Chapter 2
Dawn of a Developing Gamer
Several days after the charges were dropped, Markus was impatiently waiting for the installation men to hook up a ‘pod’ for him in his bedroom. Of course, it’s not in his old home, the house that he had been living in for years, but an apartment complex bedroom. So outside of a queen bed, a night stand, a humongous contraption, and 3 sweaty technicians, the room was barren.
“Hey guys, how much longer is this going to take?”
Giving each other that same ‘annoyed but can’t say anything to the client’ look, they inwardly compartmentalized their irritation. Instead, the one who lost the rock-paper-scissors match beforehand spoke to him for the fourth time.
“Sir? I understand that you’re impatient, but please understand that this is a complicated piece of equipment and-“
“Yeah-yeah I know the spiel. But I also know that you get paid by the hour so…”
“Sir, let me make this as perfectly clear as I can. This Virtual Reality Personality Obfuscation Device, or VR POD, is a very delicate piece of equipment. If we set up this device wrongly, or in any way damage it or make a mistake, you won’t know about it because you’ll have fried your brain.”
That made him question his purchase. “Is it that dangerous?”
Having seen that look before, the installation man realized his mistake and quickly corrected Markus’s misapprehension. “No sir. The VR POD is perfectly safe once it is installed properly. Afterwards we monitor the system daily so that should any dangerous situation arise we can safely pull you out of the VR POD without any risk to your health and safety.”
“Good-“
“But please sir, let us install it properly?”
“Sorry.”
Unsure of what to do, and positive he didn’t have anything of value to steal, Markus left them alone in the apartment to finish the installation. They had been going at it for two hours already and would probably be a little while longer so he just wandered the apartment complex to ease his boredom.
Unfortunately the hallways were long and boring. Everyone had their doors locked, but since it was the middle of the day he figured it was more because they were off at work rather than just trying to keep out nosy neighbors.
“I’m calling the police!”
“What?” A young girl was leaning out her door, just two apartments down from him, number five-o-six. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. “Why?”
“What else are you supposed to do when you see a creepy old guy walking from door to door? Knocking on everyone’s apartment when they’re off at work.”
“Well I’m new here. I live right here in five-o-four. So please don’t call the police.”
She gave him that ‘uh duh’ look that was only cute on kids around her age. If he tried doing it people would look at him like he was hit in the head too many times as a child.
“I know you live there! I’ve seen you around a few times. Plus, the delivery men made a lot of noise so I was watching when you let them in.”
“You’re very smart for your age. So you’re not going to call the police?”
“Noooo…” Why did she have to sound so disappointed?
Breathing out in relief he said, “Oh good, cause I’m not sure how much trouble I can get in with the police-!” The words came out of his mouth before he could help it.
“Oooh! You’re a criminal? Bad man, bad man.” She chanted the words to a terrible song in a sing-song voice. “…just like Uzbekistan!”
“I’m not a criminal, I just don’t want to get in trouble for something I didn’t do.” Markus crouched down so that he’d be less intimidating to the small child. “Tell you what, my name is Markus. What’s yours?”
She shyly replied, “Sadie.”
“Sadie? That’s a lovely name.”
“Thank you.” She stretched the words out embarrassingly cute.
“Are your parents’ home?”
“Uh-un. Mommy’s at work.”
“And what about your dad?”
“Mommy says daddy is a bad man.”
“Oh, well I don’t want you getting in trouble with your mother so go back inside.”
“Okay.”
When she closed the door he added one more bit. “And no more talking to strangers!”
A muffled “okay” came from the door.
“Sir?”
“WAA!?” The voice from behind him took him by complete surprise. His heart tried to leap out of his throat!
The installation men were packing up their stuff and getting ready to leave. “Sorry to disturb your conversation with an empty hallway?” Installation man #1 wanted to leave this crazy man as soon as possible. Constantly bugging them, interrupting their explanations, asking how long they were going to take every five minutes. Now they found him talking to himself in the hallway.
“No, there was a little girl just there.”
“Sure there was. If I could just get you to sign here?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“I’m sure you think you’re not. Sign here please?”
