Chapter 1: Welcome to Valeguard!
Today was supposed to be like any other day, I had gone to my part time convenience store job and everything was going as planned, it was at the end of my shift where my life as I knew it was about to change. I had just finished my shift and was standing outside the store ready to go back home when a mysterious window popped up in front of my face, it looked like the type of window you might see in an MMO game. "What the hell is this", I thought, a robotic voice suddenly emerged from the window and simply asked me "would you like to login?" I was then presented with a yes or no option on the window, I thought about it for minute, "its not everyday a mysterious window pops up in front of your face" I thought. I started to think of all the things that could go wrong if I pressed yes but I also realized that I had started to get bored of my everyday routine, after a little bit more thought I pressed yes. The robotic voice emerged from the window again and said "thank you, you will now be logged in" "So, what happens next?" I said aloud. After a few minutes, I had blacked out, when I awoke I was no longer in front of the store that I worked at, I had awoken in a small rural village, the village was small but bustling with life, farmers were tending to their crops and children were playing and laughing.
The window from earlier appeared again along with the robotic voice and said "Welcome to the realm of Valeguard", "So this is Valeguard?" I thought. The window still floating in front of my face now asked me to type in my name, so I typed in "Alicia" The robotic voice appeared again and said "Thank you Alicia, please select the class you would like to specialize in. I was now greeted with a class selection screen, this was definitely starting to remind me of an MMO game, I scrolled through the class selection screen, it had all the usual classes you would expect to find in an MMO, "Priest", "Mage", "Warrior" and many other classes you would find in an MMO.
After scrolling for awhile I had decided to go with mage, I always did find magic interesting, so naturally I thought that mage would be a good fit for me. After selecting mage the robotic voice said "Thank you Alicia for selecting mage, now please select which subclass of mage you would like to master" Another selection screen appeared, this time it was showing me different subclasses of mage, I scrolled through the selection screen again, just as before it had all the subclasses you would usually find in an MMO, "Elemental magic", "Divination", "Necromancer" and "Paladin". After clicking on each subclass and seeing the skills attached to them, I decided to select "Paladin".
Paladin was mix of offensive and defensive skills, some of these skills included, using herbs to create powerful healing elixirs, conjuring up magical defensive barriers and creating powerful spells to defeat enemies, overall, I thought Paladin would be an interesting subclass to specialize in.
The robotic voice appeared again and said "You have selected the class Mage with the subclass Paladin, please confirm this selection". I pressed confirm on the floating window then a screen displaying all of my stats appeared, all of my stats were at a pathetic 1 except for health which was at 100, after viewing my stats the robotic voice said "Please make your way to the guild headquarters to receive your first quest, having just arrived here, I had no idea where the guild headquarters even was so I decided to ask the floating window for directions, "Can you tell me how to get to the guild headquarters?" I asked. After asking this I was met with nothing but silence so I tried phrasing the question another way "Can you give me directions to the guild headquarters?" Again, nothing but silence, it was obvious that this wasn't going to work so my next approach was to ask one of villagers for directions.
I had walked up to one of the farmers to ask for directions, he was big and muscular and must have been at least 6"1, I approached him and asked "Could you tell me how to get to the guild headquarters?" He stared at me for a few seconds then said "Of course, the guild headquarters is located in Atheburg, the capital of Valeguard, the only way to get there is by carriage, the road to the city is full of dangerous monsters so its not a path you want to walk on" "How much is a carriage?" I asked, the farmer replied with "A carriage from here to Atheburg costs 130 gold berries.
Having just arrived here, I had none of the local currency, I let out a sigh, realizing that I had no way to pay for a carriage, the farmer noticed the disappointment on my face and said "If you're low on gold berries, you could help me out to earn them, I've been having problems with goblins killing my livestock and ruining my crops" Upon hearing this I thought "Finally, my first quest!" I needed the money to afford the carriage so I agreed to help the farmer in exchange for gold berries.