The fog cleared, and the empty black turned to color. A transparent, green-framed window popped into view, announcing:

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Welcome to TheirWorld and the world of Uldarin!

You have created an avatar, and it is time to learn how to play the game. With the challenges associated with TheirWorld’s play style and systems, it is highly recommended that you do not leave this tutorial instance until you are comfortable with basic life in Uldarin.

In this part of the tutorial, you will play in an instance that matches your character’s chosen features and background. While in this instance, features such as PvP, trade, pain percentages, and the player death cycle are locked.

The main story quest has been designed to give you a basic education about the game’s features and mechanics and story quests based on your character creation choices. You can deviate from these quests and even change the direction of the main questline to unlock faction allegiances, professions, classes, skills, relationships, items, pets, and more. When you have completed the quests to your satisfaction, you may leave the instanced zone and join the main game. Be advised that the location and NPCs normally exist outside of the instance, and once you leave this tutorial state, you will be unable to enter it again.

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You have been given a quest!

<Receiving an Education (0/5)>

It’s time to start your lessons!

Accept this quest to begin a series of tutorials.

You must fulfill the requirements for the five basic lessons taught by Grimhai Kidalmar.

First Requirement: Listen to Teacher Grimhai’s introduction to the basic concepts of the world and its gameplay.

This quest is REQUIRED. You must complete this quest to advance.

<<Difficulty: E>><<Reward: Varies - Potential: S.>>

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Keeping these in mind, Guin waved her hand and sent the window away.

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<<Entering: Guin Grey’s House>>

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The house she found herself in was simple, clean, and felt like home. Two beds were tucked away in a small alcove separated from the rest of the house with a shabby-looking powder-blue sheet. Each bed had a worn, thickly woven blanket draped over it and a chest at its foot. There was a modest kitchen to her left, with herbs hanging upside down from a wooden dowel that ran along the ceiling. A stone fireplace filled the house with the scent of burning pine. Sunlight spilled through the open windows, and a cool breeze swept through the house. It was simple and clean—and almost uncomfortably life-like. It would be easy to forget that she was in a game.

In the center of the room sat a small table with two chairs, a clay mug of wildflowers, and a bowl filled with apples and pears. Guin grabbed an apple from the bowl and stepped outside.

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<<Entering: Outskirts of the Village of Bade>>

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Taking a bite from the apple—a delicious, juicy apple—she took in her new surroundings. Her house was one of three that stood around a stone well in a small clearing surrounded by an ancient-looking forest. Each house was enclosed by a shabby fence and came with small garden plots and a fruit-bearing tree. A narrow dirt road ran from the well into the woods to the left of her house. Smells of farm life and mud mingled with the scent of balsam and fir. Dogwoods and oaks were dwarfed by pines that must have stood hundreds of feet tall. Emerald grasses faded into soft jade mosses at the edge of the clearing, where ferns and saplings grew in great numbers amidst fallen leaves, pine needles, and exposed tree roots. A brook babbled behind her house, and sun streams streaked through the dense canopy.

Given what the Fates had told her, it was logical to assume that this clearing was one of several like it that made up a whole village. For every player to have their own starting house and maintain this level of peace, it was likely that both the houses and the glades were also instanced. According to the quest she’d been given when she first entered, the first thing she needed to do was find the teacher Grimhai Kidalmar. Finishing off her apple and tossing the core into the woods, Guin headed down the road.

The main village wasn’t far. Once the houses in the clearing were out of sight, the silence of the wood was replaced by all the hustle and bustle one would expect of a town experiencing an explosive influx of new players, and a zone indicator told her that she had entered Bade proper.

Though loud thanks to the players, the forest town was rather quaint. Waves of golden fields glimmered through a layer of well-trimmed trees. The center square was filled with people playing games, selling goods, and resting on one of the numerous benches or on the grass. A beautiful white building with bright red doors and a high steeple cast a fair amount of shade in the midday sun. Around the square were a general store, a tinsmith, a seamstress’s shop, and an apothecary. The most popular place in town looked to be a large tavern and inn called “Ginny’s Saddle House,” and not far from that was a building with a sign for a stable and saddle maker.

