Fate Revealed

by M E Robinson

  Nodding quickly in acknowledgement, Eric raised his hand above his head, “Elegant Procrastination!” He shouted out, watching with interest as his body shattered into those rainbow coloured shards.

  - Chapter Eight -

  Planning Session

  After dinner, Eric quickly made his way back up to his room. Placing the helmet back on his head, he once again found himself in that beautiful room overlooking the ocean.

  “Welcome back. May I ask what you’d like to do?” Eleanor asked, materializing next to the giant wallscreen.

  “Is there a way to connect with the Strife chat client?” Eric asked.

  Eleanor nodded and made a waving motion towards one side of the screen. Instantly, icons began to appear on the screen, including the familiar Strife icon. Turning back towards him, Eleanor launched into a brief explanation: “You can use both touch and voice commands to launch any of these applications. You can also download more off of VirtuNet if you desire. Simply yelling out launch and then the name of the application is enough to launch it; mentally yelling exit then its’ name will bring you back out.”

  Eric nodded, “Launch Strife!” he shouted. As he did so, the icon on the wall detached itself and quickly became bigger, before whirling around once and becoming a door similar to the entrance to the synchronization room, only this time marked with the Strife icon. Nodding to Eleanor, Eric quickly entered the room.

  “User detected, would you like to synchronize your VirtuNet game console with a VirtuNet user ID?” asked a voice that sounded vaguely like Eleanor’s voice only more robotic. With a nod, Eric quickly keyed in his user information to the transparent holographic keyboard which appeared in front of him.

  As the keyboard faded, a virtual representation of Strife’s interface appeared. Spying the familiar avatar for his group’s Strife group, Eric pressed it, instantly joining the ongoing call. As he did so, the Strife interface became transparent and moved up towards the top left portion of his vision, only visible if he focused on it. With a small blur, the room he was in faded and he found himself back inside the oceanview room. His friends’ voices echoing within his ears. Disabling the sound, he quickly turned on voice-to-text, leaning back against the window as he entered the call.

  Kyp has joined the room

  Mark: Glad to see you could join us Eric. You get everything working okay?

  Eric: Yeah, had to go through that synchronization test though. That thing is tougher than I thought it would be.

  Gio: lol yeah it took me a while.

  Griffin: I really hope you can’t feel pain in Fate. I might switch to a mage if combat is too painful as a tank. ‘Cause doing that test made me ache all over for a decent amount of time in the virtuRoom.

  Mark: Hurricane said you can set the pain receptors as low as 1% and as high as 100%. Although why anyone would go that high is beyond me. Sounds dumb as hell.

  Ryan: Masochists?

  Jun: Probably don’t want to set it too high. I’d imagine there’s a forced logout if you experience too much trauma due to pain. I can’t see them opening themselves up to lawsuits like that.

  Ryan: True true.

  Eric: Was there anything else we need to do if we want to be able to get a jump on the competition on day one?

  Ryan: Nope, that’s all we know about the game.

  Mark: Yeah Hurricane’s been super tight lipped. I don’t even think we start off with skills, we have to create our own as we go or learn them somehow.

  Eric: The skill system sounds really interesting. It’ll be interesting to see how it’s implemented though.

  Jun: Remember I’m making the guild as soon as I make that rare skill. So be ready to join.

  Eric: Who said you’d be first to make a rare skill?

  Mark: Whoever makes the skill first gets lead. But should we really keep transferring lead once it’s made? Now that we’re playing for cash we might need to be a bit more serious about this.

  Ryan: He’s right. But I still like the idea of letting whoever makes the strongest skill create the guild. Gives us a reason to try and improve.

  Gio: Right.

  Griffin: Maybe have whoever we decide to become leader after we’ve cleared a few dungeons? We could even have two leaders. One for PvE and one for PvP, or one for largescale or stuff like that.

  Mark: That’s not a bad idea Griffin.

  Griffin: Thanks

  Eric: So we keep things as is for now and address them a few weeks in once we have a clearer idea on how the game runs?

  Mark: Pretty much.

  Eric: Cool. Anything else?

  Mark: Nope, we should be good. You guys have anything to add?

  Jun: Eric’s gay.

  Ryan: lmao

  Eric Dick

  Jun You'd like that wouldn't you?

  Eric ...

  Gio: Lol. And nope I’m good.

  Griffin I'm fine.

  Mark: Alright, we’ll meet up right before the game goes live on Friday.

  You have disconnected from the call.

  - Chapter Nine -

  The Waiting Game

  The remaining days before Fate’s launch passed in the blink of an eye and Eric soon found himself staring at his ceiling as he slowly blinked his eyes awake on the morning of Fate’s launch.

