Chapter 2: A Virtual Fashionista
Ash possessed a state-of-the-art VR set, mirroring that of Rose's. It delivered a breathtaking spectacle of pristine visuals, captivating their gaze and enveloping their reality. Complementing this visual feast, the VR set was equipped with high-fidelity audio, channelled through noise-cancelling earbuds nestled comfortably in their ears. Once they put the headset onto their heads, the headsets effectively severed their connection with the outside world, granting them the option to immerse entirely in their virtual one.
Despite sharing the same room, Ash and Rose decided early on to conduct all in-game conversations and audio exclusively through their VR headsets. This decision maintained an uncanny semblance of their physical presence while significantly enhancing their shared virtual immersion.
In Ash's grip were two controllers to navigate the in-game menus, lightweight but durable they’d seen some hammering in the time he’d had the VR, especially when he died to a boss as you already know.
Sat comfortably in his chair, Ash navigated to the 'Press Arenas' menu. This virtual space was a familiar setting, having been the stage of numerous press conferences that he had witnessed over his gaming journey. Together with Rose, they enjoyed their shared routine of meeting at their designated spot in the bustling Main Arena. This venue, despite its digital nature, mirrored the energy of real-life arenas teeming with participants. A peculiar feature of this realm was the spectral presence of its users, with characters phasing through one another - a weird experience that took some time to become used to.
The screen now presented a choice of virtual arenas, each with its status displayed prominently. A number were unavailable, their thumbnail sporting a bold 'CLOSED' sign. Conversely, many were available, their doors thrown open exclusively for this anticipated press briefing from 'The Chaos Council'. It was surprising to Ash, the sheer number of arenas that were participating in the event. Clearly, this press conference was well sought after, corporations everywhere were clearly wanting a slice of the pie from the advertisements that were placed all around the arena.
Dominating the top of the list was the 'MAIN ARENA', with its exclusive row in the menu. This arena was the digital colosseum of their virtual world, able to seat 500,000 users.
By seat, it meant that people had to pre-order tickets in advance and there were only that many tickets available. The tickets were also not cheap. £100 per ticket and £500 if you wanted the front section, it didn’t take a genius at maths to work out that the press conference would bring in a massive amount of money, pair that with the other arenas and both ‘The Chaos Council’ and the arena owners would be raking money in. Tie that in with advertisement deals that peppered the arena throughout the show and billboards around and it is clear to see that gaming was a very lucrative business if you were a studio!
He clicked on it and the main arena started to load around him. If you’ve ever been to a football game and stood outside the stadium for the first time you will know what Ash felt when he had first stood in front of it. Stood on the main strip leading to the stadium it was towering above him like a giant menacing monster, massive struts could be seen holding the weight of the stadium, giant steel columns stretching as high as you could see. The entire outside was covered with glass, flecked with a red trim, giving it a very minimalist feel. Two huge entrances stood side by side welcoming the guests in that had now started to arrive in their thousands and in the middle of these entrances stood a statue of a hooded figure almost as big as the entrances themselves. The figure was always assumed to be a male, his face had never been seen but the main attraction of this masked man was that he was animated. He was in a video game after all. He would stalk those as they passed, pointing his staff at random intervals, and making it glow menacingly. Ash remembered the first time he saw that figure; it was he who was one of the unlucky ones to get pointed at with that staff and just as it glowed, he could swear he saw two burning yellow eyes under the hood. He was so unnerved by it, and the huge boom that went off from a firework nearby at the exact time the staff glowed brightly made things inexorably worse. Though today it was other newcomers that would get that pleasure.
A carnival atmosphere had now started to seep his way into his ears as everything started loading in and looking around the main strip he could see trains of carnival dancers, flagbearers and various people all dressed in video game characters, some had boomboxes floating next to them as they walked blasting out all manner of different music themes from different games. Inevitably there was also a group of people looping emotes repeatedly between themselves and some who were clearly AFK sat cross legged, meditating, every so often along the main strip. Lining the strip were several different shops all selling exclusive merchandise from the event. Everything from t-shirts for your avatar to socks and shoes, even the odd stall selling capes, staffs, wands, swords and shields and everything you would ever need to kit your avatar out however you wanted it. Ash wasn’t one for fashion. He wore a stock plain white T-Shirt and black joggers. He wasn’t about to give his hard-earned cash for something digital and utterly useless.
