For a moment, Suara thought she’d fallen asleep, but now she was awake and it seemed like no time had passed. Her HP was restored, and with her new VIT and levels she had a healthy 320.

She left her room and went downstairs. It was as quiet as when she arrived. The back room piqued her curiosity, so she poked her head in, and found Aurea rolling dough on a narrow countertop.

The innkeeper looked over her shoulder. “How was your room, Suara?”

“It’s great. How long did I sleep?” she asked.

Aurea laughed. “You adventurers are so strange. You lay down only a moment and hop right back out of bed to run off on your next adventure.”

“Hmm. Well I’m going out.” She waved to Aurea, who responded with a nod.

Having forgotten to look over her map, she pulled it up as she left the inn. The Accariam Royal Bakery was marked with a golden arrow, and it was quite close to the Adventurer's Guild.

As she entered the Resting Place plaza once again she took a more thorough look around. This northward part of the city was at the base of a slope. A wall separated it from the more elaborate buildings on top called the Upper City. And the castle. According to her map, the bakery was near the Upper City wall.

Suara felt something brush her hip and her gold piece total popped up again. She spun around, and glared at the elf Xander whose eyes went wide realising he was caught.

“Of course it’s you,” she snapped. Her fists clenched.

“Hey!” He held his hands up. “I was just messing around to get your attention. You don’t need to…”

She opened her hand, and her two cards appeared on her fingers as a red and a yellow light. With a quick motion she picked the Sword of the Stranger and drew the blade across his body.

“Aw, come on,” he complained as he fell apart.

Suara didn't wait around to see all the blood. She marched off, leaving him to be gawked at until he respawned. The gossipping crowd’s eyes burned at her back, too, though.

Outside the northern side of the plaza, there was a lone building with a blue roof near the road to Upper City. The aroma of fresh bread and sugar begged her to enter. She did as her nose bid and pulled the bakery door open.

The bakery had polished wood floors, and gleaming cases of desserts around every wall. Cookies with lime jelly in the centre, strawberry strudels, pineapple tarts, apple pies… Everything looked divine. It was obvious how flaky and buttery the crusts were just by looking at them.

“Are you lost?” asked a deep voice from behind her.

She bent down for a closer look at a plate of fat cinnamon buns, dripping generously with white icing. “No, I don’t think so,” she answered without turning.

“This is the Accariam Royal Bakery. Dirty peasants don’t belong here,” the person said rudely.

Suara straightened her back and turned around. A burly cat man regarded her coldly with his arms crossed. Besides the ears, tail, and excessive hair on the back of his hands and forearms, he didn’t look too different from a human. His blue apron had dusty white handprints on it.

“I have a quest,” she explained. “To bring wheat.”

“Not only do you not have any wheat, but you look like dirt. Your rags are covered in blood.” His arm swung out to indicate the door.

“I came to ask where to get the wheat,” she frowned. “How do you know I don’t have any?”

“Because I put the quest up. If you had the wheat, I’d be able to tell.” He kept his arm raised.

Suara kept her frown. Some sort of NPC power, she supposed. With a sigh and a shake of her head she walked outside. People were so rude in this world. Except Aurea.

The elf named Xander was lurking around in front of the bakery when she got outside. She made a fist and drew her cards.

Xander’s eyes fell to her glove before he spoke. “Do you need any help?”

She hesitated. Was he trying to trick her? “What do you want?”

He took a step back as her hand lingered near the red light on her finger that represented Sword of the Stranger.

“Honestly?” he chuckled somewhat nervously. “I’m really curious about that Unique card you have… and all the other weird things about you. You’re a bit of a mystery. And… I should apologise for stabbing you. I have a bad habit of getting caught up in the moment and doing things I regret later.”

Suara lowered her hand. “Oh, well if you’re sorry then it’s okay.”

Xander released his breath and his shoulders slumped as he relaxed, but his face looked somewhat surpriseed. “Thanks. My name is Xander Fey. I’m actually a fairly new player, too. I’ve been following the game since it came out but my friend Ghol and I couldn’t afford the Consciousness Projection VR Headsets until recently.”

She wondered if his friend was the horned bunny who’d used his name. “My name is Suara. If you want to help me, you can answer my questions without treating me like a bother. Otherwise, I don’t have time for you.” In truth, she had nothing but time, and felt no rush to do anything or be anywhere. She still wasn’t sure why.

“Sure, ask me whatever you want. I’m glad to help you get started.”

“What game is this?” she asked.

He gave her a blank look. “… Seriously?”

Suara sighed and walked away. The receptionist at the Adventurer’s Guild could probably answer her questions, even if she would be a little impolite about it.

