Empty.
Empty, empty, empty. A void, really, that kept me guessing, waiting.
Then, the first pinpricks of light, like digital stardust, began to bloom in the void. A slow cascade of pixels, each a tiny promise of a world, coalesced from nothing. Hues of chromium and cobalt bled into the black, painting themselves back into existence,directly into my consciousness. The world reframed itself around me, the graphics settling as the fissured, tan earth of the Caeloran Wastes materialized under my feet, the oppressive heat of the virtual sun warmed my face.
A familiar, crisp notification shimmered before my closed eyes.
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[--System Alert--]
[--You are in—{{Avarnove}}.--]
[[--Welcome back {MOONSHINE}—to Virtuosa Valoria.--]]
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My eyes snapped open. I drew in a deep breath of the dry, synthesized air and let it out in a slow, steady stream.
The weekend was mine. Two full days to grind, to actually do something. No spilled coffee, no Mr. Henderson, no soul-sucking drones from the office.
'Just this.'
With a newfound sense of purpose that felt both foreign and exhilarating, I started my rounds. First on the list: retrieving my gear.
I stomped through the dusty main street of Avarnove, my novice boots–from when I first started the game–kicking up small clouds of grit. The two short, louvered doors of the smithy swung inward with a protesting squeak as I pushed my way inside, the familiar heat of the forge washing over me.
"Ah, brotha! You are back!" the blacksmith bellowed, wiping his sweaty hands on an already-blackened apron.
I gave a curt nod. "Just here for my stuff."
He grunted, turning to a messy pile of armor on a nearby workbench and pulling out my vambraces, shoulder pads, and boots. He tossed them onto the counter with a heavy clank. "All fixed up. Good as… good as I can make 'em!"
I picked up a vambrace, turning it over in my hands. The dent was gone, and the surface had been polished, but something felt off.
'Command: Item Details.'
A holographic window popped up, visible only to me. My eyes scanned the stats, and my jaw tightened.
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[Common Iron Vambrace]
Current Durability: 180 / 180
Maximum Durability: 180 / 200
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I let out a slow, deliberate breath through my nose. "You've got to be kidding me."
The blacksmith leaned over the counter, a defensive look already on his face. "What is it now, brotha? I fixed it, no?"
"The max durability went down twenty points," I said, my voice dangerously flat. "This is shoddy work."
"Shoddy?!" He threw his hands up, offended. "Listen, brotha, I do my best! When metal breaks, it is never the same! You want perfect? Go to the capital! A man's gotta eat, and this is what you get in Avarnove!"
"Fucking shitty work is what it is,"---I muttered it under my breath, but not quietly enough, apparently.
"What was that?!" he roared, his face turning a blotchy red. "You have a problem, you say it to my—!"
But he was yelling at my back. I'd already scooped up my gear from the counter, spun on my heel, and was pushing my way back out the door. The last thing I heard was his indignant shouting, cut off by the sharp clack-clack-clack of the swinging doors as they settled shut behind me.
My next stop was the apothecary's clinic.
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In small, backwater towns like Avarnove, you didn't have doctors. You had apothecaries. In the grand cities of the capital, a doctor was a man of science and guaranteed results, a purveyor of spells and elixirs with proven, repeatable effects. Out here—in the bum-f*ck nowhere—an apothecary was a studier of herbs, a brewer of natural remedies, a practitioner of unorthodox physical assessments that felt more like guesswork than medicine.
The big difference, the one that really mattered, was the complete lack of a guarantee. An apothecary's concoctions might work, or they might just give you a rash. There was no real quality control.
One other thing you could say for Avarnove is that the buildings, while ugly, were built to last. The old, shitty structures were made of sun-baked brick, designed to withstand the blaring sun and blistering heat of the wastes. All except one.
