Will was perched on top of the writing desk and Claire was sitting at the foot of her bed. Will was tall and lanky. He was of European background and had Nordic features. Will looked at Claire and said “I can’t even imagine what you are going through. I hope you know you are safe. I’m very happy it was just a partial amnesia potion and not a full amnesia potion. A full amnesia potion would have had you drooling on the floor not remembering how to speak, think, anything. I guess I should try to explain the world that we live in.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.” Claire responded half-jokingly. This was Claire’s time to learn more about the world she suddenly found herself in. Lore wasn’t her favorite part of video games, but in this case, she actually needed to know more. Her life was probably on the line. “I think the first thing I want to kn-” Before Claire could continue the building began to quake gently. Claire gripped her bed while her dad casually continued to sit on Claire’s desk, not disturbed by this apparent earthquake. “Well, I think this would be a good start. What is going on?” Claire said as the room persisted to quake.

“It’s the daily reset. No need to be alarmed. It’s a very calm quake, it hardly does any damage and everyone is used to it.” Will said as he scratched his face calmly.

“The daily reset, what do you mean?” Claire asked with a confused look on her face.

“Everyday at 11:55 the wilderness outside of the city disappears and for five minutes the earth shakes. Once the five minutes are up, the wilderness reappears, being completely different from yesterday’s wilderness.” Will explained.

“What is the wilderness?” Claire asked still not knowing anything about this world.

“Everything that’s not in the walled city of Dal. Here, let me give you a brief explanation of the world and of your life, before you ask a thousand more questions. We live in the city of Dal. Dal is the only city in the world. There are three main sectors of Dal: The Freeman sector, the Merchant sector and the Noble sector. We live in the Noble sector, if you haven’t noticed we live very comfortably. We have a total of 8 servants that live on the first floor. I’ve worked very hard to get the family to this point.” Will yawned and continued speaking.

“There are only two constants in this world. The city of Dal and the Crimson Castle. The Crimson Castle spawns at random locations in the wilderness. Usually it doesn’t spawn more than 10 miles away from Dal. The necklace you are wearing is an icon of the Crimson Castle. The wilderness gets more dangerous the further you venture away from Dal. If you die in the wilderness you get jaunted back to the central temple of the town. The central temple is in the middle of the city and connects all three of the main sectors of Dal.”

“What does jaunted mean?” Claire asked with an eyebrow raised.

“It means you appear there once you die. You can only die once a day in the wilderness though. Once you die once, reappear in the central temple, there will be an invisible wall at the entry points to the Wilderness. You will not be able to get through the invisible wall. Once the wilderness resets, you will then be able to go into the wilderness again.”

Will paused for a second. “I know this is a lot to take in, but eventually, as Garth said, you will relearn what you have lost. Spending time at school, surrounded by your peers will definitely help.”

“What kind of school do I go to?” Claire asked.

“Currently you are at Ranger College, part of Everton University. Most people earn a living by going into the wilderness. Dal gets most of its food, lumber, supplies, materials, pretty much everything from the wilderness. Your sister is on her last year of primary school, which is free and made available to all residents of Dal. Do you have any more questions before I go to bed?”

“How do you know Mr. Garth?” Claire asked.

“Mr. Garth and I used to do business dealings together. That stopped once he joined the royal guard as an administrator about a decade ago.”

“Oh, and how did you know the vial used to hold an amnesia potion? It didn’t have a label on it or anything?”

“Our sixth sense, everyone has one. Come here, I’ll show you. Hold the vial in your hand and concentrate it intensely.” instructed Will.

Claire concentrated on the vial and a transparent screen appeared in front of her.

Name: Permanent Partial Amnesia Vial

Rarity: Extremely Rare

[EMPTY]

Permanently removes most of the victims personal memories.

“Oh wow, that is neat.” Claire thought to herself.

She wondered what would happen if she tried using the sixth sense on herself? As she concentrated on herself the screen appeared in front of her again.

Level: 1

EXP: 0/500

Class: Ranger

Skills: Novice Archery

Health 50/50

Strength 1

Dexterity 1

Perception 1

Constitution 1

Strength 1

Agility 2

Titles: None

Active Quests: None

Inventory: 0/10

Wearing: Pajamas, Crimson Castle Necklace

“And if you concentrate on yourself you can see your character sheet right?” Claire asked Will.

