I watch without much enthusiasm as Mad Wim gives the potion he’s concocted to the shroomlet Tess, who I’m surprised to see drinks it without a fuss. My indifference fades immediately as I watch the shroomlet’s scratches and bruises heal before my eyes. She perks up, and her beady little eyes take on a certain sparkle as she dances happily in her cage.

“It worked!” I cry, astounded, but Wim shakes his head.

“Not yet, it hasn’t.”

Poking inside the cage with a stick, he scours Tess’s head deliberately with deep scratches.

I don’t like what I’m witnessing—that’s shroomlet cruelty! Then, I suppose I was doing worse than scratching them not so long ago… Besides…

Tess’s scratches glow with a greenish yellow light, and her wounds close up before my eyes. She sit’s there, perturbed but whole.

“What did I tell you?! Eternal life! She’ll never age, and her body will regenerate no matter what abuse she endures! Ah hah!” he cries, reaching for the second vial and drinking it down with relish. Eagerly he rolls up his sleeves, and I see his arms are covered in bandages. He unwinds them so they fall to the floor, revealing ugly, unhealed wounds. His crestfallen face tells me everything I need to know as he slumps to the floor.

“What went wrong?” he mutters, holding his face with gnarled hands. “All my calculations, the test! It worked. But only on…the shroomlet…”

He looks up at me dejectedly. “Well. You’ve seen for yourself the results of my test. Take your reward, the last vial on the table. Not that it will be of any use to you. Unless…you do have it. The Shroomlet Aura skill. On you…it might have some small effect…”

[Quest reward: Potion of Eternal Life (take from counter)]

A potion that only works on shroomlets…

Wait, wait, wait. I remember someone mentioned something about this in the forum when I first looked up the Shroomlet Aura skill. Excitedly, I pull up the tab and read down until I find the post I remembered.

<ibemiming69> replied: kept it in my skills active, im lvl 15 and it never lvled up…the sneezeweed quest booster didnt help either. im only keeping it to stop enemyu regen but ill probably replace it when better skill becomes abailable

There. The sneezeweed quest booster. So they were talking about this! I think, quickly grabbing the potion from the counter. This person said it didn’t help, but they didn’t have a level three Shroomlet Aura!

[Potion of Eternal Life, murky potion crafted by Mad Wim that seems to rejuvenate shroomlets.

Effects unknown.]

I drink Mad Wim’s potion down quickly, then check my skill screen.

[Shroomlet Aura level 3: A cloud of mushroom spores follows you, damaging your enemies.

15ft radius

-0.2% HP/second

0.1% Life Leech, Stackable.

Stops enemy regeneration]

I stare at the numbers, alternating between excitement and dismay. A small percent of my enemies’ health now heals me. But it’s less than one percent. I heal less than one percent of the less than one percent of life I drain from enemies. That’s…ridiculous. An infinitesimal amount, next to nothing at all. But…

Stackable.

“Hey, Wim?”

“What is it?” His voice is detached, despondent.

“If I bring you more sneezeweed, will you make me more of your Eternal Life potions?”

“Ha. Rubbing it in, eh? I like your cruel sense of humor. Sure, I’ll make you the damn potions. But don’t expect anything to come of them. Hey, what’s the matter with you?” he asks. I’m holding my face, laughing silently at the ceiling.

I’ve just unlocked the key to eternal life. But the price will be paid in sneezeweed, and toad blood. A lot of toad blood.

Looks like I’m gonna be stuck in this starter area village for a while…

I head out, stopping at the general good’s store to sell all of the non-craftable loot the toads dropped, keeping for myself just the cooking ingredient. I check the recipe.

[Ternderfoot Toad Leg, a chewy meat of questionable flavor.

+2 HP Regeneration for 10 minutes

Material required: 1 Raw Tenderfoot Toad Leg]

Using the Cooking skill, I set up a cook fire at the edge of town and squat in the dirt to prepare the meat. As I work, I consider my next move, cursing the game that put the sneezeweed in that awful boggy graveyard. I really hoped I’d never have to go back to that place, and now it looks like I’ll be farming it for the next couple of days, perhaps even a week. But the payoff…well, who knows how good it will be, really. In the end, I may just be wasting my time, farming to enhance this seemingly worthless skill I picked up in the starter area.

But I want to try it. No, I have to try it. I’m too invested in this to back out now. I’m going all in on this Shroomlet Aura; I’ll build Revelator’s entire character around it. And see just how far it takes me.

“Woah,” a voice from behind startles me, and I jump up automatically, heart racing.

“You’re actually cooking,” says the unassuming half elf character in a mild Scottish accent. By his leather gear and bow I’d guess him to be a ranger or marksman. The name above his head is Dooker. “I didn’t think anyone would waste their time leveling up that skill. Don’t tell me—you’re planning on doing one of those mukbangs, broadcasting it for all the perverts, aren’t you?”

I blink at him. Want to answer. But I’ve forgotten the words. It’s all I can do just to shake my head in the negative.

[Heart rate accelerating. 139 BPM. Automatic system shutdown if heart rate reaches 150 BPM.]

“No?” his look of dislike for me relaxes. “That’s alright, then.”

Oblivious to my fight or flight response to his friendly intrusion, Dooker plops down beside me to watch the campfire.

