“All done. Report to this office at 10:00 in the morning in three days’ time for the event. Have a good day.”
With that out of the way, the man shooed him away and waved the person behind him forward. No sooner had he breathed a sigh of relief than a message popped up.
Warning. You only have 4 hours of game time left this session.
What timing. At least I got that out of the way. With little time to work, he hurried around the city and found the two quest givers for the other quests. Luckily an icon showed up on his minimap showing their general position. After that, he just had to ask around for them. Those two quests gave him 350 experience and another 1 silver and 40 copper.
A quick trip to Master Proth’s place allowed him to buy Barkskin for 50 copper. From there, he beat a hasty retreat for the inn. The clock was running down on his time and he wanted to get to the safety of his room before then. With less than a quarter of an hour to spare, he burst into the inn and waved at the innkeeper. Not even bothering to say hi, he ran straight for the stairs and to his room.
Once inside, he locked the door and promptly fell into the bed and closed his eyes.
Do you wish to log out? Yes/No.
He selected Yes.
His time back in the actual world mainly consisted of him rearranging his schedule. With the event in three days, he wanted to make sure he was off. His original intent was to log off for a day and then go back in for two before two more days of work. Since he didn’t know how long the event itself would take, he opted to delay his return to the game and picked up an extra shift early. He took a coworkers Monday shift and swapped them for their Wednesday off. This would allow him to log back in first thing Tuesday for the event and stay on until Thursday. Since the developers knew of their own restrictions on game time, he was sure the event wouldn’t take over two days at most.
The time crawled by as he waited for his chance to return. He attempted to contact Keenan multiple times, but had no luck. Finally, after the boring days at work, he finally returned to Gaia. Jean was there to greet him this time, and she positively glowed when he spotted her.
“Guess you’re gearing up for the event?” she asked.
“You know it. Looking forward to this.”
“Good luck! I’m rooting for you,” She told him as she reached out and gently squeezed his hand. He felt the heat flush to his cheeks at the unexpected touch.
“Thanks. I’ll see you later,” was all he could manage before he jumped back in the capsule. The whirring started, and the blackness took over.
Chapter 11
The Wild Hunt
The wooden walls of the inn greeted him and he wasted no time snatching up his bags and heading out. Crowds clogged the streets, and Atlas could only assume it was in anticipation of the upcoming event.
The path to the registrar’s office took some time to maneuver as he carefully pushed through the crowds. Once the building came into view, he spotted a large gathering outside. Leather and metal armor with a variety of weapons swathed the people in front of the building. These must be the other participants.
Atlas calmly walked to the gathering and stood near a small gathering of them.
“This is going to be awesome. I wonder who I’ll be partnered with,” one guy said. He wore sturdy leather armor and carried two small daggers on his belt.
“As long as I’m not partnered with noobs, I’ll be fine. I’m taking that five gold prize,” another answered. He stood tall with leather armor on his chest and legs, but he carried a metal short sword and shield and wore metal shod boots, bracers, and gloves.
“Do you think they’ll assign teams based on our classes? It’d suck to get stuck on a team of nothing but healers,” a female said. She wore a flowing gray robe with white trim on the edges. Her belt had a short wand clipped on it and a backpack was slung over her shoulder.
“Anyone heard how many total people are in the event? Or how many teams there will be?” Atlas asked.
The group of three turned his way before the woman spoke up, “I’ve heard there were somewhere around eighty people in our region. Not sure how many people they’ll put on each team.”
“In our region?” Atlas asked, confused.
“They broke the event up into regions. Each region has its own event happening right now. Would be unfair to compete with people in other places simultaneously. Different zones have different animals to hunt. Did you not look into the event at all before signing up?” she asked with a hint of derision in her voice.
“I spent the day of the announcement to grind out the entry fee, then logged off for the last two days due to work. Haven’t dug into the details much,” Atlas said, sheepishly.
“Humph, sounds like a poor excuse. Can’t even bother to check the forums for info either, I guess?” the warrior huffed.
“Another waste of our time. Hopefully he’s not on our team,” the assassin character said as he nodded toward Atlas.
Instead of trying to argue with them, he ignored them and moved on. He wandered from group to group and listened to snippets of conversation. The big surprise came when he
