The Obstacle Course

Ralph walked around the town for a solid 15 minutes, with absolutely no luck. He tried to approach some other players multiple times, but the second that they saw a creepy skeleton heading towards them.... they left real fast.

Ralph tried to run after them too, but that just made it worse. To see a body of bones heading at a fast speed, shouting unintelligible words at you, is a complete turn-off.

This got Ralph quite down. How was he supposed to complete the quest if he didn't even know where to go. "If only I could just get a map-"

*DING*

[Tutorial Town has given a free map to all players, please open the inventory to view the map]

"..." Ralph was silent, before mumbling, "You've got to be kidding me."

"Open Inventory!"

The menu suddenly appeared in front of his face. There were a few slots with items in them.

[Basic Weapon Voucher: Choose a basic weapon of your choice]

[Tutorial Town Map]

[Simple Status Plate: Displays a simplified version of your status, used to show other people or to register for a job (some information will be hidden)]

Ralph didn't have a clue for what type of weapon he was going to use. As for the Status Plate, he'll probably have to use that in the future, but right now he opened the map. To his surprise the map was much larger than he expected. He explored the entire town, but the training area that had the obstacle course was on the other side of the mini forest that was south to the town. He had already wasted enough time, so he quickly started running south.

About halfway through the forest he started to slow down. He was confused because he didn't feel tired, but from the sound of his bones creaking, he determined that his bones were not strong enough to run the full distance. He sat down and place his spine against a tree.

It was only at this point did Ralph get a good look at the forest he was in. It had wonderful lush green trees, wild berries and flowers, chirping birds, and growling wolves. 'Wait growling wolves?'

He looked to the side, he saw a wolf that had a very ugly expression on it's face. It was about waist height, it had gray fur with white streaks and a massive thigh-sized scar on it's right flank. It gave off a very dangerous vibe. Ralph was startled, it totally snuck up on him.

Ralph jolted upwards, before sprinting as fast as he could south. If this wolf managed to fight a battle and win with such a scar, there was no way in hell is a newbie like Ralph going to be able to kill the wolf. After a good few seconds of running, He turned around to see the wolf and it was right up is tailbone. He jumped a little, causing his skull to smash against a low tree branch. He did a half-flip before landing straight on his head arms and legs flailing like a madman.

He felt some pain all over his body, the skeletal veins were clearly doing their work. The wolf dived straight at Ralph. Reacting out of instinct he shoved his right arm straight into the maws of the wolf. The wolf clamped down on his arm with all its might.

*CRUNCH*

The wolf's strong jaw bit straight through Ralph's weak bones, causing him to yelp. "AH!" Pulling his arm as hard as he could away from the wolf's mouth, it eventually separated right off his body. His eyes opened wide, before snapping out of stupor to start running away from the wolf. Even though half his arm was gone, the adrenaline only got more intense. He moved his boney legs faster than he ever had, bolting south at a higher speed.

Thinking the wolf was still right up is tailbone, he continued to run all the way until the obstacle course could be scene through gaps in the trees and bushes. He busted out of the forest into the cleared out area housing the obstacle course. He continued to sprint towards the start of the obstacle course.

"Hm?" A large burly man who was standing at the front of obstacle course turned to his left to see a one-armed skeleton running full speed towards him. But to Ralph's surprise, the man just started laughing. Really hard. "BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

This sort of ticked off Ralph, because he hadn't even done anything and that guy was already laughing, but before Ralph could say anything the burly man spoke.

"Looks like you had a rough time in that forest." He continued to laugh.

If a skeleton could blush, that's exactly the expression that was on Ralph's face. He was quite embarrassed about losing an arm within the first 20 minutes of him playing the game.

The burly man leaned over and got his face close to Ralph, before squinting his eyes, he said, "Normally, I would do something about that arm, but considering the reward for completing the obstacle course, I will refrain from fixing it. Let's see how you persevere with a non-functioning right arm." The man started to circle around Ralph, before placing his hands over Ralph's skeletal body.

Although Ralph was fairly creeped out by the man's actions, seeing the serious look on his face, Ralph decided to shut up and let the man do his job.

After about 5 minutes of scanning Ralph's body, the man took a step back before finally introducing himself, "Alright you weak bag of bones, I'm the overseer of this obstacle course. People call me Sarg. It's my job to make sure you can clear the obstacle course." With a disappointed look on his face, Sarg started to pace back and forth. "Your skeletal body has incredibly flexibility, you also never have to worry about spilling blood or feeling tired. This can cause a few problems, but it can also be very beneficial, as not feeling weak can be a large bonus on the battlefield. But you'll need to learn the limits of your body. Next, I hate to put it bluntly, but you're bones are brittle. I could break it with the flick of my finger, we'll need to improve the density of them. Lastly, we'll start weapon training. Every good fighter has a weapon that they use and from what I can tell, you've never touched a weapon in your life. The air around you just screams pussy." He gave a smile that could send shivers down spines, "Give me an hour, I'll bring you a training regime so good, you'll regret walking on this planet."

After that, Sarg walked out of the tent, seemingly satisfied with himself, but Ralph on the other hand was practically shitting himself. It was the look of a predator staring at a brand new prey.

Ralph had an hour to kill, so he decided to check out the what he was going to face in the obstacle course, but when he saw the entire course and his already bright white bones got whiter, he was terrified.

The course was about 300 meters in length. The first one hundred meters were wooden poles about 1 meter off the ground spaced 1 meter apart from each other forming hundreds of squares. The poles were about the size of a palm in width, if you were just a little to the right, remember to project your jewels. To add a cherry on top, there was mechanically controlled swinging planks that were attached to a wooden foundation surrounding the entire course. If he forgot to pay attention to the swinging planks.... he might be out of the game for a bit. Once you reach beyond the wooden poles and swinging planks, you reach what Ralph would refer to as 'monkey bars on drugs'. It's one hundred meters of metal poles in a repeating triangle pattern, but what Ralph doesn't know is that these would be much more than just holding yourself up. The last hundred meters was just grass until the finish line, it looked simple, and Ralph hoped it was.

To keep his mind off what was most likely going to be the worst few days of his life, he moved to the edge of the forest and just sat down. He sat there thinking about a lot of things and quickly slipped into a trance. Time flew by and before he knew it he heard a grunt next to him. 'Opening his eyes' he looked over and saw Sarg staring at him with a dangerous look, causing Ralph to shiver.

"Get up weirdo, I'm gonna put your through the gauntlet with my genius training. No one will call you brittle bones anymore."

"No one has called me brittle bones." Ralph retorted.

"Whatever Bonesy, let's go, the sun is going to set soon."

Ralph suddenly started to get really nervous, it seems that whatever Sarg has planned for him was not going to be easy.