Chapter II: Tutorials
A loading screen. Lincoln hated these. In a home with possibly as many as 12 people accessing the Internet at once, they could take forever. And Lincoln was REALLY anxious to finally begin playing.
But then, excitement. The loading screen faded to black. A beautiful forest appeared on the screen, and a woman's voice began to speak. The voice was soft and gentle, one that could lull a man to sleep if it so chose.
"You are a Moon Elf. Ancient guardians of the world of Nazorroth, the Moon Elves can call upon the forces of nature and even the moon itself to protect what they hold dear. While generally peaceful and solitary, they are no strangers for war, having fought demons, undead, Deep Ones, and many other threats for thousands of years. It would seem that war is once again on the horizon, and you are among the first in the newest generation of fighters to defend your home."
As the narrator went silent, the camera panned down to Barelor, Lincoln's character. Beside him stood his noble pet tiger. Lincoln turned his character slowly, admiring the forest he was in. The trees were tall and green, fauna like deer and bears could be seen wandering in the distance, and the night sky was full of stars, surrounding a large silver moon. Behind him was a small cottage, made from the same wood as the nearby trees, and didn't clash with the scenery. Lincoln couldn't think of any time he had seen such a lovely scene of nature in real life, but he knew that the game had captured it perfectly.
He was interuppted when another Moon Elf ran up to him. An NPC, Lincoln could tell by how scripted his movement was.
"Barelor! It is good to see you, my friend!" he spoke. His words did have voice acting, but he did not say the name "Barelor", of course. They could never get somebody to record every single possible name.
"It would seem you're ready for your final tests of Huntsman training? Wonderful, we'll begin right away!"
At this point, an exclamation point icon appeared above him. The narrator's voice spoke once again.
"Click on Valen Moonlance to see his quest."
"Alright then." Lincoln said to himself as he did so.
As he did, a box opened up, with more dialogue from Valen.
"I know, you're ready to go out there and take on the world. But every hero has a slow start before they get to the good stuff. For now, I want you to go and do some practice in the target range. I'll be right behind you to tell you what to do."
"Target range?" Lincoln moaned. It was like the NPC read his mind. "I didn't buy this game to shoot at dummies, I wanna go fight dragons or something!"
But Lincoln obeyed. He moved Barelor to the target range, and Valen began to speak again.
"Ok, first thing's first, I want you to shoot that target over there a few times, just so I know you can use that bow of yours without losing an eye!"
The narrator again, "Right click on a hostile target or target dummy to attack."
Lincoln obeyed. Barelor drew his bow, and began firing arrows at the target. With each hit, a small number appeared above the target, showing the damage it did. After shooting 5 times, he was stopped automatically as Valen began speaking.
"Good, good! You know how to do basic shots, but have you learned to shoot a Focus Arrow yet? Let me see if you can do it!"
Focus Arrow? Lincoln looked around, and at a bar at the bottom of his screen, he saw a glowing icon that resembled an archer aiming his bow.
"Click on the Focus Arrow icon, or press the 1 key to use the ability." the narrator chimed in again.
Lincoln pressed the button, and... nothing happened. He pressed it again, and nothing.
"What the heck? Did I bust my keyboard or something?"
As his frustration grew, he saw Valen walk up to Barelor.
"Oh, it seems you've run out of ammo. Sorry about that! Here, you can have my quiver."
Valen reached his hand out, and a quiver appeared on Barelor's back, filled with arrows. A message appeared in the chatbox saying "Equipped Valen's Quiver, filled with 20 Wooden Arrows".
Lincoln pressed the 1 key again, and sure enough, Barelor drew back his bow. A meter at the bottom took about a second and a half to charge, but then he fired. The shot did more damage than the normal attacks, making up for the charge time.
"Great form! You might even be a better archer than me! You go ahead and keep that quiver and arrows, I've got more. Now, let's move over here."
Valen and Barelor moved forward, and stopped next to a humanoid wooden dummy.
"Huntsmen are capable fighters, but they don't battle alone. Your companion there will be very helpful to you. Say, have you given him a name yet?"
Sure enough, a box popped up asking Lincoln to name his tiger.
"Gah, I'm not good at thinking up good names. What would work for a tiger... Tony? Nah. Tigger? That's just tiger with another G, not very creative... Hobbes? No, too philosophical..."
At that moment, Lincoln's bedroom door creaked open, and Cliff the cat walked in. He mewed to himself, looked around for a moment, and then turned around and left.
"Well, that was weird." Lincoln thought. "Although, now that I think of it, why not have a familiar name hanging out with me in the game?"
And thus Lincoln's tiger was named Cliff.
"A fine name for a fine companion! Now, when you enter combat, you will want Cliff to join you. In most cases, he will join you when you begin to attack an enemy, but for now, just order Cliff to attack the target dummy alone."
Lincoln waited for the woman's voice again, and sure enough.
"Press C, and then press 1 to order your pet to attack a target enemy."
Lincoln followed the instructions, and as expected, Cliff the tiger ran forward and began attacking the target dummy.
Valen clapped. "Well done, indeed. Cliff is quite ferocious, we may have to replace that target dummy! I'm fully convinced of your skills, now. I think it's time you begin doing some REAL work, Huntsman Barelor!"
Lincoln felt proud of himself, although this was all fairly basic. A question mark appeared above Valen Moonlance's head, and Lincoln knew before any instruction was given to click on him, and the quest was completed.
Barelor went up to level 2! Barelor learned Kill Command!
Valen had another quest, and Lincoln clicked to look at it.
"Now that you've proven yourself, I have a task for you. The nearby town of Oakshire has been having issues with ferocious animals and gnoll sightings. I want you to join your fellow heroes and see if you can't help the poor folk of that village out! And make good use of Kill Command. That will order Cliff or any other pet you tame to unleash a brutal attack on your opponent! Ashal'inu, Barelor!" (Ashal'inu translates to "good journeys" in Common/English, and is used as a traditional farewell.)
Finally, this is what Lincoln wanted! Going out to fight monsters, and meeting other players! And according to the map, Oakshire was only just out of his current sight, so it should take no time to get there. Now, to finally begin the jou-
"GIRLS! LINCOLN! DINNER TIME!" a grown man's voice yelled from downstairs. Lincoln knew it to be his father's.
"Aww man!" Lincoln sighed. He completely forgot the time.
"Well, I guess me and Barelor start our adventure tomorrow, then." he said sadly as he walked Barelor into the cottage (just in case bears can attack him when he's offline or something) and exited the game. He closed his laptop and left the room, daydreaming about his mighty Huntsman and Cliff the tiger slaying dragons and hanging out with friends from many different species.
Sorry if this chapter feels rather slow, and that it doesn't focus on Lincoln as much as it does on the game. But I felt it would've been weird to skip over Lincoln learning the basics. But next time, there should be a bit more excitement. Here's what someone else has been up to, though.
After dinner, when the Louds went around to finish their days' work before getting ready for bed, Luna went into her room and opened up her own laptop. She looked aorund on the web a bit, before googling the words "Realm of EverCraft", and hoping she'd remembered it right.
She looked at the website, showing all the different characters that can be made, talking about adventures and monster fighting, yadda yadda, and Luna hovered her mouse over the "Buy the game now!" button.
This wasn't her kind of thing, but she thought about how Lincoln always made time to listen to her music, to help her come up with new songs, and more. She owed it to him to take an interest in one of his hobbies, right? Besides, hanging out with the L-Man in a fantasy world could be pretty cool.
The mouse was clicked, and another adventure began.