The grand city was considered by all as the heart and center of the world of Helamir. All of its roads from the city lead to all the kingdoms across the continent thus, making this city a common merchant trading route with its advantageous geographical location.

Just as expected of the kingdom's central city of the game to have such a grandeur background. Arka's read this text about the main city before at the back of the box.

—And from here, you will experience the start of your grand adventure... Arka thought as she finished recalling the description of the game's main city.

She walked and tried to make her way through the city's vast, bricked roads and districts. Already, multitudes of players also circled the city.

Arka kept her hands on her leather satchel as she moved onward.

When Arka first started the game and saw the dozens of players running around, she couldn't look at any of them. An immediate shyness overwhelmed her at that time. She expected that playing a VRMMO would just be the same as playing any video game in front of her screen. However for her, despite playing behind her avatar generated in a virtual world, she still felt like she went out faced with actual people in front of her. She blamed the Con-Imm the developers made which affected her senses that feel too realistic as in the real world.

Other than her avatar feels realistic, the world itself looks realistic as well.

The avatar she's made was one she can tell herself she's proudly accomplished in the advanced, character customization system. With over 200 styles of looks, the one she's created was the same gender as her but with the rest of the avatar's body altered slightly, referencing her measurements... of course with her own added personal preferences. She projected herself into her avatar.

Yet here she is, clad behind darkened steel plate armor, a close helmet with a pair of broad, short, antennas above its visor, and a stylistic, earthen-green caped cowl. She can barely remember the looks she's had on her avatar, and she wants to admire it so badly. It was disappointing even for a self-proclaimed artist like her.

The city's game music sounded a peaceful tune making you feel wanting to either rest, prepare, or gather a group of people to join together as one party.

For Arka, this music meant "preparation" for her. And to prepare means finding a local shopkeeper—much better for her if the shopkeeper's isolated and away from the constant influx of players in the most common areas of the city.

Arka knows of one shopkeeper she regularly visits... one who's hidden in one of the city's narrow districts, besides the western walls. She can freely transact in this location without being bothered.

As she neared this shop, she stuck her hand inside her satchel, ready to make a deal with her Nightculler hides.

Arka opened the double doors of the shop called, "Aljohn and Ivan's".

With the doors creaking, and the bells chiming, this notified the owner of the shop.

The shop Arka entered was a small, 10 x 15 size room, with its wall, shelves, and tables lined up with all the store's general goods. Its common products include bread, hats, gloves, ropes, pots, buckets, and maps. The items on display near the windows show one of its most expensive leather armor, and the City Teleportation Diamond—a convenient way for fast travel in the world of Helamir.

The shop was combined with his brother, Ivan's Forge outside, which was where Arka made her customized, darkened armor set. Her gauntlets and sabatons were also custom-made which can be requested from any smith for a price.

The shopkeeper Arka's seeing was a blonde man wearing circular-shaped glasses, wearing a faint, green tunic, a brown, leather apron, and brown pants. This was Aljohn.

Arka thought previously that it was a cute setting for two NPCs living together like that. She thought it was nice to see such minor details the developers have put in the game.

Although what made her curious and part of the reason that she kept coming back to this shop was whether Aljohn and Ivan really were brothers... they never said that they were, and none of their facial features look alike at all... could it be that they were actually a gay couple?

Arka couldn’t contain her imagination.

The shopkeeper, Aljohn noticed her. "Well, well... look who it is!" He said. "I know that darkened, helmet anywhere."

Arka was surprised for the A.I. to notice her as a regular customer. After all, it was pretty surprising coding for the developers to make. Videogame shop NPCs were supposed to be written with just a few, scripted events. "Yeah, i-it's a pleasure to meet you... you again too, Aljohn," Arka said to the shopkeeper. Aljohn just returned a welcoming smile.

Arka froze, and without noticing it herself, stared at the NPC, or non-playable character in front of her. She started second-guessing whether it was a real person she was talking with. However, after a few short moments...

"My shop's open for business! Is there something you need?" Aljohn said.

It was the generic, scripted dialogue when a player was near a local shopkeeper in-game. As Arka noticed this, it eased her wariness around the shopkeeper.

Yeah... it's just the same, normally scripted AI. What am I getting so worked up about? Arka reassured herself after thinking through the situation. She chuckled.

Afterward, she pulled out the bundle of ten Nightculler hides in her satchel and placed it on the shopkeeper's counter. "I'd... I'd like to sell these." She said slowly.

"Nightculler hides, huh..." Aljohn said. "...this is pretty rare... I suppose we could bargain a fine trade." The NPC said.

After that, a confirmation window appeared in front of her HUD with the text:

Start trading with Aljohn?

