Sarah lived a comfortable life, she had a decent job and a three bedroom apartment that she shared with four others. Micheal owned the house, his wife Laura ran it like a bed and breakfast. Jason was basically a third wheel in their relationship, he lived with them and made it seem as if he was just a part of the family without trying. Kendra was a bit of a shut-in, but made her contributions by paying almost double the rent that any of the rest of them paid.
Sarah and Kendra were a lot alike, but Kendra was way more into the developmental side of computers and programming. Connecting to the systems and experiencing the new worlds was where Sarah thrived. They made for excellent roommates in the upstairs portion of the house. Kendra always kept it clean and made sure to have new software for Sarah to test out. Sarah brought in needed hardware and ran errands for Kendra with the expectation of being an unbeatable main boss character in one of her worlds one day.
Sarah worked designing websites and advertisements for all sorts of companies. She got the rare opportunity to flex her testing skills in new virtual worlds as part of a small contract with a large gaming software company. While her parents may never think that was good enough, Sarah didn’t particularly care. She had enough to pay for what she had, and it left her enough time to enjoy the things she wanted to go out and do as well. Being a free spirit made an office cubicle tedious. Sarah always preferred to take her laptop out into nature. Even if it was just the small playground down the street. The handful of trees and swing set would be a five star vacation compared to a small desk with four close walls.
Her fathers insurance company made millions every year. Taking money from other people and promising to pay it back if they ever needed it, and then when it was needed they always had the fine print to hide behind and protect their assets. Their fine print and miles of red tape led to the reason Sarah left home in the first place. When she had been in an incident that caused her truck to be totaled, her parents insurance had only been able to cover half of the value of the truck. When she complained and wanted to know why they wouldn’t cover the whole cost of the truck, her father had said that she had not kept up with the required maintenance schedules so it was classified as poor condition.
That had been the last straw with them, Sarah had enough to put a deposit in for the rent at Micheal and Laura's home, so she left. She was twenty-three and going to spend the next few decades paying off loans for college, why shouldn’t she at least do it in a place she enjoyed. Sarah knew several others that had gone into debt to pay for education, and then got stuck working a menial job outside of their degree field just to try and repay the loans.
Between massive overcrowding in the majority of the world’s cities and a sudden drought of food supplies, the sociopolitical scene was chaotic. Governments were being forced to limit population increases where they could. Several countries that had small populations were even seeing huge influxes of people looking for anywhere less crowded to live. Resources were sparse and created conflict between the most powerful governments. From food to energy, and housing to immigration, they all argued daily. Blaming the rest of the world for the entire world's problem wouldn’t solve it, but Sarah didn’t know what should be done either, so she just let it play out and lived her own life.
Some of the solutions had been to redistribute the population of the most dense cities into newly built neighborhood districts. Massive sprawling buildings that could house hundreds of thousands of people. One country had been preaching and trying to convince other world leaders that an alien had contacted them and shared knowledge that could help fix all their problems. They tended to leave out the part that the alien wanted absolute submission from the entire population of the planet as well as a majority of its resource harvests. So much for the easy answer, Sarah figured they had to be trying to scam the entire world for some reason, it wasn’t working.
As the populations of the major cities bloomed, the job rate plummeted. Many jobs that could be automated left a huge part of the workforce without jobs. They simply didn’t need them to work anymore. Escaping the real world into virtual games and entertainment began to seize more interest as the mundane reality ate away at those left with no daily routine. Sarah would have enjoyed running into cyberspace regardless of the decline in society, she just made the most of it as she could. Designing and testing were her favorite parts of the virtual experience. Being an advertisement creator and website designer for many different companies kept Sarah in the loop of new things coming out well before they were released.
A few of these companies let Sarah in on their testing phases before new games would release. Some were simple and just straight up games that had basic objectives. Some were all out battle royals that didn’t have much for character or equipment customization, but left little want for violence and battle. Her favorites were the ones with complex story lines and open world mechanics that let the player choose how the world progressed. Some details in those games could only be found by playing an exact way, or by having completed one objective before another.
Being able to traverse into new worlds, built by imagination and more hours of work and dedication than any player would ever understand, was what Sarah lived for. She had a love for nature, but the overpopulation of the world around her made the nature around her suffer.
Turning on her game system, Sarah smiled. This was a new game, and not even released yet. The next two weeks would be an almost constant full dive experience into a virtual reality, play testing an unnamed game. That was just the beginning, the beta test would last a full three months. This was worth the vacation time she would have to burn with some of her contracts. This was a chance to experience an entire planet and new civilization, all in full immersion. And there was no telling how the time dilation would make the time pass differently in the virtual world. She might be able to live out several solar rotations in the span of what would normally be weeks.
