by Dante Doom
“I… I said I was hacker, I think my interface is glitching on me,” she wheezed as she collapsed onto the ground. Her health bar was still perfectly full, but she was lying in a heap.
“Aw, great,” Van said. “First ten seconds in here and she gets an aneurysm.” He looked around. With this kind of haptic system, would the food taste real, too?
Chapter Five
Sang felt a cool sensation run down the back of her neck as she slowly roused from her unconscious stupor. Something was weirdly off… she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was happening, but her body felt horrible.
Sang! We’ve injected stabilization chemicals into your system, said a private message. It hovered before her vision as she slowly opened one eye. She glanced at the floating yellow words that seemed to be integrating into the world around her. Only then did she pull her head up off of the ground, realizing that she had been slumped over a table. She glanced around and could see there were dozens of people inside of the tavern, all talking, laughing, and pointing at each other. She could see names hovering above them, as well as some kind of number next to each of them. One patron had a label that said Level 2 Wizard. She frowned. What exactly did level signify?
“You’re alive,” Van commented as he sat down with a plate full of food. He began to hungrily devour it in front of her, making horrible noshing sounds as he chowed down. It was somewhat nauseating to watch.
“Yeah… sorry, I think… wow,” Sang said as she glanced around. She looked down at her hand and flexed it, feeling each finger curl slowly. “This is real?”
“Nah, it’s VR,” Van said in between bites of his chicken wings. He gulped down some beer. She realized that she could smell his meal, too.
“VR? Oh right, right. I just… this is like real life, Van,” Sang said as she curiously tapped the full glass of beer in front of her. It felt real, as well.
“Yeah... what, you’ve really never been in one of these?” Van asked. “Not even the ones at the mall?”
“No, never. Games are for timewasters, pigs and underachievers,” Sang replied as she sat up and tried to straighten herself out. The stabilization chemicals at least seemed to be helping her relax a little bit.
“Which one of those am I?” Van asked.
“Which one aren’t you?” she replied as she watched him continue to stuff his face.
“Here, try one,” he said as he handed her a carrot stick.
She glanced at it with curiosity and a little bit of fear. Would it taste? How was that even possible? She took a gingerish bite and felt the familiar taste of a carrot. “I don’t get it,” she said. “How is this even possible?”
“Everything’s possible when you pump someone up with enough chemicals and trick them with moving lights,” Van said as he hopped up. “Come on; let’s trigger the starting quest.”
“Quest? Look, Van, this is crazy. I feel heat! I can feel my boots, the air, the sounds… this is… this isn’t possible!”
“It’s possible, and you’re living it. So I take it you’ve really never tried any kind of a game?”
“No,” she replied, crossing her arms. This was all getting to be a little bit too much. Her mind was a rational one, and while she had interacted with VR systems for data retrieval, she had never once experienced a physical sensation from one of those. This all seemed impossible.
“Well, take it easy and you’ll be fine. I think I read an article about this; it’s called, uh… the Uncanny Valley. It’s like… sometimes when we confront things that look real but aren’t, it kinda makes some stuff in our heads go all bonkers.”
“I’m not going bonkers. I’m just… just in awe. That’s all. I’m fine. So how do we win?”
“Win?”
“The tutorial. So we can go out on the big adventure,” she replied as she adjusted the bow on her back a little bit. What was interesting was that the clothing was a little bit uncomfortable—it was a little too tight, and the weapons seemed to add some weight to her body. All of this showed that the programmers were hyper-focused on detail.
“Right, right,” Van said. He waved over to a tall man who had the word Barkeep hovering over his head.
“Hark and what ho!” called the barkeep as he approached the two. “Do I see two—”
“Skip!” Van said.
“And there is a great—” the barkeep had continued.
“Skip!” Van repeated.
“And so, you must—”
“Skip!” Van said again.
“What the hell is he saying? He’s just jumping words around and I can’t make sense of him,” Sang complained.