But there she was, Rose, at the spot they always met. Under the sign that said “Armadillo’s” She had her avatars head was in a pile of light leather armor, no doubt looking for a dark orange dyed set to match her hair colour. He could imagine her sitting on his bed right now, finger furiously clicking as she moved outfits aside. Ash scoffed to himself and did so every time he saw this sight. She never came to meet him oh no, Ash always went to collect her from Armadillo’s stand, the first place she went as soon as she logged in. Nothing else mattered but the press conference specials that were on offer.
“Oooohhhhh, Arma you’ve done well!” Ash could hear Rose beam at the stall holder whilst hoisting out an orange trimmed leather armor set “How much?” She said, sharing a grin emote with Armadillo.
A burly gentleman who towered over Rose responded in kind. Arma, short for Armadillo’s, was the proprietor of the stall, he was a real man not an NPC and this was his day job, selling gear through arena events and judging by the amount of people around his stall he was very successful at it. “Ohhh for you young Rose, £49” He didn’t change from his huge grin even as he knew what was coming.
She had arched eyebrows, big brown eyes, long dark red hair resting on newly crossed arms. “That is not the best you can do is it, Arma? Who are you kidding? You sold me two capes and a staff at NoviCon for that price”.
“£45?” Arma’s voice rose as if he was asking permission from Rose. Still, she stood with her arms crossed and now a tapping foot emote had entered the mix. “£40 Rose and that’s a good as I can do, my goodness you are a nightmare, girl. I should have seen you coming a mile off the first time you walked to this stall, you rinse me dry every time!” Arma was half joking with her, “Ahhhh young Ash, the man who knows sense, please can you take your swindling girlfriend away! I’ll be out of a job soon!” He quipped as Ash walked up to the stall, Rose turned around to see Ash approach.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Always here aren’t you!” He chuckled in Roses’s direction, and she grinned before returning to staring down Arma. “Honestly, every time man, she’s not my girlfriend and I do see sense you are right. That’s why you see me here in a white t-shirt and black joggers my friend. For something that doesn’t have any material costs or real-world value I’d say £40 was a rip off so I’d take what she offers if I were you” Ash laughed, Rose looked triumphantly towards Arma as if to say I told you so. Ash wasn’t sure what it was about his relationship with Rose, but Arma was dead set on the two of them being together. One time, Rose just came out with the fact they were together, winking at Ash in the process as if to say…come on, go along with it, which he did. Arma was very much like a father, congratulating them both for finally giving in to their feelings and how happy he was to see them together…to then have his happiness dashed when they both started laughing in response.
Rose continued to purchase her outfit and Ash could see her with a dazed expression as she poked around in her menus to make her avatar wear the armor. Suddenly, her bright purple armor from the last event was gone and replacing it was the orange trimmed light armor. “You like?” She made her avatar twirl. Ash nodded “Yes, yes, I do. Now can we go?” He said with eyebrows raised and slight impatience in his voice. He did like it on her, the combo with her hair colour really did suit her avatar and to see her in something different than the previous purple armor was a breath of fresh air, but Ash was in a rush, he wanted to get into the stadium and feel the atmosphere for what was undoubtedly going to be the show of the century.
“You could do a little better” She gave a quick scowl, “Fine, lets go. See you later Arma!” She called, Arma looked up from serving another customer and gave her a quick lazy salute as he always did before shuffling onwards and dealing with the crowd still amassed in front of his stall.
They chatted as they walked down the main strip and towards the hooded statue. Nothing particular took their fancy. This and that, work, games, what the show was going to be like. It was at that moment they saw someone acting rather strange. In arena events like these it wasn’t hard to find crackpots doing emotes on loop in built up areas to show off a new one they had purchased or just to pass time until the event. But this person was preaching, right in front of the statue, and he wasn’t alone. A crowd of people had formed in front of him clearly listening intently to what was being said. As they neared it was like a scene from a movie, A tall skinny bearded man enraptured those in front of him. Most were in a kneeling emote and looking wide eyed at the man in front of them, speaking in hushed voices between each other. The odd person shouting a question in hopes of an answer that never came. A sombre, frightened atmosphere surrounded the preacher who splayed his hands and caught each of the followers’ eyes one by one to convey the seriousness of his words. In contrast you had the individuals who were laughing at the spectacle and shouting for the man to shut up, loser!
