CHAPTER 6: BORIENTATION
WC:2112
It was a rainy June afternoon in Milwaukee, and I had to park a block over because the parking lot was completely full. Wet and late, I entered the same office I went to for my interview and followed the receptionist’s directions to Meeting Room #3. The room was packed with people there for orientation and I took a seat toward the front. Those were the only seats left open when I got there.
A man in an overly casual shirt but overly expensive shoes stood in front of a desk with crossed arms. He reminded me of my uncle, who was a cop that thought he was an FBI agent, or maybe was one in a past life, or something. He used to talk super seriously and stare at people until they looked away uncomfortably. Mom told Dad to stop inviting him over to watch football because he also had a sort of perma-rage tone.
“My name is Ken Brewster and I want to tell you a little about the Hexentor project.” He sat on a desk, his left hand holding a paper that he occasionally read from. “You’re all here because you were selected for RE Games’ six-month game testing trial in this office. Just to remind everyone, if you aren’t available for the full six months, consider coming back for a future trial because anyone who drops out will not be invited back. This is the third such trial and the data we collect is important for the developers and programmers.”
He stood and pressed a button on a tiny remote and a screen came down from the ceiling. A projector lit up and its fan whirred in the stone silent room. “Okay, we’re going to watch a few videos about the world of Hexentor and then we have a little lunch for everyone in the break room. Enjoy.”
The lights in the room dimmed slightly and the video started.
The title screen came up much the same way it had during my first product test. Instead of having a controller and clicking START though, the screen changed on its own and began a map and background scenery montage showing different kinds of people going about their lives while a narrator voiceover played.
The land of Nevanno has a complicated, bloody history, but her varied peoples have enjoyed almost a century of relative peace.
Farmers harvested in fields, scholars gathered in a library, women danced in a circle around a pub.
Emperor Zalin of the Atinok Empire, however, has begun a brutal expansion to exploit the natural resources of neighboring lands.
The world map changed to show borders moving over time, then the video changed from a montage to a cinematic cut-scene. An arena of white stone. It looked coliseum-like, but the archways were decorated with bright banners and torches. Ivy grew up columns that led to balconies, where shades protected spectators in colorful clothing.
When the Emperor visits the mountain city of Razyev to open its annual arena games, citizens flock to celebrate their newfound wealth.
Horns trumpeted and the Emperor entered the stands with an entourage. Cheers erupted. The throng spread out to make room for them in the aisles. Emperor Zalin followed a dozen or so Atinok nobles up stone steps and waved at the crowd while his family were seated.
However, not everyone is enamored with Emperor Zalin’s warmongering ways.
A woman entered the arena. She didn’t look to be a combatant. At least, she didn’t resemble a gladiator. Instead, she was old and thin. She wore no armor, just Medieval peasant clothing—a ragged dress and cloak. In her hand she held a crooked wooden staff. Her graying hair hung loose, with little braids tied with black feathers. The crowd muttered and seemed confused.
Whispers of rebellion spread throughout the continent among those who wish to return to the old ways.
The camera focused in on the woman in the arena. She cupped her hands near her mouth, like she was trying to breathe into them to warm them. As the view closed in, it became clear that she was whispering, or chanting. The crowd hushed and the camera pulled away to show the king point into the arena and say something angry to his guards. They raised their spears and ran down the stairs into the arena.
And while Nevanno’s diverse citizens race to protect themselves from a looming conflict, mystics the world over have heard the rumblings from deep within.
When they arrived at the woman who seemed to be waiting for them, she lowered her hands from her mouth and gripped the staff. She grimaced and swung the staff over her head, even though the armored guards were too far away to hit with it. The staff came down hard against the ground and where it made contact, a crack formed in the floor of the arena.
Halennia, the triple goddess of breath, body, and spirit, or the sky, the world, and the underworld is stirring, and she’s unhappy.
The guards stopped. They looked at one another and held their spears closer but didn’t attack or flee. The camera pulled back, showing the spectators watching the scene below. The king frowned and started shouting, but the roar of the frightened crowd drowned him out. As people yelled and clambered toward the aisles the crack spread. Bigger and bigger it grew until it spanned from one wall of the arena to the other. The woman with the staff stood right on the edge of it, like she knew it wouldn’t swallow her, but the guards ran, some of them falling into the growing chasm when others bumped into them accidentally or perhaps pushed them on purpose.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It’s up to those brave enough to enter the underworld to appease Halennia and right the balance of power on the continent before the angry goddess destroys humanity and returns all of Nevanno to nature.
The people in the stands fled as the camera pulled back further. Faster, the camera sped upwards and away from the arena, over homes and the town’s marketplace. Buildings of marble, a temple, and a livestock yard all went by. Still, the camera zoomed out. City walls, farm fields, roads, scrubland. It slowed down when the city had disappeared into the mountains in which it sat. Below, were forested hills, plains, and in the foremost of the picture, a vast body of water.
