Chapitre 5: CHAPTER 5 [ THE BIG WORLD]
"Well, Auntie," Ronin happily proclaimed, "those goblins won't bother you anymore. We took care of them.
"Oh, you're wonderful!" The old lady looked like she was about to break into a happy dance. "And I made you something delicious!"
You finished a quest: Rein in the Hooligans.
Reward:
200 experience
3 pieces of cheesecake from Auntie Doris
3 apples from Auntie Doris' orchard
We thanked the kind woman and crunched away at our apples as we walked away from her home toward the town center.
"Okay, sit here for a minute and distribute your points." Ronin brought us to the nameless town's central square before heading over to the store, presumably to sell the goodies we got him.
Okay, so what do we have? Ten points. Here goes:
Basic attributes:
Strength: 6
Intellect: 1
Agility: 2
Stamina: 5
Wisdom: 1
I decided not to worry too much about it and invested most of my points in strength and stamina, seeing as how those are most important for swordsmen. One point for agility and that was it. I'll make it somehow without a brain. Brawn—check... Well, future check... Presumably.
The only difference between the moose hunt and the
goblin battle, to be honest, was that the moose were
much better looking than the slimy goblins with all their teeth and ears. I almost felt bad killing them. Oh, and we had to run after them sometimes, though we could avoid that by strategically assigning positions to everyone in the group. Also, there was no quest. But it was fun hearing everyone yelling and screaming:
"He's running, grab him!"
"By the legs! Grab his legs!"
"Don't let the moose go!!!"
"Yea-a-a-ah!"
The day drew to a close, and it was almost dark when the four of us nearly simultaneously unlocked Level 4. With that Ronin said, "Well, that's that, my children. You're Level 4 now. You got what you wanted, and I did what I said I'd do. It's time you headed over to the big world, so I'll show you the road. I wish I could go with you, but I have some things to do here first. As soon as I finish with them, I'll come find you."
We walked through the trees as nightfall set in, finally reaching a yellow brick road.
"There it is—the road to the city," said Ronin. "Just go straight, and you can't miss it. Good luck!" The dwarf melted off into the gathering darkness.
"It's been fun, guys," I said to my soon-to-be former group and left it. "Brad sounds great, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow. Time to call it a day." I glanced at my group mates as they walked away to try to get to Brad the same day. Then I hid behind a tree not far from the road, added three strength points and two stamina points, and clicked the exit button.
Everything looks better in the morning. You know how it goes: a problem comes up during the day, and by the time you go to sleep, your brain turns to mush trying to figure it out. Thoughts start popping up in your head that no sane person would deem healthy, "Why me?" or "What did I ever do to deserve this?" Then you decide to screw it all and head to bed—tomorrow is another day. Out of the whole cluster of smart, acceptable, and just plain crazy options, one or two start to crystalize into something you can act on.
At least, that's how it goes with me.
And on this day, the situation was even simpler. With no problems whatsoever to deal with, I woke up and thought back on my first day in the game. All things considered...not bad! Though I still wasn't sure why the Elysium world was so popular. It may have been great for kids and handicapped people. The former could blow off all the angst puberty threw at them—excessive ego and a frustrated sex drive. The latter enjoyed what they couldn't in this life—people without limbs experienced life with them, mute people talked, and, really, they just got the chance to be treated as equals. Nobody looked at them sideways, and they didn't have to deal with fake attention being lavished on them. They were just a few more players on par with everyone else. I had to give Radeon some props for that.
All that made sense, but what about everyone else? What about all the fully functional and often well-off adults? Sure, the game looked great. It was realistic.
The atmosphere was interesting. But games like that were a dime a dozen. Why was Elysium the one everyone stuck with? That was something I needed to figure out.
I grabbed some food and climbed into the capsule. Time to throw off the shackles of noob hood and take my first steps in the big world.
I found myself sitting under the same tree I had exited by the day before. The only difference was the daylight I was bathed in. Good morning! Not far away, the same forest crawled with wildlife, and a bit farther away, a pair of elves happily shot their bows and arrows at a beaver that, for some reason, had left its dam and trundled toward me. The elves seemed not to care how wildly they were missing.
"Hey! I thought elves were all about protecting nature? What are you doing to that poor animal?" I yelled.
"Oh, stop it!" yelled back one of the elves. "Who do you think we are, Greenpeace?"
"We're dark elves, so we're allowed to," his friend added more politely.
"You're monsters," I answered. "Torturing animals like that... Just put him out of his misery!"
The poor beaver by this time was stuck full of arrows, though the fact that none of them had landed a critical hit meant that he couldn't give up his digital ghost. There was no blood, of course—humanism in action. The little guy kept trundling along without any dying groans for the same reason.
"Oh, screw you!" the less polite elf announced. "He isn't hurting, and we're getting experience."
I realised there was no changing their minds, gave up, and started off along the yellow brick road to adventure.
I should note that the Elysium world was seamless, so you never had to wait for new levels to load. Noob-land, that safe cradle where players were never bothered and almost never threatened, was, therefore, indistinguishable from the big world. The border between the two worlds, as far as I could tell, was where the forest opened onto a field from which the walls of Brad were visible.
The walk along the road was anything but boring; there was too much going on. First, a sobbing girl, about six or seven years old and wearing a pink dress, stopped me and plaintively cried, "Sir, would you help me?"
"What happened, sweetie?" I assumed the pose of the Brave and Valiant Protector of Little Girls.
"My name is Mary, and my little lamb is lo-o-o-ost!
We're always together, and now I can't fi-i-ind him!" Tears poured from her eyes.
"No worries, let's go see what we can do!" I responded.
You have a new quest offer: Find Mary's Little Lamb.
Task: Find and save Sean, Mary Sue's lamb.
Reward:
300 experience
[Accept?]
That word "save" had me a bit worried, but I didn't have much choice. The hopeful look Mary gave me saw to that…
The snow-white lamb wasn't far away. Far from it. It was in the next field over—though it wasn't alone. The lamb was there with five or so rabbits, if you could even call those creatures rabbits. They had red eyes, long ears, and nasty, whiskered faces, and they were Level 7. They kicked the lamb from one to the other.
I watched the spectacle and wondered what the developers must have been smoking to come up with that kind of surrealism.
"Sir, please help Sean!" The little girl pulled on my sleeve.
"Right," I responded. "And if I go help him, who will help me? Your little friend's a goner, and we'd better get out of here before they see us."
Mary burst into tears, which attracted the attention of the rabbits. They stared over at us, obviously deciding if they should give us the same treatment as the lamb. Without waiting to see what they concluded, I grabbed Mary and took off in a headlong dash for the road. There, I quickly declined the quest, handed the sobbing girl an apple, and walked away without a backward glance. I felt a little bad, but those rabbits looked nasty. Level 7—are you kidding me? Good thing they didn't try to hunt me down.
Suddenly, I heard branches snap to the left of the road. My club in hand, I quickly jumped off to the side. Out of the bushes, leaped five players who then crossed the road and dove into the underbrush on the other side. Behind them, ran a gray-haired old man in the strangest boots I'd ever seen. His enormous beard fluttered in the wind, and he brandished a club in his hands. He, too, crossed the road and followed the sound of branches breaking into the forest.
"Well, hello..." I shook my head and continued on.
~ ~ ~
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone