While I walk, I start unraveling the wrapped ball granny gave me, revealing a pink candy with twirls of white light inside. Wow, that’s crazy. I wonder what it does? Maybe some status effect or something? 

I cover the ball with the wrapper again and put it in my pocket, but, to my surprise, it doesn’t pop up in my inventory. Huh? Where did it go? 

I come to an abrupt stop and check my pockets. Did I drop it? I look around, retrace a couple of my steps, but... nothing. Absolutely nothing is on the ground. How did I manage to lose it so fast? I put my head in my hands, pretty saddened by the loss of my pretty candyball.

Maybe it’s a bug and it’ll appear later on? I take a deep breath and get myself moving again — I’ve still got some distance to go before I’ll get to Cacogonte, and there’s nothing I can really do about the candyball, anyway. 

The sun is setting when I finally arrive at the city wall — or city fence, based on your  perspective. It’s largely made out of wood with only a few stone blocks here and there. The gate itself is made of two large wooden doors fortified with steel beams. It’s guarded by a couple of men who look like some kind of militia, clad in woolen gambesons and armed with spears. They nonchalantly wave me in, and as I walk past, I swear one of them checks me out, but when I turn to look, he’s staring towards the forest... Must’ve been my imagination. 

When I get inside it’s clear that Cacogonte is quite a small town, if it can even be called that. It’s barely bigger than the villages back home in Wallonia. I do hope they have an inn where I can stay here, don’t really fancy sleeping in the forest for my first night in-game... 

Luckily, though, it doesn’t take me long to find a hostelry. As I open the door, I see that the bar is actually pretty empty. The only people present are the innkeeper, built like a house, and one other patron, a roguish looking woman probably in her thirties clad in a very nice leather jacket and with her pitch black hair tied back in a ponytail. 

“Good evening, lass, what can I do for ye?” The innkeep asks in a thick scottish accent.

I’m slightly intimidated by his size, which doesn’t go unnoticed by the leather-clad lady. “Don’t worry little miss, he isn’t going to eat ya.” She winks.

“C-could I get something to drink?” I finally stammer. 

“Sure thing, what would ye like?” 

“Some water is fine.” I take a seat at the bar. 

“Here ye go, that’ll be one copper coin.” 

I look in my inventory and to my shock I realize I didn’t have any coin on me whatsoever.

“I uh, I…” My face goes bright red.

“Don’t worry Argus, I’ll cover for her.” The rogue slides over a coin to the innkeep.

“Th-thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Are you new to adventurin’?”

“Ye, I just spawned today.” I sip from my water.

“Then you had a pretty rough day, didn’t ye?” 

“H-how do you know?”

She reaches her hand behind my back and starts brushing something off. “The backside of yer robe is a bit scorched.” 

“I had somewhat of a run-in with a burning wolf, might have brushed me a little.”

“A burning wolf you say?” 

“Well, the burning was my bad.” I start recounting today’s events to her, the barkeep listening in attentively. 

“Wow, that’s pretty wild for a newbie. I’ve been playin’ since the alpha test phase of ToD and I recall wolves being pretty hard targets for low level players, especially casters. Why didn’t you loot the wolf for coin though?” 

“Wait, you can do that?” 

She nods. “Didn’t ya read the manual?” 

“Uhh, I kind of just jumped in the moment my sister gifted me the game. I don’t think she had a manual with her either, she just used a piece of paper.” 

“Ah, she must also be a test player as well — we get extra codes to give out before the game’s release, and those don’t come boxed. What’s her name?” 

“Ye, her name’s Élise.”  

“Delafontaine?”

“Yes! Do you know her?”

“I do! We work for the same company, I didn’t know she had a sister?” 

I wiggle uncomfortably in my chair. “T-that’s because she doesn’t really...” Looking down at my knees.

“Oh, so you are Lu…” She stops herself mid-sentence, frowning to herself. “What’s your in-game name? 

“A-amicia.” 

“That’s a nice name! I’m Hilda by the way.” She ruffles my hair. “Amicia, do you need a place to sleep?”

“I do, but I can’t really impose further on you…” 

“Nonsense, this girl isn’t going to let her friend’s sibling sleep in the cold outside. Ya can sleep in my room, it has two beds anyway. And don’t worry about the price, it’s gosh darn cheap in places like this. No offense, Argus.” 

Argus waves her apology away. “Don’t ye dare to insult mah fine establishment,” he says, simultaneously tapping the table he’s cleaning and causing it to fall apart.

Hilda and I can’t hold back our laughter.