“A lot of people have been monetizing their gameplay. Pisses me off SMark would even allow it. Messes up the immersion illusion for the rest of us. Girlies with big tits running around in bikini armor for the perverts to get off to. And of course, there’s the damn mukbangers. F*cking perverts.”

I don’t know when mukbangers became perverts, but—

“The toad legs,” I say, my voice embarrassingly small, “they add an extra two HP to regeneration for ten minutes. So I thought…I’d make use of them…”

“So the Cooking Skill’s not all shite after all. Two HP, is that a lot or a little? How does regen work in this game, anyway?”

“It’s based on your Constitution stat. In combat it gets…” I trail off, realizing Dooker’s watching me very intently. His fixed gaze is eerie, making me anxious.

“In combat it gets what?”

“Gets cut in half… Anyway, I…I need…all the health I can get… For me, two HP…it’s a lot…”

“What kind of character you playing?” Dooker checks my stats on a window only he can see. “Defender class, eh?” he whistles in appreciation. “Just look at that health stat. That’s almost double mine. What’s this? Shroomlet Aura? You actually took that shit?”

“I…figured out how to level it up…I plan on going for a…full aura build…”

“Yeah?” he looks up with a grin. “Is it fun to play that way?”

Is it…fun?

“Yeah,” I realize, and I find I’m mirroring his grin slightly. “Yeah, it is.”

“Nice. So, you planning on tanking in dungeons?”

Dungeons? I gulp. “I…hadn’t…gotten that far…”

“It’s a noble calling, to be sure, but I wouldn’t have the patience to stand there and take hits.”

“I…couldn’t aim a bow. Too sh-shaky.”

“Nah? It wasn’t even a question for me. DPS all the way.”

Curious, with a shaky hand, I examine his character window as he did mine.

[Character name: Dooker

Level: 5

Race: Half-Elf

Class: Ranger

Subclass: Arcane Archer

HP: 259

Constitution: 7

Strength: 9

Agility: 16

Intelligence: 12

Luck: -

Skills: Arcane Ammunition (3), Blast Arrow (2), Rapid Fire (2), Swiftness (1)]

Well rounded stats. Not like mine at all.

“What’s this?” I work up the nerve to ask. “Swiftness skill?”

“Picked that up killing my second jackalope. Pretty neat, huh?”

[Swiftness level 1: You are very nimble.

Move Speed increased by 1%]

“That’s funny,” I mutter more to myself. “I killed two hundred jackalopes and never got that drop.”

“Really? Luck-eee,” Dooker flashes me another of his easy grins. “But, two hundred jackalopes, man? We’re really made of different stuff. I’d never have the patience to farm starter area mobs. Wouldn’t have the patience to sit around and cook toad legs either. Takes all kinds of people to make a world, eh? Anyway, let me have some of those, and I’ll give you something good.”

Perplexed, anxious, feeling a bit perhaps like I’m being shaken down but too timid to argue, when Dooker opens up the trade window I automatically add ten toad legs.

“Not the raw ones. Cooked, man!”

“R-right!”

That was an accident. I meant to give him the cooked ones! Quickly I replace the raw legs with all the cooked legs in my inventory. Dooker laughs and separates the stack, taking ten for himself and leaving a belt in the trade window.

“That’s a fair trade, yeah?”

“D-don’t you need it?”

“I already have a belt. Besides, it’s more suited to you than it is to me.”

“B-but to sell?”

“Nah. I got a ton of silver after defeating Baba Yaya half a dozen times. Her chest drops good loot but I’m done with this starter area.”

He’s level 5 like me and he’s already moving on to the next area? Somehow, that makes me feel a bit lonely. Like I’m being left behind.

[Accept trade?]

[Yes]

“Brilliant,” Dooker grins, and he immediately pulls out a toad leg and munches into it. He makes a face chewing, then swallows it down.

“How is it?” I ask nervously.

“Not bad, not good,” he says, rising to his feet. “But I’ll take the extra regen. Anyway, it’s been fun talking with a fellow roleplayer. Best of luck in your endeavors, friend.” Dooker waves with two fingers, and he trots off into the sunset.

I watch him go with a peculiar feeling.

“Tina, what’s my heart rate?”

“98 BPM.”

I smile a little. I had a real conversation, with a real (sort of) human, and I didn’t despawn.

“You know what they call that, Tina?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Character growth.”

Dooker reminding me of the jackalopes gave me a good idea. They are about the same size as the shroomlets, and smaller than the toads. That means I’ll be able to keep more of them inside my 15 foot radius aura, and that means more experience when they start dropping dead. Since I’m going to be stuck out here farming sneezeweed anyway, why not aggro a few more mobs on my way to the swamp, and get some extra levels while I’m at it? Besides, maybe one of them will drop the Swiftness skill. Something like that could be useful for my character… Ah, but I’m limited on my number of potions. Perhaps it’s best to avoid other mobs after all, and make straight for the old cemetery…

It’s dark, after sunset, but many players are up, running off into the night with tireless enthusiasm. They’re low level, mostly, newly spawned. Compared to them, I already feel like a jaded, weary veteran. How many days have I been in TC now? I’ve lost count…

I examine the belt Dooker traded me.

[Battleworn Waistguard of the Chieftain level 5, a sturdy scale link mail belt, it has seen many battles.

Armor: 38]

The number makes my eyes bug out. I strap it to my waist. It’s a bit heavy but it feels good.

Maybe I can try taking on those jackalopes after all…