“Hey, come on!” Xander said, jogging after her. “You don’t think it’s surprising to find someone playing a game with as huge a barrier to entry as the CPVR and they don’t even know what it is?”

“Don’t look down on me!”

“I’m not!”

She stopped, having only gotten as far as the edge of the plaza. There weren’t too many people around, most didn’t seem to have a reason to come this way. Maybe Upper City was for high-level players.

“It’s called Lore of Accariam. Accariam isn’t the only region in the game though. The first expansion added Noggryde.”

“Okay.” Lore of Accariam. She’d hoped the name might jog a memory loose, but nothing came to her. “Where do I get wheat for my quest? I want the cards.”

“Wheat quest, eh? So you joined the Adventurer’s Guild?” he motioned for her to follow him, and he began leading her south.

“Of course I did, I couldn’t get any quests otherwise.” She had a feeling he was about to tell her otherwise and make her feel foolish.

He gave an understanding nod. “Yeah, the Adventurer’s Guild likes to pretend they’re the only one. If you like classes though, you can kind of get one by joining one of the other guilds.”

“Oh!” She clapped her hands together. “There are classes? I didn’t see anything like that in character creation.”

“They’re more like deck builds… well, your stats count too to a lesser extent. Like if you wanted to be a mage or something you can join the Academy. You would get different quests there than from the other guilds, and card rewards that suit a spellcaster build. You’d probably want to put a lot of your points in Mind and Charisma too.”

He was leading her down the straight path to the Spawning Square. “I put most of my points into Vitality and Charisma because they were high already,” she said.

“Hmm,” he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “High HP, Defence, and Magic Attack. It’s not too late to start putting points somewhere else, but you could start a good Paladin or Cleric build. High Magic Attack is good for healing too, not just damage. Game always needs more healers.”

“Why?” she asked as she watched with amusement as he leaped onto a little fence around someone's yard and balanced his way across.

He jumped off the end with a flourish.The Spawning Square wasn't far from there. It felt a little nice to return; it gave her a sense that she was beginning to become familiar with these areas.

“For most people, it’s more fun to do damage. In a game where class-style builds are optional, even fewer people make tanks or healers than usual. All the strongest parties have them though.”

“I’ll decide what to do when I see more cards,” she said.

He nodded. “Good idea. Speaking of cards, you know you can add that Iron Dagger you got from me to your deck, right? Should be a Cards menu somewhere. Most people start with a deck of random common cards. It's really weird that you didn't.”

She opened her card menu. It was there. She had been trying to ignore it because she didn’t like Xander, but he was being nice to her now. When she focused on it, a contextual menu opened and she selected [Add Card to Deck]. The card blinked away.

“How come I didn’t get anything from you the second time?” she asked.

He turned towards the southwest exit to the Square. “You can only get rewards for killing a player the first time, except in certain PVP situations… I don’t know much about PVP though, except player killing which I know you're familiar with.”

The short road out of the Square opened to a forested hill where she could just barely see a river at the bottom through the shade of the trees. She wanted to go and see it, but instead they followed the outside of the Square, towards a little farm with fenced-off fields of golden wheat. A few people in simple clothes were coming and going, gathering their little bunches of wheat and running off to turn them in. Or do whatever else anyone did with wheat.

“If you grab it with your Deck Glove it’ll turn into a Wheat Card. You can use them for cooking… that is as much of a time sink as everything else though so most people leave it to the NPCs.”

Suara wasn’t sure if she liked cooking. Maybe she would try it.

As they reached the fence around the nearest wheat field, Xander slipped his slender body through the fence. She looked at it apprehensively. There was no way she was going to try and squeeze her chest through that… and certainly not with him watching her fumble through. She followed the path around.

Xander hopped up onto the fence and squinted into the distance. “Huh. Something’s coming,” he said.

Suara ignored him; she was locked on her prize. She grabbed a stalk of wheat with her left hand and grinned as it morphed into a card and vanished into her inventory. [Wheat 1/10] appeared before her. “I got one!” she exclaimed, looking excitedly up at Xander.

“Uh oh,” he muttered, turning his head to follow something streaking through the air. It struck another player in the adjacent wheat field and the man fell dead with an arrow sprouting from his chest.

“Oh,” she squeaked. There was a light thud against her stomach, and she buckled over from a sudden sharp pain. [56 Piercing Damage] [HP: 264/320 {[][][][][][][][][___}]. Her hand clutched the arrow and tore it out. “Ow!”

“It’s a goblin raid,” Xander laughed. He crouched on a fence post to watch.

“Aren’t you going to help?” she flinched as another arrow struck the fence post he was on, but he paid it no mind.

“Nah, this’ll be a good learning experience for you. I’m too high level for these things, anyway.” He gave her a thumbs up. As if that was supposed to be encouraging.