“Fine, ye got a point.” He gets down on his knees to start trying to fix the table.

“Can I try something, Argus?” I stand up and take my staff out.

“Sure thing, missy, but what are ye gonna do?” 

“Just a hunch...” I concentrate and start casting my healing spell on the table. Although I did plan for it, the result surprised me nevertheless, as the table gets fixed right in front of our eyes.

“Wow, it looks even better than it did before!” Argus exclaims. “Don’t worry about paying tonight, Hilda, this one’s on me.”

“Thanks, Argus!” Hilda replies. “But what class did you say you were again, Amicia?” 

“Lunar mage, why?” 

“I never knew Lunar mages could do that.”

“Really? I tried it on a tree when I spawned in and worked on that so I figured it might work here too.”

“That’s pretty smart. Lunar mage never was a popular class, of all the healing classes it was seen as the least versatile, and most people don’t really like to play healers in the first place. But seeing this it might be a lot more versatile class than most people think…” She goes quiet in her thoughts. 

I yawn; it’s getting pretty late already.

“You should probably go to bed, Amicia. Want me to show you to your room?” 

“That’d be nice Hilda, I feel like I just got hit by a truck.”

“That’s pretty normal on the low levels, once your stamina increases it gets a lot better.”

I stand up from my seat, but I’m rudely interrupted by my growling stomach.

“Or maybe you should eat something first!” Hilda laughs.

“That might not be such a bad idea...” With all the commotion, I had kinda forgotten about eating.

“Maybe give her some fish, Argus.” 

“Comin’ right up, it’s on the house as well.” 

“I’m not really a fan of fish though…” I mumble.

“Oh, really? Maybe you should try eating it again. I heard from people who play Nekote that their tastes in game are drastically different.” 

My nostrils pick up an amazing fragrance, and I begin to drool. “Oh my, what is this divine smell!”

“And it looks like they weren’t lyin’.” Hilda grins as Argus brings a plate from his kitchen, setting down a nice piece of raw salmon in front of me. 

I look at the fish dubiously, but it doesn’t take long before the smell is overwhelming and I overcome my doubts. Sinking my teeth into the salmon, I’m immediately blown away by its flavour. “Goddess, this is simply amazing.” 

Quickly the salmon is reduced to its bones. “Thank you for the food, Argus,” I pant.

“No problem, lass, glad ye liked it.” He winks.

With my belly full of fish, the exhaustion comes back in full force and I nearly fall from my chair.

“Ho, there kiddo.” Hilda grabs a hold of me before I fall off my seat. “I think it is definitely time for your nap now.”

I nod in silence.

Without another word, Hilda picks me up from my chair, beginning to princess carry me to the bedroom as I blush profusely.

“I guess you’ll be wanting to meet your sister?” she says, obviously completely unencumbered by my weight.

“Y-ye, that was the plan.” 

“Ok, I’ll shoot her a message in a bit then, she can meet us in the next city. It’s one of the big player hubs, even has a teleportation platform.” Hilda opens the door to one of the inn’s bedrooms with her elbow, revealing a pretty pragmatic sleeping setup for 2 people.

“Us?” 

“Well, I ain’t really got much to do here so I’ll tag along. Roads to the city can be pretty dangerous too.” She lays me down on an empty bed. 

“Why did you come here in the first place, then?” 

“Well, this place is nice and quiet. I don’t really do well with big crowds, and the big cities get a bit too crowded for me at times.” 

I nod. “I know the feeling.” 

“Anyway, have a good night, Amicia. I’m going to give Argus some more company, don’t stay up for me.” 

“Ok, good night, Hilda, thanks again!”

“No problem kiddo, good night.” She smiles and closes the door behind her. 

When she’s gone I force myself up to take off my clothes. Taking off my healing robe, I find that it is indeed somewhat scorched from the encounter...guess I’ll have to fix it later. 

Getting out of my brown leather boots goes pretty easily, as well as getting out of my gray cotton briefs. The only thing that’s left now is a shirt and my underwear. I can’t really sleep with clothes on, so they’ll have to go too. After the shirt’s off, I’m pretty surprised to find that this game does have regular bras. I suppose they implemented them that way to make it easier for women. Running around without one all day would probably be hell. 

I dump all my clothes on the floor, my underwear on top for easy access, then duck under the extremely cozy covers of my bed. The feeling of my bare breasts brushing the bedsheets does entice me a little, but... I’m just too exhausted to act on it. 

My tail wraps around my leg and not five minutes later I’ve already fallen fast asleep.