  With a yawn, he hauled himself out of bed and quickly went through his morning routine. After he’d dressed and had breakfast, he set to work doing all the chores that were expected of him today. Mowing the lawn, loading and running the dishwasher, setting out food for the cat, anything that needed to be done was done. Finally satisfied, Eric collapsed back into bed, setting an alarm that would go off one hour before the official launch.

  As the familiar ringing sound rang in his ears, Eric was pulled back into a state of wakefulness for the second time that day. Sighing regretfully at the nice dream he’d been having that had been ruthlessly cut short by the sound of the alarm, he reached over and pulled on the Fate VirtuNet helmet. As he flicked it on, he absentmindedly thought to himself that he should really come up with a better name for it. The VirtuHelm perhaps? The FateGear? He’d think of something.

  As he materialized inside the scenic room, he collapsed into a comfortable leather couch he’d installed the day before after Eleanor questioned why he always stood in front of the window. After a brief chat, he’d discovered that he could redecorate the room as he desired. The result of which being that there were a few new additions to the room, the most obvious of which was the enormous couch he now lay upon and had designated his new spawn point, discarding the simple bed that had served as the default loading point.

  Speaking of Eleanor, today she was standing in front of the window watching the ocean which had taken on a greyish hue. A storm was coming, he surmised, once again finding himself surprised at just how detailed the VirtuNet game lobby was. Clearing his throat to gain her attention, he addressed Eleanor.

  “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask if there were any more hidden features of the connector? Like being able to customize the room and other stuff like that.”

  “Of course! An obvious thing is that I’ve noticed you never use a voice command to start the connection. You always activate it manually. If you just say ‘Gear, Connect!’ the system will turn on automatically,” Eleanor responded cheerfully, turning away from the scene at the window where the surf was beginning to smash forcefully against the rocks.

  Eric chuckled at this, so it turned out there really was a ‘Link, Start!’ option for the VirtuHelm.

  “That’s a good one. Anything else obvious like that that I may have missed so far?”

  Eleanor pondered at this, “Hmmmm…” she muttered. It was at times like this that Eric truly marvelled at Hurricane’s coders and developers. The scenery and graphics wa
s certainly impressive, but the level of characterisation and humanization that had gone in to creating Eleanor was truly impressive.

  “Aha!” Eleanor said, breaking Eric’s reverie. “You also haven’t added any other rooms to the house. Currently you only have the one room, but if you desire, you can also add other rooms, maybe a kitchen or a bedroom. If you wanted, you could even go outside and sit at the beach.”

  Eric noticed that Eleanor seemed a little wistful as she said this last part, gazing out at the sea which had since turned stormy, the dark waves crashing into the rocks, the resulting surf only slightly receding before the next wave came in and repeated the process. Does Eleanor want to stand by the ocean? He wondered to himself as he nodded in acknowledgement of her words.

  “Well that’s definitely something I’ll do later. For now though can you load up Fate? I want to be able to get in the moment the servers go live.”

  Eleanor nodded demurely in response to his request and waved a hand at the until now unused right wall. An icon suddenly appeared: the same icon that was engraved on the front of his FateGear. FateGear, that was definitely what he was going to call it he decided as the icon grew larger, taking up the entire right hand wall. As Eric watched, the emblem suddenly began to twist, morphing organically into that enormous hourglass from the Fate website, signifying the time remaining before launch.

  From what he could see, the amount of sand remaining in the hourglass was almost gone, as he focused his eyes a set of numbers appeared overtop the hourglass.

  “0d 0h 38m 41s," it read. Eric nodded satisfied, then raised his hand and shouted, “Strife, Launch!”

  Unlike last time, the doorway did not appear in front of him. Instead, that familiar interface appeared in the upper lefthand corner of his vision. Focusing upon it, he quickly navigated the UI and joined the call.

  Kyp has joined the room.

  Mark: Hey dude, good to see you made it.

  Eric: Yeah, where’s everyone else?

  Mark: Griffin just left to go grab some water before we all settle in.

  Gio: I’m here, Ryan’s over at my place too. I think he was grabbing some food.

  Ryan: I’m back.

  Shinvincible has joined the room.

  Mark: Hey Jun. We’re just waiting on Rob now.

  Jun: Cool, I’m just going to go take my sister to her violin lesson. I’ll be back in like half an hour though.

  Mark: k

  Shinvincible has disconnected.

  Eric: So we’re just waiting on Rob, and technically Griffin and Jun?

  Mark: Yup.

  Ryan: You guys ready?

  Gio: Haha yeah.

  Boreik has joined the room.

  Griffin: Sup

  Mark: Welcome back Griffin. Jun just came to tell us he’ll be here before the game launches. We’re just waiting on Rob.

  Griffin: Cool.

  Eric: Oh damn. You guys mind if I grab some water real quick and check on my brothers? Need to make sure they’ve both eaten.