“Why are you acting like that?”
“Don’t touch me.”
***
Because the installation men ran away as soon as he signed, Markus was forced to read the large tome they called a manual in order to operate the VR POD. Turned out to be pretty simple, just find the one button that looks like you’re not supposed to touch it and touch it. A couple days later, when the beta tests were over, Markus was ready to play on the official launch day.
Hitting the big red button to his side, the pod closed. Whirring noises could be heard from all around as he relaxed and watched the pretty lights as the VR POD uploaded his consciousness into the game.
Welcome to Universe Online
This is your first time logging in.
Do you wish to create a new character?
Yes | No
A defined feminine voice read the text out loud. If it was a human he was listening to he would have assumed that the voice came from a very attractive woman. Unfortunately the manual had noted several times that there were interactive AI filling in all the voices and controlling the games normal operations. If he ever had a question he could simply address them and find out anything that was freely available to all players.
However, while the prompt appeared in front of him and the woman read it aloud, he was too busy adjusting to the full integration with the virtual reality around him to care.
He raised his hand, marveling at the sensation of it actually feeling like his own real hand. For several minutes his attention was on the feeling of his own body and astonishment of the game technology now-a-days.
YES? | NO?
The same prompt appeared but larger and in all caps as if the AI program was irritated with his child-like curiosity. Rolling his eyes he said “Obviously the answer is yes.” Such an expensive machine and a monthly subscription, who would say no to their first character? If he didn’t have the hush money from the secretary of the CEO from his previous employment he wouldn’t have even gotten the POD.
The message prompts disappeared and instead a visual of himself appeared with dozens of small selection windows appearing all around it. Each one had a slide bar, a panel of different colors and even some makeup tools. Some of it was pretty simple to understand; eyes, mouth, hair, skin complexion, but “Race?” He asked perplexed.
Dozens of humanoid races appeared, with descriptions, statistics, bonuses and recommendations for each. More than half of the races were locked to him. A note of pay to unlock appeared on a few but most were apparently story locked. When he clicked for more info it said:
Characters locked behind story events cannot be chosen until a specific event occurs or until players in the game unlock those races through unspecified requirements that vary depending upon the race.
“When in doubt, leave it out!” A good piece of advice from a mentor of his in college. It helped him keep his job on multiple occasions, at least until he set his boss’s desk on fire.
Choosing to ignore what he didn’t fully understand he closed the message prompt before looking at the different races.
After quickly scrolling through a few he couldn’t help but notice most of the races had either a pro he didn’t care about or a con that he didn’t like. “Isn’t there a neutral race? No real bonuses and no real negatives?”
The computer quickly scrolled almost all the way to the end. Race: Human appeared, showing a relatively bland set of stats, no bonuses and no weaknesses. However, below it, there was a foot note he noticed at the bottom of the list of races.
“May change based on gameplay interactions? What does that even mean?” The view in front of him started to change, but he was already annoyed with how much time he was wasting on developing his character. “You know what? No, don’t even answer that. I select human.”
Once he selected his race that window was minimized to the top of his view. Next he gathered all the windows related to his appearance and selected the “Mirror” option. His character looked like him and he didn’t feel it was necessary to change that.
He heard that some games even have options inside that allow you to change the character’s features so he reasoned that he would probably be able to change it later if he wanted to.
Roughly two dozen more windows minimized to the top of his view.
Next came his character stats. He had the option of adjusting his base stats to a certain degree, but since he didn’t read up on what each stat did before he came to the character creation he thought it was best if he left them as they were.
Please select your character name.
For security and privacy it is recommended that you do not use your own name.
“Naturally it would be a bad idea to use your own personal information. Is there a restriction that I must adhere to regarding the character name?”
Character Names must have at least one character and no more than 99 characters.
There is no restriction on numbers or symbols.
Names do not have to be actual names.
You are not allowed to use names of company employees.
Special Names are reserved for certain Individuals.
Please select a name for your character.
The disembodied voice had a clear irritation when she read the name restrictions as if every game or service in the world consisted of the same list. He chose to ignore it even though he was also passing through irritation to agitation. This was the first game Markus had played in years and the last one was a board game. How would he know what the restrictions were?
