wagon with a stable hand and headed inside. The front room was a massive affair with tables and chairs scattered around, a large fireplace and a massive wooden bar opposite the door. The place was pretty quiet in the middle of the day, as Ard tracked down the owner, getting us a pair of rooms. I paid for mine, with one of the gold nuggets Quick had given me, receiving a handful of silver in return and the promise of a breakfast in the morning. We found a staircase off to the left, wandering up Ard told me he wanted to get settled in and left to his room.

Finding my own I set to work washing the drying clay like blood off my skin with a provided pitcher and basin of water. Stripping off the jerkin Tai had given me I tried my best to get it clean, bent over the basin scrubbing furiously when I heard a knock on the door behind me. Without looking up I kept working.

“It’s open Ard.” I called as I heard the door open

“It’s not Ard.” Said a lilting voice over my shoulder.

Whipping around I found Magda standing in my doorway with a hand behind her back as he leaned against the frame.

“Jesus you just don’t give up do you, I told you we could talk about it later. Sometimes you’ve just got to take no for an answer.” I fumed, tossing the jerkin to the side on the bed.

She held produced a bottle and two glasses from behind her back, holding them up “I just came to make a peace offering, I got a bit riled up earlier and I wanted to apologize. It’s just there is a real chance the way things are going that we could lose the town and I get a bit heated to get things done right away. So I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume you’d turn on your friend. Have a drink with me?”

Grabbing the one chair from the corner I carried it over setting it in front of her as I sat on the edge of the bed. “Apology accepted, I get it. We’ve all got our goals here, and from the looks of it you’re one of the few who might make them happen. Just settle down a bit in the future ok?”

Sitting down across from me she poured us each a glass, as we sat there drinking what amounted to a rather strong smoky bourbon. Talking about our first few days in the game, and how we’d come to be where we were. I told her about being stuck in the cave from the start and being hunted by the chitters as she told me about meeting up with Fan and Quick.

“So how’d you learn magic already?” I asked as I took another sip from my glass.

“Well you see, on the first day I wandered out into the forest and stumbled upon the bones of an ancient frost worm. I ended up seeing this vision of how it died and it gave me the quest to help bring it back to life, along with some of its ancient frost magic. So now I’m trying to get the town built up so I can gather the resources for it, I hope that if I get powerful in game I’ll can get some sponsors and I can pay for my blind cancer ridden brother’s surgery. But I think someone is out to stop me because suspicious things have been happening since I got here, and I don’t have any explanation for it.” Her voice had dropped to a whispered as she leaned in telling her story.

I’d unconsciously done the same, drawn in for a moment before I started to repeat it for a moment to myself, pausing for a moment. “You’re fucking with me aren’t you?”

She let out a small smirk creep across her face that seemed to soften her sharp features, as a small laugh peeled out from her lips. “Oh I’m totally fucking with you, what do you think this is, some anime? No our first day here we ran into a hag in the woods, she dropped this spell book when we killed her. I was the only one that had the elemental affinity so I got it.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at how well she’d pulled me in from the start, her delivery really selling it. “So how exactly does magic work here?”

“Well from what I’ve seen, everyone has certain affinities and if find a magic tome you can start learning from there. It’s like any other skill, except for the fact that the more I level it the more spells I can understand in the tome, and I can take certain specializations to change and enhance my casting. We actually found that if you go down to the market and try out a bunch of different tomes you can find out what your affinities are.” She told me easily, before slapping her hands on my knees and standing up. “Now put your shirt on and come down stairs, we were all about to have lunch and I’m buying.”

As she left I caught myself watching more than just her exit, shaking my head as I grabbed the jerkin from the bed, pulling it on and following her downstairs.