Suara ducked into the wheat field as another arrow flew by. She couldn’t help but grab another stalk of wheat as she tried to sneak closer. If she could kill Xander, she could kill a goblin.

A javelin thudded heavily through the wheat and tossed up a spray of dirt a few feet ahead of her. She hustled up to it and pulled it out. Another one shot through her shoulder, pulling her to the ground. [60 Piercing Damage] [HP: 204/320 {[][][][][][][]_____}].

“Ow!” she cried again. “Stop, I’m not ready!”

Three more arrows pelted the area, one of them taking her in the thigh. [57 Piercing Damage] [HP: 147/320 {[][][][][][_______}]. She cried out as pain wracked her body. The javelin was a crutch that kept her on her feet as her head hung and she tried to fight through the pain.

She made it to her feet as the pain subsided. It’s just a game, she reminded herself. She pulled out the arrows, and tossed the second javelin aside as well. As she ran through the wheat she kept her head low. With the first step out of the field she saw not one, but six goblins waiting for her beyond the fence.

She leaped over the fence and tossed the javelin as hard as she could. It struck a goblin archer in the face with a crunch for 57 damage and it spun around and collapsed, but its HP bar only decreased by about two-thirds. The javelin clattered to the ground.

Suara drew her cards. The three archers drew their bows, the injured one not bothering to get up, and loosed their arrows with a twang. She cast the Iron Dagger as she closed on them and swung it through the air. Two struck her in the side, but the third was deflected by her slash.[HP: 39/320 {[][___________}]. She ignored the pain and brought the dagger down on the injured goblin laying on the ground. It disappeared in a puff of smoke.

She planted her foot and pivoted, stabbing the spear-wielder as it reached for a javelin from its back. Then she stabbed it again. An arrow flew through the smoke as the goblin died, whizzing audibly past her ear. Two of the monsters rushed her with their little spears and she dove out of the way.

She slid painfully on the grass and rolled back to her feet. Their wide, pointed ears wiggled as they shook their heads tauntingly. They were only half her height, and she was not tall, but their ugly, knotty limbs were quick.

One of them hopped towards her and thrusted the javelin. She danced to the side and kicked it in the shoulder, and was surprised when it took 26 damage.

The remaining archers raised their bows again. The card lights on her fingertips flared up, drawing her attention back to them. Suara pulled her Winged Rabbit card and cast it. The card flashed away and a fat rabbit with little angelic wings popped out of the ground before her. The rabbit leaped into the air, and she darted to the side to avoid the arrows, but they both struck the rabbit and it turned into a puff of white smoke. The arrows fell straight down harmlessly.

The uninjured spear goblin showed its crooked teeth as it jumped forward with a jab. She stepped aside and slashed it across the arm, severing it and causing it to howl in agony. She snatched the spear from it while its eyes were clamped shut in pain.

All the other goblins screeched, waving their weapons. To scare her? She stabbed the disarmed goblin with her dagger in her left hand, and thrusted with the spear in her left, catching the one she kicked in the chest. Both reduced to smoke.

She sighed, still burying her pain. Two archers left.

She wished she still had her rabbit, but the only card she had left was Sword of the Stranger. The Iron Dagger really showed her how special that card was. She took it as a personal challenge to defeat these monsters without it.

As they raised their bows, she sprinted towards them. Her eyes locked on their fingers, and the moment she saw them move she rolled. The arrows passed over her head. She leaped up and tossed the javelin awkwardly with her left hand. The archer jumped to the side and sneered at her as it flew so wide it would have missed even if it stood still, So she stabbed it with the dagger instead. The weapon was fast; so she stabbed it again, and as she drew from the smoking corpse she slashed it across the other goblin’s throat.

With a bone-chilling screech it dropped the bow and clawed her arm. [HP: 13/320 {[____________}].

The dagger found its final mark in its shoulder and the last goblin died.

Suara fell onto her back and laboured to catch her breath.

The cards were added to her inventory, but as she was catching her breath anyway, she navigated to the card screen and put them right into her deck.

EXP Received

58

To Next

711

“Aw, fifty-eight?” she grumbled. “Xander was worth way more!” The ground shook and she turned her head, expecting to see Xander walking up to her. He wasn’t, but she could still see him crouched lazily on the fence post. When he noticed her watching, he nodded his head towards the nearby farmhouse.

She rolled her head to look the other way. The ground shook again. A lumbering figure stomped out from behind the house. It was twice her height, and though it had the same greasy green skin as the goblins, it was muscular except for a fat gut. A steel greataxe was clutched tightly in both its hands.

Her user interface told her what it was. A hobgoblin.