Yes • No

The window showed Aljohn's name colored in grey, indicating he was indeed a non-playable character. "Alright, then." Arka said, making her mind agree to the Yes option.

Interacting with system messages works without any gestures or any sort of movement needed. Somehow, the Dive Console recognizes your brain waves and what determined choice you make on your Heads up Display. Arka does not know the details behind this yet. It used to spook her.

After Arka confirmed her reply, a window popped up showing the shopkeeper, Aljohn's wares and Arka's inventory. The middle of the trade window shows the amount of "Fels" they have, which was the currency of the game world—with Arka's Fels at the top, and Aljohn's Fels below hers.

Trading with NPC shopkeepers requires that they also have enough currency to cover what you sell to them. The amount of Fels they carry affects globally, meaning every player who trades with the shop keepers in-game affects it for other players in the game world. The shopkeeper's Fels reset every 24 hours back at 3,000 Fels.

At the moment, Arka has 618 Fels, while Aljohn has 1,974 Fels left for the day. It's best if she could maximize the amount she can get from the shopkeeper before the day resets.

Arka chose the Teleportation Diamond which costs 500 Fels each—A hefty price considering the game world doesn’t have many fast travel opportunities. After that, she sold the bundle of ten Nightculler hides she hunted that was sold for 50 Fels a piece, recovering her losses of 500 Fels.

Arka's now back at 618 Fels, with the shopkeeper also back at the same amount of 1,974 Fels with both parties gaining new items.

Arka closed the trade window.

Balanced. As all things should be. Arka thought of that funny meme.

"Thank you, come again." The shopkeeper, Aljohn told her.

Arka nodded at the scripted shopkeeper, turned her back to him, and stepped away a few inches.

"Well, that's it for today I suppose... I can just turn in this quest after a good night's sleep." Arka said, referring to her completed Nightculler Hunt quest, as she's preparing herself to log out of the game.

She needed to open her system settings in the HUD, and selecting the logout button. This was all done through eye movement. When you glance down to the bottom of the HUD, the console detects your pupils looking at its bottom margin which pushes up a hidden, system settings menu. The menu shows icons that can be selected for each setting, and are arranged in a square formation. Each icon represents its respective visual, audio, interface, and control mapping/sensitivity settings.

The logout button was at the bottom-right of the menu which represents a power button icon, even bigger, standing out from the rest.

Arka's brought up this menu in just a quick instance. And then, just as she's about to select the Logout button—

The double doors opened with its noisy creek, and the shop's bells chimed.

Arka noticing the sudden intrusion of silence ended up making her glance at the double doors opened by the person in front of her. Looking away causes system menu that she brought upon her HUD to be disrupted.

As the system menu window distorted into nothingness, Arka looked at the player who suspended her plans of egress, with a look expressed like, seeing a brief gust of wind, unseeable as it is, with its windy blast ending abruptly.

But of course, this brief, abstract expression couldn't be seen through her sophisticated close helmet by anybody.

"Uhh... hi." He said. "Can I please ask you for some help with a quest?" Said this man holding on to one side of the double doors.

He has medium-length, violet hair, wearing a hooded, long, white, padded armor, green padded trousers, brown, padded gloves, and steel-toed, leather brown boots. On his waist are two Kukri daggers— knives that have distinguishing, recurved blades. His daggers both have an intricate design, showing advanced craftsmanship of it.

Arka looked above the player's avatar to identify the name of the one who came to talk to her.

Banelfsing—it spelled.

Banelfsing continued. "...it's in a dungeon near the city." He said.

Did... this guy just follow me all the way here? She thought as she looked back at him.

"Ah..." Arka uttered. "...sorry, but you came at a bad time... I'm just about to go to sleep, you see..." Arka said in her usual slow tone.

"Oh... okay," Banelfsing said. He turned his back and prepared to leave, but stopped and turned again to face Arka. "By the way, um... sorry for surprising you." He said, in a considerate tone of voice. "I didn't think calling someone out here in this game would be like, you know, something in real life." Banelfsing as he scratched behind his ear.

"It's fine," Arka said.

"Yeah..." Banelfsing said, as he partly turned away from Arka with a gesture of his hand. "Well, bye, then." He finally said as he walked out the double doors.

A creaking sound once again resounded as its bells chimed which prompted a time of a person who once visited.

Once again, Arka opened her system settings, preparing herself to log out. She looked at the icon staring at it.

She just kept staring... but in the end, she doesn't select it.

She looked away from the menu, distorting it back to nothingness—closing it. After that, she began walking towards the double door of the tiny shop.

Arka can be hypocritical sometimes.

She walked out of the shop past the creaky sound of the double doors, as its bells chimed once again which prompted a time of people who once visited.