“Ready?” Elanil’s eyes sparkled with amusement. Nura nodded. “On the count of three. One, two, three...”
[Ability acquired: Protective shield]
[Ability acquired: Shadow Fight]
The battle was over, victory achieved, the warriors caught their breath. Now it was time to have a little fun—the simultaneous acquisition of skills, which they had decided to frame as a kind of ritual to commemorate their camaraderie.
Elanil glanced at the inventory menu—the rune had disappeared, as it should have.
“So,” Nura said. “Do you feel anything unusual?”
“No,” Elanil shook her head.
“Me neither.”
“Are we supposed to feel something?” Elanil asked, rising from the fallen tree she’d been sitting on. They still remained at the site of their victory over the rogue constructs—their shiny metal hulls lay scattered across the trampled grass. Elanil and Nura had collected everything they could find of value and were about to set out on their journey.
“I don't know,” Nura shrugged. “Just curious. This is the first rune I’ve ever obtained on my own.”
“Really?” Elanil’s eyebrows rose.
“Do you Wood Elves do things differently?” Nura asked, testing the blade of her axe with her fingertip, checking it to see if it had dulled from fighting a metal foe. “Do you acquire all your abilities in combat? Even the initial ones?”
“No, we acquire them through... initiation,” Elanil decided to call what had brought her here that way. It would be easier for Nura to understand and less suspicious, she decided.
“Ah, see,” she nodded understandingly. “It’s the same with us. When we come of age, we receive two runes, one from each parent. Which kind of means we’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“For anything,” Nura chuckled. “To explore this world and, if necessary, conquer it.”
“What if an orc doesn’t have two parents, say, a father?” Elanil herself didn’t know why she was overcome with such meticulous curiosity about a seemingly mundane matter of acquiring basic game skills. “Or if someone is an orphan. After all, an orc’s path, I suppose, isn’t paved with rose petals.”
“Why would anyone want to pave the way with flower petals?” Nura snorted. “What a waste! Flowers are for fruit to grow, not for walking on.”
Elanil chuckled at such robust practicality of her companion’s outlook on life. “It’s just a figure of speech,” she explained.
“You sure like to figurate your speech, I see,” Nura grumbled. “If one or both parents are missing, then during the rite of passage, the young orc receives runes from the tribal chieftain and the senior shaman,” she said, tightening her axe belt. “After all, it’s a gift not from our parents, but from Father Sky and Mother Earth. And the parents act as their representatives for us in this mortal world.”
Elanil nodded understandingly. “I wonder,” she thought, “what in-game explanation for the tutorial and other game components was designed for my race?” Perhaps, if she were to find herself in a land where her kind were not rare visitors but commonplace, she could ask them about it in more detail. On the other hand, they would probably react even more strangely to such trivial questions from someone who should already know this. Should she pretend she’d lost all memory? That would be a good excuse for all the tricky questions about who she was and where she came from.
After all, it’s not the rarest trope—a mysterious hero with no memory of their past, awakening nobody-knows-where, nobody-knows-when. And only a few signs and vague hints suggest that fate has destined them for something grand and great—Elanil instinctively touched her amulet through her clothes.
“So, are we ready?” Nura’s voice echoed loudly across the clearing, startling a bird in the crown of a nearby tree.
“Yes, quite,” Elanil nodded. “But where exactly?” she asked herself silently. “Wait, why do you remember about it only now?!” she exhaled and reached inward, toward the familiar pull behind her eyes.
Map.
The thought came automatically—so ingrained it barely counted as a conscious action. Somewhere in her menu there had to be a world map.
But the map icon was grey.
Elanil frowned and tried again, this time browsing other icons: the inventory responded, the quest log responded, the ability list flickered into existence with obedient precision. The map tab didn’t.
“That’s odd.” Elanil’s mind shifted gears, slipping into the familiar analytical cadence she usually kept tightly leashed. A missing map wasn’t just an inconvenience—it was structural. Navigation, fast travel, quest routing, region progression… all of it leaned on that system layer. She checked for portal points next, more out of habit than hope. The result was predictable: no anchors, no nodes, no pop-up explanations for fast travel at all. Elanil rubbed her thumb against the edge of her sleeve, eyes tracking the tree line ahead as it slowly opened into a narrow forest path. “Maybe situation will get clear once I reach the first portal,” she reasoned.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The world had been designed with them scattered across key locations—be it cities or villages, or uninhabited places somewhere in the mountains, woods or deserts. You didn’t create a portal. You discovered it. Passed through it. Claimed it by presence alone. After that, it joined your personal network. At least, that was the theory.
Except not all portals got activated based on proximity alone. The ones in the populated regions were usually gated—reputation locks, regional trust thresholds. A deliberate measure, she remembered. To prevent hostile players from slipping straight into a faction’s heartland just by sprinting across the map, without first gaining reputation. “Security through social friction,” she thought as they walked.
Elanil’s steps slowed as they began to leave the clearing, boots brushing through bent grass. Nura walked ahead, humming something low and tuneless. She glanced back. “You’re sluggish. And quiet.”
“Just thinking,” Elanil replied automatically.
“Dangerous habit,” Nura snorted. “So. Where to?”
“Forward… I guess.”
“Good. Forward is good.”
