by Scott Seier
Contents
Foreword
The Terminal
The Grind
Learning The Ropes
Hunters
Arachkidar
The Great Seal
Escape?
The Gray Lands
And Back Again
EVENT
The Turtle, The Demoness, And The Pinch
Assault
The Push...And The Push Back
Epilogue
Foreword
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The Terminal
It wasn't until three days after the Cascade that people began to lose hope. Millions of people taken from their normal, everyday lives and transfered into an unknown virtual world.
CASCADE!
Cascade initiated
User protective rate 99%
It was chaos at first. Good thing no one can really get hurt while in the Terminal, or else there would've been thousands of casualties. People stampeding through the bland hallways. Trying to force themselves through the gates in hopes they would lead to their salvation. If they'd really understood where those gates actually led, a lot of people wouldn't have been trying to get there any faster. But so many more would have fought even harder to reach that place.
Dump location searching...
Possible safe locations: 1432
Error : safe location integrity invalid
Possible safe locations: 1083
Possible safe locations: 605
Possible safe locations: 35
Possible safe locations: 3
I can't say that I really dealt with the situation any better than anyone else. I had always put a supreme effort into staying as positive as possible, but some things were just beyond the normal scope of a human's ability to rationalize and deal with, and I'd put having your consciousness kidnapped and then isolated from the real world near the top of the list of things that may be hard for someone to get over.
This wasn't an impossible thing to overcome, not by a long shot, but when we were told that it was permanent, that there was no escape. That's when I personally hit my lowest point.
The feeling of helplessness that saturated the Terminal was intoxicating. Some people spent their time in that place trying to whip up some sort of resistance. Some kind of protest to voice their feelings of unfairness to the deaf world around us. I didn't believe that any of that was going to make a difference. No. Instead of protesting, or trying to glitch the world, or tapping random morse code messages on the window panes in hopes that the developers were secretly listening, instead of all of that, I decided to spend my time talking to as many people that I could find who'd ever played a full immersion virtual reality game in the past. Specifically I looked for people who had played the largest and most popular game on the planet. Acrion.
Dump location determined: Acrion
Server integrity of location: 100%
Server capacity of location: <1%
Determined location is confirmed Valid and Viable
Acrion local AI Willing
Acrion standard population dispersal insufficient.
Random log-in active and FIVR world zone restrictions lifted
CASCADE COMPLETED
Data initialization commencing
These were the words that sealed the fate of almost one fifth of the entire world's population. Every man, woman, and child who was logged into any virtual world that currently existed was whisked away and dumped into the only world that was powerful enough to hold that many people. It wasn't only gamers. It was the college students who'd decided to get an education virtually, in a capsule that was able to transfer your mind to any school on the planet. It was the everyday workers that, instead of spending endless hours on conference calls, would just hop into a VR pod and see the people they were talking to face to face in mini virtual worlds that took the shape of conference rooms. It was fortune 500 company board members who were checking in on their many holdings by popping into their virtual spaces instead of flying their private jets all over the planet. Every walk of life in this modern world was affected by the Cascade.
But what about me? I was just a corporate analyst dealing with work-flow charts for a big faceless company. It was a good job, and I made a good living. I had a small apartment, and a cat named Magnus. I had a girl who I went out with sometimes, and other times I would go weeks without hearing from. It wasn't the best life, but it was my life. Except, that life was gone now.
Three days after the Cascade. Surely the developers would have saved us by now? Surely the rest of the world was working around the clock to pull our minds out of this virtual hell? The Terminal was just the waiting room after all. It just held the millions and millions of people in the most efficient way possible.
That meant no real sensory input. No pain or fatigue. No need to sleep. No need to eat or use the bathroom. For three days we ceased to be truly human. Three days until the news of the first notification rippled through the crowds. Someone had been given permission to log into the the real game world. They'd gotten their golden ticket! Hope was restored. For some. For others, a target for their hate had finally been found.
It had been nearly two weeks after the first log-in notification had hit the Terminal. That lucky bastard had cheered and clapped with excitement. He had made his way to the nearest gate with a smile on his face that spoke volumes about the relief he was feeling. The door, instead of swinging open, turned into a bright blue portal. Dozens surged forward trying to make it through the apparent exit, but they were all held back with the same invisible force that didn't allow person to person contact in the Terminal. The man walked through the portal and was never heard from again.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of notifications had gone out. I was just waiting patiently for my own at this point. From the stories and rumors in the Terminal, Acrion was the most advanced FIVR, or full immersion virtual reality, world that existed. It launched two years ago to massive success and had become so prolific in that time the U.S. government even granted the Acrion silver piece a U.S. dollar conversion like it would have for any other country's currency. With this precedent in place, people were able to move into this virtual world as a full time job or others that just played to pass the time on the weekends were able to make an extra buck on the side. Regardless of why others played Acrion, the thing I really wanted right now was to simply feel the wind on my face again.
