carl@fire

Carl had not anticipated the size of the small starting town he'd moved himself to. Why is a starter town so freaking big? And smelly? And mapless? How does nobody make maps here? Gah, this lack of organization reminds me of my first day at the office when they just threw me a keyboard with the root login on a sticky note on the bottom and said good luck. How the heck am I supposed to find my way around here?

He was no stranger to cities. His family lived near a large one, in fact, and they traveled there with some regularity. It had its smells, sure, but…

I'm gonna have to talk to someone about this. Who would I even—Greg. Darn it, Greg, towns aren't supposed to smell like poop and wet animals. Even if there are a lot of animals. And a surprising amount of actual poop. Who codes something like that, anyway? And somebody had to make the assets? And I guess it has some kind of feel if you touch it? Ugh.

He once again considered moving aside as he caught sight of a wagon-pulling animal—this time a horse and not a donkey or a mule, because also: what exactly was a mule, again?—headed towards him. Before he could make a decision, however, the young driver's eyes widened, and he jerked his reins to the side, directing the animal to swerve in a route that permitted Carl to continue along unimpeded.

Wow, people here sure are courteous. Carl gave the man a smile and a nod, just as he had for the previous five or six drivers who had similarly moved to allow him, a pedestrian, the right of way. The man averted his gaze, the character he was playing clearly unwilling to receive thanks for such a trivial gesture of goodwill.

Carl sighed in happiness. Role-playing is freaking awesome! First there was that great sequence at the gate where that guard saved my butt when I was barely keeping my act together—staying in character is so hard—then there was that old, fortune teller-y lady I asked for directions talking this or that about some tide or wave that was going to assault the castle at some point—is that like some kind of tower defense mini-game or something? Why do they measure it in castles? At least she seemed to know a lot about the town's layout. I might've gotten a little distracted thinking about how inefficient their navigation system is from how she described it, but it's so slow!

Ooh, that reminds me, I gotta figure out why there's that weird system-wide delay in the office at exactly 1:37 on Thursdays. Gotta be another one of Gary's stupid scripts hiding somewhere, but what the heck is it even doing? It's—Gah, not again. Gotta stop thinking about work so much and get my head into this game so I can maybe go five seconds without breaking character.

He turned his head, trying to be inconspicuous as he glanced over his shoulder. Alright, that's pretty awesome. He turned to look forward again, his lips curving into a grin even as he tried to force them down. Now they've got a couple of the freaking town—no, wait, that gatekeeper guy said it was a city—city guards following me to go along with my act? For an instant, the forty nine year-old Director of IT managed to stop thinking about his ever-present job. It's so much easier than I thought! No wonder this is a starting tow—city; everyone here is really willing to help the noobs out as they learn.

The man who was new to role-playing finally managed to return his face to a more neutral expression, even though he knew he'd just end up breaking character yet again in a moment when he further considered how great this game was. I'm already learning so much. Don't worry, Bobby. Daddy's gonna learn all about role-playing so if we ever get to play together I'll be able to embarrass you in character.

He chuckled at the thought, and a young woman holding up a vase for inspection at a market stall to his right looked up and around. Her hands slid off the slippery-looking ceramic vase she was holding a moment later. The piece of pottery fell and shattered on the cobblestones.

Carl frowned, and the woman stood there, staring at him. Oops, I must've startled her. Ooh, she's kinda glaring at me now. An idea went off in his head. Ohhh this is like a manners training scene so I can set my character up for how I wanna be interacting with—yeah, okay.

He moved a little closer, and the woman's lip trembled as she watched him draw towards her. The old shop owner sat off to the side, seeming to be frozen and unable to move as she watched the scene play out.

Carl got the picture. It was a one-on-one scene again since he was still such a noob.

So this is where I need to really dig into my character's mentality, I guess. If I'm supposed to be some guy who doesn't give a flip, I just keep walking. If I'm evil or whatever, maybe I demand to know what she's looking at? Hm. I don't want to be a super nice guy to everyone—that's way too much hassle, and I'm not gonna be here long enough to help old ladies walk their mules across the street or whatever. But it really does feel like this was at least partly my fault, and I don't want any kids watching to think it's okay to not take responsibility…

"Ho there, Good…Lady," he called out with a fresh attempt at an in-character form of address for a woman, his voice loud enough to be heard by all the other players who were no doubt keeping a keen eye on the newest of noobs to see how he fared. He swung his fishing spear down and planted it in the ground next to him, accidentally using a little too much force and driving its point some distance into the unusually soft cobblestones.

The young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, stared with wide, blue eyes at his weapon that he'd been dumb enough to carry around in the open inside the starter town.