Without a map, Elanil had to rely on her memory which wasn’t a hundred percent reliable, but what choice did she have? The Sylvan Reserve sat on the southern edge of several transitional zones. To the east and west, there were scarcely inhabited forest expands. To the south, unpassable mountains. North, though…
“The Valley of Ringing Springs,” Elanil remembered the region’s name. “It’s north of here.”
Nura’s ears perked slightly. “Do you know it?”
“A little,” Elanil admitted. “It’s mostly a rural region of plowmen and shepherds. There shouldn’t be anything particularly dangerous.”
“I didn’t ask whether it’s safe,” Nura smirked. “I’m not afraid of danger.”
Elanil smiled but didn’t reply anything.
“I wonder if there are any decent eateries there,” Nura continued. “Cause, to be honest, all this fun with the constructs made me hungry. I wouldn’t mind something hot and spicy.”
“I think there should be something decent there,” Elanil guessed. “And we should also find merchants to sell our loot to.”
“Good, cause I really don’t want those bombardier beetle guts to start rotting in your duffel bag.”
Elanil glanced ahead. The road began to descend gradually. The Sylvan Reserve lay on a plateau of sorts, with snowy peaks rising to the south and the valley itself to the north. Between it and The Reserve lay a regular forest, with what Elanil hoped would be more predictable and friendly fauna.
Pulling herself together, adjusting her bow on her back, she quickened her pace. Noticing this, Nura grinned but said nothing, shuffling briskly alongside her. For some time, they walked in silence.
“So,” Elanil broke this awkwardness, “you mentioned being hungry after a good fight.”
“That wasn’t a fight,” Nura snorted. “That was heavy lifting with consequences.”
They walked a few steps more. Somewhere to the left, something small scurried and stopped caring about them almost immediately.
“What do you usually eat?” Elanil asked.
Nura blinked. “Food.”
“Yes. But what kind?”
“The kind that keeps you standing.” She thought for a moment. “Meat, mostly. Prepared, dried, smoked, whatever. Sometimes raw if it’s fresh enough and I trust the one who cut it.”
Elanil nodded. “No bread?” she asked.
Nura shrugged. “Bread is fine. But it lies if you know what I mean. It makes you feel full without giving you strength. Good for long walks if you have nothing else. Bad if you expect trouble.”
“What else?”
“Soured milk,” Nura said immediately. “Other fermented things. Hot peppers if someone’s got them. But not sweet.” She made a face. “Sweet makes you sloppy.”
“That’s an interesting philosophy,” Elanil smiled.
“It’s not philosophy,” Nura said. “It’s necessity.”
They passed a fallen log covered in a blanket of lichen. The forest thinned gradually here. Trees stood farther apart, their trunks and crowns smaller in size, as if even the land had decided there was no point in trying too hard here. No suspicious rustles. No bizarre insects. Just ordinary flora and fauna. After the Sylvan Reserve everything looked… boring.
“What about you?” Nura asked. “Wood Elves eat wind and sunlight?”
“Only at festivals,” Elanil replied in the same humorous tone. “We eat what grows and jumps in our habitat, whatever we have at our disposal. But personally, I’m a big fan of mushrooms.”
“Mushrooms,” Nura repeated. “There is not a lot of them in our lands. Actually, I’ve never eaten one.”
“Oh, really?” Elanil exclaimed. “You definitely should give it a try.”
“Why do I have to try everything I haven’t eaten?” Nura objected. “I like what I’m used to eating. It’s predictable and practical, and tasty at the same time.”
Elanil snorted, but didn’t argue.
The light shifted as the sun dipped lower, filtering through branches at an angle that made everything briefly look more important than it was. The forest was thinning—the village was nearby, Elanil guessed. Soon, her guess was confirmed. Fields opened ahead, houses appeared in distance, smoke lazily rising from the chimneys.
Elanil felt her shoulders ease without quite realizing they’d been tense. The road widened, now there were more dirt packed hard by carts and hooves. Somewhere ahead, a dog barked once, then reconsidered.
“I hope they have something hot,” Nura said. “Preferably in a bowl. Preferably meaty. Preferably too much.”
“They will,” Elanil said. “If not, we’ll survive.”
“That’s not comforting.”
They reached the first houses—low, practical, built for weather rather than show-off. Lamps flickered on one by one as dusk settled properly now, the sky bruised purple and gold. And then there it was. A wider building near the road’s bend. Light spilling from its windows. The sound of voices layered together. The smell reached them with a breath of wind—smoke, baked bread, and beer. The sign creaked gently above the door, painted and repainted too many times to care anymore.
“This is what we need,” Nura exhaled, satisfied.
And in this same moment, unexpectedly for Elanil, the notification popped-up.
Quest: Survive the Sylvain Reserve (main)
Status: Completed
Description: You left the Sylvan Reserve with your companion as safe and sound as you could.
Bragging bonuses:
- No hit – failed
- Everyone alive – succeed
- Dressing – succeed
- All XP – failed
Rewards:
- Runes x4 {expand the list}
- 10 Silver coins (+2 bonus coins)
- 100 XP (+20% bonus points)
[Level Up] Elanil
Level: 2 → 4
8 Stat points gained.
[Level Up] Nura
Level: 5 → 6
4 Stat points gained.