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

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Welcome to TheirWorld and the world of Uldarin!

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Congratulations on creating your first character!

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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.

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

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The main story quest has been designed to give you basic knowledge of the game, as well as generating story quests based on your choices. You can deviate from these quests and even change the direction of the main questline as you unlock faction allegiances, professions, classes, skills, relationships, items, pets, and more.

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When you have completed the quests to your satisfaction, you may leave this instanced zone and join the main game.

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Be advised the location and NPCs exist outside of the instance but may not remember instanced details.

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Once you leave this tutorial state, you will be unable to enter it again.

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You have been given a quest!

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Receiving an Education (0/6)

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It’s time to start your lessons!

You must enter the local school and fulfill the requirements for the five basic lessons taught by Grimhai Kidalmar.

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Requirements:

[Enter the schoolhouse and meet Grimhai Kidalmar.]

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This quest is REQUIRED.

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⬦ Difficulty: E

⬦ Reward: Varies - Potential: S

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Keeping these in mind, Guin waved her hand and sent the window away. Once that faded, a zone title popped up.

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Guin Grey’s House

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The house she spawned in was simple, clean, and felt like home. A bed was tucked away in a small alcove separated by a shabby-looking powder-blue sheet.

To her left was a modest kitchen 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 almost uncomfortably life-like. The immersive VR system was doing its job—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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Outskirts of the Village of Bade

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Taking a bite from the apple—a delicious, juicy apple—she walked out the door and took in the vibrant world science had created.

Her house was one of three built in a small clearing in an ancient-looking deciduous forest. The houses were set up around a well, and were each enclosed by a shabby fence and came with small, raised garden beds and a fruit-bearing tree.

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.

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, the glades were probably also instanced, which gave a nice bit of privacy.

Maybe I should learn how to farm so I can use these plots, Guin thought, inspecting the garden beds. Woodcutting could be lucrative, too. There’s plenty of wood around here…

She wasn’t planning on going full-on crafter, but those kinds of skills were always useful. That said, it wasn’t likely she was going to be able to farm outside the tutorial until she found a place to settle down, and woodcutting might be more annoying than fun in this kind of immersive environment.

I could learn to cook, though? Cooking was always fun, and if an apple tasted this good, what was the potential of full-on meals?

From her previous gaming experience, that meant hunting, gathering, and fishing were skills she’d want to pick up throughout her tutorial stay.

“For now I guess I should focus on the main quest, huh?” Guin said out loud and pulled the quest up again. “Grimhai Kidalmar. Sounds like an eararian name.”

Unfortunately, it offered no further guidance, and there was no automatic in-game map, either.

I’ll need to buy a map, ASAP, she thought in annoyance. 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 soon a zone indicator told her that she had entered Bade proper.

Though loud because of the players, the forest town was rather quaint. To Guin’s eyes, it resembled something old New England America more than it did Medieval Europe. 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, and laid out 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 trades Guin rarely saw in games, and there were a few she had never heard of before.

How many trades can be learned in this game? she wondered as she walked around looking for the schoolhouse.

She finally found it after asking around. It was larger than she had expected, with extensive grounds surrounded by a wattle fence that stood roughly three feet high.

There were a ton of players within the walls—but more worrying was the number of people crowding the school’s 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 woman with green hair postured at him. The name that appeared after focusing on her avatar was “Eminine.”

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

“Go to another place, I guess,” another 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!”

The green-haired girl 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 then how, exactly, are we supposed to get into the school?” she asked the shabby gatekeeper. “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 yeh.”

Eminine clicked her tongue.

“What if I challenge you to a duel?” asked a burly jikak man, whose avatar was named “Alfaldel.” Twice the size of most of the others, he stepped up from the group rubbing his pig-like snout. “If I win, you let me pass!”

“And what do I get if I win?” the gatekeeper asked, looking him over. “Ain’t that ego of yers a bit big fer yer britches?”

Flushing, Afladel threw a heavy punch—which the gatekeeper barely had to move to dodge. The jikak’s fist went crashing into the gate. Unfortunately, the gate didn’t budge any more than its guardian did.

“What was ‘at supposed to be?” the gatekeeper laughed. “Yeh might as well just throw your whole body at me, with ‘at form!”

“You—!” Alfadel raged and lunged again.

The gate keeper lazily took a swig from his hip canteen before catching the jikak’s bulky fist his own small hand.

“I’ll say this,” the gatekeeper said, squinting up at Alfadel. “You do need training, don’t you?”

The jikak’s face almost turned purple.

“N-Now, that’s enough, Alf,” a tivarys girl, “Delphi,” who was a quarter of Alfadel’s size, squeezed between the crowd. She ran up and tugged on his arm. “We aren’t here to make enemies!”

“But he said—he’s not—” Alfadel started, pointing at the gatekeeper. If Guin wasn’t mistaken there were tears in his eyes.

Well, the gatekeeper is being super rude, Guin noted.

Delphi grabbed his finger and tried to pull it away. “Pointing. Is. Not. Nice!” she said, her feet skidding across the ground.

Alfadel ground his teeth, but eventually pulled his hand—and little Delphi—back. Delphi gave a deep sigh of relief and patted the jikak’s arm sympathetically.

“I’ll track down a GM and have them put you in your place. Just you wait!”Alfadel said, scowling.

“Promises, promises!” The gatekeeper continued to neg.

“You—!” the jikak started again, but Delphi tugged him in the opposite direction.

“You wanted to find a GM, right?” she said. “That’s a good plan. Let’s give this problem to someone else, and go hunting on our own! I’m sure we can find other quests around…”

Reluctant though he was, Alfadel followed his friend back down the path toward the main city. The crowd left behind, however, could only stand exchanging glances.

“Anyone else care to try what he did?” the gatekeeper asked. “No one? Then git lost.”

The others nudged one another, but it seemed that Alfadel’s actions had been a great discouragement. There was a series of groans and sighs from the group, and some players started shifting into a line against the fence.

“What are we supposed to do…” they asked each other as whoever didn’t get in line dissipated. A few of them started messing with the wall as if they were getting ready to jump the fence.

“I think we’re better off finding someone in town.”

“What are the chances we can just go into the forest and fight on our own?”

“You know the forums are gonna go bonkers tonight!”

“The devs knew the new wave of playtesters was starting this week—how could they let this happen?”

“We are talking about Varier Corporation, though. They can’t plan for shit.”

“I’d like to point out that the entire valkyrian race is literally known for its convoluted approaches to things. You’d have to write a thesis to understand their train of thought here…”

“What rubbish,” Eminine grumbled, picking at her nails, but Guin actually agreed with them to some degree.

Less about the disparaging comments, and more about the fact this was probably not an accident or even poor planning. 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 gave you a path because it was the tutorial, but that didn’t mean you needed to follow it. From the start it encouraged players to deviate from a set path.

Alfadel’s idea wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t strong enough. The shady players looking at the walls and gate with less than good intentions were probably on the right track too.

There were bound to be dozens of ways to get it—if one even bothered to go to school in the end.

The notification at the beginning told them as much: Things could change depending on playstyle.

While the game gave them a path, players had free rein over what path they took. They could find a way to get into the school, or maybe 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.”

She only had a few hours before she had to log off for the day, and she wasn’t going to let a shabby old gatekeeper ruin her first day for her.

This was a new beginning. A clean slate—and her life as Guin Grey had already begun.