The apothecary worked out of a hut. It was an architectural anomaly, a misshapen lump of woven yucca fibers and brittle tumbleweed, all held together by a strange mortar of sand and what looked like hardened sap. It was a structure built from the few resilient scraps of plant life that could be scavenged from the desert. This particular apothecary was… an enthusiast of nature, to say the minimum. Which was hilarious, considering they chose to set up shop in the one place where nature had clearly given up and died.
I trudged up to the entrance—a simple hanging flap of woven reeds—and raised a gauntlet, knocking twice against the brittle frame.
The response from within wasn't a 'come in' or a 'who's there?'
It was a shriek.
High-pitched, sudden, and carrying a bizarre note of… glee?
I didn't even flinch. I'd been here enough times to know the protocol. 'Swear to god, there's more than a few screws loose in that head,' I thought, crossing my arms and waiting. It always came back to the same question: why the hell would you set up your nature-hut in a place where the most vibrant plant life was a patch of sun-bleached moss?
The shriek was followed by a cacophony of metallic clatter from the other side of the reed flap—the heavy, rhythmic clinking of chains, the sharp click-clack of multiple padlocks being undone. One after another.
'The hell?' I thought, my eyebrow arching behind my visor. 'What kind of deal did this person strike with the smithy to need this much security?' There was no way this flimsy hut or whatever was inside it was that valuable. Unless they were hiding the secrets to a nuclear explosion or something.
Finally, the reed flap was pushed aside, rasping as it dragged through the sand on the floor.
The person who emerged was a living paradox.
They were lanky, impossibly long and thin, yet carried themselves with a sharp, angular grace. They stood barefoot on the sand-dusted stone, their feet covered in a fine layer of grit, yet their toenails were perfectly shaped and pedicured. Their long legs were free of the ashy dryness that plagued everyone else in this desert, yet they were smudged with streaks of some unidentifiable green substance.
A makeshift skirt woven from some kind of plant fiber was tied low on their hips, and a simple shawl was draped over their trunk, leaving their toned, hairless midriff completely bare. Their most striking feature, however, was their hands. Their fingernails were impossibly long—a good six inches at least—and tapered to fine points. They weren't jagged or dirty; they were immaculate, glistening in the harsh desert sun as if freshly buffed.
Their face was a collection of sharp angles—high cheekbones, a pointed chin, a straight, narrow nose. But there were no eyebrows to frame their features, giving them an unnerving, alien quality. I couldn't tell if they had hair on their head; it was completely obscured by the most absurd hat I had ever seen. It was a funky, wide-brimmed creation made from overlapping leaves, with a band of dried cactus prickles wrapped around the base like a turban. The whole thing flared out at the bottom, an odd amalgamation of a sombrero and something far more exotic.
I stared, my mind struggling to categorize what I was seeing. The defined, hairless body. The sharp, pointed face. I couldn't tell if this person was male, female, both, or neither.
They were, to put it mildly, interesting.
I pushed down the urge to visibly recoil. I'd dealt with this… person… before, but the sheer strangeness never got any less potent. I forced my posture to remain neutral, falling back on the rigid politeness that I could code-switch to.
"Ada. Hi," I began, my voice even. "I need to see what you've got in stock. Health and magic potions."
Ada's head tilted, a slow, deliberate motion. When they spoke, the voice was a bass rumble that seemed to vibrate up from the floorboards, impossibly deep for such a slender frame.
"Ahhh," they purred, the sound drawn out and slow. "If it isn't… little Moonshine." Their perfectly manicured, six-inch nails tapped a contemplative rhythm against their chin. "I do not believe I have seen you… in four… no, five years."
I didn't even blink. "It's been four days, Ada."
"Ah, but time moves so differently for me, little one," Ada continued, completely unbothered by the correction. "Your yesterday could have been my last year."
I had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to mean, and I didn't care to find out. "Right. So, the potions?"
Ada's lips stretched into a slow, unnerving smile. They gestured with one long-nailed hand, beckoning me inside. "Come, come."
