1-4 // Clear Sky

  Lavender eyes stare up at the clear blue sky ahead, the sun warmly beaming down onto the forest path. A wagon drawn by two horses rides along the path, carrying a fresh batch of unknown adventurers from across the lands ready to start their journey into the unknown territories of this continent.

  Sirius continues to stare up at the sky with a blank expression, laying down on the wagon. Every so often it runs over a small rock or bump in the path, causing it to bump up and cause him a bit of discomfort. He didn't mind it. The wagon had a few other adventurers as well, all conversing with each other or simply enjoying the breeze. Sirius didn't care.

  He had just finished creating... well, creating himself. He imagined the other adventurers were also probably new players as well. After he pressed confirm during character creation, memories of his character's birth and early life flashed through his mind... or rather, cutscenes of them played and he watched. It seemed the game created an entire backstory and life for himself as a way to further immerse himself into the role of Sirius the adventurer. Sirius had to admit it was pretty impressive for a game to pull something like that off.

  Additionally, the game gave him a change of clothes from the character creator as well as some starter gear. With a flick of his eye as well as a mere thought, he opens his status menu. The game had graciously provided him with the tutorials and required info needed to access all of its menus and other such things during the cutscene sequence showing off his life... Sirius imagined he was probably still stuck in the tutorial section right now, to be honest.

  Looks like the standard sort of starting equipment an adventurer would receive. His outfit was unchanged from the character creator, asides from the addition of an admittedly nice looking cloak that covered his body down to the calves.

  Sirius notes the skills in his status menu as well. The ability 'Humanity' seems to just provide a slight boost to endurance, whilst 'Draconic Scales' describes itself to naturally bolster his defense... most likely some slight buffs to his armor defense. He guessed that the 'half' at the end of both abilities was due to his half-dragon race, therefore granting him a weaker version of both racial passives. The fortune-telling passive seemed to be granted to him by his knowledge of the divination magic school.

  The ability's description was vague, describing itself as "the ability to tell, predict, and observe fortune". Sirius wasn't sure what that entailed, maybe he could see the weather tomorrow? That could be useful if he were playing some sort of farmer or gathering class, he supposes.

  Sirius' thoughts are interrupted as the wagon runs over a large hole in the dirt road, causing the wagon to bounce and multiple grunts and shouts to ring out. The adventurers all begin to complain to the man at the front of the carriage and his haphazard steering. Sirius simply sighs and continues to look up at the clear sky. The noise begins to slowly fade away from him as he stops focusing on it, instead simply trying to drift off whilst he waits for the wagon to arrive in town, or at least whatever town the game said he was traveling to when it ran him through his character's backstory.

  His focus is snapped back to reality as a high-pitched chime rings out. Sirius thinks it must be some new adventurer like himself firing off spells or attacks for fun so he tries to ignore it... but the noise plays again.

  He sits up, opening his eyes. He notices that a small box has appeared in front of him. That's odd, I don't remember opening anything.

  Sirius looks about to see if anyone else has the menu. Nothing, everyone seems to be acting as normal. He shrugs and looks back to the menu, reading the line of text on it.

  Sirius tilts his head in confusion as he reads the menu. He had no idea who this 'heavenseent' person could be. Was he one of Ada's friends on the game? The name didn't ring any bells either, nor had she ever mentioned anybody named this. The name itself was odd too... was it displaying this person's account user instead of their character's name?

  Out of curiosity, Sirius focuses and opens his main menu. Moving the party notification to the side, he searches through the menus to find the friends list. After a bit of navigating and getting lost in various settings and tabs, he finally finds it. Opening the menu, he's shown an empty list in the same color of red as every other menu. This heavenseent person was nowhere on his friends list at all. Then, Sirius notices two tabs at the top of the list. The current tab he's on displays as "Character Friends" whilst the second unviewed tab is named "Account Friends". It seems OOH allows people to be added to two seperate lists.

  Clicking on the account friends tab, Sirius is bombarded by a massive list of usernames with various statuses. All of the names read as strange references or silly phrases that any sort of 'gamer' would use as an account name. There were way too many names to even process or comprehend for Sirius at the moment, so he uses a search bar just under the tab selections to specifically filter out heaveseent from the rest. Lo and behold, there they were on the list. Displayed as online and their location as a guild hall.

  Sirius looks back to the party notification, the friends list, then back to the notification. He feels a strange sense of fear at accepting the party invitation. Not because he's afraid of people or any sort of anxiety... rather Sirius fears the idea of having to relay the news to his sister's friends. He was unsure if Ada had shared any sort of news with her online friends and the idea of being the grim messenger was both fear-inducing as well as headache-inducing.

