The capsule hissed.

  I exhaled, eyes still closed as the hatch slowly opened. My limbs felt light, nerves tingling from overexertion – both physically and mentally. I pulled off the neural pads, sat upright and stared ahead at nothing for a long, silent minute.

  The room was dim. The early morning light filtered through the wide window panes. Outside, the heather covered hills of northern Scotland rolled quietly toward the cliffs. No cars, no people. Just wind, sea and peace.

  I rubbed my face. It was just past 6 am, and I played for 22 hours straight, and it was time for some well deserved sleep. I really wanted to check the forums, but that had to wait; I was exhausted.

  About eight hours later, I woke up. It was early afternoon, so I decided to go and put together a hearty meal.

  As I went to the kitchen, the automatic coffee dispenser started working, and soon the fresh aroma of grinded coffee beans filled the air. My dinner was simple: chicken with rice, ready in less than half an hour.

  As I was eating I was already pondering what to do next. Maybe it was time for me to contact Ace, find out what region he's playing in. It was still only day 3 of the game, so if he was anywhere other than Tidemark, it was still a stretch for me to meet up with him, but I still wanted to let him know that I decided to play the game.

  I already knew he was going to be full of himself when he heard about this, but I knew I had to do it, and I'd rather do it sooner than later.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed. After two rings, Ace picked up.

  "Well damn," he said. "You do remember how to use a phone."

  I let out a tired laugh. "You were right. I wasn't done."

  There was a pause, then Ace replied, calm and collected.

  "Good. That means you're back where you belong."

  "I guess it does. How about you?" I asked.

  "I'm playing a Swordsman, the alias is Damocles. Level 12 currently, and I was just about to log back in."

  "A Swordsman?" I was confused. "I was sure you'll choose a Guardian."

  Ace didn't reply for a couple seconds.

  "Well, at first that was the plan. But then I realized that I want to kick Ryder's ass in a future 1v1, and Guardians are not primarily meant for that," he laughed.

  "You know what? That's a fair point," I smiled. "What region are you in?"

  "Ravenbeak, the region in the north-west. In the county of Ironholt."

  I recalled the map that I've seen when choosing my class.

  "Okay, that's not too far. I'm in Silverwing, in Tidemark county. It's pretty much the easternmost point of the kingdom."

  "So it's going to be a while before we can meet, then. But that's okay. Ranger, I guess?" He asked the obvious.

  "Ranger. Level 13, with quite a few adventures behind me already."

  "Wow, level 13? That's insane! I'm still about half a days worth of grinding for that," He said. "But I did spend quite a lot of time doing some unique questlines."

  "Do tell me."

  "Well..." he started. "Up until around level 9 it was mostly just grinding, gathering, crafting and doing Association quests. However I did find a treasure chest after deciding to climb one of the biggest mountains we have here. As far as I understand, these kind of chests are unique and one of a kind."

  "I haven't seen any yet."

  "Yeah, me and my crew have started hunting them lately, but we have only opened 2. One of them even had a level 15 Epic breastplate that I can't wait to use. And dozens of gold coins as well."

  "An epic item just for opening a chest?" I was starting to reevaluate my playstyle.

  "It was the reward for being the first to open a chest in the Ironholt county."

  That made it a bit more understandable. Still, I couldn't help but be a bit jealous.

  Ace then continued.

  "We have also killed six Elite Monsters so far, gaining Skill Runes and rare items."

  "How many are in your party?" I wondered. I had only met one Elite Monster so far.

  "There's four of us for now. Me and Cassie have spawned in Ironholt together, in two neighboring villages, which was quite lucky, but none of our actual crew are from around. Still, we managed to recruit two really good players; Carnivore, who's a really good Lancer, and a druid called Werebear. Quite thematic, eh?"

  "Yeah. So the four of you are on Elite hunts and scavenging for treasure chests?"

  "Mostly, yes. We have pretty good gear. But today we will be focusing on the Spring Festival events, as I have heard there are quite good rewards for those as well. Oh, and I also gained the Treasure Hunter title for being the first to open a chest in the county. It gives me +5 Agility and +1 Luck. What about you?"

  I smiled. It turns out that I wasn't the only one getting lucky with unique quests and situations, and that was to be expected. Godsrealm was vast, with millions of players around the world. Just like Cyrus with his Epic spell, Ace here has also been gaining power quickly.

