by Matt Ryan
I took a step closer to the open door, but she proceeded to stand there, blocking my way. I wasn’t sure why, until the door slid closed and a smug look came across her face.
“That opened for me,” I said.
“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes and walked off.
Screw her and screw all these people. I wanted to drop an A-bomb on this whole town. If this was our elite, no wonder we’d lost the war.
“Can you open the door again?” I asked, and the pleasant face appeared again, before opening the door for me. I walked in and breathed in the cool, air-conditioned air. “Can you tell me my room number?”
“Certainly. You are in room 1632.”
“Okay, thank you.” I looked around the foyer and had no clue where to go next. “How the hell do I get there?” I muttered.
The face appeared down the hall, next to a pair of elevator doors. “Follow me.”
At least someone was being helpful. I got into the elevator and looked at the screen.
“Sixteen refers to the floor number,” she explained, her face popping up above the buttons. “So, I’m taking you up to floor sixteen. From there, you’ll proceed to your right, to the door marked 1632. Show your face at the door, and I will let you in.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I’d never been so high in all my life. I imagined the elevator cables snapping above me and the whole thing crashing into the ground below.
Making it to the sixteenth floor, I leaped out from the elevator. Feeling rather foolish at my actions, I focused on finding my room, and the digital face thing opened the door for me.
“Thank you,” I said, walking into the room.
The place was huge—twice the size of the trailer—and clean. I took off my shoes and my toes melted into the soft carpet. I glided my hand over the velvety couch, then spotted why I was here, the VR chair. It was the best money could buy. More red flags waved around in my head. This just wasn’t an investment in tier one gear, but a whole life for me. This setup was in the many thousands now and the thought of that debt made my heart race. I’d never be able to pay this off, and there was nothing in a gaming world I could do that would be worth this.
I passed the chair and headed to the window. The view made me shake my head with a smile. I didn’t think it was a coincidence I could see the road I came in on, or that I could follow that road all the way back to where I came from. The soft hills in the distance were small from my vantage point, but I knew they held the Slabs.
I shut the blinds.
Whoever this was, they wanted something important from me, and I couldn’t imagine what in-game service I could provide that would compete with the expense of all this . . . but I wanted to find out.
I wasted no more time and got the full immersion BallzD gear out. The shiny black metal made me shudder in ecstasy. Pictures were all well and good, but there was nothing like feeling the real thing.
I remembered to take a quick piss before sitting in the chair and plugging in the gear. Then I put it over my head and hoped it wouldn’t ask me what house I wanted to join, because I had just been sorted into the best freaking house I’d ever seen. I only wished I could show Trevor and Frank where the hell I would be staying for the night.
The full immersion gear fit snugly over my head and I felt the gel circuits tapping against my scalp. Then everything went black.
Chapter Four
A simple logo appeared in the darkness, floating just in front of me. Under the V Corp. logo was a terms of service agreement, and a check box saying I’d read and agreed. I hadn’t, but did. Extending my hand to touch it, it swirled into a funnel, to the point I felt wind against my face. The winds picked up and ultimately sucked me up and spit me into a new world. Words floated out in front of me.
Welcome to Avarice Online:
Realm One: Shattered Peaks
The words dissolved and the first thing I noticed was the smell. There was a crisp, cleanness to the air; what I imagined a chilly day in a pine forest might smell like. The rocks under my feet crunched against the larger stone I stood on. I gasped when I realized I was standing high up on the edge of a mountain. Bits of rock and dirt fell off the cliff, hitting the rock face on its descent. I took a step back from the precipice and peered up at an equally high rock wall at my back.
“Hello, and welcome to my world, Avarice Online. I’m happy you could make it.”
“Hello,” I said as I turned around. “Who are you?”
The man laughed and kicked off the wall with his brown boot. He wore jeans and a tucked-in, red plaid shirt. A brown belt wrapped around his narrow waist, and a small belt buckle with a blue gem in the center sat at the top of his zipper. He wasn’t a cowboy, but something close. His light brown hair appeared to be in need of a cut, and tussled about in the wind.
“Do you know how rare it is for a player to ask me anything about myself? Most think I’m some NPC tutorial giver, and ignore me. My name is Adam.”
“Hey, Adam, nice to meet you,” I said. “How the hell do I get off this ledge?”
“Getting off this ledge is the easy part, but first, let me tell you a few things. The interface is much like the games you’ve played. Zero Start World, Mad World, World’s End.”
“How do you know—”
“I know you well enough, Josh Bailey.”
I’d never seen an NPC like this before. Usually, it was a character preprogrammed with responses based off predictions of what I might say. This Adam character might’ve been a real person, for all I knew.
“You said this is your world. Are you a god here?” Most of these games had gods. Overseers, in a way. They didn’t interact with the world much, and you could never fight them.
“Very interesting questions, Josh. I am the god of this world.”
“Are you real?”
“Reality is just the senses’ perception, but before we get too philosophical, I need to tell a veteran player like you the major difference in this game from the others you’ve played.”
