Coming closer to the small village, Sophitia sees it’s not well defended. No walls, gates or guards that she can see. Hopefully that means this is a starter village as she is done with running from everything.

As she enters, she notices this isn’t what she was expecting for a small village. Starting villages in FIO38 were like most game villages, small with just enough buildings to make a player think village without requiring them to walk an hour to go through it.

And after hearing Invidia’s description of how everyone is living with medieval technology she figured it would be a few more buildings but still under a couple hundred people living there. However, this place is far more populated.

Just as she is thinking she must have arrived at a large town by accident she gets a helpful message display, “Welcome to the small village of Minima Initio (starter village) Inxen.”

From the main road she can see a hundred or more multi-storied buildings densely packed together. They certainly give a medieval feel with their wattle and daub construction but the village layout feels more modern. Or perhaps better to say more ren faire like.

She had gone to one once just to see what it was like and wasn’t terribly impressed. It had nothing to do with historical accuracy and everything to do with parting money from people who wanted to wear fancy clothes and swing fake swords. Basically, just like every other theme park out there.

Oh, to be sure it had medieval-ish feeling to it, but the ‘knights’ wearing duct taped armor and the peasants working the fields in mass produced petticoats standing next to the concessions stands and atm machines gave it fake, disappointing feeling to her.

But why go for boring and often unpleasant historic realism when fantasy reimagining it is so much better to live in. This village feels like it has done just that. Gotten rid of all the unpleasantness and just kept the feel and look of medieval technology.

As she walks down the well paved cobblestone road, she notices several rats dart out and pick up litter before darting back into the alleys. With her aura vision she can tell they are robots and is fairly certain she just saw this worlds equivalent of outdoor robo vacuums at work.

Shaking her head at the absurdity of it all she continues her walk and wonders how she will find money for an inn stay. After two days of constant running all she really wants to do is sleep. But without money her options are limited to cold damp outside or figure out a way to make quick cash.

Finding a vendor to sell her ‘valuable’ artifacts or someone offering a quest to perform seemed the easiest, but she is unsure how to find such people. Should she just start talking to random passersby or perhaps pretend to be a video game hero and ransack people’s homes for starter funds?

Distracted by her thoughts, she at first doesn’t notice her surroundings or the eerie quiet and the complete stop of motion around her. She had notice there were an ever-increasing amount of people around her as she walked towards the center of the village but hadn’t paid any attention to it.

But as the eerie quiet built as the townsfolk notice her, she couldn’t help but notice it in return. Looking up she can see dozens of people staring at her. Everyone she can see has stopped what they are doing and are just looking at her and her alone without making a sound.

Shifting under the intense gazes she is unsure of how to respond. She never liked being the center of attention as she was always at a loss of what to do socially. It was fine if she could control the situation like when teaching others or leading a meeting.

But random interactions in public, social gatherings or loss of control she avoided. It always made her feel vulnerable which usually led to her lashing out with insults and snide comments.

The situation is so unreal to her, and perhaps due to her tiredness, this time she doesn’t start insulting everyone around her. Instead she stares back at them. Most people here are human, although there are a lot of beastkin with a dwarf and lizardman also in the crowd. No elves though and certainly no dark elves.

Her unique race combined with strange medical gown garb likely add to the reason for the stunned shock of the townsfolk. But it quickly dawns on her the real reason everyone is staring. Looking at the men’s gazes roaming up and down her body, and a decent number of women’s too, she gets the feeling she is the prettiest one in the village.

Looking around her again with her new knowledge she sees that the townsfolk are downright ugly. Not deformed or anything but just how their faces look and how they hold themselves seems… repulsive. She focuses on a catgirl at random, and looking, Sophitia sees she has pretty blue eyes, a nice face, shoulder length silky black hair with black cat ears and tail plus a cute, well-toned and proportioned body.

Every individual part should be attractive but when combined together, it is just plain ugly. It quickly dawns on her why this might be. The attractiveness stat. And Invidia’s insistence it will help Sophitia have many children. She didn’t understand what she meant until just now.