LOG-IN IMMINENT!
Please prepare yourself
We apologize for the delay!
I was sitting in a random corner, trying to stay out of the way of the constant foot traffic that flowed through the too-neutrally-colored halls. In the couple weeks of confinement I found myself in my own head more often than not. Barely paying attention to the other people around me.
Don't get me wrong, I took the time to get a feel for what was coming my way with this game. After I felt like I knew enough to not be overwhelmed I made a tour of all the herds of people who thought they knew anything about what the hell was going on.
Not a single word had been heard from the real world since the cascade, so no one really knew what was happening, but tons of people really liked to talk about it like they understood the whole story. The diversity of theories served as my main form of entertainment. It ranged from population control conspiracies, to al
ien invasions. Some people even believed that the world had ended and we were only saved from complete death because of the Cascade. They thought our bodies were all burned to a crisp out in the real world.
Honestly I had no reason to believe this wasn't true. No one had ever left the terminal without a log-in notification. Without exception. Now I may be leaning too heavily on my statistics training, but if you take a few billion people and put them in an isolated location for a couple weeks, at least one of them is going to keel over from some kind of random medical condition, right? Even with the VR capsule's life support, a person could only survive for so long without outside help. People should have noticed the odd heart attack or stroke. People should have seen others popping out of existence as their connection was cut to their pods. It was something I spent a large amount of time thinking about, because as far as I'd heard not a single person had disappeared in over two weeks. It was statistically impossible.
The notification blinked happily in the corner of my vision. I was so deep in thought that I really didn't even register it initially. Without thinking about what I was doing I focused on the message and it popped back into view.
LOG-IN IMMINENT!
Please prepare yourself
We apologize for the delay!
"Well then." I muttered to myself.
It was a far cry from when that first guy had got his message and cheered for himself as he left us behind. Now it wasn't uncommon to find human blockades around the gates if anyone nearby got their golden ticket.
There were entire ideologies that had sprung up in the weeks that passed since then. One of the belief systems that was gaining ground, at least in the area of the terminal that I found myself in, was from a group called 'Stay Safe'.
The name was both a suggestion and a threat. They believed that only the people who stay in the terminal can be saved when the outside world finally got its butt in gear. Some of the more fanatical of their group thought that not only was it stupid to go into Acrion proper, but that everyone who left the Terminal was actually dooming the rest of the people to eternal incarceration. They thought that the only way to pull out everyone effected by the cascade was to get everyone back into the place we were originally trapped, ie the terminal. Sort of like a misguided application of the idea that if you're lost in a forest you should stay put for someone to find you.
I didn't care what anyone said. Being in the terminal for me was like bathing in novocaine. Everything felt numb. Like my skin was slowly dying from lack of blood flow. I was out of here. Now. Fast and hard. Gone.
I walked casually. Not making a scene was a specialty of mine...actually making a scene was also a specialty of mine. I suppose scenes in general might be my specialty? I shook my head. Being in a semi-meditative state for a week straight really screwed with your head.
I knew that the nearest gate was well and truly blocked off. A group of safers five lines thick had formed up a couple days back. I walked for nearly an hour. I didn't want to use the closest open gate I could find because I was pretty sure the shady looking dirty dozen that were milling about nearby would spring up and try to shame me into staying the second I got close enough for the gate to light up. I'm not the biggest fan of open conflict, and I really don't enjoy being the target of random hatred, so walking a smidge further was worth it to me.
The one that I chose was sort of in-between two bundles of people that had formed as time went on. The bundles were like little sub-cultures, with different thoughts and feelings circulating within them, but never really mixing with each other. It was kind of sad to me that people were that unwilling to hear what others had to say, but I enjoyed the no-mans-land that had sprung up as a result.
I walked in the center of the walkway, making no sign of what I intended. I noticed a few people watching me as I reached the middle point between the two groups. I almost laughed at the thought that both sides would suddenly unite to try and stop me from escaping. Abraham Walker, bringing people together. The laughter I was holding in almost escaped as a group of angry looking people broke off from each groups at the same time. One tailing me, and one confronting me head on.
"Well then..."
