The World beyond had four servers: Universe, Heaven, Embryo and Slate. The Universe served as the game’s ever expanding main server. Every year, the current galaxy in the Embryo server would merge into the Universe and a new galaxy would be generated to replace it, a haven for new players to build up in safety before being thrown into the mosh pit. The Slate server was the backup and Heaven the testing realm.
The Galactic Academy had two distinct levels of competition, intro level and continuing studies. The intro level comprised entirely of new players all joining the game near the start of the school year. This would be the one Fiona and Isaac would join. Continuing studies was for those who were already playing the game when they entered.
The Embryo didn’t begin its new cycle until the beginning of September, but school started in mid August. After all, there was much to learn that didn’t require playing.
The large coach bus pulled to a halt outside a virtual city of white stone and glass buildings. Fiona disembarked and collected her stuff before making her way to her room, a long trek that she wasn’t looking forward to repeating any time soon. Since classes wouldn’t start until the next day, Fiona took the opportunity to explore the campus around her dorm.
“Wait! Don’t come in yet!” Her roommate must have arrived while she was out exploring. Fiona wondered she was doing as a loud scraping sound echoed through the door followed by a loud thud. “Okay, you can come in now.”
With some trepidation, Fiona slowly pushed open the door to find her roommate still in the process of unpacking.
“Sorry, I left my luggage in front of the door,” she explained apologetically.
Fiona’s new roommate had bleach blond hair, large blue eyes, and a perfect smile displaying perfect teeth. Everything about her, her makeup, her lipstick, her painted nails was so perfect that Fiona swore she must be a model. She couldn’t help feeling a little jealous and intimidated.
-|-
Her name was Amy, and she wasn’t a model. She was however the daughter of one of the higher ups at a large tech company.
Fiona woke up the next morning to find Amy already awake, preparing her perfect appearance in front of a full length mirror she’d needed Fiona’s help to put up yesterday.
“Good morning,” she gave Fiona a sunny smile as she clipped on a pair of earrings.
“You don’t have pierced ears?”
Amy giggled delicately. “Does that surprise you?”
“A little.”
“I can’t stand the thought of having a needle stabbed through my ear. But my family requires me to wear jewelry so this was the compromise. What about you?”
“I don’t do jewelry?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Even for special events?”
Fiona shrugged and climbed out of bed. “My family’s not big on it.
“I see.” Amy meticulously arranged her in a flower like braid with a single strand hanging down her back while Fiona changed into her new, uniform. The jet black coat and skirt didn’t really fit her style but she’d have to put up with it.
As she waited for Amy to put away her things, the thought crossed Fiona’s mind that she didn’t really seem like the gaming type.
“Why’d you come to the Galactic Academy?” she asked curiously.
“To generate interest in the company.” Amy shrugged helplessly. “Although I think becoming a pro will be pretty cool.”
Fiona didn’t comment that the way she said it made it sound like becoming a pro was guaranteed.
-|-
Thanks to her wanderings the day before, Fiona had no trouble finding most of her classes. Many of her classmates on the other hand, weren’t so well prepared. She kept finding people with their noses buried in maps, looking around for some sort of landmark, or else staring into space as if hoping divine intervention would light a path for them.
To her surprise, one of these people was her brother Isaac. He had a hand planted in his messy brown hair as he and his friend Alex studied a large map. Alex was the first to notice Fiona watching them and waved frantically, grinning in his usual manic fashion.
“You came too?”
“Yup. Where are you heading?”
“Room G3C.”
“G is the building, 3 is floor, C is the room.”
Understanding dawned on the boys’ faces and they peered at the map only to look up again in complete befuddlement. “So where are we now?”
“You’re-” Fiona peeked at the map and pointed at an intersection “- right here. That means you need to go that way.”
“Oh snap.” Isaac’s eyes widened. “That’s all the way across campus! Thanks, sis. Come on Alex, we need to-”
“See ya Fi!” Alex gave her a signature wave before sprinting off leaving Isaac to follow as best he could, sighing in exasperation.
Fiona giggled to herself. She didn’t like most of Isaac’s friends, they tended to be too serious or too crude, but Alex was one of the ones she actually liked. She dug around in her shoulder bag and pulled out her itinerary double checking the room before heading off herself.
-|-
“Over here! Over here!” Fiona was surprised to find Amy calling out to her as she entered the room and claimed the seat she’d been saved at a table group near the front of the room. The remaining seats were already filled by a slim Indian girl with shades and her feet kicked up on the desk while the other dozed with a book over her face.
The Indian girl lifted her shades and gave Fiona a wink before returning to conversing with Amy with a slight accent.
The book came off the other girl’s face as she appraised Fiona. “So you’re Amy’s roommate?”
“How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Don’t let Sophie fool you,” the Indian girl frowned as Sophie tossed her book onto the table. “Amy said she was saving that seat for her roommate.”
“But… how did you know I would be in this class.”
Amy grinned mischievously. “Lucky guess.”