There is no doubt in her mind the AIs are messing with her vision, everyone’s vision, to adjust for the attractiveness stat. Perhaps subtlety adjusting the lighting, coloration and line ratios to degrade the whole picture. And it being a dump stat combined with the hardest one to raise after character creation meant everyone was around a 2 out 10 hotness. Or perhaps better to say 10 out of 50 attractiveness stat which is the average.

 Still she would’ve thought at least one person would’ve put points in to it… Then again how does character creation work in the real world? Is it assigned randomly at birth or when the system lens’ get activated at coming of age? Do people even have a choice in it?

Either way, with Sophitia wearing very little with a max starting appearance stat means she is drop dead gorgeous and the center of attention, literally with some of the men, and needing to figure out what to do to stop this bizarre staring contest.

Her first thought is run away and hide. Maybe cover herself with blankets so they can’t see her. But if the AIs are controlling how people see her, then she might just make a wearing a garbage bag and covering herself with sewage look sexy.

No. Not only will it likely not work, but choosing a path of weakness never appealed to Sophitia. That means she needs to control the situation. To take charge and force people to follow her. As they are basically doing that already it shouldn’t be hard to get them to do what she wants.

Straightening her back and pushing out her bust, she walks towards the catgirl with an exaggerated sway to her hips. As for why she chooses the catgirl? A better question should be: why would she choose anyone else?

“What’s your name kitten?” Sophitia says to the catgirl; could she have picked a cheesier pickup line?

The catgirl stares at her, wide eyed with a deep blush on her face and upper chest above her low-cut leather armor. After several moments of silence, Sophitia decides to rub the catgirl’s head and ears. And is rewarded with an explosive full body purr from the catgirl.

With her whole body visibly vibrating from the purr, the catgirl finally says, “Mistress…” in an entranced voice.

With a grin, Sophitia says, “Mistress is your name? Odd.”

“Yes, I mean no, I mean your mistress, I mean…” Taking a purring breath to calm herself. “I’m Skye.”

“Hello Skye, I’m Sophitia. I’m obviously new to town and looking to sell some ancient artifacts and then find a place to sleep. Can you help me with this?”

“I love mew— I mean, I would love to,” She says, her purring continuing as Sophitia hasn’t stopped rubbing her head.

Sophitia removes her hand to allow Skye to lead her, but Skye has other ideas. Invading her personal space Skye rubs herself against Sophitia briefly before grabbing her hand and placing it back on her head. Only when Sophitia starts rubbing her ears does Skye start to walk down the street.

Sophitia had expected a positive response but this is a bit much, even for being a perfect 10/10 girl this is way too much, just what is going on with this village? With a purring catgirl leading her, the stares are a little less intense and many of them are directed at Sophitia’s new catgirl pet. Are they envious of the head pets she is giving Skye?

People around her begin to whisper in loud whispers. With her improved hearing she can easily overhear what they are saying, “Why is the blessed so nice to that cat. Doesn’t she know her reputation is horribly negative?”

Also, “Why is a blessed here? At first, I thought she was going to judge us, but she took a pet and hasn’t said anything to us.” Finally, “An elf blessed? I never thought I’d see an elf, let alone one so blessed. She does look a bit sickly though with her grayish blue skin.”

So many questions Sophitia has. But she feels it best to maintain an air of mystery by not talking and let the villages wonder about her. At least they are speaking English, which had been one of Sophitia’s worries, or maybe Invidia is messing with her hearing and translating. With that worry gone Sophitia moves on to more important things such as watching a catgirl’s tail attached to a nicely toned butt in tight fitting leather sway in front of her.

Arriving at a shop with a sign proclaiming it a junk buyer she is led inside by Skye. A little bell rings as the door is opened and the shop keeper turns around saying, “We’re not open yet, come back in a half hour…” Before his voice leaves him and he just stares at Sophitia.

Sighing, Sophitia walks up to the counter and drops her sack of hopefully valuable artifacts on the counter. Sadly, the loud sound from her dropped loot doesn’t happen. Soft textiles, plastic pens, and one dubiously named spider eye aren’t known for their forceful clanking. So instead she waves her hands in front of the shopkeeper to get his attention before pointing at her loot to be sold.