“I’m skipping around, that’s all. I know this stuff by heart. We’re going to go ahead and get to the really good stuff. The opening quests aren’t so bad.”
“And that is why I need you, brave adventurer!” the barkeep finished. Two words hovered over his head: Accept Quest?
“There we go. We take this one, and it will get us out of the starting area and into the mountains or wherever it is that you want to go. I’m still a little bit unclear on what the actual goal and purpose of all this is…” Van said.
Sang shrugged as she pushed the accept button with her hand. A massive screen appeared in front of her, detailing the mission. You must travel to Oirthear, across the Eastern Sea! But behold, the way is perilous and passage is not cheap! Find a way to get across the great ocean so that you may strike your fortune in the New World!
“How do we find passage?” Sang asked.
“Elf guy is usually the fastest way. You can work for a warlord, but he’s kind of a painful quest, and there’s the Dwarf Captain, but that quest is for real newbies. The Elf merchant guy is the fastest way because the tutorial is bare bones and gets us into the open world faster,” Van replied. A flash of blue came over his head. The phrase +200 XP appeared and floated upwards into the air.
“Interesting. Did we gain something just for talking to that guy?” Sang asked as she looked at her own experience bar. Indeed, it had filled up a little bit, now showing 200/1000.
“Yeah—as we do quests, talk to people, and advance the story, we get experience points. Makes us stronger and stuff. Boosts our stats... really simple stuff,” Van replied as he walked over to a pointy-eared man who was standing by a table. The man had a long beard and some kind of yellow aura surrounding him.
“Greetings, adventurers!” the Elf said as he turned to face them. Sang couldn’t help but shiver as she looked at the life-like being in front of her. He was a wizened-looking creature with deep wrinkles on his face. She could almost have been convinced that he was an actual person, provided he hadn’t had that yellow glow on his face.
“Skip!” Van shouted.
“Do you have to skip all of the dialogue?” Sang demanded.
“Yeah, because it’s faster,” Van replied with a smug little grin.
“Shut it; I want to hear the dialogue,” Sang said.
“And so that is why I am hiring you adventurers! If you have the guts, you can help protect my shipment of spices, pearls, and precious cargo from the evils of the Ocean Dwelling Cult, terrible beings that worship what is Down Below. They climb aboard the ships and slit the throats of good—”
“Skip!”
“Enough! I was interested in that! It could have been important intel!” Sang snapped.
“Intel? It’s all backstory meant to give the first part of the game a little bit of flavor. There aren’t any Ocean Dwelling Cults anyway; it’s just a dumb thing they put in the game but never followed up on.”
The Elf nodded and stroked his beard as if Van hadn’t disagreed with his introduction. “So what do you say? Join me and provide protection as we head to the New World?”
“I accept your quest!” Sang replied. The Elf stared at her blankly.
“You’ve got to press ‘accept quest,’” Van replied as he pointed at the words that were floating above the Elf’s head.
“Oh, uh, I thought they could int
eract with us,” Sang replied sheepishly as she clicked Accept Quest.
“Yeah, there are some advanced AI models out there that can interact with us, and there are a lot of players who are out there that we’ll interact with, but the reality is that most of the minor NPCs don’t have the capacity to think or act.”
“Oh... good to know. Let’s—” Her words were interrupted as everything around her went completely dark. The words TWO MONTHS LATER hung above her head in big white letters. Before she could even react, she felt the sharp stinging smell of salt water and she was standing on the deck of a massive ship as it cruised through the ocean.
“Man, I hate this part,” Van said as he leaned over the deck of the ship casually.
“What? Where are we? Did we just teleport?” Sang asked, glancing around in a panic.
“Yeah, the game runs in real time for the most part, except for the travel systems that are put in place. So, like, it’ll say ‘two months later’ to skip what would be an actual two-month journey, since this ocean is that big,” Van said as he pointed at the massive landmass they were heading toward.