“Flying Sword.” It was the name of a character he read about once. A legendary warrior that once fought an army that had kidnapped his beloved-
Name Taken
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Before he could even finish his inner monologue an incorrect tone, ber-nern, sound echoed around him as the woman read aloud the prompt rejecting his choice. Apparently someone else had also read that story. He went through a half dozen other names of famous characters but he kept getting the same message.
Ber-nern.
Name Taken
“Fine. Use Emperor.” If he can’t use his favorite characters he might as well use a strong title.
Ber-nern.
Name Taken
“That’s taken too? Geez.” He went through a couple more variations of strong positions, but he had the same luck as with his favorite characters. So he just started to go through anything that came to mind.
CEO. Ber-nern. Taken.
Lord. Ber-nern. Taken.
King. Reserved.
Clown. Ber-nern. Taken.
Explorer. Ber-nern. Taken.
Wanderer. Ber-nern. Taken.
Traveler. Ber-nern. Taken.
Adventurer. Ber-nern. Taken.
Writer. Ber-nern. Taken
Quitter. Ber-nern. Taken.
Father. Reserved.
Righteous. Ber-nern. Taken.
Man. Ber-nern. Taken.
Penis. Ber-nern. Not Allowed.
Woman. Ber-nern. Taken.
Solo Player. Ber-nern. Taken.
Name. Ber-nern. Taken.
Character. Ber-nern. Taken.
Is Every Name Taken? Ber-nern. Taken.
1. Ber-nern. Taken.
2. Ber-nern. Taken.
3. Ber-nern. Taken.
Now he was starting to get rather frustrated. Just how many people were already playing this game that just officially came out? How’d they select every character name that he could think of? And did it have to do that same, stupid sound every single time?
Markus continued to list out over 60 names through gritted teeth but the same denial tone and prompt appeared every time. Just when he was about to quit creating a character entirely and give up on the game, his old nickname from college was accepted. A very pleasant DING soothed his tired ears.
Please review your character.
Once your character is finalized it can only be changed by items or actions within the game.
Character Name
Dev Dev
Alignment
Neutral
Race
Human
Affiliation
None
Level
1
Type
Basic
Class
None
Title
None
Fame
0
Strength
Dexterity
Spirit
Vitality
10
10
10
10
Health
100
Armor
Stamina
100
Damage
Are you sure that this is the character you wish to create?
Yes | No
“YES!” He yelled. Already fed up with the whole process. But it seemed he wasn’t done yet.
Please adjust the following game options for your personal preference.
Select either Realistic, Advanced, Normal or Safe for each-
Before he could even fully read the prompt he angrily strolled his finger over realistic for all the options.
Thank You.
Please take this time to register your POD device.
Registrants also need to fill out a brief 100 question survey.
“AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!” He roared at the prompt in front of him. It wasn’t satisfying to repeatedly punch the prompt since his digital fist went right through the digital window but that didn’t stop him! After that the prompts disappeared, but he didn’t expect to hear a couple girls giggling at him.
“Just kidding!” One of them said. “Enjoy Universe Online!”
Wait that sounded pretty advanced for an AI. Too advanced! Was there actually an employee messing with him?
***
While Markus was still reeling, believing the giggling young-female voice wasn’t an AI but actually an employee who was messing with him, he was launched into the game proper. His vision blackened.
Welcome
To Universe Online
The large number of prompts and windows during his character creation irritated him, but somehow the short and simple prompt once in the game irritated him just as much. He didn’t want to admit it, but the short prompt might have actually irritated him even more than the prior ones.
Quickly he squinted his eyes as his vision came back to him, but not in the same well-lit area from before. He was locked in a darkened pod similar to the one that he was using to play the game, but a bit more durable looking. Less bright colors and more metal.
Lights flashed inside and outside of the pod.
The hissing noise made from the release of blocked gasses filled his ears before the pod cracked open and the restraints holding him in place released him. Gravity took over, pulling Dev to the metal-grate catwalk several feet below him.
Pain.