“…end of the world! Believe me when I say this technology is not ready to be in the hands of man! I have seen it; I have worked on it, and it will be the end for us all! Slave minds! The lot of us!” He boomed to his subjugated guests. “The game lures you in with tricks and illusions, promising the world! But the AI…” and with that he was gone, no doubt taken out of the arena by security working hard in a far away office for hate speech or violating some form of rule everyone signs up for when they set their headsets up. Of course, when presented with a contract as long as war and peace and accept button blinking at the bottom to press to move past this inconvenience…who actually reads the contract?
“AI?” Rose looked worriedly towards Ash as they walked past the dispersing crowd, some exchanging worried conversations, and others signing out completely. Whatever that snippet was about clearly had people rattled enough to want to leave the game. However, Ash wasn’t worried, whatever he was about to say about AI was probably nothing out of the ordinary for games nowadays. AI was used in everything from your kettle to your bath. If you could see the connections between different AI’s around houses, you’d be able to see it like a huge spiderweb that pretty much took over the whole world by now.
“I wouldn’t worry Rose” He smiled back at her, sounding as reassuring as he could, “Every game has some form of AI in it, they wouldn’t be releasing something if it was unsafe that’s for sure. AI and what you can do with it has been regulated for decades, everyone knows what it can and can’t do” Her shoulders seemed to slacken from the tension that had built up as Ash continued “Come on let’s have that smile back! This is the biggest day in gaming history we’ve been waiting for, lets get in and get our seats!” He beamed, and the infectiousness of his excitement kicked Rose back into gear.
“Race you!” She laughed and set off in a sprint.
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They entered the stadium through one of the massive openings, made their way through even more stalls that were set up under the stadiums seating and entered through GATE 5 giving them their first look at the stadium itself. It held 500,000 people so you could imagine how massive it was but to see it took Ash’s breath away every time. It was a tiered stadium with 5 tiers in total, all the seats coloured red like the trim on the outside and in the middle of this giant circular stadium was a massive circular stage that was completely empty at the moment. Ash knew that once the event started this would get populated with something that would represent the game or hardware on display, the staging would change as the exhibition continued. It wasn’t like those old press conferences with wooden actors and the occasional light change, oh no, as it was all online the graphics and staging were always well thought out and tended to be interactive with the audience.
Ash and Rose were silent as they went towards their seats. Well, maybe silent wasn’t the right word. Nothing legible was coming out of their mouths but they did let out excited little grrr’s to each other, Rose would also do a little jump every now and then and go to grab Ash’s arm to excitedly shake it, which of course it would just float right through, but the thought was there. It was another 10 minutes before they managed to get to their seats in this massive stadium. They aren’t too hard to find as a big arrow would point towards it so you know where you were sat, the system wouldn’t actually let you sit in a seat that wasn’t assigned to your username and if you couldn’t sit, you couldn’t see the show. You were so far away from the centre circle that viewing anything in a normal manner would be impossible without binoculars or some form of looking device if you had bought one. If you were one of the lucky ones at the front, you’d see all the show playing out right in front of you. But if not, you had to sit on your seat and when the show started an option to watch it would come up on the bottom right of the screen. “Close-Up”. And it was needed if you wanted to get anything from the experience. The audio was like you were stood right in front of the stage and the visuals were togglable, the stage would display like you were in a cinema so you could see everything but you could choose either a standard black background, blocking out everything else in the view, or you could keep the stadium there if you wanted…but what mad man ever chose that option! Either way you heard the stadium in real time and the atmosphere when something crazy was revealed was something else. Ash had tried watching a live recording of a press conference previously and it took everything away from the spectacle. Buying a ticket was a no brainer.
“I can’t wait, I’m just going to burst!” Rose was to Ash’s right hand side, and he could see that she’d started one of the special stadium emotes whilst sitting, a huge foam pointy finger began its dance. Ash smiled to himself and shook his head…not for the first time today. It was always like this, Ash would wait patiently, Rose could never contain her excitement, her red hair bouncing as she continued her emote.
It went on like that for another 20 minutes as the thousands and thousands of people took their places, Rose’s excitement was getting to dangerous levels and Ash could now hear her through his noise cancelling headphones bouncing on his bed and letting small squeals out when it all got a bit too much. Finally, the moment had arrived to see what all the fuss and excitement was about.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” The voice boomed around the stadium as the lights went dark leaving only the stadium bathed in a crisp white light. “Welcome to the inaugural Chaos Council”