“What no, what are you talking about? Character sheet? I’ve never heard of that term before.” Will looked very confused. “You can only use your sixth sense on objects that originated in the wilderness.”

“Hmmm, interesting” Claire thought to herself. This is something that differentiated Claire from the NPCs in this game. Were they really NPCs though? They seemed too intelligent for AI. Claire concentrated on closing the character sheet and it vanished. She would look at in more depth later.

By this time, the gentle earthquake of the reset was over. Will stood up yawned and went to give Claire a hug. “I’ve got to get to bed sweetie, I’ve got a big day at work tomorrow. Plus, I need to make sure your mom is okay. I think we are all going to be alright. I’ll wake you up for school tomorrow. Goodnight.” Will went over to Claire to kiss her on the forehead. Before Will left he took a second look at the curtains. “Oh my god, I thought I told those servants to change those curtains already! The color does not match this room! They never do anything without being told!” Will left angrily. “Yep, that’s something my dad would do.” Claire thought to herself.

Claire was finally alone again. She took a couple of breaths and repeated in her head “I’m still alive, I’m safe. It could be worse. All video games are beatable,” a few times. After calming down she thought about how weird it was interacting with her family in a different world. Did the “Claire” she replace have the same personality as her? What if the Claire in this game was now living in Claire’s body in the real world? “Well nothing I can really do about that right now.” Claire thought to herself. She sat quietly, trying to think about the right course of action. She decided to pull up her character sheet again to study it more.

Level: 1

EXP: 0/500

Class: Ranger

Skills: Novice Archery

Health 50/50

Strength 1

Dexterity 1

Perception 1

Constitution 1

Strength 1

Agility 2

Titles: None

Quests: None

Inventory: 0/10

Wearing: Pajamas, Crimson Castle Necklace

“Not bad so far. I think? I don’t know what other people’s or other thing’s levels are. Plus I don’t necessarily understand exactly what some of these stats mean.” Claire thought.

As she looked at her character sheet a quest notification appeared.

Main Story Line Quest: Find Out Who Drugged You

Knowing she was in a game for sure now, Claire tried to think of a way to log off or exit the game. “LOGOFF!” Claire said outloud. She tried again by just thinking of the word logoff. “Settings!” Claire said. “Logout… Exit… Options…” None of them did anything. Claire couldn’t help but chuckle, this reminded her of a scene from the first spider man movie when Peter Parker was trying to figure out how to shoot his web.

Claire yawned after she was done laughing, she was getting really tired. She decided she would be able to think better about her situation if she was well rested. Maybe there was a well rested bonus? As Claire was about to enter her bed there was what seemed to be a cockroach on the floor crawling towards her quickly . “EWWWWWW!” Claire screamed and threw a pillow at it but badly missed. She jumped backwards on her bed. However, as she stared at the cockroach a very weird feeling came over her. It was a calming sensation that pulsed through her body. The feeling was very soothing and she soon forgot what she was panicking about. As she continued to stare at the roach her stomach growled and she became dizzy. Her thoughts began to grow hazy and she grew hungry quickly. She soon had the very strange impulse… to consume the roach. It looked delicious in Claire’s eyes and she was so hungry. It would be the perfect midnight snack. She was entranced by it. She slowly got off the bed and walked towards the roach. She bent down to grab it and when she touched it her sixth sense appeared.

Level 1 Mesmerroach

Type: Bug

EXP 10

Mesmerroaches entrance their victims into eating them. The microscopic eggs on the back of the the roaches will become parasites inside the host. Eventually the host will defecate and baby roaches will infect more hosts.

After reading that she snapped out of her trance, threw the roach on the floor and crushed it with her pajama slippers. Her sixth sense appeared again.

Level 1 Mesmerroach destroyed.

EXP gained 10.

You now have the quest Destroyer of Mesmerroaches: Destroy 10 Mesmerroaches to complete this quest. 1/10.

Rewards: Title: Destroyer of Mesmerroaches: Effect: Do 30% more damage versus bug type creatures. EXP 400.

Looks like this world would take some time to get used to.