Valkeria Games, a new side project from one of her main designing contracts, had reached out to offer her a chance to be a part of the live beta release. They wanted several players to play through the world, help it progress and report back with their personal feelings of the game. The only info on the world progression that they gave was that all actions from all players would be constantly changing and adjusting how the game was going.
Sarah figured that meant that once a dungeon or monster nest was cleared, it wouldn’t just re-spawn five seconds later. That meant most quests and available items would go to the first person or group to claim them. It also meant that as the world progressed, more quests and items would appear. The later the game, the better the loot. Hopefully that meant her half day late start wouldn’t set her back too much.
The visor slid down over her face smoothly, the rest of the helmet contraption wasn’t the most comfortable, but once Sarah relaxed in her chair it didn’t bug her much. Her home screen from the gaming console blinked into view, the clustered section of swirling galaxy showing the Destructo Pup ship blasting his way through alien invaders. It was a cute animation she had helped design, unique to her console.
The loading game flashed up a screen over top of the space battlefield,
Loading… Please wait while a boot up diagnostics and connectivity report are completed.
Sarah waited, watching the errant laser blasts and small explosions in the background. It was only about thirty seconds later when she felt the tremor of static go through her entire body. She jumped slightly, and then felt as if all her limbs had fallen asleep. Another screen popped up in front of her,
Initialized. Thank you for your patience.
Begin? Yes / No
Sarah focused on the Yes, then thought about her own physical self one more time. That shock had been enough to get her heart pounding, then make all her limbs numb. Was this thing safe to use? She thought about saying no, declining to play and just passing on it. Then the formation of the planet began to materialize in the background. Almost as if it was being zoomed in on from her galaxy background.
She watched as the screen pulled her into the vicinity of a few stars. Their bright light blinding as they got closer, but as they zoomed past one, then another, a small cluster of planets came into view. Sarah was amazed at the detail, the blazing white hot star was emitting waves of energy over the planets around it as they orbited. At the very edge of the fast orbiting planets, was a slowly rotating tan dwarf planet. It was reflecting a huge amount of the energy the star was emitting. Sarah guessed it was shielded by an atmosphere of some sort, and that had to be the planet the game was taking her to.
Sarah finally clicked the Yes, confirming her place in the game. She was already behind and needed to get a move on. The screen disappeared, and the planet she had been eyeing in the distance began to grow. Maybe not grow, she thought, but rather she was being thrown at it very rapidly.
Welcome Traveler! This is the planet Tios, home to a variety of species. Here you can choose which race and class training you wish to choose. Before you begin, please take a moment to name yourself…
Enter I.D.-
Sarah blinked, then sighed. She knew who she would be already. Tios, though, that name sounded familiar from somewhere. Was it in a constellation? Was it a fantasy name she had already heard once and it just rang a bell? It didn’t matter, she entered her name into the blank box.
SarthDarah
The text box cleared away after she made her choice to keep it forever. The planet of Tios was now the only thing in her immediate view. The tan surface made it look mostly desert covered. Jutting out from the equator area on one side, a huge spiral tower rose from the planet's surface to come just to the edge of where the atmosphere deflected solar radiation.
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As the game took her closer, Sarah could see mountain ranges spanning into the distance. The peaks of some seemed to reach towards the tower, desperate to be as monumental as the looming metal spire. Sarah meant to speak her amazement out loud, but when she tried to speak, no sound came out. She could feel her throat making the motions, her lungs were pushing air out, but no sound was being created. Was this a realistic experience of being in outer space? It was pretty intense since she didn’t feel any other physical sensation beyond her own internal body functions.
The spiraling tower was getting close, she could see it dominating the horizon of the planet. Around its tip Sarah could see several large ships. In the background, she could see two moons silhouetted behind the tower and planet. The dark green marbles of rock were minuscule compared to the planet, and the planet looked small even as Sarah was nearing the top of the tower.
Welcome! Starway Space Needle number twenty-three, servicing planet Tios and the immediate surrounding cluster of celestial bodies, asks that you register with the travelers committee on the one hundredth floor before proceeding planet side. Enter the Registration Office.
