Everything looks better in the morning. You know how it goes: a problem comes up during the day, and by the time you go to sleep, your brain turns to mush trying to figure it out. Thoughts start popping up in your head that no sane person would deem healthy, "Why me?" or "What did I ever do to deserve this?" Then you decide to screw it all and head to bed—tomorrow is another day. Out of the whole cluster of smart, acceptable, and just plain crazy options, one or two start to crystalize into something you can act on. At least, that's how it goes with me.
And on this day, the situation was even simpler. With no problems whatsoever to deal with, I woke up and thought back on my first day in the game. All things considered...not bad! Though I still wasn't sure why the Fayroll world was so popular. It may have been great for kids and handicapped people. The former could blow off all the angst puberty threw at them—excessive ego and a frustrated sex drive. The latter enjoyed what they couldn't in this life—people without limbs experienced life with them, mute people talked, and, really, they just got the chance to be treated as equals. Nobody looked at them sideways, and they didn't have to deal with fake attention being lavished on them. They were just a few more players on par with everyone else. I had to give Raidion some props for that.
All that made sense, but what about everyone else? What about all the fully functional and often well-off adults? Sure, the game looked great. It was realistic. The atmosphere was interesting. But games like that were a dime a dozen. Why was Fayroll the one everyone stuck with? That was something I needed to figure out.
I grabbed some food and climbed into the capsule. Time to throw off the shackles of noobhood and take my first steps in the big world.
I found myself sitting under the same tree I had exited by the day before. The only difference was the daylight I was bathed in. Good morning! Not far away, the same forest crawled with wildlife, and a bit farther away, a pair of elves happily shot their bows and arrows at a beaver that, for some reason, had left its dam and trundled toward me. The elves seemed not to care how wildly they were missing.
"Hey! I thought elves were all about protecting nature? What are you doing to that poor animal?" I yelled.
"Oh, stop it!" yelled back one of the elves. "Who do you think we are, Greenpeace?"
"We're dark elves, so we're allowed to," his friend added more politely.
"You're monsters," I answered. "Torturing animals like that... Just put him out of his misery!"
The poor beaver by this time was stuck full of arrows, though the fact that none of them had landed a critical hit meant that he couldn't give up his digital ghost. There was no blood, of course—humanism in action. The little guy kept trundling along without any dying groans for the same reason.
"Oh, screw you!" the less polite elf announced. "He isn't hurting, and we're getting experience."
I realized there was no changing their minds, gave up, and started off along the yellow brick road to adventure.
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More Than A Game (Epic LitRPG adventure)
FantasyHarriton Nikiforov, journalist, cynic, and binge-drinker must enter the world of Fayroll in the assignment of a lifetime to discover the game taking society by storm. Fayroll, An idyllic land of magic, monsters and quests sees Harriton become 'Hagen...