  He sighs, lifting a finger to press the accept button. As he does so, the notification disappears for a moment... before immediately reappearing with new text.

  "Oh." Sirius mutters out loud. Seems like he took too long to accept. He sighs. At least he won't have to focus on having to speak with Ada's friends for now. Once again, Sirius closes his eyes and tries to drift off to make the journey to town quicker. This time, his attempt is uninterrupted by any notifications or menu chimes.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Oi, adventurer." A mature, gravelly voice calls out. Sirius is roused from his nap by this voice, as well as a hand firmly shaking him. His eyes slowly open to see not the clear blue sky above him, but instead an older-looking man standing over him. The man had a thick gray-haired beard paired with straight hair pulled back into a bun. He wore a similar outfit to Sirius, that being a cotton shirt and leather pants, although the man was also wearing what looked like simple iron greaves and chestplate.

  "We're here, now get off my damn wagon." He commanded, seeing that Sirius' eyes were open. Sirius found him to be a bit rude, but seeing as how the wagon was empty of the other adventurers it had probably been a bit since they'd arrived.

  "Ah, sorry." Sirius apologizes as he sits up, then stands. He brushes himself off as he stands. "Do I owe you any money?"

  "Trip's already been paid for by the adventuring guild." The man responds. "Now get off your lazy ass and go work. I got more adventurers to ferry around!" He yells, walking behind Sirius and planting his foot on the adventurer's back before lightly nudging him off the wagon. Sirius lands on the ground with a plop, creating a small dirt cloud.

  "Oof." Sirius stands back up again and watches as the older man quickly rides the wagon off somewhere else. He can see a few shouting adventurers following behind, waving coin purses at his wagon as they do so. Must be popular around here. Sirius turns away and stretches, feeling a bit of fatigue from that brief nap. He opens his menu, navigating to his quest log.

  The menu displayed a singular quest which currently had an exclamation mark next to its name. Sirius taps the quest to open up its details, and the window on the right of the menu fills with the quest.

  "You are Sirius, a wayward adventurer traveling to a small secluded village by the name of Eryn. The adventurer's guild has commissioned you to deal with a local threat in the forests nearby, one that many adventurers have likely disappeared because of. Seek out the guild's temporary outpost set up in the town to receive more details on the situation so far."

  Seems straightforward. Sirius notes as he swipes with his hand, causing the quest menu to disappear. Most fantasy games tend to start pretty similarly to this, at least all of the ones he's watched his sister play. With a thought focused on it, Sirius' minimap appears as a window in front of him. He grabs it and moves it so it doesn't obscure his vision walking forward, then uses it to navigate towards the adventurer's guild outpost. He walks through the rather lively village, eyeing all of the various people walking about.

  Most of the people walking around seem to be other new players, a lot of them dressed similarly to him... and if not, dressed in similarly low level gear for their classes. He does notice a stronger looking mage with a white staff and purple robes, their robes being much more detailed with various golden designs and linings running down the sides as opposed to the other low-level mages wearing solid colored fabric robes around.

  There's also someone Sirius guesses to be some sort of max level judging by how bright and tacky they're dressed. The person was wearing neon pink armor that blinded anyone who looked their way, as well as sporting massive wings. The left wing was feathery and angelic, whilst the other was dark and demonic.

  Do people really dress like that? Sirius wonders as he walks past, trying not to look directly at the bright star that was the person's armor.

  Sirius walks down the stone-paved roads of Eryn, following his minimap towards the outpost. He finds himself walking between buildings and the wooden walls of the village. The walls were simple spiked logs stacked side by side with each other and dug into the dirt. They seemed to be placed here recently, likely in response to that local threat the guild wants Sirius to deal with. Sirius pays it no mind and continues to follow the map, walking past a small hole in the wooden wall.

  A glint catches his eye.

  Sirius stops in his tracks and looks over to the hole in the wall. It's close to the ground, big enough that he could probably crawl through with a tight squeeze. Something sparkles from within the hole, seemingly letting off a small violet glow as well. Sirius cocks his brow in intrigue, crouching to the ground to investigate. Getting low, Sirius is able to get a better look inside the hole in the wall. He sees what seems to be a small... star inside of the hole. Its shaped like a four-pointed one as well as what seems to be stardust falling from it.

  Confused, Sirius reaches a hand out to try and grab it. Perhaps it's some kind of rare spawning item?

  The star in response seems to retreat through the hole to the outside, although it doesn't move any further away. Sirius can still see it floating just outside the hole, out of his reach.

