A woman appeared above a sea of grass. She was 9 feet tall with the brightest blond hair and sapphire blue eyes. She was wearing a white toga with a crown of wheat on her head, and while holding a scythe in her right hand, she looked at Mark through the screen.
At least that's how it appeared to him. Since Mark had decided to watch the ad again while waiting for the game to fully download, not knowing this was actually the world of Alyssa confirming the connection to his computer. So that when he pressed play, his mind could safely go into the computer while his body lay in his chair.
The beautiful woman on his monitor began to speak, "I am Detrei, goddess of Allyssa and guide to the Detreons. Long had my people known peace and prosperity as they tilled the land and tended to their herds, but now that peace has been shattered. My brother Hargal threatens all that lives as the god of burials with his army of undead." The scene changes as the field of grass withers, and now farmers with scythes desperately try to fend off unending hordes of skeletal undead on hilltop forts.
"Sadly, my people have had to learn the ways of war, but what they have learned is not enough for what threatens them. Even now Hargal threatens us with even more powerful undead monstrosities than the ones that are already at our doorstep. Detrei said with a sad tone as the image changed once again, this time showing underground tombs filled with what looked like some type of insects made of flesh and bone.
"That is why I implore you, people of another world who know more of war than we do, to come to us and help us in our darkest hour." Detrei pleads to whatever player is watching, clearly showing distress and desperation at her people's situation. Mark found himself being drawn in despite it looking like a generic undead apocalypse happening to your local ancient farming community. He could see in the few scenes what looked like real people desperately trying to hold back Hargal's undead horde.
Which is what drew Mark to purchase the game in the first place: to save people like the hero he should be instead of the warden he felt he was. Eventually, though, his thoughts came to a stop as a ding came from his PC telling him the download was complete, but for some reason the game asked him to get into a comfortable position before he started it.
Mark did find it a bit strange but not really finding the harm in it. So Mark got into a comfortable slouch position in his chair before he clicked start on the game. Then he found his mind leaving his body and rapidly going down a bright tunnel towards something. Eventually the never-ending light show did end, and he found himself on the grass plain he had been watching in the earlier game ad for Allyssa.
Mark was beginning to freak out, wondering if this was how the mad met the Eldritch horrors and fell to their sway, and he was very concerned he was about to join their ranks. Luckily, before he could do anything hasty, Detrei descended before him, and her mere presence gave off a comforting aura that calmed him down from his panicking state.
"Do not worry, young warrior; you have come to Allyssa. You shall not be harmed so long as you are here, for you are here only in mind and spirit, not in body, and may leave as you wish." Detrei said with a gentle but firm tone, explaining quickly to Mark that he wasn't trapped or in any danger.
"How though?" Mark asked, still in shock from the emotional whiplash of thinking he was going to be a slave of an Eldritch god to everything being okay and him just being in a video game talking to the game's goddess on a grass field.
"Simple young warrior, a connection from this world of Allyssa to yours was created, but this connection was not of a physical nature; no, this was of a more spiritual one, allowing you and others to come through with only your minds and spirits, leaving behind your bodies so you did not have to risk any physical harm to help us in this war." Detrei explained to Mark, hoping to rectify any concerns he may have and that he may spread the word to others in his world. So that more would come to join her cause without fear of the unknown holding them back.
"Okay, got it. I can leave when I want. I'm not in any danger while I'm here, but how am I going to help you without a physical body?" Mark was calm now that he knew he was safe from Eldritch slavery, though now he was confused about how he was going to help the Detreons fight the undead while being on Allyssa just in spirit.
"Simple. Once I'm done showing you how to fight on Allyssa, you will form a physical body that you can use to interact with the world of Allyssa." Detrei answered Mark while the area around them changed. Instead of just being an empty grass field with the two of them, there was now a table in front of Mark with several strange seeds laid out on it, and a few meters away from the table were several wooden dummies, each holding wooden clubs and little wooden bucklers.
"How to fight? I was under the impression you needed people from my world to show your people how to fight." Mark asked confused once again, though this time at Detrei's contradiction to her earlier statements. She gave him a small smile and waved him to approach the table. Once Mark was at the table, Detrei began to explain.
"It is true we need your people to help us, for you are far more familiar with war than we, but I have created special weapons from my domain as a goddess of harvest to give you the edge you need against Hargal's undead hordes," Detrei said to Mark as she slowly waved to the different seeds on the table, indicating these were the supposed special weapons she was talking about.
Mark was rather suspect of how seeds could be weapons made from a goddess, but Mark came from a world where he worked as an orderly for an insane asylum for mad supers, so weapon seeds weren't the craziest thing he'd seen or heard of, not by far. "Go on, young warrior, pick up a seed and you will see." Detrei told Mark as she began pointing at the seed farthest to the left on the table.
Mark picked up the large seed and held it in his hand; as he did so, a strange green sheen appeared over the seed. Shocking mark causing him to almost drop the seed out of surprise, but he managed to hold on to the seed, and after thinking on it for a moment, it shouldn't have surprised him that much that there were digital screens popping up in a video game.