Shadows fell over the mountains and the screen shook, splitting the landscape. From the crevasse that opened between the mountains, a purple smoke escaped. As it darkened the sky above, a bunch of black creatures flew out of the chasm. They screamed and spiraled skywards and then shifted course, coming right for the screen. Huge ravens beat their wings, and behind them, a bright light blazed from under the mountain.
HEXENTOR
BATTLE FOR THE UNDERWORLD
The screen faded to black and then a live-action video started.
“Hello,” a young man in a yellow T-shirt and thick glasses said. “I’m going to walk you through character creation today.” Some of the people in the room shuffled and opened notebooks and tablets to take notes. I didn’t have a notebook. All I had was a pen and a phone. I opened a notes app, but there was no way my fingers could keep up as the tutorial went through the playable races, racial bonuses and adjustments, and everything else. I got the gist of it, and it seemed a cross between some popular online fantasy MMORPGs and the unstructured story of a tabletop dice-rolling type game.
I took away the basics, even without a notebook. There were nine kinds of playable people, each had some sort of racial trait that gave them a bonus in certain situations, and they all came from regions, which had formed alliances on different sides of the Atinok Empire’s expansion. Each region had a race that was brawny, one that had natural magical talent, and my favorite, one that made a good thief.
Since I couldn’t remember everything, I jotted down what I thought would be most useful for my planned first character. Cunning and stealthy? Yes, please! Bonuses to pickpocket and fencing? I was going to need that!
Mr. Brewster played a second video that would have been super helpful before my first interview.
“Hello again,” the guy who was wearing the yellow T-shirt in the previous video said. “I’m Ramon and today I want to teach you how to control your character.”
Everything made so much more sense after listening to Ramon explain how all the controls were based on hand movements. “Now don’t worry,” he said, “if you have poor coordination, a chronic condition like carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritis, or even if you have a prosthetic hand. Your actual hand doesn’t engage with the game. Since it’s a VR game, the headset is all you need, and the mechanism for character control is all handled by your brain.”
Some diagrams came up to explain how neurology worked, but I was still jotting down all the things I found most interesting and couldn’t look at the screen.
One left hand squeeze picked up targeted items or did a defensive move in combat, but holding the squeeze picked an item up and put it into your storage pouch. And in combat a long squeeze deflected attacks by assuming a defensive stance, during which you could not attack or cast magic. The right hand version of those were that a quick squeeze either spoke to a targeted NPC or drew and/or used an equipped weapon, and a long squeeze ended a conversation with an NPC or it performed a special attack that took longer to perform.
“Special attacks will build your weapon skill faster,” Ramon, said, “but they take more time to execute and can be interrupted by enemy blocks or attacks. Since combat is a main component of the gaming experience, we want to make sure you understand the basics of building an effective character and gaining skills and levelling up.”
Ramon’s voice carried on explaining but the screen showed a PowerPoint-like series of slides. “First, at Lv.1 you will find that questing will be the safest way to gain your first few skill points. Remember that each weapon and each type of armor all need to be levelled. If you plan to make a melee character to start with, you may get the most defense out of heavy armor, but if you don’t level light armor, you will be starting with no defensive skill when you switch to light armor later on in the game when you want to start casting spells.”
He went on and on about armor types—heavy, medium, and light—and how they affect the characters stats, damage, and defense. The next video talked about character classes and class abilities. I was definitely picking a thief character, so I noted which classes would be appropriate, and the last video went over crafting items and armor.
When the video was over, Mr. Brewster said, “Okay, folks. Let’s have an hour break. We have a catered lunch in the break room and you’re free to take drinks from the fridge. Please meet back for the afternoon session at 1:30 pm in this room.”
In the break room, I grabbed an Italian cold cut sub and a bag of potato chips and started looking for a seat. Like high school lunchroom awkwardness, every table looked like it was a cool kids table, and I didn’t have permission to sit there.
I could hear my mom in my head—just be yourself, Tyler. Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter. Dad’s voice chimed in too—life is tough, but so are you.
Some of the other trainees were like in their thirties. A few tables of four or six were already deep in conversation. There was an open table with no one at it, but as I made a bee line for it, an older woman and man took it. There weren’t many people my age. I saw two girls and a guy in a band T-shirt and hoodie sitting at a table with one open seat, and since I was wearing a retro Green Day dookie shirt and a hoodie, I thought I’d try my luck.
“Can I sit here?” I asked the guy, because, you know, girls are hard to…read.
“Yep.” He moved his backpack to the floor and the girls got quiet and looked at me.
“I’m Tyler,” I said, so at least it wasn’t quiet anymore.