I woke up tucked into a bed.

It was soft and huge and perfectly warm, with plush pillows and a dreaming comforter to bury myself under. 

I don’t know how long I stayed in that heavenly bliss but eventually my eyes wouldn’t stay closed any longer. I yawned and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

I was in a square room with a bed in the middle. There was a night stand to one side with a metal water bottle on it. The floor was carpeted and looked nearly as fluffy as the bed, while the walls were a pleasant shade of pink. The sort of pink you could wake up to in the morning and smile. Otherwise the room was pretty featureless. There were no windows,  nor was there a visible light source. Only a large, wooden door painted dark purple, with a little lock built into the knob.

“Wait a second…”

Wasn’t I just eaten by slimes?

“I’m not complaining, but how the hell did I get here?”

My mind returned for a moment to now slightly worrying thoughts of heavenly bliss. But this time I quickly brushed them off. This was a game after all, right? I just needed to think about it and I could bring up the time HUD.

> Real Time Remaining: 6:28

Wait a second. Didn’t that mean I had over 4 hours of subjective game time?

Well whatever.

...Something like spending a whole lot of time curled up in bed.

I got out of bed, which was an experience at my new height, and made way to the door. I tried bringing the blanket with me, but no matter what I did it was just too big for me to manage. The door, on the other hand, opened easily. It moved almost silently, with the faint creak of well oiled hinges, and the lightness of a perfectly balanced door.

So You Died. Now What?

Beyond the door was a library. Shelves filled with books formed a loose grid, with a table or sofa or chair scattered randomly at each intersection.

But much more eye catching, and arguably more important, was the screen projected into the air a couple meters from my door. The screen that showed those aggravating, curiosity-inducing words.

So You Died. Now What?

“Really?”

Yes, really. 

The screen changed on cue. It started working its way through a tutorial explaining how dying worked in ROL:E. Apparently death had a respawn timer. The length and of the timer varied depending on where and how you died, but when you were between respawns? You came to this place. Part resting area, part tutorial zone, part encyclopedic knowledge base of everything the game had to offer. The idea was, so the video claimed, that you could learn more about the game while you were, err, incapacitated within it.

Or you could just sleep it off. You know, whichever option suited your fancy.

The video ended and after a confirmation the screen disappeared. I rolled my eyes at that, then decided to take a look around. Each shelf had an uncharacteristically helpful label which said what sort of material it contained. There was a shelf for each ability group. There was a shelf for each type of magic; shelves for different jobs (not that I knew what those were) and a shelf labeled bestiary.

I decided to investigate that last one first.

Only...what the hell?

The bestiary shelf was nearly empty. Nearly, but not completely. Sure enough, one of the half dozen books on the shelf, which could have held 100s, was titled “Slimes”. Actually, it was literally the only book on its row. The other 5 books were all lined up neatly at the top. Something manual? They were actually too high up for me to easily reach. I could probably have found a stool, but I just didn’t care enough to do so. 

Anyway. Back to Slimes. Maybe I needed to encounter an enemy before I got a book for it? That would explain the mostly empty shelf. Of course games that did that usually had extra requirements for...wait.

A sense of dread loomed over me.

I opened the book.

Slimes are a broad enemy type which includes gels, oozes and of course natural slimes. They come in many varieties and tend to take on the properties of the environment around them. You can identify each sub-type by the following characteristics

Right. That’s a good sign. Now skipping ahead.

Green or Lime Slimes are among the least dangerous of slimes, as they are slow and their acid is weak. They tend to gather in places filled with scrap metal, which they slowly corrode.

More information on Green Slimes will be available after you have subdued (5) more.

I groaned loudly. It wasn’t nothing but, it was the next thing up from it.

“Slimes are slow...Thanks. I think I could have figured that out on my own.”

I returned the book to its shelf, then shuffled around some more. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, exactly. Maybe look up how my abilities worked? That sounded like a good idea. I decided to hunt down the book for my gun. 

Tesla Weapons.

As it turned out, the book wasn’t really a tips and tricks so much as an explanation for the different options in the skill tree. Like, apparently there was a skill to chain lightning between targets? That was pretty cool, It wouldn’t help me hit anything. But it was cool.

A chime rang through the air.

> Respawn will begin in 5 minutes.

Oh. Okay then. That was another question answered. I finished the page in the Tesla book, then returned it to its shelf.

Please no more slimes.