As I approached the item vendor I saw a cloaked girl turning away from the NPC with three pairs of whiskers painted on her face.
"Hi, I'm Argo" she said with a smile as she saw me. Her brown cloak hid much of her features but beneath the hood I could see a fringe of brown hair stopping above a pair of brown eyes that hinted at a person with many secrets.
"Hi Argo" I replied, "The names Grim" I added holding out my hand. She reached out and took my hand shaking it lightly. "So how are you coping with all of this?" I asked using my now free hand to gesture at the world around us.
"Better than some, but if you want to know anything more than that it will cost you" she answered with another smile but seeing the puzzled look on my face she explained "I'm an information dealer, you want to know anything from me I will tell you what I know or find out if I don't. But everything has its price"
"ok…" I replied wondering what I could afford to ask before it hit me "where is the best sword I can get on this level then?"
"ha-ha!" she laughed at me "slow down Grim-chan I can take all your money if you want but have you not checked the free level guidebook from the item merchant yet?"
"guidebook?" I asked puzzled "since when do NPC's sell walkthroughs for an MMO?"
"First it's not a walkthrough its just a guide, with all known quest locations and map data from some, uh.. sources of mine so you will know where you are going. Not to mention mob locations and tactics"
I looked round to the NPC vendor wondering why I hadn't noticed such a valuable, free item for sale before and when I looked back to Argo I was just in time to see the cloaked figure leaping over a tall wooden fence at the back of a nearby alleyway and out of sight.
Heading over to the NPC I opened up the trade menu and started by selling all the items dropped by the Feral Boar's and Dire Wolves. Briefly considering keeping the mangy fur and leather scrap items to raise up a leatherworking skill but quickly dismissed the idea and sold them all for more Col than I had thought they would be worth. With my inventory now free of items I selected the free guidebook along with a couple minor potions and several crusty bread rolls to help with the hunger pangs that were slowly becoming difficult to ignore.
Walking through the town of beginnings, following the curve of the outer streets just inside the town wall, I kept an eye out for an inn I could stay at for the night and not long before I reached the north-western gate I found one with a brightly painted sign above the door 'Fortunes Bounty'. Going inside I paid for one night in the room and headed up to the first floor and the room offered to me. Collapsing into a chair I felt the exertions of the day finally take its toll on me and feeling physically drained I could no longer hold back the floodgates and for the first time since being in the game I cried. I wasn't sure if I was crying from the horror of being stuck in this death game or because I had finally decided to take control of my future and help get everyone out but when I finally finished crying I felt so much better as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Smiling to myself at the feeling I quickly ate one of the bread rolls while reading the quests section of the guidebook and set the alarm on the system menu to wake me at 5am. Leaving early I would be able to get to the forest by mid morning setting my sights on a quest mentioned in the book that could get me one of the best swords on the floor, an Anneal Blade. A one handed sword with the potential of being upgraded 8 times if you could find a good enough blacksmith. I lay back on the bed and read the guidebook from cover to cover before I fell asleep adding the map data to what I had already collected and marking key quest locations ready for some serious grinding.
To my surprise the path to Horunka forest wasn't as quiet as I had expected, in the low morning light I could see groups of players on the grassland hunting the packs of boar that had respawned in abundance now that the majority of the people hunting them had either moved on or returned to town for the night. As I ran on the light began to increase signalling the start of another day in Aincrad, with the early morning light illuminating the forest before me. I slowed down as I reached the edge of the forest, if this was anything like the mmo's I had played when I was younger then I was going to have to be careful in here with more aggressive mobs likely to attack me first unlike the otherwise passive boars in the fields.
It turned out that more people than I realised were already in the forest so I didn't really need to worry to much about hostile mobs though I did get a bit of a fright when one guy with blue hair, metal armour and a shield charged across the path in front of me in pursuit of a wasp like creature with a vicious looking stinger currently spinning away from him at high speed presumably from a defensive swipe of the blue haired 'knights' sword. The rest of the forest was mostly uneventful although I did manage to get quite a bit of mangy fur and leather scraps from the wolves that were a lot more common in the woods than they had been on the plains. Eventually around midafternoon I emerged from the forest slightly richer and up to level 3. After my long trip I decided to walk past the small house on the edge of the village where I knew the quest was and headed into Horunka village itself to look for an inn to rest up and try some different food to the crusty rolls I had been eating for almost a week now.
As I entered the village however something was immediately wrong to me, other players were here already but most of them were in a state of panic and those that weren't were unconscious on the floor. I rushed towards the nearest person who was checking on another player but before I could say anything they gasped with shock and crumpled to the floor next to the person they had been checking on. Starting to feel the fear rising up inside me I quickly looked around for an inn, if I was going to pass out as well I wanted to make sure I would be safe from whatever was going to happen next. As I ran I could hear people crying out, asking other people what was happening often as either that person collapsed or they did themselves. I'm pretty sure I heard one person saying something about it being a virus, but whatever it was I knew I couldn't stop. Turning a corner I saw a sign for a small inn called 'Reki's Rest'. Bursting through the door I heard the customary greeting from the NPC innkeeper as I felt my knees buckle beneath me and my view turned black. The last thing I remembered was the floor rushing up to meet me.