The Quest Begins

It took Sawyer a few moments to adjust to his new location, but the others were up and moving right away. Clearly, this wasn't their first rodeo.

Noah was surveying the area by climbing up a nearby hill and looking out over the landscape. "Looks like we're in a fairly mountainous area - and closer to the top. That's good. It means other teams probably won't come this way right away and we'll have first dibs on all the loot."

"A most fortuitous occurrence!" Mark said while crawling around on the ground, picking mushrooms and other plants. "Shall we seek out the loot immediately, or set up a base camp as on our last expedition, hmm?"

Emmet looked just as lost Sawyer, although Sawyer got the feeling he was just waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

Noah came down from his vantage. "Yeah, we should probably go for loot right away. If we can pick up some weapons, we can start fighting monsters and moving in towards a dungeon to maximize XP and get stronger equipment. Sawyer, the way this game works is; there are dungeons generated randomly across the world, and the closer you get to one, the more monsters there are. Actually clearing a dungeon is a serious challenge, so it's smart to explore the overworld first to pick up chests that spawn in randomly there. The loot is never very good, but it will be better than the nothing we have right now. Does that make sense?"

Sawyer nodded, taking it all in. Step 1: Find chests. Step 2: Find dungeon, fight monsters. Step 3: Go into dungeon, hopefully clear for the best loot. Repeat from step 2. Simple enough.

"Wait, what about the tournaments? Isn't that a big part of this game?"

Noah nodded, "Oh right. Those are technically optional. If you just wanted to play this as a survival RPG, we totally could. But they're the most fun part in my opinion. In one in-game week, we'll get teleported automatically to the arena and get to battle it out with other teams to see how we're doing. If all goes well, we'll have the best loot, skills, and levels to dominate!"

"Th-they're kind of stressful b-but fun once you get used to it," Emmet added.

"Let's away without another moment's delay," Mark said, holding up a stick like a staff and marching forward. "To loot!"

It turns out a big portion of VCR was a hiking simulator. The gang trudged through forest, up and down cliffs, around ponds and over hills, looking for loot. In that time - which felt like nearly an hour in-game, they had found nothing.

Finally, Noah pointed to the top of a cliff where the ruins of an old wizard's tower was crumbling about fifty feet up. "Buildings like that almost always have loot. A general rule of thumb: If it's interesting, it's probably worth exploring. Gets more views on the replays than if you just found a chest no the ground in the middle of the road."

They took the long way around the back of the cliff so that they didn't have to scale the bare rock face. Mark had to kick in the door to the tower. It was so lopsided there was no other way to get it to budge. Sunlight beamed in through huge gaps in the tower wall on the other side, illuminating a mess of rotten books, ornate furniture, once-colorful rugs, broken vases, etc. It really looked like it had been lived-in by a wizard, long ago.

"Check the top. It's always at the top," Emmet said, nervously sliding inside and looking up the spiral staircase.

"We should probably go one at a time. I don't trust those stairs to hold more than one person. Sawyer, you want the honors? The rest of us can split up and look around the rest of the place."

"Oh, s-sure," Sawyer answered, glancing up the dilapidated stairs. "I'll check it out..."

The party then split up, and Sawyer was left climbing the steps one by one, feeling them shift with each step. HE was halfway up when one of the bricks snapped out of the wall and tumbled down to the floor far below. It smashed into dust the moment it hit the ground. Sawyer gulped and flattened himself to the wall, hoping to spread as much of his weight out as he could.

"Hath the quest been conquered yet, young protege?" Mark called up. Sawyer assumed that he was the young protege, despite being 18 years old and a good foot taller than mark. " Everything alright?"

"J-just fine!" he called down. But just as he'd did, the stairs began to crumble rapidly. Starting about a dozen steps in the direction he'd just come from, the started cracking loudly.

Noah, who had just come out of another room, saw immediately and pointed up. "Sawyer, run for it!"

The stairs collapsed. Each one began plummeting straight down in quick succession. Sawyer bolted forward, barely finding balance as another and another stair fell behind him with echoing crashes. He was about ten feet from the top but could hear the crumbling getting closer to him. The shaking got harder, the crashed more frequent. He lunged for the landing, diving like a sprinter at the finish line, and barely caught the edge of the tower floor as the final step fell out from under him.

He hung from the edge for a moment, looking down at the rest of his party from high above, thankful that the game was a little generous with upper-body strength. He wouldn't have had the grip to dangle there like that in real life, much less pull himself up to safety.

When he fully up on the highest ledge, he found the treasure he'd been searching for: A bright white wooden chest with gold adornments. It looks sparklingly bright since there was no roof left on the tower and the sun hit it directly.

Sawyer didn't hesitate to open it. He didn't want to be up there any longer than he had to be.

Inside was:

Item: Umbrella
Type: Utility weapon
Description: Rain, sun, monsters? Who needs swords when you have an umbrella? Whack goblins, block raindrops, make your own shade, - even fall from great heights with no problems - this umbrella can do it all!

The description was a little over the top for Sawyer's taste. And on top of that, it was just an umbrella. A pink umbrella. Not exactly the awesome armor set or sweet sword he'd been hoping for. That said, it did have one feature that seemed especially convenient in the given circumstances.

Sawyer pulled the umbrella out and jumped. Just as he thought, as soon as he started descending, the umbrella opened up and allowed him to gently float to the ground. He felt a little silly holding on to a bright pink umbrella as he slowly sank through the air. It was trimmed in white lace and little floral designs were sewn into it.

"Whoa, gotcha!" Noah said, catching Sawyer under the arms to help him down as he descended. It was a little embarrassing being helped down like that, but he had just leaped off the top of a tower. He could see why his party would be a little cautious about the landing.

Mark was the first to snicker. "Tis pink, m'lord! Or should I say m'lady?!"

Emmet laughed too and adjusted his glasses, "I suppose this item was added for the girl gamer segment of VCR's player base. Likely in the Happy Hearth update known for its especially gendered additions!"

Noah rolled his eyes. "Don't mind them. It's a cool item. What matters is how useful it is, not how it looks. Slow fall is way more useful than it sounds. Clearly."

"Yeah yeah, whatever you guys. Thanks Noah, I'm just glad I didn't die in the first hour of playing. Should we go look for some better loot? We still have most of the day before dark to explore. May as well make the most of it."

The party agreed and they set out for more adventuring.