Jane squealed, “So cool!”

He, too, grinned.

The shop was filled with weapon stands, each featuring a different type of weapon: swords, axes, two-handed axes, maces, polearms like spears and halberds, daggers, hammers and mauls, and even tridents.

“Oh my gosh!” Jane reverently plucked a wicked-looking instrument of death from one rack. “They have scythes!” The weapon had a shaft as long as Jane was tall. From out of the top came a curved blade over a meter long. It was the kind of tool you see wielded by the incarnation of death in Western culture.

Despite being a farming tool used for cutting crops, the scythe had become a popular weapon in some games, mostly mobile ones.

“Looks like WoF finally gave in. Total fan favourite, but so few MMOs have them. Guess they think it’s unrealistic or something.”

“Or too much work to program.” She gently gave the weapon an experimental poke in the air. “Super unbalanced and awkward. But the coolness factor is off the charts.”

“You want to buy one?”

Jane looked at the price on the rack and barked an incredulous laugh. “Ha! 50 gold for a bottom-of-the-line white weapon? That’s nuts.” Something caught her eye, and she pointed up, drawing Quill’s attention.

A sign with a dolphin hung over one side of the shop, with green and blue items in racks. They looked for a corresponding sign on the other side of the shop and found one for a whale, giving Quill and Jane a laugh. Below the whale were purple and red items.

Dolphins and whales were terms used to indicate how big spenders were in video games. Dolphins spent too much money, perhaps hundreds of real-world dollars. Whales spent small fortunes. It wasn’t unheard of for players to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on a game in order to try and get the best gear or characters.

“You ever wonder why stores in games no longer carry worthwhile weapons? Back in the day, you could buy good gear in stores. Sure, they were crazy expensive, but you could save up, and it would be worth it. It felt good saving up and buying that sword or whatever that you had your eye on for so long.”

“But that’s no good when you can just buy gold and stuff, right? They want to lock everything good behind lousy drop rates to keep you hooking and grinding away.”

“I miss games that prioritized the experience over wasting your time. Too bad gambling and dopamine hits make more money.”

Jane carefully replaced the scythe in its stand, ducking to keep from slicing her own head off. “There was something about gear in the Adventurers Guide, wasn’t there? We really need to read more of it.” She pulled out the book and opened it to the appropriate section. “Ugh. Exactly how many tiers do we really need?”

GEAR RANKS

Unique - Rainbow

Legendary - Yellow

Epic - Red

Heroic - Purple

Rare - Blue

Uncommon - Green

Common - White

“No way,” Quill breathed. “Unique? As in, only one of a kind? I thought games never did that.”

Jane read from the book. “Unique… ‘Unique items are just that, unique. Only one exists. In exceptionally rare cases, they may drop from defeated enemies or be found in chests or other locations. However, most are acquired as a reward for the first adventurer to pass certain quests or bosses.”

Quill was stunned. “So the first player to finish one of these quests gets a unique reward. Holy cow. That’s a massive incentive to be the first to do anything. I’ll bet unique weapons are insanely powerful.”

Jane’s excitement was rising too. “I’ll bet unique items are ridiculously powerful. We need to be out there, exploring. Finding all the new quests we can.”

“Tracking down unique monsters. Fighting bosses.”

She paused and grew more thoughtful. “Imagine the competition once people find out about this. It’s going to put even more pressure on us to play hard.”

Quill nodded, his eyes scanning the gear page in the book Jane held. “And it’s definitely going to reward all those pay-to-win guys more than anyone else. The ones buying max level-ups. They’ll be able to go after those unique drops first.”

GEAR ENHANCEMENT

Gear can be taken to a blacksmith and enhanced for a set amount of gold. At different levels of enhancement, gear will improve. The amount of improvement is random.

Gain stat bonuses at +3, +6, +9, +12, and +15.

SUBSTATS

An item can have up to 4 substats based on its quality. Substats include, but are not limited to: bonus to base stats, attack speed, critical hit chance, critical hit damage, and more.

Jane groaned. “So much RNG on top of RNG!” RNG was a term used to indicate randomness, the letters standing for random number generator. “Not only do you have to get lucky acquiring gear when it drops from bosses, but you have to level the gear up, and how well it levels up is random?”

“Like throwing your money away.”