The looming tower, or Space Needle, was by far the most enormous structure Sarah had ever seen. It was a pastel purple color, some of it was darkened by shadow and looked almost black. She looked down again at the planet spreading on before her. Now that she was nearly at the top of the tower, the planet actually had discernible features beyond color. The first thing Sarah was acutely aware of was the lake of water. Her own planet had nearly eighty percent coverage of water. Maps were mostly covered in blue ink to show the vast distances between the small landmasses.
This world had maybe thirty percent water. It was nearly the opposite of what Sarah was used to seeing on a planet. Mountains soared above massive steppes and plains, the few river valleys she could make out as the planet slowly rotated in front of her had the greenest land, but they were short and narrow. Did that make this an apocalyptic setting then? The developers hadn’t really given too many details on the state of the world. Sarah shocked herself having the thought that maybe another player or group of players had already nuked the planet to oblivion. They wouldn’t allow such game breaking so early on, would they?
Sarah clicked enter on the screen still hovering in her view, it zapped her vision straight into the tower, where she now had a much more physical sense of herself. Almost as if the experience of traveling to the stars and around the planet of Tios had been an out of body one. The senses of smell and sound were suddenly oversensitive and Sarah flinched at the sudden wave of aromas and sounds. The absolute nothingness of space, the silence and purity of it, had been so suddenly broken that it took her a moment to orient herself. When Sarah finally stood upright and was able to take in her surroundings, she was blocked by a text box.
Welcome SarthDarah, you have entered registration, please select a race that applies to you.
Sarah’s eyes grew wide as they scanned all the text that followed. Every racial creature that she had ever heard of in fantasy had its place. Plus several that were unfamiliar to her. They had Elven races, Pixies, numerous Human variants, Ogres, even Succubi, Kyuketsuki, and Draconic. If Sarah wanted to read through each one’s benefits and handicaps she would be here the rest of the day. She was already a half day behind everyone that started immediately after the release. This was gonna be hard, but Sarah decided she would be able to come back and start again on the actual release date to pick more carefully.
Clicking on a dexterity boosted Human Variant, she registered her first incarnation into the game as SarthDarah, Female, Luftläufer. The long messages about her racial benefits got minimized as another box with a long list of class options appeared. This list was even longer than the racial choices, and Sarah had little patience for the details at this point, she was ready to play. Scrolling through and scanning, she found a section of monk class variants. She noted a few good options among them, and with her dexterity boosted racial benefit, any monk class would do. Most of them had either insights into specialties or career path choices attached to them.
The Spiritual Enlightened Monk Warrior seemed to scream at her from the text window. Sarah couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face when she saw the energy based attacks that this class specialized in. She would have access and control over chi, her fingers already tingled with excitement over the anticipation of handling true power like that.
With her choices made, and hopefully enough time to blast through whatever tutorial that was inevitably about to start, Sarah finally got a clear unobstructed view of the space dock around her. The multitudes of docking stations seemed to stretch on forever, warehouses and heavy machinery dotting the ground in between massive freight hauling ships. It almost looked like NPCs were busy at work, loading and unloading various crates and containers.
Just as Sarah was about to start walking over to investigate, a notice popped up in her view.
Transferring, location lock, please wait…
And with a three second delay, Sarah felt her entire body suck in on itself like a collapsing star, then without even a split second to feel any pain, Sarah was standing inside a mountain top courtyard. Red tiled roofing surrounding her, the silver blue sky quietly filling in the backdrop, and a hard concrete surface under her feet. Looking around, a small set of doorways led into a temple.
The temple doors had nothing but heavy shadows inside, and around the open courtyard it was a bright shining day. Even though the light was a silvery blue instead of a bright yellow like she was used to, it felt warm and made her want to lay down and enjoy it. Sarah had to shake her head at that thought, the rest of the real gamers playing would have started grinding as soon as possible, not wish to lie down and take a nap.
Even if some of them were gamers who could spend hours or even full cycles to build a customized character, they wouldn’t waste any actual game time in a limited beta like this. Each player was limited to one play through, and with limited progression available to an individual's skills and ability paths, it would be a hard grind to max out as soon as possible. Especially with the continual world progression being driven by player actions.
Everyone would be pressing to be the number one player, to be the one controlling the driving force and shaping the world to their endgame desires. Sarah was no different, this may be just a beta test for a game and it would probably all be wiped clean before the actual release, but this was still a point of pride for her. To have the world ending, and then being wiped, with her rule as the last imprint on it would be a highlight on her entire career.