“I see,” Sang said as she glanced around the ship. The sky was so blue it almost hurt her eyes. The rocking of the boat was also impossible not to notice. For all intents and purposes, she really felt like she was on a ship. “So, now what?”
“Now we train!” Van said as he heroically pulled out his bagpipes with a wry grin on his face.
Van’s boots clunked down the stairs as he headed down to the lower deck of the ship. They needed to go through the training obstacles in order to be able to advance to the main quest. He examined his stats as he walked.
“Just great,” he muttered as he looked at his terrible character build. The fact that he was a bard wasn’t the worst part of the situation—it was the fact that his bard wasn’t optimized at all. It served him right, for trying to pull one over on Sang, but now he was really starting to regret his life decisions. Why had he done something so stupid? It was impossible to get angry at her, because in reality, it was entirely his own fault, and he was too busy kicking himself to get upset at her anyway.
“Interesting place,” Sang said as she glanced around the lower deck. There were about twenty doors, all laid out in a big, circular manner. The wooden frames had words emblazoned atop each one. The words said things like “Axes”, “Bows”, “Leaping”, etc.
“This is the training room. Here, you can actually raise your skill levels up a bit so that you’re somewhat ready to rock when you reach the mainland,” Van explained as he glanced toward a few rooms in particular.
“When we go into the first room, a timer begins and we’ve got to pass all of the skills that we can before the timer goes off. This is a limited event, so the better you are at the challenges, the more skills that you can improve.”
“Understood,” Sang said. She pointed at one of the rooms. “Shall I take the map reading room?”
“No, you’re a ranger! You’ve got a bow and stuff!”
“But maps are important,” Sang replied.
Van shook his head. She was such a noob, it was almost like a horror story for him to have to deal with guiding her at this point. “Look, this is a video game, okay? You’ve got to think like a gamer when it comes to this stuff.”
“Okay, whatever. So, oh my, I have self-esteem issues and no job! Whatever shall I do?” she taunted.
“Really? Talk about an unfair stereotype! Look, just take the Acrobatics, Archery, and Dueling classes, okay? You’ll probably have enough time for those three.”
She shrugged. “Fine.” And without another word, she strolled to the room that read “Archery” and tapped on it, vanishing in the next moment.
“TIMER ACTIVATED!” called a voice from above. Van looked up to see a massive timer begin. They had 20 minutes.
Van didn’t particularly need to take any classes since, after all, he was a professional… but still, he didn’t particularly know how to use a bard effectively. Maybe he could try some of the weirder classes. He glanced over at the Vaudeville Performance door. With a shrug, he walked up to it, and clicked on and entered in.
“Greetings!” cried a loud jester as he leapt out in front of Van, who had been transported to some kind of room that he could only describe as a circus designed by M.C. Escher.
“Sup?” Van asked.
“You must learn the five techniques of Vaudeville before you advance! Improv, Buffoonery, Riddle Telling, Juggling, and Voice Throwing! Ready? Go!” the jester said as he threw several balls at Van’s head.
Van ducked and dodged as the jester character began chucking tons of different balls, pins, and flaming swords at him.
“You must juggle to survive! Comedy is life for the bard!” the jester cried as he hopped left and then right.
“Ah!” Van yelled out as he caught one of the pins and tried to juggle it. He could see his Juggling skill in the corner glowing red, meaning that he didn’t have sufficient skill levels to juggle.
“Time’s up! Improv or die!” the jester called out as the ground beneath Van suddenly began to open up. He could see lava beneath the floor. Who was in charge of designing this mini-game?
“Improv! Quickly, tell a joke!” the jester demanded of him as he floated in the air. Many of the different assets and trinkets that were lying around—such as a cart, a wagon, and some kind of a red ball—were rolling towards the massive hole in the ground.
“Uh, okay, so... um, there’s this, uh, dragon who’s... um…” Van glanced at his Improv skill and saw that it too was insufficient for him. Why hadn’t he put points into this at all? He paused. Why did that skill even exist? This was terrible!