Carl wanted to slap himself in the forehead, but that would've required he break character, which he felt he'd done far too many times already. I never thought this would be so hard! There's like, a million little things I never thought of! He glanced around, but nobody else on the market street near him was carrying a visible weapon of any sort. But if I put it away in my inventory now, that's kinda breaking character since I'm flagrantly using game features, isn't it? Better duck into an alley after this and throw it into my inventory when nobody's watching. So annoying! Why is it a spear, anyway?

The woman hadn't budged, still staring at his spear.

Okay, okay, I get it. Sheesh, give the new guy a break. He cleared his throat. "My apologies for startling you," he tried again.

The woman's eyes slowly traveled up his torso until they finally met his. She blinked. "Um," she said in a small, cutesy voice, clearly playing up how surprised she was to give him more time to consider his response.

I can't get over how nice people here are. So much better than when I started at the office. Think I made it an hour before one of Roger's guys pranked me with that fake IT support request. Nah, it was only half an hour, wasn't it. I should check the ticketing—

Carl focused.

Alright, third try's the charm. "Inventory," he muttered while feigning a cough. He looked over towards the shopkeeper. "I'd like to pay for that vase," he called out.

The woman's eyes bulged, and the shopkeeper frowned, seeming suspicious.

Well, I guess that's reasonable. It was probably expensive. I mean, it's a player-crafted item so there's gotta be some kinda labor fee involved in addition to material costs, then probably a sales tax on top of that for the government. Starting town, noob character, obviously doesn't look like I've got much cash on me with just half of this novelty suit on….

He considered the matter. How much would something like that cost, anyway? The game's only got "coins" as a unit of currency. Is that like pennies? Gah, that can't be right; it'd be way too annoying when the numbers got big, wouldn't it. Wish I'd thought of that earlier. Eh, whatever.

"Withdraw coins," he muttered under his breath for the second time that day, happening to remember the one afternoon that Bobby had begged him for just a teeny tiny bit of money so she could repair her armor in a rush because she'd be getting back a little later than she'd expected on a night before one of the first big dungeon raids Annie had approved her to go on. He'd broken the internal policy a little when he sent her the coins he'd withdrawn along with a message wishing her luck, but it was for a good cause.

He wasn't especially concerned with that particular policy at the moment since it was pretty minor and it wasn't like there was any risk, was there.

More recently, too, there was that time just a little while earlier when he'd decided to avoid any future issues like he'd had with changing his gear by testing out the same functionality in a low-risk, real world use case.

Low-risk was Carl's middle name.

"How many coins will you withdraw?" the game's voice asked, discernible only to him just as all inventory-related functions were only visible to the originating player in order to avoid trolling.

"Fifty coins," he announced a little more loudly, guessing a random number that seemed reasonable. That's probably like… Five bucks? It wasn't that big of a vase and I didn't see any elaborate designs or anything.

The elderly shopkeeper's eyes joined the woman's in looking like they would pop out of her head.

Carl frowned. Darn, I must have underestimated. Now they both look upset. "Withdraw coins," he muttered again before the coins could be paid out.

"How many coins will you withdraw in total?" the game's voice asked. Naturally this was somewhat competently programmed, so transfers made in quick succession could be batched to reduce database and asset loading.

"Make it one hundred coins," he said, staring at the shopkeeper—daring her to say that a hundred wasn't enough. I mean, maybe it's not, but c'mon. I'm just a noob. How am I supposed to know? It's not like there's price tags on this stuff as far as I can see. And I'm trying to be a little heroic here, so asking is out of the question. Man, maybe I should've just kept walking. This one's kinda hard. Guess I just gotta push through until I get better at this.

The shopkeeper's mouth opened and closed.

The young woman was quicker. "No, no, you can't," she said, seeming concerned.

Carl held out his hand as he imagined he should at such a moment, and a hundred coins poured into it out of nowhere. Many of them bounced off the overflowing, disorderly pile and landed on the ground at his feet before he was forced to reluctantly bring his other hand up to catch the rest, destroying the cool pose he'd thought to strike.

It was then that the shopkeeper made her move.

Carl hadn't expected the old-looking woman to make such a gamble, certainly not in a starter tow—city and during the noobiest of noob role-playing tutorial-type scenes.

She pretended to faint.

So realistic was her acting that even Carl was suckered in for a moment—a quick intake of breath and widening of his eyes—before he remembered where he was. Jesus, they're all monsters. I really have a long way to go before I can keep up with people like this.

A depressing thought occurred to him in the next moment. If it's like this in the starting zones, then the endgame people who role-play must be absolutely insane. Bobby, Daddy's gonna be a while before he gets to your level. You just… You just keep going on your own for now, pumpkin. He sighed. Does everyone role-play now? Gaming really has changed. If just existing is this hard, I can't even imagine how difficult quests and raids have gotten.