  "I haven't found treasure chests, but I was given the first unlock bonus for a secret quest about goblins."

  "Ah, the Campleader quest? We have that here, too, but I have no clue who unlocked it first. What were the rewards?"

  "A Level 15 Rare battleaxe with a weapon skill that I sold for 7 gold. And some exp."

  "Wow, nice! I didn't even know even Rare items can have skills attached."

  In fact, the Battleaxe of Ur'Ka was the only Rare item so far that I have seen that had a weapon skill, and come to think of it, it was quite good too. It definitely could have qualified to be an Epic weapon if it's stats were a bit higher.

  "I also solod an Elite Monster, gaining a Rare skill rune, got picked for a personal quest by the Count, and led a raid against a Field Boss."

  "Dude, I also wanted to participate in a Field Boss raid, but only one had happened in our county so far and I was so far away."

  "It was incredible. Got an Epic Skill Rune out of it."

  "You're joking."

  "Nope. Insane skill, can't wait to hit 15."

  "Then go and log in, grind!"

  "Can't. I have been playing for 22 hours last time, I'm on cooldown."

  "Jesus, Seb. Don't overdo it. What were you even doing for 22 hours straight?"

  "Well..."

  I then told Ace about all of the Elder Stag questline, and how I had gotten a pet and a title out of it. It was his turn to be jealous now.

  We talked for about fifteen more minutes before him going online. We decided to meet up whenever the opportunity arose.

  Time to check the forums.

  I leaned back in my chair, and reached for my tablet, opening the Godsrealm Companion app. The homepage, as expected, was alive with activity. Dozens of new threads, videos and player reactions were flooding the regional forums.

  I navigated to the Silverwing region forum, where I saw a long list of posts about guild recruitments, WTS, WTB and LFG posts, and even a couple boss raid topics as well; 11 Field Bosses have fell in the region of Silverwing on day 2 of Godsrealm.

  I then dove deeper into the Tidemark sub. The top post had over a thousand upvotes.

  The post began with a dramatic retelling of the buildup, from the perspective of Alabaster, who was one of the lower level players participating in the raid. The rush to defend the village and the improvised leadership of an archer called Orion. The entire event had been recorded via the in-game capture system and compiled into a cinematic 18 minute highlight reel. Streaming was still not allowed, but players could already create video footage inside the game, and once the first week of NDA had passed, they would be able to uploaded it to other places as well.

  The thumbnail showed a red-eyed monstrosity towering above tombstones.

  I decided to check the top comments after watching the video.

  I read through all of the comments, but I didn't answer anyone's questions. I still wanted to lay low. Still, it was nice that the players of Tidemark were coming together under a thread like this, discussing the fight, the skills used, the drops and so on. It gave me a sense of familiarity with the playerbase.

  The second most upvoted post was about the Field Boss that was first killed in the county.

  I leaned back. The raid leader's ingame name was edited out of the video. Whoever this SirSalmon was, he definitely knew what he was doing.

  There was also a post about the neverending tunnels below Dryhollow's mines that was quite popular, with people theorycrafting about what could be down there. It was said that the first Epic tier weapon was dropped while exploring these caves. It was a sword called Palefang, but the wielder didn't share the details of the item.

  There were also a couple posts about the three caves in Fang Forest. One particular one was pretty detailed, saying that their group had explored one of them before getting killed by something they couldn't even see.

  According to them, the cave they were scouting had some kind of a puzzle mechanic inside it, but they were too low a level to gather more info.

  As I kept browsing, I saw Crimson Court's recruitment thread. It was the most popular recruiting post on the Tidemark forum, which made me worry a bit. However, there were a lot of negative comments stating that the members don't play fair, they gank solo players and that they are unreasonable.

  Cyrus: Still hiding behind numbers, are you?

  xRune: Avoid at all costs if you don't want your early game ruined.

  The last post that caught my attention was a player organized event.

  I raised an eyebrow. At first a grassroots tournament like this didn't sound like much, but this was exactly the kind of gathering where future rivalries were born. Additionally, a PvP tournament was something I would definitely be interested in. The price to join was high, but I knew I had pretty good chances. I'll see how I'll be come Sunday.

  I sent a PM to Shieldbreaker saying I was interested, just in case they ran out of spots in the coming days.

  I leaned back, feeling the dangerous but familiar pull again. Godsrealm was growing into something vast, and I was already feeling getting woven into its early legend.