Archery passed! Came a private message to Van. It was Sang. He grimaced—it was certainly way more fun trying to learn how to fight and duel than having to deal with this insane mini-game that looked like it had come from a game developer’s deep-seated fear of clowns.
“No time for improv!” the jester said as the timer continued to run. “Tell me a riddle! Riddle!”
“Oh, I actually put points into this!” Van shouted as he glanced at his Improv skill of +5. A menu of riddles appeared in front of him.
“Okay, I walk around in the morning, but fly away at night. I can’t read, but I know how to fight; what am I?” Van asked.
The jester looked at him blankly. The ground stopped moving and began to close back up.
“Is it a vampire?” the jester asked.
Van glanced at the menu. It gave the question, but he sure as hell didn’t know what the answer was.
“Sure,” Van replied.
“You have passed! Congratulations! You are now a bard of the highest caliber! Time is up! Go forth and delight the world with your skills!” the jester exclaimed as he took out a small, slender tube and handed it to Van.
Scroll of Hypnotic Power Acquired! said the item’s display. He looked at the stats.
Scroll of Hypnotic Power
Casting Time: 7 seconds
Effects: Causes all hostiles who are looking at you to fall into a trance and gain the Stunned condition for 5 minutes. The effects are cancelled if attacked.
“Nice!” Van said as he strolled out of the room. He was feeling pretty good about his bardly skills... or at least as good as he could feel with a character who was less optimized then an 8-year old’s first character.
As he emerged, he saw Sang exiting from the Map room.
“Hey, I said you didn’t have enough time for maps,” Van said, shaking his head at her.
“I finished eight of these. I had time for maps,” she replied sternly. There was no smile on her face, nor humor in her voice.
“Wait—eight? We barely had time for three or four!”
“Most of them followed a pattern; wasn’t hard to master,” Sang said impatiently as she glanced around. The lights on the walls were beginning to slowly dim and brighten at intervals, drawing her attention. “Hey, why are the lights glowing? Is it the Sea Cu
lt?”
“No, it’s a Sleep Time reminder. Looks like we’ve been doing this for longer than I thought,” Van said, glancing at the in-game clock. It was nearly 3 AM. The lights went out from 3 to 8 every day.
“Oh, I see,” Sang said.
“We better find a bed and log out. We’ve got ten minutes before we’re kicked. Beds can add experience while we’re sleeping, so that’s good, at least.”
“Great... I look forward to getting out of this damn thing for a few hours,” Sang said as she started toward the stairs. “The beds are upstairs,” she added.
“How did you know?” he asked.
She looked at him with a dead, calculating stare. “I passed the maps tutorial.”
Van chuckled as they walked up the stairs and back onto the deck.
“Look at that!” Sang gasped as she glanced at the heavens. “The stars! My God, the stars!”
“Hmm?” Van mumbled as he looked up at the stars. There was nothing too interesting to see there. They were just stars.
“I have never seen anything so… so… intricate. Look at the constellations! Look at the way they make shapes!” she gasped.
“Never seen a star before, or…”
“Not a lot of stars in the city,” she replied, her voice full of awe. If anything, Van was impressed at the genuine sense of wonder in her voice. Maybe, just maybe, by the end of this, he could turn her into some kind of a gamer. That would be a great victory for the world, wouldn’t it?
“The massive constellation… it’s shaped like a dragon!” she muttered, eyes wide. Van looked up at the purple nebulae. He could see the outline of the Great Dragon Constellation, known to be the most beautifully designed of all star constellations. In the game lore, it had been a massive dragon that had died in the heavens, but which had been so beautiful that the gods decided to allow the body to become a collection of stars so that everyone could see her beauty for all of eternity. Of course, Van knew that some poorly paid graphic designer had sketched it all out, but he didn’t currently want to spoil anything for the agent.