The interior of the hut was an assault on the senses. The air was thick with a dozen conflicting smells—cloying sweetness, acrid chemicals, and the low, heavy scent of rot. Wooden slabs lined the walls, serving as makeshift shelves, groaning under a chaotic menagerie of wares. There were jars filled with pulsing, multi-colored concoctions; some held the desiccated ashes of unidentifiable animals; others displayed diced creature parts floating in murky fluid—eyeballs, severed legs, and one container that I actively avoided looking at, which I knew from past visits contained a collection of monster toenails. Some bottles were loosely corked and oozing, others were wrapped in bandages with 'DO NOT TOUCH' scrawled on them, and many more were just left open to the air, their strange fumes mingling into a toxic miasma.
'Just standing here could not be good for my health, I swear to gawd.'
Ada glided behind a counter propped up by four potted cacti with a slab of wood laid across the top. "So," they rumbled, "you said health… and magic." They gestured vaguely toward the corner by the entrance. "The beginner's stock. Right by the door."
I turned and found the pathetic little display. There were two health potions, one small and one large. Next to them were four supposed magic potions. Three were a familiar, if slightly darker, shade of blue. The fourth was a murky, unsettling purple. I picked up both health potions and the three blue ones, leaving the purple vial to its mysterious fate.
"Oh, baby," Ada cooed from behind me. "Why don't you go on and take it all? I will even give you a special little discount. The dyin' man isn't comin' around today."
I hesitated, juggling the vials in my hands. "I don't know… I'm not exactly made of money."
The shift was instantaneous and terrifying.
"What was that?"
The voice was no longer a rumble. It was a high, fluting shriek, PEAKING after originally BOTTOMING, slicing through the hut's thick air, making the glass vials on the shelves vibrate. Ada's placid smile had vanished, replaced by a vicious, snarling grimace.
"Not made of money?" they screeched, their lanky body coiled with sudden tension. "You think I AM made of money?! You think I am makin' all of these potions from the kindness of my heart?! I need money, too! Huh?! I need it! Do you know how hard it is to find belladonna in this wasteland?!"
Their voice rose in pitch and volume with every word, becoming a frantic, aggressive tirade. They were leaning over the counter now, their long nails tapping a furious, staccato beat on the wood. The friendly, bizarre enigma was gone, replaced and wild, unstable, scary, and frankly dangerous with those daggers she calls cosmetics on her fingers. I felt my own fight-or-flight response kick in, my hand instinctively tightening on the potions.
"YOU—will take! the last… potionnn~~," Ada hissed, their voice now a wheezing whisper that was somehow more frightening than the shrieking.
"YEP! OkaY, okay! I'll take it!" I yelped, snatching the purple vial off the shelf without a second thought.
The moment my fingers closed around it, Ada relaxed. The tension drained from their body, and the vicious snarl melted back into that serene, unnerving smile. The deep, resonant voice returned as if it had never left.
"Well now," they rumbled calmly. "That's better."
I walked up to the makeshift counter propped up by four potted cacti and placed the vials on the splintered wood slab.
Ada glided over, their movements silent and unnerving. They began to count, their long, immaculate nails tapping each vial with a soft click as if they hadn't just watched me pick up every single one. "Two of health… four of magic… that will come to fifty-two silver, little one."
Fifty-two? I could have sworn I got six potions for forty last time. A lip-smacking sound of pure annoyance escaped before I could stop it. Ada's head snapped toward me, their serene expression unwavering but their eyes sharp.
"Hmmm? What was that, little one?" the deep voice rumbled, a low thrum that vibrated in my chest.
"Oh, I was just wondering about the… sudden price hike," I said, keeping my tone carefully neutral.
Ada didn't answer right away. Their gaze drifted past me, fixing on a dusty shelf in the far corner of the hut. It was lined with an odd collection of straw dolls. One, in particular, caught my eye. It was shoddily made, a mess of dried grass and twine, but its tiny, woven helmet was an unnervingly perfect replica of my own.