  Staring at it, he feels a strange urge to follow it. The kind of urge akin to wanting to pet an adorable animal. Was this apart of the game, Sirius wonders to himself. He knows that it'd be simpler to just follow the questline he'd been given and fulfill that, but just staring at the star floating out of reach makes him want to do something more than just following a path.

  Sirius sighs... then lays himself prone on the ground. Breathing in, Sirius begins to crawl into the hole. The fit is tight, but he's able to squeeze through by sucking in as much as he can. He watches star begin to sluggishly float away just enough that he can't reach it through the hole... forcing him to continue crawling through. After just a few seconds, Sirius drags his feet through the wooden hole, freeing himself and now finding him on the other side.

  The violet star still floats nearby, but has begun to slowly move deeper into the forest nearby. Sirius stares as it floats away through a bush, leaves ruffling and flying off. Brushing the dirt off his cloak,. Sirius tails behind the star.

  The star seems to be leading him deeper and deeper into the forest. Sirius never makes any attempts to speed up or jump at the star to catch it. In the back of his head, there's a feeling or an instinctual knowing that tells him the star won't be caught this way. Not this way ever.

  Briefly, Sirius wonders if this might be some trick a player is using to bait him out of a safe-zone. He looks around, wondering if he could see anyone or anything following him. He's surrounded by dense foliage and thick trees. The leaf canopy above covers most of the sunlight, except for a scarce few beams that break through the forest roof. If there was anybody following him, it'd be much too difficult for Sirius to detect them unless they were to reveal themselves, either accidentally or otherwise.

  He sighs. He's already made the bed by following this star out of the town's limits so there's not much else he can do but lay in it.

  After what feels like half an hour of walking, the star finally stops. Sirius stops as well and looks around again. The star seemed to have led him to a small clearing in the forest, a small ring of trees forming around the perimeter of it. In the clearing, the grass is covered in various beautiful flowers of various colors. In the very middle, there's two large moss-covered stones. One juts upwards from the ground in the shape of an oval, seemingly engraved with various lines and ancient language. Below it is a circular stone, similarly engraved with lines and language.

  Sirius is confused. Is this what the star wanted to lead him to? He begins to approach the stones, stepping into the clearing...

  As he does so, the star lets out what could only be described as a shrill, otherworldly squeak... like if light could yelp. Its violet glow turns to a bright red that flashes. Sirius is confused and caught off-guard by the noise... but his body seems to move on instinct. It steps to the side, turning himself away from the stones.

  Just as a skeletal fist flies past him from behind.

  Sirius' eyes widen as he dodges a sneak attack unknowably. Time seems to slow as he catches a glimpse of the person attacking him, wearing a faded golden and white robe covered in dirt. The person's face is covered by a similarly faded gold hood, but Sirius stares at the person's extended arm, seeing that the exposed section of said arm was nothing but bone.

  The hooded figure flies past him, an intense blast of force causing Sirius to stumble and almost fall backwards. There's a trail of dirt in the ground from the person flying past and dragging their feet through it with power.

  The star seems to float towards Sirius, its red fading back to its previously violet glow. It begins to hum quietly as now begins to orbit around Sirius from about an arm's length in distance. Sirius pays the star no mind, laser focused on the figure that just tried to kill him. His hand flies to the handle of his sword sheathed at his waist, gripping it tightly.

  "Who are you?" Sirius calls out to the figure, back turned to him still. The figure is still in their attacking stance, arm outstretched. They slowly relax and return to a normal standing stance... then begin to turn to face Sirius.

  Now facing him, Sirius can see his attacker's face... or lack thereof. The figure currently staring at him with intensity seemed to be an animated human skeleton. Its hollow eye-sockets glaring at him with an intense golden glow. The skeleton's mouth opens, letting out a strained breath that seems to release a small cloud of golden dust from their jaws.

  "You..." The figure speaks with an echoing masculine voice. "You... are not her." The skeleton's eyes seem to intensify their glow further with those words, in tandem with them taking on a combat stance. Their legs plant firmly to the ground, aiming their fist directly at Sirius.

  Sirius clicks his tongue, then unsheathes his blade.

  However, Sirius is barely able to even adopt his own fighting stance before the skeleton makes their move. With blindingly fast speed, they fly forwards towards Sirius. Unable to react in time, all Sirius can do is weakly raise his sword up to guard...! The skeleton's fist slams into the blade with a metallic TWANG! Although the skeletal fighter had no muscle or flesh, Sirius felt the power of that strike reverberate through the sword and by extension, his entire body.

  With just that one strike, Sirius could tell this was no low level like him.