“Ow.”
A red -10 HP floated up from his legs.
He was astonished at how real it felt to hit the catwalk.
“Where am I? This place is huge!”
Dev couldn’t believe his eyes as he looked around the large chasm-like room. The ceiling stretched hundreds of feet up while the bottom disappeared in the distant darkness.
All around him were pods similar to the one he came out of. Some were already opened, the lights dark, and others were closed while more than a few were releasing their occupants at an alarming rate.
So many different player Avatars. He skipped through the customization part but there must have been a lot of options to choose from. Some users had green scaly skin with bright pink hair. Others were walking around with hooves while wearing a thong.
Obviously this game could be R-rated. Dev was already lamenting hitting the reality option for all the game settings, but that initial process was just taking too long.
Dev followed other people, leaving the pod-room through a pair of giant double doors. As he passed through he noticed a word in golden letters above the door.
Salus
They opened into a very large room with hundreds of people in it. The noise from people calling to others deafened him. Some were calling for people to join their party, others were merchant criers calling out to passersby’s about their store’s wonderful product or slandering their competitions wares. Even giant mechanical robots with the words SECURITY written on them were blaring at the people below them, the rules of the common areas.
There were so many people all over the place it gave him a sense of claustrophobia. But when Dev looked closer he noticed that some of them had the letters N, P, and C stitched into their clothing or etched into their mechanical power armor. Sometimes they would be together in order, but most of the time the letters were in different locations. Like an N would be on the right shoulder, the P would be over the chest and the C would be on the left shoulder. The different combinations made each one of those people seem more unique despite wearing the same letters.
From his limited gaming experience and interactions with people who played games Dev knew that the letters NPC stood for Non-Player Characters. Meaning that they were in fact programs that were simulating the normal actions of real people.
After listening to a conversation between a random passerby and a shop crier, both had NPC’s on their clothing, Dev wondered how in-depth the programing had to be in order simulate that sort of realistic interaction. There was even an argument between a horned red skinned woman and a tall pale-blue skinned stout man as a humanoid robot tried to intermediate between the two. If it wasn’t for the face bursting open to reveal a small shriveled brown creature he wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was a robot.
Before he knew it, Dev was watching a walking, rotting corpse direct security mechs to the scene and all three were being fined for disturbing the peace. The demon looking woman responded by slapping the fine into the mechs camera and berating the officer who controlled it. To which, the mech responded by shooting a mesh-web, effectively capturing her before it took her away.
“Note to self, don’t make a scene…”
Dev didn’t let that scene ruin his mood though. He gazed around in awe at the new sights around him. At first he was worried that there would be too many NPC’s walking around, but after a few more minutes’ people were leaving the starting room and joining the rest outside the double doors. Even though there were a lot of NPC’s around him, the sudden flood of player avatars quickly hid the majority from view. Everything around him pumped adrenaline through his blood.
Other than looking for letters on people’s bodies the easiest way to tell who was a player and who was not was by looking at the quality of worn items. Every player was wearing a basic set of clothing including pants, shirt, and boots if you were a man, or a dress, a blouse and shoes if you were a woman. There were of course exceptions, but Dev found the NPC’s outfits far more interesting. All of them had a strong fantasy air about them.
“Let’s go explore the world.” He spoke to no one in particular.
Taking a deep breath he moved forward two steps before a prompt appeared.
You have entered the Commons of the Salus.
Security measures are in effect.
“Please don’t tell me that these things are going to haunt me throughout the game…” He sighed tiredly as hit closed the prompt.
BEEP-BEEP!
“Watch it, ‘cuse me, coming thoo, make vay!”
Dev saw what looked like a bulky tire moving his way, cutting through the crowds at alarming speeds, causing more than a few people to dive out of its way.
Right before he was about to dodge it, the tire turned on its side, angling the way it came from. Screeching brake sounds could be heard as it came to a halt, wobbling slightly before falling flat on the ground.
More than a little confused, Dev figured he might as well call out to it. “Hello?”
As if waiting for him to make the first interaction, the tire’s internal parts sprang up vertically, creating a type of wire-like tower. It finished in a millisecond with a pair of large square eyes on top of the odd structure.