“What?”
“Everything you do here has consequences and rewards. So be careful with the decisions you make.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said, not really understanding what it meant.
“Do you plan on cheating?” Adam asked.
“What?”
“To deceive people, or cheat for other players. You see, you aren’t supposed to be in this tier one realm. Your financial stability is much more suited to realm seven, along with the rest of the kids who scraped together just enough paper to get the tier seven gear.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” He held up his hands. “I for one am glad you’re here, but not all the gods share my opinion. And you should know, she’ll be watching you. I guarantee that.” Adam walked close to me.
He wasn’t like any game god I’d ever seen. He looked utterly normal, except for his eyes, that were unnaturally blue. And I swore at one point there were clouds of blue floating out from them, but they wisped away so quickly, I kept thinking it was just an optical illusion.
“Who’s going to be watching me? I’m not a cheater—”
Adam laughed, and in one swift motion, kicked me in the gut. I went flying back, feeling the pain deep in my stomach. It was only then I realized I was falling off the mountain.
Chapter Five
The ground was rushing up to me, and the wind blew against my face as I screamed. I knew it wasn’t real, yet everything in my body and mind told me I was going to die.
Even with the feeling of death looming, I couldn’t help but appreciate the programming. This game was incredible.
But that’s exactly what this was, a game. There should be something to save me. I quickly looked to the corner of my vision and the menu screen popped up. I selected inventory and found one item.
Wings of safety
I didn’t have time to read the description, just selected it and hoped for
the best. A pair of large, black wings extended over me and slowed my descent just as I approached the grassy ground. My feet softly touched the green blades and the wings disappeared from me and my inventory.
Grassy Hills. A non-PvP zone.
+ 100 XP
+ 5 Intelligence
The adrenaline was still making my heart pound, and I bent over, thinking I might pass out or throw up. This game—this full immersion gear—increased the realism of the visuals, as well as the senses. I smelled the grass, and heard a light breeze in my ears, not to mention a distant bird chirping away in a tree. I bent down and touched the grass. It felt as real as any grass I’d ever felt, and even when I pulled it out of the ground, the clump of soil hanging on the ends was exactly as it should be. Incredible.
The only thing that seemed fanciful were a few deer near me. Some were eating grass and looking around, but a fawn walked directly over to me, appearing nervous.
I tried to inspect it, to see what its stats were, but I couldn’t figure out how. The screen had said this was the Grassy Hills, a non-PvP zone. That meant no player versus player fighting. I couldn’t kill other players here.
A thump sounded behind me.
Near where I had landed was a woman, laying in the grass. She wasn’t moving and I took a few steps toward her when I heard a chanting, magical sound. The sound came from a statue of an angel with large wings on her back, carved right into the stone of the mountain.
A beam of light came from the angel’s chest and lifted the woman off the ground and up into the air a few feet.
She was young, probably around my age, with short black hair and some dark eye makeup on. She had a shirt with a Zelda logo on it and a pair of what looked like designer jeans with active wear built into them, right off the shelf.
That was when I realized what I was wearing. The game never had a character building section and I looked down at my plain clothes. The dirt stains were still on them, and they were probably a size too big. Embarrassed, I tidied myself up as the beam of light lowered her to her feet and she opened her eyes.
She looked terrified, staring up into the sky. “What the hell was that?”
“Did that guy kick you off the mountain?” I asked.
“Yeah. What an asshole.” She looked around, suspicious. “Are you a player?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice clothes, bro. I didn’t think hipsters played games like this.” Then she looked down at her shirt and jeans, and covered up her body as if she were naked. “What the hell is this?”
I could tell she was scanning through the menus, looking for character modification, but I’d already checked. There wasn’t any.
“Looks like were stuck being who we are for now,” I said.
She touched her face and looked at her hands. “Fine, doesn’t matter.” She pulled on her shirt. “I wouldn’t expect any normal conventions from this game anyways.”
“Oh yeah? Why do you say that?”
She frowned and I could tell she was considering whether to tell me something. “My brother works for V Corp., and he helped make this game.”
I laughed. Players would make all kinds of claims in-game, but this one was common. “What type of game is this?”
As soon as I asked, I felt a tongue lick my hand and I jumped back. The little brown fawn stood to my left, looking up at me as if I were crazy. I recovered from the critical-strike-tongue-attack and knelt to pet the baby deer. I wondered how much XP I could get for killing it? Would I get a deer pelt I could craft into armor?
That’s when I heard a scream from above. Looking up, I saw something like a globular, screaming meteorite in the sky. It was headed straight for me. I shoved the baby deer out of harm’s way just as the mass of a man crashed into me, killing me.
Magoton is Crushed.
-100 HP
You are dead
Frack, not even ten minutes into the game and I’d already had my first death. The world of Avarice Online changed from the green fields to a black void. Then I heard the familiar angel chanting, and got the sensation of being lifted. As if a warm, unseen entity was embracing me with its soft touch. The marvelous Avarice world came to life once again, as the blackness faded away.