She scowled, looking highly annoyed. “MMO gear systems never used to be this bad! Imagine how many times you’d have to go through the same dungeon over and over again until you not only got the gear you wanted but one that levelled up well.”

The more he thought about the whole process, the more overwhelming and discouraging it was. He felt his hope falling. “Yeah, this is mobile crap right here; gacha games do this. Everything’s a casino now, trying to milk people out of their time and money.” And it was going to make their lives in World of Fantasy that much harder.

Jane’s mood seemed to be taking a hit, too, her voice growing dejected. “This is going to make gearing up a huge, expensive pain. We’re going to have to spend so much time grinding pointless monsters to get enough gold to gamble on our own gear.”

Quill felt himself succumbing to inner darkness and tried to force a halt to it. He could feel the myriad negatives about the game system dragging him down and knew it was bad. He took away and closed the Adventurers Guide. “Screw it. Forget this stuff. We’ll just use garbage gear as much as we can. After all, it’ll be outdated quickly enough, right? Level five gear will be useless when we’re level ten.”

She took a breath and seemed to steady herself as well. “Right. Of course. We’ll just wait until we’re end-game before getting into gear. Hopefully.”

“Let’s just focus on the things we can do and achieve. If we spend too much time thinking about this, it’s only going to be discouraging.” He spoke to himself as much as her but he had to keep his spirits up.

“Agreed. It was enough to learn about the gear. We should focus on playing and levelling. We’ll think about enhancing gear or whatever for end-boss fights.”

They shared a pair of slightly forced smiles. Quill, for one, was glad they were on the same page about this. And that both were trying to stay positive. So much about this whole experience seemed designed to pull him down and make him want to give up. He couldn’t give in to that, or he’d never succeed.

A scream pierced the air inside the weapon shop.

Quill and Jane both looked towards a door at the back of the main room.

Jane drew her new knife. “Potential quest?”

“Let’s hope the monsters aren’t giant bears ten levels higher than us this time.”

“I don’t care. As long as it isn’t more poo slimes.”

They barged through the door and found themselves in a storage room and workshop. A long table held various weapons in the process of being polished and tagged. Crates had been stacked up against one wall. One door, open at the moment, revealed stairs going up, probably to living quarters above the shop. Another door likely led outside.

A woman stood at the bottom of the stairs in fright, staring at the scene in the center of the room.

A masked rogue in black-and-gold leathers held a needle-sharp dagger at the throat of a man wearing an apron, likely the husband of the frightened woman and the manager of the shop. The rogue glanced their way and snarled. He began to withdraw his weapon.

The man in the apron must have gained a sense of courage. With the blade no longer at his throat, he grabbed the rogue’s arm and shouted, “Stop him! Help us! Glory, run!” He reached up with one hand and swiped the mask from the rogue’s face, exposing a large nose, a scarred lip, and dark eyes.

The rogue growled and tried to back his head out of reach, pulling the mask back up.

Quill bolted forward, Jane a step behind. The rogue looked way out of their league, but if they were getting this quest, the system should think they were high enough level for it. If the shopkeeper could just hold the man’s arm for a few seconds…

The rogue effortlessly slipped from the shopkeeper’s grip and stabbed him in the neck. “Stupid bugger. Shoulda just paid.”

The wife, Glory, screamed.

Kicking the dying man at Quill to trip him up, the rogue fled out the back door into an alley.

Quill caught the shopkeeper; blood sprayed him in the face and chest as he lowered the man to the floor. “Healing potion! Do you have a healing potion?”

Glory raced over and knelt. “No, we don’t. Please, you’re adventurers; you must have one!”

But they were far too poor to own such things. Helpless, they watched as the man bled out and died.

Quill felt awful, even though it was just an NPC dying and a staged act. He knew the people would take their places again later when other players came by. Still, the death was very realistic.

Jane put her shoulder on the newly widowed woman’s arm. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

Glory, chest heaving with sobs, angrily shook Jane’s hand off.

Jane rolled her eyes and stood up, looking a touch hurt. “Ok, having low Charisma kinda sucks.”

“Let me try.” Quill gave the woman a minute to calm down, then pressed her with questions. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stop him. Who did this? And why?”

Glory looked up at him, wiping a mess of tears out of eyes that were distrustful but much less so for Quill’s sake than when she looked over at Jane.

Jane scoffed in disgust.