“How much for this?” She asks him.

The shop keeper shakes his head to clear it before opening the sack and squinting at each item he pulls out. At the end he squints at Sophitia and then looks off to the side at nothing. This puzzles Sophitia until she realizes he probably just appraised the items, herself and is consulting a message window with the results.

Sophitia didn’t think to pull up information on the items before but does so now. The items are grey colored and have an item level of 124 on them. Meaning they are just vendor trash with no purpose but to be sold for loose change; however, with the max level when she played set to 90 that could make them very valuable with their current high level. Especially as she is just a level 1.

Mumbling to himself, “Ancient high-level artifacts, no reputation, no haggle skill, should I lower the price, but maybe I should keep it high and gain reputation with her…”

Noticing her gaze and likely she overheard him the shop keeper blushes before saying, “Yes, well, normally I wouldn’t buy junk that can’t be used by the village. I’d recommend donating it to a temple to gain DP, but if you’re sure you want to sell them, then I will give you a good deal as it’s your first time here.”

Taking a cue from what he said she replies, “Thank you for your kind acts, I’ll gladly sell them to such an honest and obviously kind shop keeper such as yourself.” She might be laying the praises a bit thick, but she bets she can get away with it and get a reputation gain if she doesn’t miss her guess.

Two messages display in front of her. One is a reputation gain with the Aaron the junk salesmen, guess that was his name, and the other a trade window with 5 gold and more reputation gain with Aaron. Winking at both of the windows to accept them Sophitia is happy with the results.

Low level quests award one to five reputation each, and she got well over 200 reputation with Aaron along with the large amount of gold for a level one player. The money system was the typical fantasy one that had been entrenched in games since the original table top games designed it long ago. That being 100 copper to a silver, 100 silver to a gold, 100 gold to a platinum.

Only question is what is a copper worth here? Has a thousand years of inflation happened to make it worthless or does it still have a value? Should be easy enough to find out once she visits an Inn.

Saying her goodbyes she follows Skye to a local inn. Entering the establishment, she can see a few people out in the common room eating breakfast with an elderly matron behind a bar.

As she walks up to talk to the innkeeper, she can palpably feel the quiet descend around her as the patrons notice her presence. She hopes this reaction will stop once people know she is in town and have seen her a couple times.

After giving her a once over the innkeeper asks, “Looking for a room, food or information?”

Sophitia briefly considers food, although she is hungry, she’d rather just go to sleep for now. “Just a room for now, and food and a heated bath when I wake up.”

“Room comes with breakfast and dinner; bath is extra. 10 copper for room and board. 10 more for the bath. 20 total,” the inn keeper says in a stiff no nonsense voice.

Sophitia wonders if that is how the inn keeper always is or if she is having an odd effect on her. As for the cost it’s just like it was in FIO38, 10 copper a day for starting village rooms. The bath seems expensive in comparison but it wasn’t offered in game, and she guesses heated baths are more labor intensive with medieval technology.

Very affordable with her current funds and gives her some idea of how the money system is. She is tempted to try raising her reputation with the inn keeper in some way, but fails to think of anything so just says, “Thank you.”

After paying and taking the key she heads up to her room. On the way, she gets a system message, “Gained 30 reputation with Marian the inn keeper.” That is way too much for a simple ‘thank you.’ Even with the boosted reputation gains from her appearance stat, she wouldn’t get that much for a level one start quest, let alone a simple saying. And why would that even trigger a reputation gain in the first place?

Whatever, now that she has a bed in front of her, all Sophitia can consider is sleep. She’ll deal with the reputation system and oddly acting villagers later. Laying down on the bed Sophitia instantly goes to sleep. And completely forgets about Skye the catgirl who followed her in.

Troglodytarum

I wonder how Skye will take advantage of the sleeping Sophitia? Will it be sexy time? Maybe cute catgirl antics? Both? Although that one villager said something about horribly negative reputation... hmm also messing around with poll feature just cause I can