Scene Three

2.7K 122 2
                                    

Jennet followed the mossy path through the white-barked trees. Sunlight sifted in golden shafts between the trunks, and yellow-winged butterflies danced against the deeper shadows of the woods. The oak of her mage staff was smooth and solid under her palm.

This was prime. By far the best sim experience she’d ever had. VirtuMax had done an amazing job with their new tech. It was hard to believe she was in a prototype game, the interface felt so smooth.

Something rustled in the bushes beside the path, and she whirled, her breath catching.

“Who’s there?”

No reply. She stood for a long moment, scanning the underbrush, but saw nothing. Warily, Jennet started down the path again. Just because she was in the beginning level of the game didn’t mean she was safe. Monsters and creatures could spring out to attack her at any moment. That’s how these fantasy-type games went.

Although usually a character picked up a quest first, instead of wandering around in the woods, waiting to be attacked. Clearly Feyland was still in the rudimentary storyline phase. She had nothing to go on, beyond exploring the world and hoping to figure things out. No prompts, no cues, no text explaining what her game objectives were.

But as long as the world was so amazing, she didn’t care. The game developers would give her something to do soon enough.

The trees thinned, showing glimpses of emerald meadows and azure sky beyond. Jennet stepped out of the trees, and smiled at the view. Rolling hills spread out before her, spangled with white blossoms. Nestled in a nearby hollow stood a cozy-looking cottage, full-on fairytale with its whitewashed, half-timbered walls and diamond-paned windows. Red flowers spilled from the window boxes.

The path she stood on led directly to the front step.

A brown, squat creature sat there, watching her. Her first quest-giver? Or an enemy? There was nothing about it to give her any indication—no green friendly icon over its head, or red shield that would signal aggression. In most sim games, NPCs, Non-Player-Characters, were marked so that players knew how to interact. Obviously, the programmers had a bit more work to do on the game.

Pressing her lips together in concentration, Jennet reviewed her Spellcaster’s arsenal. Fireball, Wall of Flame, and Arcane Blast. All three spells seemed strong enough to take down an enemy, though Wall of Flame had a ten second cooldown that made it less useful. Still, it seemed a decent enough assortment to work with.

Jennet strode down the path toward the cottage. As she approached, the figure on the doorstep looked up at her. He was a hideous creature.

His dark eyes and thin lips were overshadowed by his enormous, jutting cliff of a nose. The only things larger than his nose were his ears, great ugly flaps of skin on either side of his head. He was covered in a pelt of coarse brown hair, his only clothing a tattered cloth tied about his waist.

He didn’t seem primed to attack, so Jennet stepped closer, wrinkling her nose at the smell of moldy earth and old wood-smoke. She halted a few feet from the stoop, waiting, but the creature only regarded her from its murky brown eyes.

“Hello?” she said at last.

“Greetings.” His voice sounded like stirred gravel. “Did you bring me milk?”

She glanced around. Was there supposed to be a store nearby? Had she missed a step somewhere?

He folded his spindly arms. “I want milk.”

“Okay.”

If this was the first quest, it was a strange one. She wished she could give the developers some advice.

Feyland: The First AdventureWhere stories live. Discover now