FYI adding more text later just setting it up to do tables.
Do you wish to log on to an Arc’s Path (Limited Gold Trial Edition)?
Yes/No?
“No?”
The Game Capsule powered down.
- Is this the end? -
-Yes, the end.-
….
...
...
...
Chapter 1.1
-Well, that was stupid-
Charlie sat inside the capsule and looked around its dimmed interior.
-Maybe if I bounced in my chair it would start up again.-
Charlie wiggled a few times inside the capsule to test this out; then she felt stupid. She was highly disappointed that virtual reality games still asked rhetorical questions during the start-up process. While sitting in the chair in hopes that the startup process would proceed again Charlie started shoulder dancing to imaginary elevator music for about fifteen seconds. She gave the interior dome the evil eye.
- Ahh! Screw it. - Flipping the bird at the capsule, Charlie then used her arms to move her stiff legs from the capsule chair. With a move that could rival any olympic gymnast, she used her upper body strength to drag her whole body to another chair, a wheelchair. The automated disability chair granted her the freedom of movement that her own legs could not provide. She adjusted her legs to a more comfortable position. Then she falsified the medical attendance book for having entered the capsule. By the time Charlie left the capsule she didn’t feel like going in again.
It wasn’t like Virtual Reality was gonna solve everything.
An Arc’s Path is the coolest virtual reality game ever released, with 92.99% realism it
was also based on a tried and true virtual reality game previously known as World’s Circle. This time the game had an ultimate goal and it was to raise a non-player able character to Godhood. It was stressed by their marketing team that teamwork would be an essential part to winning the game. The first player, or team, to raise an npc to Godhood would be rewarded with a prize of $1,2 billion (#blame inflation).
In spite of the wonderful prize money and strange game mechanics, an Arc’s Path held no interest for Charlie. In fact, whenever she plays any virtual reality games, she ends up suffering from an abominable headache straight afterwards. Instead, Charlie is content with doing the things that she enjoys and one of these things is magic class.
Yep magic class, Charlie was attending magic class. You might be thinking that she rolled back to the capsule and logged onto an Arc’s Path. However, this was not the kind of magic class where you throw fireballs at a monster, nor the kind that caused AoE spells/area of effect spells like frost spells; and definitely not the kind where you raise the dead and use your zombies to tank for you. It’s the kind of magic where you would pull a coin out of a person’s ear. Yes, Charlie is actually practising magic tricks, not fantasy magic. Today’s lesson was practicing stacking cups.
Charlie was playing stacking cups with her friend. With sleight of hand and a twist of the wrists, cups were stacked instantaneously. The cups stood tall and proud for one second and then, at an even faster rate than blinking, they were unstacked. Shannon, Charlie’s friend, had deadpan eyes had sighed at Charlie’s performance. In front of her was a hot glue gun and a few cups already stacked and glued together. Unfortunately, Shannon wasn’t as interested in magic lessons as Charlie was; however, she was at least capable of pulling a coin out from nowhere.
{Also, just FYI, it's called sport stacking. Stacking up is up stacking, unstacking is down stacking}
Shannon didn’t learn these skills because she runs a catering service for children, nor does she plan to. Likewise, Charlie never planned to learn these skills because she wanted to join a circus. As part of the substandard minority, they were offered lessons that could instil confidence. Yes, both Shannon and Charlie are considered as substandard. Shannon had no legs and Charlie could not use her legs. It wasn’t like either of the girls were mentally incapacitated, nor were they ashamed or feeling inferior to anyone. Shannon could walk comfortably with her carbon steel legs and Charlie could play shuttle turtle in her wheelchair down the hospital corridors at 12 km per hour.
The magic teacher for the class nodded at the stacked cups in front of them, sports stacking was a basic skill that was taught as “magic” . Then he passed them a certificate, which was printed on normal paper from an old inkjet printer in the office, as approval. There was actually another person in the class overseeing the project; Doctor Qwerty was assessing the compatibility and practicality of the government funded program and his patients. Doctor Qwerty frowned at the results. Sometimes, he can never understand why the government funded this program.
{note to self scene cut out }
Scene 2 Ocean of Piranhas
The official game opening of an Arc’s Path. The specially made gold trial edition was over. The game was released to the public.
