In the morning as Sun breaks through the window just underneath the curtain. Sara opens her eyes to see the dimly lit room.
She slowly gets out of bed and looks out bad walking over to the window looking out over Fantasy Lake City realizing none of it was a dream. The sun barely off illuminates the glass of the buildings around.
Early morning vendors are transporting their wares through the city. No real commotion yet just people calmly going about the day. Sara looks on with a detached feeling. Numbly watching the world as it starts to wake up.
The crowing of a rooster startles her out of her stupor as she goes over to the bed and starts to go about her day. She grabs her bag giving one look at the sleeping occupants of the room, she heads downstairs.
The clock on the wall in the dining hall shows 5 a.m. Sara had never been a very deep sleeper and she usually slept for short amounts of time so this was no surprise to her.
Recalling the night before she had been informed that breakfast will be at 8 so that gives her a bit of time to wander about the city and get some work done.
She leaves the building in search of a quiet area to start searching through the system that she's been gifted.
Sara walks on unfamiliar streets she tries to map out where she came from. Taking care to notice where things are. Walking past a cafe that has yet to open. She takes note of how close it is to their current residence. Signs at each street corner giving directions for important buildings.
Looking at the sign she sees Park and heads in the direction the arrow points. Wandering past a building with a sign saying public library, She sees just past it the opening to the park.
She thinks herself "we should go see that when we get more settled." Sara's walking through grassy paths until she finds a nice area. Pink peach blossoms in early bloom and a small river running nearby. The tranquility making her like the area.
Sitting down at the nearest bench. She puts her hand in front of her and tries to imagine an interface. Sara watches as nothing seems to happen but then a box with many icons appears. It looks very much like a tablet without a physical form to it. she gets the idea of how to use it quite quickly.
Eventually finding the icon which means spells she starts sifting through them looking through them one at a time trying to memorize all the ones that seem useful to her.
Sara sits in the park for a few hours relaxing and just reading. Whenever she started a new MMO her first goal was always to orient herself with how the system worked. Without a tutorial phase, she was going to have to figure it out as time passes through trial and error. Not ideal but workable.
Going back to the home screen of the interface, she looks around for anything of potential use. Eyes flitting across the screen eventually land on a map icon.
Clicking the icon brings up a map that shows all the areas she has come from. The fog of war down ginnels and areas she hasn't personally gone down yet.
After some snooping around at the interface she asks "Hey system? Is there anything else of note that I'm just missing? "
A robotic female voice resonates in her head "Explanations will be given, Arbitrary questions have no answer."
Sara sighs at the unhelpful information. She moves on looking through the interface, Finding an inventory, and personal attributes page.
Feeling satisfied with her progress, she stands up and brushes her pants of imaginary dust. She sets out to wander around the city as it starts to come alive. She sees people exiting the houses and heading off to do their morning trade. After a bit, she loses track of time and decides to head back to the Inn. Opening her map, she starts to follow that as it's much easier than trying to remember exactly where she came from.
Looking around to see the morning staff getting ready. "is there anything I could do to help?" she asks claire as she approaches the front desk.
Claire smiles and says "I think the kitchen needs help."
After being ushered into the kitchen. The cook takes one look at her a hands her a small knife, pointing at the potatoes. Immediately starts around peeling potatoes. A fairly simple task.
She's rewarded for her hard work with a plate of food shoved in their hands by a smiling cook, he nods at her and points to the door to the dining hall.
She walks out of the room into the dining area, selecting a table near the stairs. An area where her other party members might be easiest easily able to find her. And start eating.
It isn't too long before she over to the hall which leads to the room and sees Stephen walking over to her table.
Stephan waves in greeting saying "Good morning, your up early." With a smile. He sits down across from her as he opens a menu to get breakfast.
Sara after swallowing her food responds with "yes I barely slept while I was on earth. I can't imagine having magic will beat my insomnia. I've been told it's more mental than physical." She finishes with a tilt of her head and a smile.
Waving her fork about as she talks "So I looked into our system, it has everything you would expect from a general MMORPG game. Very basic if you ask me." Stephan looks at her with a confused expression.
He looks as though he's figuring out how to word his next question "What is an MMORPG?" The word coming out foreign on his tongue.
The question lays heavy on the air as Sara slowly lowers her fork, not expecting the other participants to not be video game addicts.
She clears her throat and says "It's short for a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It just means fantasy game with its own world." As she says this Stephan becomes more confused.
He then asks the most telling question she had ever had. "What does online mean?" She stares for a moment before a realization arrives in her brain.
"Do you happen to know what the date was before you arrived here?" She hesitantly asks this almost not wanting the answer.
Stephan says "It was my birthday. September 12th, 1998. I just turned 27. Why?" He seems to not have clued in with the world he came from not having the words she said yet.
She thinks of how to say it nicely. She was so thrown off by the reality of it that she just tactlessly says "I'm from September 12th, 2021." The silence between them settling over them. A waitress walks over, breaking the silence, and asks for Stephans order. He lists off eggs, bacon, and hash browns with a glass of water on autopilot.
As the waitress leaves he turns to Sara his eyes determined and says "you choose appraisal because you have seen this before. You said it's basic. You know how to survive?" He asks the last part with determination she wishes she felt.
He says when she remains quite out of shock for too long. "I don't know what this world is like. I can fight, I have my whole life. Everything else is new to me. I'll win every fight for you if you show me how to live." He holds out his hand for her to take.
Sara reaches for it before she can really stop herself. As her hand makes contact with his, her trance-like state breaks. She looks directly at him and says "deal." And they shake hands. After returning to eat she shows him all the things she found out that morning.
He clicks through the interface as she did and clicks an icon that shows stats with the words available points at the top of the display. The Attributes page Sara saw earlier but didn't open.
Sara sees the screen and says, "Those are your stats. That stat." she points at the attack stat "Is how much damage you do to enemies. The more that's in it the more you do. People who are mainly damage dealers tend to mostly put stats into attack and crit damage. Please don't neglect your defense and health. Damage is great but I don't think we get a second chance so we can't afford to die." She explains a few more stats and a bit more about how they work. She touches upon items and gear boosting those stats but decides not to go into detail about it due to having no demonstration.
She opens her page to quickly allocate her own points. Stacking them into defense and health. Stephan does as expected going for attack stats. With 2 points each going into defense and health.
Over her shoulders, Sara hears a voice say "whatcha up too?" And she looks left to see rosa sitting down in the seat next to her. Sara blurts out "what year do you come from?" Immediately going red as she stammers an apology. she then explains the situation in barely understandable fast speech. Only after she was done she takes notice that Percy had taken his stop next to Stephan at some point during her ranting.
Rosa says "Last it checked it was September 12th, 2003. Only a few years before your time. I was 23 then." She holds out her hand like she saw Sara do and try to pull up the interface. It takes a second before she figures out how it's done.
Percy shifts uncomfortably in their seat as they say "1983" looking away they put their hand up at well trying to see their own display. With the two newcomers fully distracted. Breakfast continues on with the group mostly quiet save for the sound of eating and little noises here and there.
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