I suppressed the amusement that I was feeling at my joke coming true. Honestly I didn't think these serious types would much appreciate it if I was openly laughing, or even smiling to be honest, as I escaped from the terminal, regardless of the reason. Sighing heavily, I just gave up on the charade of casualness and sprinted for the gate. I made it with no problems, well ahead of the yelling and name calling that was on it's way. I dove headfirst into the ice cold portal when it appeared in all of its blue glory. I nearly fainted from the pure sensation that was slowly returning to my body. Yeah. A life with no feeling was not a life worth living.
In a blinding flash I found myself standing on a grassy hill with trees all around me. the silence! It was exquisite. The only sound was the leaves dancing in the breeze, and the breeze! It felt like silk. It was all perfect. Even the smell was perfect. Fresh air! My body! I felt a slight discomfort in my feet already! Just from standing in one place for a minute or less! I felt alive.
In front of me, rising into the beautiful sky, stood an enormous mountain. The imagery of this mountain was nearly inescapable in the real world. It was the centerpiece of all advertising for Acrion. The city mountain. I forget the name, but its location was a complete mystery. Even though the game had been released to the public years ago, only about an eighth of the total land mass had been explored, and maybe only half of that had been conquered by players. It seemed that the city mountain was also the backdrop for the character creation. The ultimate symbol of exploration and progression in the game. An inspiring sight for making my first ever Acrion character.
In front of me appeared a mirror image of myself wearing a basic linen shirt and brown trousers. He/I stood blankly as the visual customization windows popped into existence. I learned from people who'd played the game before that I could make myself look any way that I wanted. maybe eight feet tall? or looking like a body builder? Any body type imaginable was achievable with this interface. I took the time to give myself some faint abs that I could never really get right in real life, and I made my hair a lighter auburn than my natural dark, almost brown, but after that I left everything else. No reason to go reinventing the wheel. I spent my whole life with my current face, I can deal with it in this world too. I noticed that the racial options were grayed out. Focusing on this option rewarded me with a small prompt.
Race and faction options at character creation are currently disabled. As you progress your race and faction will be determine by your progression.
Well that solved all of that simply enough...a lot of people in the terminal spoke about being able to play dozens of different fantastical races like elves and dwarves, but apparently the cascade had disrupted this feature.
After the body of your character was set and ready the next thing to do was dive into class selection. This was the cool part for me, because I'd already decided what I was going for. The class system was more fluid in Acrion that most other games of this type. It was more of a guide-line than anything.
In the massive world, the top players used hideously powerful hybrid builds, bred from thousands of hours of melding classes and spells together through exhaustive theory crafting and number crunching. But to start, you got to choose one single class and a couple spells to go along with it.
I scrolled down the list past warriors and mages, past the hunters and rogues. A few caught my eye along the way, but my goal was the summoner. I'd heard about it from a veteran Acrion player. He was telling stories about how summoners were one of the weakest classes in the game, but somehow one of his raids had been completely wiped out by a group of five summoners using unknown spells that had never been seen before.
The idea of a super underdog class that held a secret potential that wasn't widely known appealed to me greatly. Also the idea of summoning creatures to help me
fight fit into a sort of happy place in my head. The archetype just felt right.
I found the summoner, near the bottom. The list was organized by the most popular classes. The warrior topping the list easily, but my summoner finding itself way down near the end. The only classes below it were the technogenisist and the dancer. Interestingly enough there was one class even below the dancer... Veil Summoner.
I selected the veil summoner and compared it to the normal one. The words that described the classes were identical. I tapped my chin with my finger, happy to actually feel the habitual movement. I couldn't give up the chance to play the least played character out of everything, could I? This Veil Summoner must be new or something, because it hadn't been mentioned at all by any of the Acrion players I had talked to.
I accepted the Veil Summoner as my class and immediately my perspective shifted from 'me' to the new me. I stared at an empty forest clearing, with the mountain rising behind me now. Very cool, but the perspective shift was slightly jarring. I flexed my hands experimentally and looked over my new interfaces. I saw that I now had spells. Summon: Veil Imp and Veil Siphon.
Focusing for a second brought up my character attributes and stats. This was the last thing that I needed to do before I was taken into the real game world - according to the Acrion vets at least. I had three attribute points that needed to be placed before I was free. My basic stats were the same ones that everyone always started with. Tens across the board.
Lyst
Human
Level 1
Summoner (Veil)
Attributes available: 3
80
Strength-str
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of STR.
Increases the amount of weight that you can carry before becoming encumbered.
10
