His lungs burned, his legs ached, and yet what he was most preoccupied with was how weird it all was. It wasn’t weird in the usual way, nothing was out of place, but weird in how normal it seemed. He felt out of breath and out of shape and sprinting through the city streets felt exactly how it should feel, if he had ever sprinted anywhere in recent memory that is. The cobblestone streets shook his legs in the normal way as he ran, and the narrow walls of the alleys echoed in a perfectly normal way. Yet he was in a game, although all of the news sites guaranteed people would soon be referring to it as the game rather than a game. It was hard to contest though, had he not already known it was a game there wasn’t much to give it away. The holy grail of escapism, a world you could completely lose yourself in. For all he cared it was the only game that he would need for a very long time, although he would see if the magic continued to hold once he had been playing for more than an hour.
What was weird was the dagger in his hand. Not weird because it didn’t seem real or normal, but because he was holding it. Despite the ubiquitous nature of daggers in games and stories, most people in today’s day and age had never even held a dagger, there was no point. As it happened, Vox was in the camp of ‘most people’ and wasn’t even sure which direction it should be facing. He had decided the pointy end should probably face forward to give him the least chance of stabbing himself as he ran, but he was still extremely aware of it.
The good news was he had just about caught up to his target, an average looking guy with short brown hair that he’d been trying to keep hidden under the hood of a cloth cloak. Unfortunately while the man was running the hood kept getting blown back off his head until he finally gave up trying to fix it. As Vox gained on him, the man kept throwing looks over his shoulder – which certainly didn’t help him outrun his pursuer – until the two were within arm’s reach. Vox grabbed for the man but only managed to pull his cloak off of him, and as he was almost to the point of exhaustion he stabbed out with the dagger in his right hand. The man let out a surprised scream of pain as the dagger struck beneath his shoulder and he fell to the ground sliding into the side of the alley. Almost as surprised Vox followed him down as the desperate but weak stab left him falling forward directly on top of the man resulting in the dagger accidently stabbing back in to the man, this time into his chest, sliding between a pair of ribs. With the unintentional but well placed thrust, the man released a strangled cry and Vox was startled at the animalistic sound. Panicking a little Vox did the only thing he could think of, he slashed at the center of the man’s throat to try and finish him off quickly before he managed to torture him any further. While the sounds were reduced to a coughing gargle, it did nothing to alleviate Vox’s shock, watching blood pour down the man’s neck as his face paled and eyes rolled back into his head.
Jesus, that was a lot more gruesome than I thought it would be. Vox sat there on top of what was now just a corpse, eyes wide with shock at the death that he had just caused. This was not exactly what he had been expecting when he logged in less than an hour ago.
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*****
Opening the lid of his capsule Jason felt a nervous energy running through him, or maybe excitement was the proper word. He was shaking slightly but no one could blame him, half the world was likely doing the same thing right now and many people like him had been waiting most of their lives for a moment like this. The Red Pill capsule had arrived a week ago and hundreds of millions of units were being shipped throughout the world. Developed by the largest data infrastructure conglomerate in the world, CDP Inc. the Red Pill was not only the first full immersion virtual reality device but also the first virtual reality device that almost anyone could get their hands on if they wanted. With the production capabilities of a multinational corporation able to produce millions of units on command, they were able to avoid any waiting list problems involved with such a large global release. They also had an unprecedented offer allowing people to pay what they wanted towards the full price of the device, and if they didn’t pay full market price the rest was made up by using the players’ capsules to do background computing for CDP for a set time. These factors resulted in most of the developed world receiving devices in the weeks leading up to the release of the flagship game made for the Red Pill, the VRMMO called Vitae Nova.
Now with only minutes until the game went live Jason lay down in his capsule, attaching the sensors to himself as the manual had explained. He took a deep breath and said “Start.” The world around him went black and within an instant became a white expanse in all directions. A slightly robotic female voice spoke to him “Welcome to Vitae Nova, before you are able to continue into game please choose an in game name to identify yourself.” A floating screen and keyboard appeared in front of him with a prompt asking his name, and Jason entered the name he had spent the last few days deciding on. “Thank you, you will now be referred to in game as Vox. In ten seconds you will be brought into game to a randomly selected starting area, please prepare yourself.” Jason – now Vox – began to stretch out his arms and legs, testing how everything felt before he was put into the game proper. The responsiveness was perfect and since they used his actual body measurements for his avatar there was no adapting required. The white faded to black as the ten seconds finished, and after a few seconds Vox opened his eyes for the first time.
He appeared in what appeared to be a town or a small city, with a light crowd of people going about their business and every now and then he caught a glimpse of another person looking around bewildered, wearing the same plain clothes he had been given. Ignoring most of the people for now he began to walk through the streets looking around at all the buildings and the occasional market stall. After a few minutes he heard a commotion coming towards him from a side street and turned to see a hooded figure running straight at him. Without time to react Vox was knocked off balance and fell to a sitting position as the man continued to sprint to the other side of the street and into an alley. Within seconds two more men burst out of the street the man had come from and ran towards Vox. Dressed in rather plain leathers and cloths they looked around wildly, noticing Vox on the ground they jogged up to him. “Have you seen a hooded thief running through here?” asked one of the men, sounding out of breath.