Walking around, Guin also found a milliner, a cobbler, a wheelwright, a candle maker, and over two dozen other storefronts. Many of them were places Guin had never seen before in a game not based somehow in reality, and several of which she had never heard before. How many of the trades could be learned? How many of those trades would anyone want to learn?

She was a good half hour out from her house when she finally found the old schoolhouse. It was far larger than she had expected, with extensive grounds surrounded by a wattle fence that stood roughly three feet high. Players filled the space within the walls, some looking more exasperated than others. More worrying than that, however, was the number of people crowding the front gate.

Guin went over and stood on her toes to get an idea of what was happening. A shabby-looking man in dusty clothing leaned against the gate, yawning as a tall, dark-skinned woman with peacock-colored hair postured at him. Stella? She was pretty confident that it was, in fact, Stella, but the name that appeared after focusing on her avatar was ‘Lady Starshine.’

“Then what are we supposed to do?” one player asked.

“Go to another place, I guess,” another player answered.

“But what about the story quest? Isn’t the point of the tutorial supposed to be learning how to play the game?”

“If this is the case, then there must be other ways to accomplish the quest...”

“But it specifically mentions Grimhai!”

Lady Starshine pulled back from the gate guard with a huff. "Fine. There's a limit to how many people can enter the grounds at one time. Great. But how, exactly, are we supposed to get into the school?” she asked. “Surely you don't expect us to just stand around all day waiting for a slot. Is there a signup sheet or something? A queue?”

“Nope,” the man said. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again: The door is closed. You do what you will with that. Won’t do ye any good to keep asking me about it; the answer ain’t changin’ any time soon. Now, away with ye.”

There was a series of groans and sighs from the group, and some players started shifting into a line against the fence. Guin moved up to the front and tapped the familiar avatar on the shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “What's going on?”

Lady Starshine’s face lit up. “Oh! Hey! Sorry! You were taking so long I thought I’d get a head start!”

“Don't worry about it. Did our roommate arrive?”

“She’s unpacking as we speak.”

“Is the school closed?"

Lady Starshine sighed in annoyance and shook her head, her peacock-hair dancing with the movement. “Seems like it. The keeper there won’t let anyone through.”

“Are they limiting the number of players entering the grounds when they just opened it?” Guin asked, frowning. “Why didn't they just instance it, like the houses?”

“Beats me,” Starshine said, “though I wouldn't put such bad planning past Varier Co. Hell, I wouldn't put it past the valkyrian race to plan this kind of poorly.”

“Is that so?” Guin snorted, staring at the gatekeeper and the nearby players. A few of the shiftier-looking ones were eyeing the walls and the gate, hands on their weapons. “Smells like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“You’re telling me. The forums are going to be bonkers by tonight. I don't envy the GMs.” Starshine huffed.

Guin nodded in vague agreement, but something as simple as this wasn't like to have been a simple oversight. The school was the beginning of the tutorial, placed even before the fundamentals of play were introduced, which, in Guin's head could only mean one thing.

This was on purpose.

The very heart of TheirWorld was the concept of exploration. It was a choose-your-own-adventure game that encouraged players to deviate from a set path. Placing an obstacle in front of the player right at the start was certainly a way to reinforce that kind of thinking — and despite Starshine blaming it on poor planning, it was also a very valkyrian trait to make things more complex than one might think was necessary.

This wasn’t a game made for profit, but for science. This was Varier’s labyrinth, and the players were their mice. If they wanted to get into the school, they would have to find their own way in. The shady players looking at the walls and gate with less than good intentions were likely on a right track — but it certainly wasn’t going to be the only one.

If they even wanted to go through the school, that was.

Looking around told her that there were many options available to them. Players had free rein over what path they took. They could find a way to get into the school, or, she assumed, they could become an apprentice with one of the many tradesmen in town. They started with enough money that she could probably arm herself and go right into the forest if she wanted. She could probably pick up a few basic tasks in town, too.

“Whatever the case,” Guin mumbled, “Standing here is a waste of time.”

“So what do we do?” Starshine asked.

“We just do,” Guin said, taking Starshine’s arm and turning back to the village. This was a new beginning. A clean slate — and her life as Guin Grey had already begun.