The widow tenderly touched her husband’s cheek. “It was the Gold Crusade. We…we couldn’t pay our dues this month.” Her expression turning fierce, she caught Quill’s wrist in an iron grip slick with her husband’s blood. “You saw his face. I beg you: find my husband’s killer. Bring him to justice. Arrest him if you must, but if you have any kindness, remove him from this world the way he did my love. You’re adventurers; you can do that, surely? I’ll reward you!”

Quill eyed Jane, who nodded, and then bowed his head to the widow. “Of course, we accept.”

She nodded once, then turned away from him to grieve.

He and Jane exited the shop through the same backdoor the killer had escaped through.

Before either could talk about the new quest, a sketchy man in sunglasses and a trenchcoat slid up to them, a greasy smile on his thin lips. “Heya. How ya doin’?” His eyes warily darted up and down the alley before he opened his trenchcoat.

“Hey!” Jane’s hands flew over her eyes, likely worried about what such a man was revealing to her.

He wasn’t flashing them, thankfully. He reached into a bag of holding and pulled out a wooden crate. “Can I interest the two of you in a loot box?”

Quill laughed. “Oh my gosh. That’s hilarious.” He elbowed Jane and smirked at her.

She stuck out her tongue, then turned her attention to the stranger. “What’s inside?”

“What’s inside? What’s not inside? Who knows? Potions, weapons, costumes, food, gold, crafting materials — it could be anything! And it could be all yours!”

Jane gave him a level look. “It could be junk.”

The stranger looked appalled. “No! Never.” Then the expression softened. “Well, almost never. Barely sometimes. Really, it’s all a matter of perspective and need. One person’s junk is another person’s treasure, right?” He winked and waggled his eyebrows.

She folded her arms. “Sounds like a real gamble. Waste of money.”

His eyes swivelled once more up and down the alley before he drew himself up to her side and stage-whispered in her ear. “Did I mention there’s a chance to get — legendary gear?”

Quill saw her interest perk up and pulled her away from the scam artist and started walking down the alley, heading for the street beyond. “Don’t fall for it. Any gear we get will be at our level. What’s the point when we’ll be higher level in a few days, and the gear will be useless?”

Hastily following, a fresh, greasy smile appeared, and the man shrugged as if it didn’t matter. He held the box up, trying to temp Jane even as they tried to leave him behind. “You could always sell it. Or put it up in the auction house.”

Jane looked confused, though she didn’t stop. They exited the alley and came to a stop on the street, back in the sun once more. She looked over her shoulder at the scammer who didn’t seem to want to leave the shadows of the alley. “Doesn’t it bind to the player?”

The NPC didn’t understand the question.

But a player passing by evidently overheard and paused. “Weapons and armour don’t bind here.”

Quill’s head jerked in the newcomer’s direction. “What?”

The other player looked resigned. “Yup. You die; it lies there so anyone can pick it up.”

“That’s insane. Realistic, but it would lead to…”

A despondent nod. “Constant theft. If someone takes it and runs off, what are you going to do?”

Jane winced. “Harsh.”

Quill couldn’t believe it. “I guess that gives us some serious incentive not to die. I thought losing XP was bad enough, but losing gear, too?”

The other player stuck his hands in his pockets. “Probably going to be a lot of casual thieves out there. I mean, if you came across a spot where someone died and left their gear, you could just leave it for when they return to claim it. But who’s going to be that honest? Free items? Or sell it for free gold? We all know not everyone’s getting out of this game alive. Gotta do what you gotta do to survive.” With a little wave, he turned and strolled off, seemingly not in a hurry to get back to a game that seemed to be doing everything it could to make things harder on them.

Quill couldn’t blame him. He was starting to feel pretty down himself.

Male

36

QUILL KRAU

Class NONE, Level 2

STR

1

STATUS

DEX

3

Currently wishing gear systems were better.

HEA

7

SKILLS

INT

2

WIS

17

ITEMS

STA

14

CHA

11

Official Adventurers Guide

Female

26

JANE EULA

Class NONE, Level 4

STR

6

STATUS

DEX

11

Currently wondering what the hell is in one of those loot boxes. She is such a Pandora.

HEA

19

SKILLS

INT

18

WIS

18

ITEMS

STA

2

Gilded Armour of the Nature Goddess (unique); knife

CHA

5