Coastal city Lulam, home to a population of 10,387 people suddenly became the home for 15,472 extra new people. Why was there so many immigrants at the same time? Was it due to the war the Xenolith and the Yvonne kingdoms? No, it was because the new peoples were preordained by the religions of the Castella continent. These peoples were to be addressed as Loose Mortals if they were to die, in six days time, they would be born again by the will of the Castella Gods. In reality it was because Lulam was the first default city that showed up on the map if you requested the map to show up in front of you while selecting your character. If your right hand was to rise at a ninety degree angle and point forward it would immediately stab at the location of Luman city. Most of the new players, in this city, were people who were unfamiliar to Virtual Reality or were people who did not care where they started in. In the spawning point, a myriad of shouts could be heard from the centre point.
“Five Star Members meet near Central Square!”
“Here! Here! I have bought the bowl from Mary’s Antiquities,”
“No, no here is the silver spoon from Owen’s Fine Wares,”
“When we leave the city we are going to get 1 millions rabbits.”
In the administration building overseeing the spawning point. The noble Hormilus Ketoris peered down from his window and and was inscribing this glorious event in his journal.
‘These were the voices of traveller who had joined our world. Sweet, noble, intelligent, courageous people. People who would join our causes to help us defeat the monsters that roamed over our lands. Yes with the help of these new people who could not die we will be ever victorious in our nation.’
Noble Ketoris was pleased as he wrote in his journal. Delighted with the extra noise outside the city, he listened to more of the shouts coming from across the city square.
“Wow … How do you speak in virtual reality?”
“Hey old man I got you, your bloody spoon so where’s the cash?”
“What is this brown cardboard turd shaped thing? And why do I need ten of them… should I throw it out?”
“No, but if you don’t want it let me keep it safe for you.”
Noble Ketoris then decided to concentrate on writing in his journal but then couldn’t keep focused on writing. He listened on to voices in the centre square.
“Hey you! You have a sharp stick thingi! Teach me the thingi skills to be a warrior. I will become the Emperor… No the Emperor Penguin! Muhahahahah! I will enslave you all!”
Noble Ketoris looked down at his written journal and sighed.
Tearing the page out he then threw the paper into the embers of last night's dying fire. Being a religious man, prayed for guidance for these poor pitiful people among the sounds of the city guards slashing at the Loose Mortals.
~~~
At the same time that Noble Ketoris was writing in his journal. A creature not known to the players was flying directly over Lulum. A new race not playable by any player yet. It is a creature that normally flies around the continent a random intervals. The gaming AI allows this in hopes for an event to be triggered. It is the magnificent white dragon. The AI at this point of time caused the dragon’s belly to feel rumbly as of late.. In hopes to ease its grumbling stomach it has taken to eating rare Uragrey grass from the slopes of Wavebreakhill. Over the the city of Luman it flies high in the sky where no one can see way above the clouds…GUrrheeh …. And from it falls down to earth the nastiest missile known to mankind…. A mud pack of disaster heading straight at the starting area near the central fountain.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
~~~
Ryou appeared in the centre of Lulam only to be jostled by another newly appearing player who had tripped and fell on the floor face down right into a pile of horse manure. Ignoring him, he squeezed himself away from the starting point and scratched his spiky hair. The starting city seem too small for the influx of the additional players. It gave the city an emotion of urgency and panic. Ryou turned to his right only to be shocked at seeing some crazy player try to pull a sword from guards scabbard declaring that he would become the emperor. An additional four guards in full chain armour had dogpiled the player and skewered him with swords. The crazy player turned gray and all that was left was a brown piece of bread. A pack of brown piranhas swarm upon it, there was no traces of crumbs. Ryou made a mental note to himself... stealing is evil. It is not a career he would entertain as it resulted in a becoming a sinking ship besides he had a strong background in music and he knew which career path he loved and cherished.
Ryou explored the city. A quick check of his inventory and he knew why the players were surrounding the NPCs like beggars looking quests and money to buy food. The mages guild had twelve people waiting in line and the warriors guild and twenty-four people hanging around the building. Ryou moved towards the bards guild there was another queue of twelve waiting impatiently.
A pasty fellow with fellow with a long curly moustache like a catfish walked out the door and surveilled the players waiting in queue. He wore his tights on the outside. A few of the players snickered when he waffled past and with a long silver flute held like a cudgel he tapped the three people on the shoulders.
“Out,”
Ryou and the remainder players stood to attention. Three players protested and then flipped the bird in protest.