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“Yeah, the asshole knocked me over as he ran through. He went down that alley across the street.” Vox was offered a hand as he said this and the man pulled him to his feet.
“Well if you could help us stop him I would appreciate it, we’d make it worth your while.”
QUEST AVAILABLE
Stop the thief that knocked you down at any cost and
return what was stolen to its rightful owners.
“Yeah sure, I’ll see if I can catch him.” Vox said, eager to pay back the man for catching him off guard after only a few minutes in game.
QUEST ACCEPTED
You've agreed to chase down the thief.
Better start running.
Seeing the screen pop up he started to turn to give chase, but one of the men grabbed his shoulder to get his attention, handing him a dagger. “Here, take this since you seem unarmed. If he tries to get violent with you it should help you delay him until we can catch up.” Vox nodded and started running.
The sound of footsteps woke Vox from his thoughts and as he realized he was still sitting on a corpse he jumped up, trying to hide the dagger behind his back. Three men walked around a corner into view, the two he had met earlier and a new face, a young man dressed in finer looking clothes. As they saw the scene before them the new man gave a little whistle and raised his eyes at Vox. “Whew, you are brutal. I mean I know we said to stop him but…” he paused, raising his hand and shrugging his shoulders as if to say ‘Well, what can we do’.
Feeling the need to defend his actions a little Vox said, “Well it didn’t go exactly how I meant it to, I’m not too used to these sort of things” holding out the dagger from behind his back.
“Ah well, it’s no matter. You did what we asked of you and for that you’ve earned yourself a reward.” The younger man said, tossing a pouch towards Vox. He caught it in the air thankfully, and the jingling sound made it obvious what the reward was. The man continued, “And you might as well keep the knife too, seems like you could use some practice with it.”
QUEST COMPLETED
For tracking down and stopping the thief
you have been rewarded.
Rewards:
20 Silver
Iron Dagger
“And if you’re looking for some more to line your pockets, I could introduce you to some people who always need someone willing to do something like… that.” He pointed to the corpse on the ground. Well it’s not like I meant to do this, but getting some work and maybe contacts early on could be nice. Besides, it’s just a game so I should do whatever I want.
“I guess I can’t turn down an opportunity like this, and it seems like it could be a good bit of fun.” Vox flashed a grin, hoping he seemed more confident than he felt. After all, it wasn’t like he was an experienced criminal, but if they gave him a shot he’d take it. As the younger man, introducing himself as Tem, led him farther into the city, Vox was feeling good about his situation, the shock of his previous actions already forgotten with the promise of gold and adventure.
QUEST ACCEPTED You've agreed to meet Tem's acquaintances.
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*****
In the weeks leading up to the release of Vitae Nova the internet was in an uproar. The videos and tech demos had shown that this game had the ability to live up to all of the hype it was generating, yet nothing more was released about the game. The setting, the skills, the quests, the monsters, nothing was known. Forums were exploding with speculation and fake leaks, and despite the incredible cry for information, CDP did not respond. The day before the game went live however, CDP had a special live stream to kick off the launch. The head community manager for the project, Michael Morrison (who referred to himself by his forum and in game handle MoMo), took the stage to make a special announcement.
“Good evening everyone, I’m here today to give you all a gift. We are aware that some of you want answers about the game, and I’m here to tell you the most important thing about the game. In fact, this will be the only thing that you will hear from us that hasn’t already been discovered by players. You see Vitae Nova is meant to stay true to its name and act as a new life, but more than that it will be an entirely new world. We here at CDP do not wish to spoil the joy that can be had in this new world by laying out a path for you to follow, we want people to innovate and discover, to try and fail, and to persevere and succeed. So, to the disappointment of many of you I’m sure, you can expect nothing from us when it comes to information, the game however, has more depth than you could imagine. If you truly want answers, you will find them in your adventures in Vitae Nova.”
The live chat and forums following the proceedings exploded into a mixture of complaining, death threats, and excitement. Jason found himself content with this announcement, glad he would have the chance to make meaningful discoveries and choose his own goal and path. It meant knowledge would actually be a commodity that would likely be traded similar to any other resource and he wouldn’t be instantly outdone by people following some optimized path or build right from the get go. He shut down his computer, more eager than ever to finally get into game.
**Author's Note: This story is meant to be a way for me to work on my writing so criticism and praise are completely welcome, just try and actually point out what you don't like. You won't hurt my feelings regardless of what you say but saying "It's bad" doesn't tell me what I need to work on.
Anyway this is really just a story about what some characters may do in my ideal VRMMO, things like gore and swearing are here because I think they set the tone and will let you know what you're in for. I like both of them, but will only try to use them when I think it serves a purpose.