Mark looked at the text for a little while, trying to guess what he was supposed to do with the seed. He could tell he was supposed to modify it, which was obvious, but how exactly to go about doing that, he had no idea. So he looked to Detrei for guidance, who took in his look of confusion and began to explain the process.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"This is a fox tail. It is one of the many crops that I have access to. It isn't dangerous, but you can modify it into a weapon by simply tapping at the modify part of the screen, which will bring out a 3D box showing you the crop fully matured that will grow from the seed, and you can begin to change it into a weapon from there by using its traits and form." Detrei explaining to Mark as she began to demonstrate to him by stretching and hardening the fully formed foxtail in the 3D box.
Mark now understanding how the seeds could be weaponized thanks to Detrei's explanation and the demonstration she gave of how to use the 3D box showed him how he could do it, but he was still confused. "Ummm, mighty Detrei, how do traits factor into weaponizing a seed?" Mark was unsure how the traits worked exactly or how grain would factor into making foxtail into a weapon, and he was a bit worried if he had addressed a literal goddess right.
"You can just address me as Detrei, young warrior, and to answer your question, different crops will have different traits. You will use the traits of the crop to give your weapon an added lethality. In the case of foxtail, it has the grain trait, so you can modify the grain the foxtail produces to make the final version of your weaponized foxtail even more dangerous." Detrei explained to Mark, who believed he understood, but to be sure, he began to experiment immediately with the modifying of the fox tail to be sure he truly understood all that he had been told.
Mark first began his modification to the foxtail by shortening then hardening the stem so that it now functions as a handle. Mark then began focusing on the purple flower part of the foxtail. He began to lengthen it until it was a decent length, then he hardened the core while sharpening the edges. Now he effectively had a purple short blade, but now Mark had to use the grain trait, which took him a moment as he racked his brain in how to use the grain in his blade.
Eventually Mark had an idea: he began to sharpen the grain till the grain had a rather sharp point at one end, and he began to add the now-piercing grain, as the game's system called it, to the edge of his purple blade. Once Mark was done adding all the piercing grain along the edge of his blade, he pressed the finished button on his creation and watched a congrats screen pop up as well as the details for his new weapon.
Mark looked at the status screen for a little bit before deciding yes, he was going to name his first weapon Alyssa. He called it the Foxes Teeth—not the most imaginative name, but Mark had never claimed to be the most imaginative person.
"Now, young warrior, that you have finished your weapon, it is time to test it." Detrei said shocking Mark, who had actually forgotten her as he had gotten so focused on the blade now named Fox Teeth. He watched as she pointed to one of the training dummies who began to approach Mark slowly, his mace and buckler at the ready. The table holding the seeds had disappeared along with the other seeds on it as the dummy made its way to Mark.
Mark got into a stance with his new flower sword as the system has called it at the ready. Once the dummy was a few meters away, it charged Mark, its club held high and its buckler held in front. Mark swung his blade at the club, hoping to parry it and see how effective grain clash was. Instead of parrying it like he expected, fox teeth went right through the club and the wooden hand holding it.
The dummy with no face somehow stared at Mark, making him feel guilty about disarming him so early in the fight. That when the dummy charged him with a buckler, looking to slam him to the ground. Mark, a bit surprised at the sudden shift from accusing stare to furious charge, performed a wild side swing with fox teeth that ended with him going through the dummy like he was paper cutting him in half.
Once again the dummy seemed to stare at him without eyes, accusing him silently, before the feeling disappeared and he was left staring at two halves of what was once a whole combat training dummy. This signified to mark that the grain clash on his sword might have made his sword far sharper than he had expected.
"Mmmmm, I believe you have shown your weapons effectiveness, my young warrior, and now you have proven that fact. You have a choice: would you like to head home, or would you answer one of my pleas before you return to your world?" Detrei asked, causing Mark to look at her confused at just what she was getting at, which he felt was becoming a habit until he saw the desperation in her eyes, and he knew his answer to her question.
Robert watched all of this from the screen in his workshop, monitoring the interaction, making sure Allyssa's gaming system was functioning properly, as well as making sure that Detrei was doing alright meeting people from another world.
"I see you're watching the drama unfold as well, my dear Robert." Simon said in his usual tone of voice, the one that was cheery and eager, but to anyone but Robert, it would just sound like a badly tuned microphone. "It is always nice to see the kids making friends." Simon added to his earlier comment.
Robert sighed in exasperation as he watched the monitors. "Yeah, I suppose it is, but I'd rather it not be because my two kids are fighting each other, but I'm trying to stay positive by paying attention to how well the game is functioning." Robert said, trying to be upbeat.
"There you go, Robert. Always try to find the bright side; it's what makes the world go round. So let's see what happens next to make it brighter, shall we? Simon said to Robert in his still happy and eager tone of voice.
"Yeah, I suppose we should." Robert said with a defeated tone as he sighed once again before turning his full attention back to the many monitors in his workshop to watch what happens next in Allyssa with its first player.