Their gaze snapped back to me, a truly malicious side-eye that sent a shiver down my spine. And then, the voice changed.
"WHAT WAS THAT?"
"I'll take it!" I yelped, my hand already diving for my coin pouch. "I'll take all of it!"
And then back. Reverted. The tension gone, like dust in the wind, melting back into that placid, unsettling smile.
"Well now," they rumbled once more, their deep, velvety voice returning as if nothing had happened. "That's better."
I practically threw the silver onto the counter, snatched the potions, and backed out of the hut.
"Do come again, little Moonshine," Ada's voice followed me out. "Perhaps in the next month or so."
Shaking my head to clear the lingering weirdness, I made my way to the alehouse.
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I slid onto a stool at the bar and tapped my gauntleted fingers on the wood twice. The bartender, a burly man with a permanent scowl, wiped the counter with a less-than-clean rag and grunted.
"What can I get ya?"
"The usual," I said out of habit.
He stopped wiping and gave me a deadpan look. "Barely know ya. What's 'the usual'?"
"Okay, the classic, then."
"Classic what?" he sighed, exasperated. "Water? You want water? In a desert?"
I bit back a groan. "Just… give me any beverage. An ale. Whatever."
"One flagon of Sand-Scour Stout, then," he said, grabbing a mug. "On your tab?"
"No," I said, considering whether to gamble on Godspeed's perpetually empty pockets.
'I wanna tell him to put it on Godspeed's, but who knows if this guy even knows his name.'
"Put it on the red-hair's tab."
The bartender just shrugged. "His coin is as good as any."
As he grunted and turned away to fill the mug, I got to work. I unstrapped my old, battered vambraces and pauldrons, letting them fall to the floor with a dull thud. I picked up the newly repaired pieces, the metal cool against my skin. The familiar weight felt good as I strapped the vambraces to my forearms and secured the pauldrons to my shoulders. It wasn't perfect, but it was certainly feeling better. It was progress.
The heavy wooden mug landed on the bar in front of me just as He walked in, his timing so perfect it was almost suspicious. He didn't seem to acknowledge the coincidence, simply sauntering over and sliding onto the stool beside me. He'd clearly been waiting around for a while.
"How was your morning?" he asked, his voice a low, casual rumble.
The bartender slid a flagon in front of him, the contents already half-gone. Right. Red-hair's tab.
"Productive," I grunted, taking a long, noisy gulp of my stale ale. Hopefully, the alcohol would be strong enough to numb the memory of drawing a thousand useless circles.
"Rest well, then?" he pressed. "Ready for more training?"
I dropped the mug down, a bit of foam sloshing over the side. "As ready as I'll ever be." I wiped my mouth with the back of my gauntlet. "But there's one more thing I have to do, now that I think about it."
Godspeed leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table and resting his cheek on his fist, a picture of relaxed curiosity. "And what might that be?"
"Gotta sell some stuff. Monster parts."
The bartender, who was wiping down a glass, grunted and gave Godspeed a hard stare. The blood seemed to drain from Godspeed's face as he registered the silent message. Your tab is getting long. He quickly looked away, his casual demeanor cracking for just a second.
"Monsters?" Godspeed asked, recovering smoothly and turning his attention back to me. He scratched his cheek, a thoughtful look in his swirling eyes. "Is there really anything worth hunting around these parts?"
The question hung in the air, a subtle challenge. He wasn't just asking; he was testing me, probing my strategy, or lack thereof. I shifted on my stool, the directness of it making me uncomfortable. It was time to go.
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We stepped out of the alehouse and into the oppressive heat. The Skinner's shop was just across the way, and the familiar, gut-turning stench of iron and rot hit me even from a distance.
"Man," Godspeed said, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "That smell is horrid."
"You get used to it," I said with a shrug. "My nose died many visits ago." It was a weak attempt at a joke, but a small smile still touched the corner of his lips.
