Thyw was a small town situated at the far north end of the Kingdom of Ferl, one of the many starting points for beginners, but not particularly relevant or peculiar to make itself known and frequently visited.
Most constructions were made out of stone, the oldest ones only had the base or the pillars made out of wood; it was a relatively new town situated near lush forests and plenty of mountains.
The most impressive buildings were the three-stories high facilities obviously belonging to either small guilds who settled here or to the ateliers of the most common classes (Swordsman, Blacksmith, Mage, Tailor, etc.), and the Lord’s castle, which wasn’t really a castle, but was more like a villa of sorts, with seemingly thick stone walls and heavy security.
That day, in the plaza of Thyw, right in front of the fountain with a sizeable statue representing some obscure dead warrior, a goddess appeared. Albeit a strange one.
This goddess had shoulder-lenght straight white hair, thin eyelashes of the same color, dark purple eyes, cute cherry-coloured soft lips and a small and delicate upturned nose. She wore beginner clothes, but even that was unable to hide her beauty. With her slim waist, attractive buttocks and a bosom which was neither large nor small, one could say the woman who created the avatar must have spent a lot of time working on it, because it was simply perfect.
It was a pity that she just spent her time moving her head left and right.
As she didn’t check her status, they’d surely be able to hear her (presumably) beautiful voice, as newbies tend to shout out loud the system commands. It didn’t even cross the spectating players’ minds that this might not have been her first game, or maybe she read information about it, she could also be smurfing, or, quite simply, she didn’t care.
After a quick look here and there, she brought her left hand in front of her left eye, waving it left and right. A short while later, she carefully took one step ahead at times, while at others she went backwards or sideways, swaying as she did so. As the days (IGT) passed, the movements became more normal and regular, and she even started going around more.
Soon she started strolling around the small town for a scant few hours, she logged in and out each day (IRL) to do her routine exrcises before promptly leaving. She only spoke when she needed to log out, confirming many’s thoughts that she was really a newbie, though a really strange one.
One day, shortly after logging in again, she suddenly fell over and stopped moving. After some people valiantly neared her body to offer some help, they noticed that she had died, after which, a brave soul chose to bear the system’s punishment for everyone and promptly performed an ‘autopsy’ to understand the cause of her death.
An awkward cough from another player brought the shameless pervert out of his own world. Looking around solemnly, he announced that the goddess had died of starvation, to which they all nodded in understanding, as they had never seen her eat something.
A small amount of people thought she had been lucky that she had never done any level or skill grinding just to suddenly die and lose 2 levels and 10% proficiency in each skill. Others wondered if she really didn’t care about anything or if she was just an ignorant newbie.
But more important was the fact that in Hyria the avatars never disappeared, so while one logged out or died, your body was at the mercy of others. Though normally, nobody would bother to loot a beginner, nor get flagged by the system for harrassing a dead avatar. Once flagged, if they continued harrassing other players, they would be banned from the game.
Lia left the capsule and headed upstairs to her room, all the while wondering why she couldn’t log in again after she died, she opened her laptop and searched for the information by herself.
| After dying, it is possible to log in again 42 hours later, that is, 7 in-game days. Moreover, it is to note that if the death occurred inside a city, one would respawn in the city’s spawn point, while if it occurred outside, one would respawn at the last visited city’s respective spawn point. |
Sighing at how bothersome it everything was, Lia looked at the time displayed on her laptop. There was still some hours before dinner so she decided to skim through her homework and then take a nap.
Not caring in the slightest, Lia continued to log in and do her routine of exercises two or three times before dropping dead again and again.
Meanwhile, the number of flagged players continued to increase.
Around two months after Lia started playing, Elisabeth, who had been keeping tabs on her, pleaded her daughter to go out to explore and be more active, as the reason she had conviced Lia to use VR to exercise, and moreover to use Hyria, wasn’t for her to stay ‘cooped up’ in her starting town and do her routine, but to see if she could regain, or even just slightly feel, her long lost emotions.
Elisabeth thought, after seven long years of innumerable attempts, that if the real world wasn’t good enough for her daughter, then maybe it was time to try a virtual world, one where advantures, swords and magic abounded.
Lia looked into her mother’s eyes as she listened to her request, and once again she felt it, that familiar emotion which she hid to her mother, that profound sadness that always overwhelmed her boredom when she saw her mother so worried and heartbroken.
And so she nodded.
‘Guess I’ll have to go around taking quests.’
Once she was back in the game, for the first time, Lia checked her status window and her inventory, which contained only a few slices of bread and nothing more.
| Status Window | |||
| Name | Aisha | Level | 1 |
| Health | 100 | Mana | 70 |
| Main Class | N/A | Title | N/A |
| Race | Human | Alignment | Neutral |
| Health Regen/Sec | 0.1 | Mana Regen/Sec | 0.07 |
| Strength | 15 | Agility | 15 |
| Wisdom | 15 | Intelligence | 15 |
| Stamina | 15 | Vitality | 15 |
| Dexterity | 15 | Fame | 0 |
‘I have some supplies, but before searching for quests and going on adventures, I should still look around to see how much it would cost me to restock, plus I need a weapon…’
She headed for the plaza while she ate a slice of bread, and she quickly formed her first impression of it: ‘…Tastes horrible.’
‘Mmh… the price of the food isn’t that high, guess it’s the lack of players? Anyway, till now I only concentrated on adjusting myself to using both eyes, so I’m only at the start of the list of things I need to do to play this game seriously. On the long run, if I “learned” how to cook here too, I could do some quest, stockpile on the cheaper ingredients, I could also manage on my own for a longer period of time with less effort. There is also the fact that I promised mom to try doing something “exciting,” so I guess I’ll scratch getting merchant related professions. Bye bye even cheaper ingredients. But first, how do you get classes in this game in the first place? I need to know if I can get a class that’ll be useful in completing mom’s wish faster. When I’m done with all the preparations I’ll try going around this… Kingdom? … Country? Well, whatever it is, I did say I would do it.’
Done with studying the prices of food in the plaza and that offered by the bars and restaurants nearby, Lia stared at the ‘Loose Goose,’ apparently the most renowned restaurant in Thyw, as seen by the bustling scene inside and the number of people going in and out. It was also the most pricy one that she’d seen yet.
The owners were a married couple, they were around fifty or sixty years old, and they lived on the restaurant’s second floor. Since they had never been able to conceive kids, they were really fond of the ones that occasionally visited them. They were known for the warm welcome they gave each customer.
Once inside, Lia could see that the hustle and bustle wasn’t actually about the food.
| Sudden Quest: Kidnappers on the run! | |||
| Three shady looking people kidnapped a child in front of the owners of the ‘Loose Goose’ restaurant, rescue him before they manage to leave the town! | |||
| Quest Rank: | H+ | ||
| Rewards: | |||
| – EXP +10%; – The owners of ‘Loose Goose’ and the parents of the kid will be indebted to you. |
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| Quest failure: | |||
| – The three bandits escape with the kid; – The kid dies. |
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| Effects of failure: | |||
| You will no longer be permitted inside the ‘Loose Goose,’ the kid’s parents will hold a grudge against you and the townsfolk may become more hostile towards you. | |||
Kiyuta 