“Despicable,” the moustache man spoke while only showing only keen intent on polishing his flute.
They left with groan about infamy gained in the first four hours of playing. The man from the guild then looked up and down the nearest player in utmost disgust…
“Brown potato sacks cannot learn here comeback once you are decently clothed.”
And with that the npc from guild turned abruptly back into the building.
~~~
-Ahhh Poop. Why did they make a virtual world with 99.99% realism?-
A fine high pitch sound Nox could be heard in his ears. This was a result of the virtual world. eventually it would lead to a massive headache at the end of playing. To Nox it was like having a queasy stomach and forcing yourself to eat two day old greasy fried fish.
Under these circumstances Nox had a really bad day as of now the Virtual World sucked. After being forced to log on to play the first thing that happened was being crushed in the press of people. Suddenly out of nowhere a nob had just logged in, causing Nox to fall face down in the poop of a foul creature of this world.
- As of now all noobs are nobs and they are to go onto my death list.-
Due to the stench of the poop, it cause Nox to straighten his arms and arch his back in disgust, this happened repeatedly as more noobs rushed the logged in process, pushing his face deeper into the muck.
You are the first person to be blessed: You have learned the ability “Plank”
Planking allows for the user to be conspicuous or inconspicuous depending on the circumstances of use.
Event: As a result of being blessed you have collected 99 x brown mysterious object.
-Great a useless ability and some kind of weird item.-
Nox finally wiped the muck off his face flinging casually on next noob that appeared behind him. What was the point in activating a useless skill… it doesn’t even involve any technique. It was written on the a website that a player could invoke sword karma whereas a true swordsman implementing the same move would do so with real knowledge of swordplay could slice and dice with pure technical skill.
- What more skill can you need? I got the true magic. Yes pulling coins from nowhere. -
Wiping his muddy hand on his beginning level clothing, Nox noticed that the guard npc were occupied with handling a player that was attempting to pull their sword from their scabbard. For the first time in his life Nox stood uneasy on his two legs, stumbling in closer, he became one with the observing crowd and his pockets soon bulged with thirty copper coins.
~~~~
In the first two hours of the game launch, a new walkthrough guide was being created by the illustrious group otherwise known as Five Star. The Five Star guild was group of hardcore gamers that attempts to complete any prize giving game. The game they were going to conquer was an Arc’s Path. On the chat board various information was being compiled on the game.
Johnstone: There is no lock down in the city but man those rabbits are nasty.
Zapper: Did you know that those who played the beta state of the game? The AI remembers you.
Slagathor: Hey also everyone is gifted with a free ability based on your actions.
Teh: D: I got the skill nose picker…
Slagathor: I guess they really did take the Ai from that old game
Zapper: Hey pick but don’t eat it…
~~~~
If you had 25 people going for the same job what’s your chance of being that person who was employed? Ryou had to find a part time job to make some some money so he could get some fancy clothes to get accepted into the bard’s guild. Easier said then done. Every NPC was swarmed with players. Although the population of NPC was at 10,387 only two thirds of them were giving out jobs that paid well and about four or five players were crowding them. There were even players who had given up on trying to find money and were moping around the central square, there was even a weird one that was planking on the water statue. Ryou glanced around and happened come across the crowded florist shop.
The shop was overflowing with flowers in various displays. Ryou approached the counter to see if the manager of the store would let him do any odd jobs. Of course the counter was crowded with other players looking for jobs as well. They were surrounding the manager like baby chicks cooing for that extra juicy worm. The manager was flustered, stressed and slightly agitated. Ryou knew it was gonna take a while for him to talk to the manager. So he started to peruse the bouquets in the store. Seeing that some of the stock was not face fronted he began to straighten the vases and the flowers in alignment. The vases were definitely out of alignment by about 2.53 mm; Ryou could feel his eyes twitching from annoyance. In his real life Ryou was a stickler for order. It must be in a perfect pattern. He felt instantly relieved once he organised the shop and started to work on the next shelf. He was focussing on the job at hand and didn’t realise that manager had shouted at the annoying people in the shop. The vultures in the shop fell quiet.
The flower manager pointed at Ryou, “ You, you’re hired,” and throws a brown apron at Ryou.
You have gained the skill Auto Alignment.
Things can now be positioned correctly automatically. Skill will rise exponentially if this auto feature is turned off.
The flower manager explained that Ryou’s job was to deliver flowers to the shop’s clientele.