As Godspeed clenched his fingers over his nose, I pushed through the door of the place and rang the small bell on the counter. A moment later, the same grumbling from the back, the same rustle of drapes, and the same portly man with an impressive beer-belly emerged.
"What do you want?" he snarled.
"I came by a few days ago with a hobgoblin," I said, my voice all business. "Here to pick up the materials."
His eyes narrowed. "Oh, yeah. You. With the… thing." He disappeared into the back and returned a moment later with a heavy burlap sack, which he dropped on the counter with a wet slap. "Processing fee is twelve silver."
I eyed the bag. "Anything in there actually worth keeping?"
He gave a harsh, humorless laugh. "From a Caeloran hobgoblin? Nah. The materials are damn near shit. Only good for crafting practice or maybe beginner's gear."
Just as I thought. "Fine. I'll just sell it all back to you, then."
He squinted, his mind doing the quick, greedy math. "Alright. I'll buy the whole lot off you for thirty silver."
It wasn't a great deal, but after my twelve-silver fee, I'd still walk away with eighteen silver in profit. For a day's work in this town, that was practically a king's ransom. It was how I was barely scraping by, how I was making just enough to keep myself going.
"Deal," I said. He scooped the money from a lockbox and pushed it across the counter. I counted it, put it in my pouch, and turned to leave. My business in-town was finally done.
As we stepped out of the Skinner's shop, Godspeed finally released the death grip he'd had on his nose, taking a deep, theatrical breath of the marginally less foul air. He closed his eyes for a moment, a look of profound relief on his face. Then, he started nodding slowly, his expression shifting from relieved to intensely analytical, as if the oxygen had just reactivated some dormant part of his brain. The pieces were clicking into place up there.
"So," he said, more to himself than to me. "I'm not the type to frequent around here much, but there are hobgoblins in this region, right?"
I shot him a sideways glance. "Yeah, obviously. You saw the corpse."
"Right," he continued, his swirling eyes now distant, focused on some internal map. "So that means…"
He trailed off, lost in thought.
Lost in thought.
Quiet. Just walking, nothing more.
'.....Bruh.'
My patience, just wearing thin by looking at him, snapped.
"What are you going on about up there?" I demanded, tapping my temple mockingly.
His gaze snapped back to me, sharp and clear. "Just… refining the details," he said with a small, unreadable smile. "Of our training plan."
A groan rumbled in my chest. "Okay, look, before you edit my plan on how to quit this game in a week, just tell me what you're thinking."
He ignored my sarcasm. "Those hobgoblins," he began, his tone suddenly professional, "They aren't just random spawns wandering the desert. They're intelligent. Organized. They build communities."
His pace picked up, so I did my best to fall into step beside him, a sense of unease starting to creep up my spine.
"Out here in the wastes, where they're rarely bothered, they build settlements," he explained. "They establish a hierarchy. They have guards, infantry, and specialized units they call Sentinels. The older settlements have royalty—a prince, usually." He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. "And some, the really old ones, even have a king."
The blood drained from my face. The image of the hobgoblin from my first day here—the one that had nearly turned me into a trophy—flashed in my mind. Compared to me, their strength was… overwhelming. And that was just one.
"No," I said, stopping dead in the middle of the street. "No, no, no." The memory of the fight, the pain, the exhaustion, it all came rushing back. "I damn near died fighting one of those things, and it was a low-level grunt. I am not…" I shook my head, my voice rising with a frantic edge. "I'm not doing that. I can't."
Godspeed stopped and turned to face me. His expression was calm, his voice unwavering.
"Hey," he said, his gaze locking onto mine. "You want to be strong? You have to beat the strong. That's how this works."
He let the statement hang in the air, a simple, brutal truth.
"Your goal," he said, his voice dropping slightly, becoming a quiet, definitive command. "At the end of next month… is to take down an entirehobgoblin settlement."