Chapter 7: A Lonely While

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Aquila spent the next three weeks in Novus Town; which had changed quite a lot in such a small amount of time. Some players hadn't expected things to drag on for this long, hoping that something would happen in the real world to get them out of the game. But as it was; the game continued to run as normal and people were beginning to adapt.

There weren't many secrets left in Novus Town, or things to be discovered. It was quite a small village – and although there were some niche NPC's with some odd questlines, mostly everything that Aquila felt was worth discovered could be discovered within a few days. As time passed, rumours began spread about new quests or a rare item that could be obtained in some obscure location. Although some of those rumours were true, most of them were invented. The majority of the players who had chosen to stay in Novus Town, at this point, were low levelled players who were focusing on non-combat skills – and it was becoming common practise for higher levelled players to lure unsuspecting players into the PvP zone by claiming to be able to show them the location of some rare piece of equipment. But Aquila knew better.

At this point, Aquila was becoming more and more doubtful that Sophia and Alister were in the town at all. After all, the population of players who were still around had come to thin out quite a lot. If Alister and Sophia were still here, he was sure to have run into them by now. Aquila could only hope that wherever they were, they were still alive.

Aquila wandered casually through the town square of Novus Town. The once chaotic area, full of new players who had just been taken from their lives and thrust into a game they knew nothing about, was now a quiet place for hanging out and trading with NPCs. Aquila walked straight through the middle of the square, past an orc who seemed to be approaching people and asking if they had any wood for sale, as well as a group of players who just seemed to be gossiping, and opened the large double doors that lead into the general store, which was now much quieter than it had once been. In fact there were only four other people in there.

'Morning Astrid,' Aquila said to the dark elf behind the counter. He had gotten into the habit of greeting the NPCs that he saw on a regular basis, maybe because they did such a good job of emulating a real person that he'd forgotten that they weren't real people.

'Morning Little_aquila,' Astrid replied.

Aquila clicked on the trade tab which opened two windows, one showing Aquila's inventory, and another showing the items that the general store was offering. It was normally impossible to buy from the general store, anything that any player sold to them re-appeared for sale, so it was flooded with junk items like rabbit skins. But they had unlimited cashflow, and items didn't devalue if they had plenty of that item in stock.

Aquila selected a stack of redfin from his inventory, a fish that could be caught down by the lake and sold for about 4 gold each, and sold half the stack immediately. 40 gold was added to his cash stack; the window disappeared as Aquila waved his hand.

'See you Astrid,' Aquila said.

'Until next time Little_Aquila.'

Aquila slipped out of the general store and began dawdling through the town square. There were a few people about, the orc had disappeared, but now he noticed a couple of players sitting around on the edge of a fountain eating ice cream and laughing. Others were approaching the various stores that had remained unchanged since they'd entered the game. The sun shone down in full brilliance, from where it sat at its peak. Aquila found a bench and sat down, admiring the weather that he had discovered would change occasionally.

Since he'd survived his encounter in the PvP zone, he'd sold the loot and used the money to upgrade his armour. He found out that although heavy armour and weapons heightened defence and attack significantly in the game, they also detracted from agility and stealth – which would be counter intuitive since he'd invested most of his passive points into agility, perception and health. Aquila had found a blacksmith on the edge of town that sold some gear, that although was low levelled, was still an upgrade from his current armour set. He bought a full set of light leather armour, as well as a patched red cloak (which heightened his agility and stealth by +1). He'd used the rest of the gold to restock his arrows.

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