“God, I hate this,” said the tall elven woman. “If there wasn’t a waitlist for new characters, I’d quit and start over again.”
Sarah tried her best to smile for her new friend Daphne, but it was hard. She was as unhappy with her current situation as the wood elf player. “Wouldn’t that be nice. How long is the wait list?”
Daphne sighed. “Two years. They want to discourage people from re-rolling their characters. Seems they allowed it for a while and a few players were really smart about how they did it the second time, and then they got a wave of people trying to restart.”
Sarah winced. There was no chance she was spending the next two years sitting in the apartment-like room that Corton had made for her to visit her mom in. She’d go crazy without something to do. Even the drudgery of her current situation was better than sitting around doing nothing. “Too long for me.”
“Same. I’m just pissed at myself for not seeing this coming,” Daphne said. “If anyone should say ‘no’ to trusting cute men who smile too much, it is me. I’ve made this mistake way too many times in real life to fall for it here too.”
“Hey, you two quit talking and grab your gear. It’s time to go to the creek,” said Benton, one of the players who was now the girls’ employer. In reality, they were basically slaves, having been tricked into agreeing to contracts that made them indentured servants to the Black Wolf Guild. When Sarah had entered the world of New Realm Online, she’d awoke in the village of Cedar Springs, a remote village. She’d started by wandering the village and doing small quests for the villagers. It had been fun, and she’d enjoyed the amazing realism the game provided. For someone who was being forced by her health to possibly spend the rest of her life living in a game, it was nice to see how real it felt. She had been excited and ready to immerse herself into the game as much as possible. When she got her first opportunity to join a guild, she’d thought it would be a great way to meet other players. After all, she was several years younger than other players and had little in common with them, but as part of a guild she’d do quests and share experiences with them. So, she’d joined the guild as a trainee. She signed a binding contract that committed her to following the guild’s orders for the next thirty days, with no opt out clause. She’d thought it wouldn’t matter, but the reality of the situation was far from what she’d expected. The Black Wolf Guild didn’t use trainees to bolster their ranks, they used them as free labor. They preyed on new players' inexperience and signed them up as fast as possible before they could learn the truth. She was trapped—there was no way to get out of the contract. Other players had tried. They’d escaped the village fleeing into the woods only to be found and punished. The guild had trackers who excelled at hunting players down and trapping them. The ones who tried escaping were punished and given even worse labor jobs to do.
Benton shoved a pan and a sack into Sarah’s hands and pushed her towards the creek before turning to Daphne and doing the same.
As they entered the creek, Daphne swore. “Damn, I hate cold water.”
“At least we aren’t stuck in a mine all day like some of the others. I’d rather be out in the sun. Panning for gold is better than swinging a pickaxe.”
“True,” Daphne admitted. “I’m glad I picked an elven character. All the dwarves and humans get thrown into the mines right away. I’m surprised that they didn’t throw you in as well. You do look a little like a dwarf. An extremely cute half eleven dwarf.”
Standing a touch over four feet tall, Sarah’s character was certainly diminutive like a dwarf, but she was in fact a Muran. A unique class of character that could only be played by medi-pod players. Aside from her small, childlike stature, which Sarah found amusingly apt, the Muran were a race with an interesting back story. According to the game, the Muran were cousins to the elven race but with fairy bloodlines. Muran characters were blessed with speed, agility, high intelligence, and magical potential. They also were by far the cutest of the characters in Sarah’s mind. The oversized eyes and delicate features had a very anime quality to them that Sarah just loved. Thankfully, strength and endurance were not characteristics that the Muran were blessed with. Hence her position gold panning. “Thank goodness, I’m not one. I’d hate working in the mine.”
“I can’t wait until my time is up. I’ll never pick up another gold pan again. I don’t care how high I level the skill. The first thing I’m doing is getting myself a nice bow and becoming a huntress. That way if any other cute characters from shady guilds start sweet-talking me, I’ll shoot them right in the face,” Daphne said.
Sarah laughed. “Good plan.”
“What about you? You seem to have a goal in mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you bounce around more than a baby kangaroo, but you also focus more on mining than any of us, yet you never bring in any more gold?”
Sarah glanced around to see how close the guards were who watched them. Benton and the other guild members in charge of watching their work crew were off to the side talking amongst themselves. “I try to exercise as much as possible. You can improve your stats that way. Lots of squatting increases your strength.”
“And your gold?”
Sarah grinned. “I might accidentally miss some gold.” The truth was, Sarah missed a lot of gold on purpose. The guild didn’t give her any credit for extra, so she produced the minimum every day to stay out of trouble. Her gold panning skills were getting really good. She had developed a skill called Keen Mineral Awareness. Areas with higher potential gold would glow. Ever since she’d developed the skill, Sarah had been avoiding those areas. Once she was done serving her time for the jerkface guild, she’d come back and re-pan this creek. Gold was as valuable in the game as it was in the real world. In the meantime, she focused more on developing other skills by doing little things that helped build them. She squatted as much as possible and balanced on one leg while panning to build agility. Anything she could do without bringing too much attention to herself while levelling up her skills. Being weak in New Realm Online was not an option. If she was going to survive and thrive in this world, she’d have to get stronger. The Black Wolf Guild might have her now, but they couldn’t stop her from improving herself.
Daphne laughed in approval. “Maybe I should do some squats too. Bending over all day sucks and getting stronger certainly isn’t a bad idea. It will help me kill those clowns once I get a nice bow.”
Sarah nodded as she deftly let a nugget of gold slip out of her pan and back into the creek.
Congrats, you have reached Gold miner Level 2.
Sarah grinned at the notification. She’d keep getting stronger and increasing her skills while she waited for her opportunity. Yes, one day she’d also be strong enough to give the guild some payback. Sarah came from a strong line of women and she wasn’t going to forgive and forget when her time with the guild was done. They’d pay for their deviousness someday, but for now she was focused on improving herself as much as possible.