The Fishing Rod and Welcome Pack

There are apps that can be downloaded onto smart phones of relaxing sounds that help soothe the mind and spirit, that help in meditation or promote sleep. A firm favourite of these apps is the soothing sound of waves gently lapping against the shore, falling onto the sand in one second, receding in the next. None of them including the sudden rumblings of an empty stomach.

"Your Majesty, what are you doing?"

A seagull with bright eyes and black tipped wings hopped around a man sitting on the sand with a long stick held in his left hand. Tied on the other end of the stick and trailing in the ocean waters, was a thin vine.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He asked the gull in resigned retort. "I'm fishing."

"But, Your Majesty," The seagull side glanced over the blue waters, "there are currently no fish in the ocean. We haven't reached that level of Kingdom Building yet."

The man dropped his 'fishing rod' before rising to his feet and heading to his current favourite napping spot on the island. The rod was captured by the ocean waves and tossed to and fro. After watching it for a moment, the seagull flapped its wings to hurry after Russell, supposed King of this small piece of land.

He heard the man's stomach rumble and the well placed complaint; "Where am I supposed to get food from?"

"Well, Your Majesty," The seagull replied earnestly. "There are currently ten types of edible plants on the island and three edible mushrooms."

"But no meat?"

"Um, no, not yet," The seagull confirmed. "Ah, but rest assured, meat products, condiments and general snacks that you were used to eating on your homeworld can be purchased for points from the System Menu! God set things up this way so that World Builders such as yourself, did not become too despondent or homesick while performing their responsibilities! I can guarantee that I can get you anything that you desire for the right price!" The bird stuck out his feathered chest, proudly.

"Great," a shadow of a smile could be seen upon the man's face. "Give me a ham and cheese sandwich, without mayonnaise."

"Sorry!" The seagull apologised in a slightly too cheerful tone. "You don't have the points for that!"

The man fell silent for a moment before hesitantly asking; "Just how many points do I have?"

"None!"

He had a feeling that the bird was going to say that. This was some crappy game after all. If he'd had the option, he'd have uninstalled it straight away. Played some solitaire instead. Mahjong was good too.

"Just how do I get points?" Russell hated to ask, but felt he had no other option.

"Points are part of the rewards for completing missions given by me, the System!" The seagull responded enthusiastically. "You can also receive points by completing achievements and hidden objectives, also levelling up the kingdom and later, helping your citizens!"

"Achievements? Giving aid to citizens?"

"Yes, for example, if you'd actually managed to hook a fish, you would have gained the 'Fishing' achievement! With citizens, they might ask you to help them find something or lend a hand! All these things earn a few points!"

"How do I keep track of these things?"

The seagull slapped his small forehead with his wing and chuckled sheepishly. "Ah, forgive me Your Majesty, I forgot to give you the welcome pack that I had made just for you!"

A chest suddenly materialised beside them, startling the man for a moment, but he soon shrugged off the surprise. The chest was made of a dark, hardwood and had cast iron hinges and braces. It looked promising. Russell pushed himself to his knees and opened the lid of the chest, giving it an almighty heave and panting due to the exertion. Eyes full of hope became despondent and glanced down at the seagull.

"Ha ha, unfortunately," the seagull admitted. "As we are doing things off of the radar, so to speak, I could only gather things that no one else really wanted. But they're all useful, I assure you."

Russell picked up the stone axe, whose twine attaching shaped flint to handle came loose and with it, the stone head. He voiced dissatisfaction through his expression, but it was definitely loud and clear.

The seagull coughed, before flapping upwards and landing on the edge of the chest, then hopped into it. It rummaged around for a bit before picking out an item at the bottom with its beak. It passed the object over to the man.

It appeared to be a smart watch, but it's screen curved nearly one hundred and fifty degrees before giving into a silver metal strap. The frame of the screen was also silver and it had a mini-camera lens embedded on one side of the frame. The otherside had a tiny torch. For a smart watch, it wasn't bad looking, kind of cool even in the eye of a FPS gamer, but there were two slight problems.

"This thing weighs more than my mum!" Russell complained as he hefted the thing up. "And that's before she heads to her first session at Weight Watchers."

"Ah, admittedly," The seagull mentioned as it flew out of the chest. "It was a factory reject because of that small problem."

But even if it didn't weigh more than a ton of bricks, it was way too large on Russell's rather thin wrists. He placed it on the ground for the time being to scan through the options on the watch. It had many of the usual, expected features, one's involving exercise, counting steps, calories and such, none of which he felt he'd ever use or need. Naturally, there was a time and a date, but the time was set at 12 midday without motion from the second's digits and the date was the 1st of the 1st, 1.

Brushing past these, he found that the watch did have the statistics the seagull mentioned in regards to his points balance, his Kingdom's level, the number of citizens and even his treasury, all of which were unsurprisingly, at 0.

With a sigh, he pushed aside the watch and glanced at the rest of his 'tools' within the chest. Apart from the broken stone axe, there was a sleeping bag with a zip stuck halfway up its length, a lighter in the shape of a cigar, a bucket and space with cartoon character stickers peeling off of the brightly coloured plastic, a metal canister with no lid, a bone needle, but no thread and a white canvas with large, primary coloured spots on it.

He lifted this last object out and turned to question the seagull. "I just thought it was interesting," the System admitted, rubbing at the feathers upon its head with one wing. "Don't worry, it's not the real thing, just an imitation. We can use it to decorate the base camp! Speaking of which, that's a part of your first mission, to build your base camp! Shall we begin?"

The man's stomach rumbled on cue.

The seagull retracted its words with a hesitant suggestion; "Shall we begin after finding you something to eat?" The man's lips curved upward slightly.