I saw the young man who’d landed on me, floating next to me, as we both were resurrected by the angel. He was about my age, wearing a black jacket with a few patches on the shoulder, some white undershirt, and no pants. I had a difficult time looking away from the tighty-whiteys clinging to his ass.
My feet landed on the soft grass once again, and the angel’s embrace left me.
“Dude, sorry about that,” the guy that landed on me said. “Some freaking NPC kicked me right off the mountain.”
He thought Adam was just some NPC, a non-player character. Little did he know, he got kicked by a god.
“Eh, no problem,” I said. “Maybe we should move out of this area, in case another player comes crashing down.”
“Nice clothes, dude,” he said mocking me as we walked away from the mountain, but then he looked down at himself. The shock on his face was priceless, as he realized he didn’t have pants on. He flung off his jacket and wrapped it around his waist.
The woman from earlier was still there, and she laughed at the scene, covering her mouth. “Sorry, but this is such a messed-up game. How could they put us in as ourselves? It’s just crazy. I didn’t even know there was tech that could do that.”
“Crazy is right. I’m going to freaking sue them for this,” he said, adjusting his jacket into a skirt. “Who the hell are you people? You players?”
“Yeah,” I said. “My name is Magoton.” I saw the name appear above me briefly, then I saw in my menu, my name at the top.
Magoton
“My name is Killian.” Her name appeared above her.
Killian
“But spelled Capital K-I-L-L.” Her name’s spelling changed over her head.
KILLian
“Cool name,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, Avarice, my name is Gorgon the Tardis God. I’m a bit of a Whovian,” he said with a wink.
The name came across over his head.
GorgonTheTard
“No,” he said looking above him. “It’s Gorgon the Tardis God, if you have space for it. Or for freak’s sake, just Gorgon.” The name hung over his head, unchanged. “No, goddammit, you’ve got it wrong. Respell! That’s not what I want my name to be.”
“It’s okay, Gorgon the Tard. I like it,” KILLian said and laughed.
Gorgon continued to look at the sky. “Hey! I don’t want that as my name.”
“I’m sure they have a name-changing option in the game, at some point,” I said, trying to hide my snickering, but failing.
“It’s not funny, guys. I can’t go into the game like this. I’m pant-less and my name is Gorgon the Tard. I’m going to get camped the second I step into a PvP zone.”
“I got your back,” KILLian said.
“Says the lady with a killer name, who has clothes on.”
“Hey, I’ll call you Gor, okay?” KILLian offered.
I was already scanning the horizon. I’d seen a small town not far from here and a bigger coastal city with an island off in the distance.
“Hey. You said your brother helped make this game. What kind of game is this?” I asked.
“He wouldn’t talk about it. Said he didn’t want to bust the NDA’s and stuff, but he did say it wasn’t going to be like anything else out there. It would almost be too real,” she emphasized with air quotes.
“Too real?” I parroted under my breath.
That’s when I heard a scream from a woman. Not from a person hurtling at us from above, but a lady in blue dress who was running toward us, her blonde hair streaming in the wind. She looked terrified and I saw why. Two men were running behind her with spears in hand.
A text box popped up in front of me.
QUEST: Save the woman, or kill her. What kind of perso
n are you?
The text box had a light-green shade to it—an easy quest. If this game followed similar V Corp. trends, the closer it got to red, the harder it would be.
Gor and KILLian went running ahead with big smiles on their faces, and a request from KILLian to form a party popped up in front of me. I accepted and saw them appear on my map as two dots. I didn’t mind pairing up for the starter quests, as it could move things along faster and get me to the benefactor quicker.
I walked slower than KILLian and Gor, sticking back a bit as the woman stopped right in front of them. The two men slowed to a stop as well, screaming at her for being a witch. She had tears in her eyes and screamed back, denying it.
My inventory didn’t have one weapon in it, and I wasn’t sure how to defeat these two men. Punch them, I supposed. I tried to find a way to inspect them, but I came up empty handed.
KILLian, on the other hand, didn’t need a weapon and quickly convinced the men that she was indeed, not a witch. The men reluctantly agreed not to harm her and lowered their spears.
Quest complete!: +100 Xp
Congratulations! Level 2 Unlocked
+ 5 Attribute Points
Level two, that’s cool. But I wasn’t done yet. I walked around KILLian and Gor and over to the two men. They didn’t seem to care as I approached them, holding their spears like walking staffs, stuffed in the grass.
I moved quickly and grabbed the spear from the first man, then stabbed him in the neck with it.
Good Job! Farmer Bob is Dead.
90 Damage
+25 XP
+10 Evil
+1 proficiency in spears.
The numbers floated above Farmer Bob, but I didn’t hesitate and stabbed the next guy in the chest. He looked shocked as I swung the spear to strike him over the head like a bat.
Good Job! Farmer John is Dead.