Taking a better look around, Sarah noticed a few things in her view that hadn’t been there until she arrived at the temple. A health bar, stacked over top a couple of other brightly colored bars, sat neatly in her lower left vision. A few floating numbers and text bubbles were out of focus and looked like they were minimized into the distance. The cherry blossom trees all registered with small markers that named them.
Sarah started walking around, testing her body’s functions as she went. Her legs and arms worked just as if they were really her own. There was no lag in her thinking about swinging an arm up, and it was doing just as she imagined it should. It didn’t bend funny, it didn’t follow only a single preset travel path, it acted like her arm. She could jump and run, leap side to side, even do jumping jacks and burpees.
After a few minutes of experimenting, Sarah began to wonder what she was actually supposed to be doing. No more pop ups had appeared, no one else had shown up to guide her. There wasn’t even a quest log in her stack of gauges and status bars. She looked around again, the temple walls were white wash stone, the sky was wide open beyond the peaks of the mountain range she sat upon. The three doorways to the temple seemed her only option.
Sarah began jogging over to them, starting to feel the strain on her lungs as the green bar drained slowly. She had been watching it blink down a fraction, then full again, as she was doing small exercises. Only when she had started to jog for more than a few meters did it ever go down steadily. It was slow, and only went about an eighth of the way down when she reached the doorway. The darkness didn’t lessen as she came near. Even sticking her head tentatively into the archway revealed nothing more than shadow.
Sarah thought about how handy her supposed chi ability would be now. She could imagine it condensing in her hands and lighting up the darkness. Sadly nothing happened. Sarah was about to just run into the dark, but decided to take one last lap around the courtyard to investigate thoroughly before leaving this place forever.
The trees all were in blossom, the stones all lined up neatly to make a solid wall nearly the entire way around. Only when she came to the opposite side of the temple walls from the doorways did she find a set of solid stone stairs leading up to the top of the wall.
“Huh, I’ll bet on this being the right way.” Surprised to find her own voice coming from her game character's mouth, Sarah started up the stairs. Wasn’t a game character supposed to be mute? Or have to mime frantic signals and hope the other players understood her? There hadn’t been a chat box, just another feature Sarah thought she was going to miss. If she could just talk out loud, that meant communication was just as fluid as physical motion. This game had some seriously advanced sensory engagement software.
At the top of the wall, a sudden rush of wind nearly blew Sarah back off the wall. Shielding her face with her arms, She held her ground until the wind backed off a little. It was still harshly cutting into her exposed skin, not exactly painfully, but harsh enough that Sarah registered the sensation of it. The view of the valley below was breathtaking, and it immediately made Sarah forget the wind and drop her arms in awe.
A lush green field, thick in wild growing flowers large enough to see from the mountain top. The glittering blue sea beyond was reflecting the star light and looked like a mirror of the sky above. She could see a small city to the west, it was saddled on the winding coastline and partially hidden by the sharp peak of a mountain. To the south the green field gave way to dirt and sand, small hills and dunes climbed slowly back into mountains in the distance.
Looking back around the temple, Sarah finally saw the pop up label giving the temple a name. Temple of Sky, home of the Windwalkers. Starting location for monk based characters. So this was a spawn point basically. Why wasn’t anyone else here? Was she really so far behind that the starting locations were abandoned already?!
Update: You have been gifted a starting item. Crystal of Mental Focus. Attaches to an internal upgrade slot in your vessel.
A single finger length blue crystal appeared in front of her, right within reach. She caught it before it could fall, and then wondered how she was supposed to attach crystals to her internal slots. A simple pop up on her arm was all she needed to see to place the crystal against a thin line on her skin. It almost looked like she had ink markings made to look like seams all up and down both of her arms. When the crystal touched the seam, a small compartment opened up to accept the crystal. The slight rush of energy made her feel very alert and focused.
The new sensation of pent up energy, combined with a lingering feeling of tardiness, made Sarah contemplate something incredibly stupid. Standing on top of the Temple of Sky walls, Sarah could look down over the entire valley. It was no short drop to the bottom of the mountain peak she was on. If this starting location was abandoned, and she was that far behind in only half a day, she would never catch up to any of the other gamers.
But, if she took a short cut to the bottom of the mountain, and then hightailed it to the city in the distance, maybe she could at least tag along with some higher level groups until she could power level herself to even. At least then she would be near the front even if she was a bit under level. Sarah wondered what level the highest players could be at already, and then she focused in on the sloping cliff below her.
“Only one way to find out if this is a good idea or not.” Sarah felt the tombstone engraver laugh as he noted what might be her final words in this life, then promptly did a front flip off of the wall into the open sky beyond.