It was noon over the capital of the kingdom of Drakestadt. Wise Queen Aelindra was having lunch on a balcony of the castle, looking at the city as she pondered about the latest reports that had been pouring in from all over the country.
If it were just one or two, she would have dismissed it as hearsay or hallucinations. But there were too many, and they were from very disparate regions.
On the Northern Reach, the province that is also called the Frost Edge, a man appeared claiming he's a player from five hundred years ago.
He didn't seem to know that five hundred years had passed and was making a fuss, talking nonsense about 'administrators' and 'GMs.' He was too powerful for the local guards to secure him, and he took a village hostage in an attempt to get those 'administrators' to talk with him.
In the end, the province governor managed to talk sense into him, and he lowered his guard, allowing himself to be captured. He was now depressive in the governor's manor.
Another incident happened in the port city Mirehafen. It was similar, with the person claiming to be a player. But, instead of the belligerent attitude, he started to cry when he was informed that five centuries had passed.
He was a bearded and muscular man with a gruff exterior. Yet, he began crying like a child and even started saying that he was, in fact, a child.
The other reports were less spectacular. Just sightings of the use of powers and techniques that had been lost for centuries, or sensing of unreal concentrations of mana.
One thing was certain: something was very amiss in the world. And Aelindra had to do something.
If anyone were there, watching her eat, she would look like she was without a care in the world. She ate calmly, often looking at the town or the horizon, without hurry.
Yet, inside, her mind was exploding with anxiety.
She had already dispatched some of her most capable and trustworthy companions to talk with the two so-called players and try to ascertain the truth of their claims. If those were true, then they should try to earn their favor.
Players were beings from a mythical age, extremely powerful. Having them on your side was great, but the baseline was to make them not see the kingdom as an enemy.
Aelindra's mother was a player herself. One of the most powerful of all, to boot. Aelindra was also powerful, for this world's standards, yet she knew that she couldn't hold a candle to any of them.
And that was another thing nagging in her mind while she was thinking about all that.
Her mother.
She disappeared before the Closing of the Servers. She didn't say goodbye, like the other players did when they left. She simply went to buy some rare ingredients in the tower of another player and never came back.
It was true that players appeared and disappeared as they wanted, and there had been several cases of players going missing and never appearing again, or only appearing years later. They called it 'log out' and acted naturally about it.
It was also true that players were immortal. When they died, their body simply appeared again in the last place they slept in, naked but fully healed.
That was because players were beings from another dimension who just came to this world for having fun. At least, that was what Aelindra learned after doing diligent research and sharing information with other people who also were close to the players.
That's why she always feared that her mother, Morielen, had really 'logged out' and never came back simply because she had become tired of this world.
And all those player-related sightings just reopened old wounds.
:::
Cecilia entered her new room in the inn and got immediately impressed. The place was a far cry from the one in Gertrude's. It was clear that the price hike was not just because of hype and location. It was real luxury.
She activated the technique for detecting the quality of items, and a myriad of colors appeared. She could see that the bed and some other furniture were [diamond], while the rest was all [orange] with just two [red] items.
She deactivated it and walked to the bed. Its frame was carved from a single block of darkheart oak, perfectly polished. Its canopy had wine-red velvet curtains and was faintly perfumed with myrrh and lavender.
The mattress was very comfortable, not too hard nor too soft, wrapped in very smooth sheets. The frame had some usage marks but was still very solid.
((Usage marks on a [diamond] darkheart oak bed? Who would be so heavy to… oh, what if the bed is just old? Yeah, this could've been the work of a player. Let's check.))
Cecilia activated Appraisal on the bed.
[darkheart oak bed (diamond):
Crafted by Jungblut87. Sleeping in this bed for three hours gives 50% bonus to all skill rolls for 12 hours.]
"Whaaaa? Yeah, this is the kind of furniture Carol would make and put in a random inn like that, just to attract players to visit the town and pay for services."
Carol was the name of the person behind the character Jungblut87 and also a member of the Dead Nerds Society.
Cecilia checked the rest of the room. The other items didn't have an effect as powerful as the bed, but most were crafted by the same player and had survived there for five hundred years.
With furniture that gives those bonuses, who would ever think about renovating the interior, right?
As it was lunchtime and Cecilia had eaten only half of her breakfast before running to Mutt's house, she took out the lunchbox Marya had prepared for her before she left and ate.
After finishing, she cleaned up and went out to the city.
:::
"Let's see… My house was to the east of the lake. It doesn't seem that any of the old buildings were destroyed these last centuries, so it's possible that it still stands."
She walked down the street, looking at the old buildings. Some of them showed signs of deterioration, but they were still far from being ruins. All of them were well maintained and had also been built with superior materials and techniques.
Most of them were inhabited by players back in the day, though, and she had no idea who would be living there this day and age.
The game had PvP with full loot, but with areas where groups of players could enforce their laws. That's why the safest place for someone to have their base was inside a city, where they would be protected by the State.
'Crime' still occurred inside a city, but one could be found out by the city guard. Being killed wasn't that much of a problem for the criminals, as they could just respawn. But there was a 'prison' system that was an effective 'time out' punishment.
Be caught murdering inside Drakehof, and you get one week locked in a prison room, where you can't do anything. It was a 'soft ban,' effectively locking you out of the game even though you could technically log in.
The world outside cities was less safe, but there was still some degree of enforcement of the player-led nation that controlled that territory. But warzones were warzones, and the unclaimed wilderness had no law.
That created the balance where 'bandit' players would form mob guilds and scour the countryside, countries would place bounties on them, and the cat-and-mouse game kept the economy moving and the game interesting.
That's why so many players had their actual homes inside cities like Drakehof, making those cities feel really lived in.
The way skills and techniques branched and the several soft and hard locks put over multiclassing created a landscape where cooperation and trade were essential for players to thrive in their chosen jobs.
That's why Cecilia was able to walk in this city and recognize the buildings to the point of even remembering the names of several former inhabitants of those houses.
After some time, she arrived in front of her old house. It wasn't empty. On the contrary, it had a strong guard around it, which was not something that other houses had.
It was a platoon of knights, and she didn't recognize the coat of arms on their uniforms. They looked serious and focused, so she approached one of the ones at the gate.
"Good afternoon, my good sir. Would you mind telling me who lives in that manor?"
She approached with her most gracious smile while carefully tucking a lock of hair behind her ear in a timid and cute gesture. It was a gesture that she customized to activate her technique, Kawaiikute, which increased all her social rolls based on charisma for a time.
"Oh, no problem, young lady. This is the home of Wise Queen Aelindra. She usually works in the castle but lives here. I take it that you are a newcomer in this city?"
((Hehehe… newcomer…))
"Y-yeah, you could say that. I've been walking around, taking in the sights."