  Griffin: Are your brothers cats?

  Eric: No, cats are easier to take care of and at least pretend they love me.

  Ryan: ROFL

  Mark: Go for it Eric. Just be back here five minutes before launch. We’re gonna go over strategy one more time.

  Eric: Will do.

  You have disconnected from the call.

  - Chapter Ten -

  Creating an Avatar

  Having double checked to ensure that both Leif and Angus were indeed still alive and planning to stay that way, as well as having devoured sufficient water and nourishment to last him a couple hours, Eric returned to the FateGear.

  Hauling himself off of the now familiar couch, he turned to observe the right hand wall.

  “0d 0h 5m 32s” it read.

  Just in time, Eric thought to himself, connecting quickly to the Strife call.

  Kyp has joined the room.

  Mark: Alright we’re all here now. The plan stays the same as it’s been for the last few days.

  Eric: Level like demons and group up as quickly as possible?

  Griffin: While learning as much as we can about the game.

  Mark: Pretty much. Also try to find some strong players who would be willing to join the guild once we create it. While seven people should be enough for a team, we have no idea what the rules for the tournament are going to be. If it turns out we need ten, twenty, or even a hundred people, we’re in trouble with just us. You don’t need to recruit them immediately but try to make friends.

  Ryan: Should we try infiltrating other guilds to draw members away?

  Mark: Nah, that would just get us targeted. Making friends with members of other guilds is fine though.

  Jun: Can we PK people we don’t like? Not a question, I’m doing it anyways.

  Mark: Just try not to be a dick Jun. All I ask.

  Eric: lol not a chance.

  Jun: Suck my dick Eric.

  Eric: Does the FateGear have a magnify feature? Maybe I can actually find it for you.

  Gio: lol

  Mark: Alright focus guys. Two minutes to launch. Power your way through the tutorial, I’m not sure if Strife will work in game or not. There were rumours on the net that only Hurricane’s partychat voice system will work ingame to increase immersion. Also there’s a chance we won’t be able to select our starting zones. I’m not sure if that’s true or not but be prepared to meet back here in four hours to discuss.

  Rob: Will do.

  Griffin: Gotcha.

  Eric: Will do.

  Mark: Alright the game is launching in one minute. Let’s get ready.

  You have been disconnected from the call.

  Reason given: Conflict with Fate PartyChat System

  Eric smirked. Looks like Mark was right. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with Jun for a couple hours. As the last grains of sand fell from the giant hourglass, the hourglass’ figure suddenly blurred, morphing back into the enormous Fate logo.

  As the logo finished forming, the runes on its rings flared once before the entire logo seemed to detach from the wall, flying out and enveloping his body. The rings quickly began to spin before blurring together, the glowing runes melding into a single multicoloured light. As the brilliance began to overwhelm him, the rings expanded, forming a large dark coloured circular room, dimly lit by the runes which had settled into small alcoves on the walls.

  “Welcome to Fate.” A disembodied voice echoed through the chamber. “Synchronizing with player’s FateGear. Synchronization complete. Loading Fairy Guide.”

  As the voice finished speaking, the familiar figure of Eleanor took form in the middle of the room; only unlike the normal Eleanor, this Eleanor was a legitimate fairy. Only six inches tall, with a pair of shining faerie wings, she slowly hovered there.

  “Welcome to the character creation room. Your avatar in Fate will be an extension of yourself. As a result, you cannot create an avatar whose gender differs from your own. For those who are transgender, please contact Hurricane support. Height changes are permitted but it is not recommended that you create a character whose height differs drastically from your own height. Creating a character whose height is different from your own may make acclimating to your new avatar difficult. You also have a selection of races to choose from, but for the more monstrous races, do be warned that similar to changing your height, getting used to your new form will make playing difficult initially.”

  Eric nodded at Eleanor’s explanation; it made sense. After spending several decades in the same body, suddenly being thrust into a new form would be pretty jarring.

  “With that explained, are you ready to begin?” Eleanor tilted her head in askance.

  “I’m ready, let’s get to it.” Eric respo
nded. With a nod, Eleanor fluttered her wings once causing the wall to give way. A perfect representation of Eric’s body stood behind it, arms casually at his sides and clad only in a loose fitting pair of boxers.

  “To begin with, please choose your race. The choices available are human, elf, halfling, half-elf, dwarf, and half-orc.” As she spoke, several other bodies appeared next to the first, presumably the other races.

  Eric stared at these alternate representations of himself. The elf was slim, even compared to his own somewhat malnourished standards. With pointed ears and a slightly haughty visage, it was like staring at a royal portrait of himself. With key features enhanced and others subtly faded, the elfin form was definitely a cool look, Eric thought to himself.

  The halfling was too short, while it may have looked a little cute for some people, it really just made him look like a chubby midget.