“HELLO!” It seemed beyond giddy to see him. It spoke in a cute computer modded voice. “I am the Informative Drone Introductory Operations Trainer. My designation is 44007813-CR41G, but everyone else seems to call me PEEPERS!” The drone’s body/tower was heavily leaning towards him, causing him to partially bend his upper body backwards.
Oddly enough its eye’s blinked rapidly.
“Peepers?”
The eyes nodded. “Yeah, I’m not exactly sure why, and some people laugh a little when they say it, but for some reason after the first person I talked to said it, everyone else began saying it.” Peepers in his excitement was unable to pause for proper punctuation. His eyes blinked rapidly for a few seconds before some internal mechanism pushed them out of his head as if to zoom in on Dev. He took that to mean it was waiting for a response.
“So how can I help you 44007813-CR41G?” It was a long designation and a mouthful, but luckily in the real world Dev had trained himself to have nearly a perfect eidetic memory. It was one of his strongest skills, allowing him to completely memorize a nearly 100 by 100 column spreadsheet.
PEEPERS on the other hand was completely taken aback that he had answered it using his designation in full. He even started to make crying sounds and his eyes were leaking some kind of opaque yellow liquid that pulsed with light every few seconds.
“You remembered my name?” Peepers squealed in delight in his little robot voice. The tower structure shrank back into the tire before launching back out. “WOOHOO!” It yelled as it went several feet off the ground.
Unsure of what else to do, Dev answered back. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
“No one else has! Right! I’ll take you to the Introductory Training Plaza. There you can practice moving around and getting use to the gravity of this new world! Follow me!”
It snapped back into itself just as the tire spun around and did the same process of how he arrived but in reverse. Peepers speed would have left him in the dust, but luckily for Dev he was able to keep up because it kept having to stop in order to get through the crowd.
The other players that witnessed his interaction with the little bot were all surprised. When other replicas of Peepers showed up for them they tried to remember their designations, but they all failed miserably.
***
Following along, Peepers taught Dev all about the different Training Plazas by yelling behind him as he sped through the crowds. His large eyes were split; one watching the trailing Dev while the other watched where he was going. The multiple directional view or just the split field of view caused Peepers problems though and he would repeatedly crash into something, or someone, by accident.
“Whoops! Sorry!” His cute voice would cry out. His standard method of escape would be to reverse backwards at high speeds before turning and burning rubber.
The Introductory Training Plaza was open to any user for as long as he/she pleased. It was recommended by the game managers for all users to visit it in order to get use to the VR system and to also test out new skills or stat changes.
While it might not be very noticeable, stat changes could have massive effects on the way one moves or fights in Universe Online. In particular, it was recommended to visit the Training Plazas often in order to adjust reaction times and compatibility with a user’s gear.
The massive plaza had all kinds of equipment setup for players to test themselves. Jungle gyms, ropes, walls, tracks, mazes, target ranges, dummies; the list went on.
Peepers sat in the middle of the plaza gesturing with his eyes for Dev to come closer. He figured he’d have plenty of time to run around later so he obligingly walked over.
“Whatssss thissss?”
When he was only a few feet away from Peepers a lisping voice called out from behind him.
“The tuuutorial bot actuuually brouuught ssssomeone? I asssssuuume youuu just woke up from youuur ssssluuumber?”
A nearly skeletal figure had followed Dev without his noticing. His clothing and equipment looked like terrible rags or rusted junk but a silver disc badge with the word ‘INSTRUCTOR’ shined on his chest.
“Hello. I’m Mark-uh, I mean Dev. I guess, I just arrived here.”
“Good. Youuu may uuusssse any of the training equipment from along the wallssss, buuut make ssssuuure to put it BACK!” The undead instructor glared at Dev. “Thouuugh I ssssuuuggesssst youuu make douuubly ssssuuure to try ouuut every couuursssse. They will be uuussssefuuul when youuu have to confront monssssterssss. And youuu never know what might come in handy.”
He spoke in a very lisping, rasping voice that started to give Dev a headache, but since Dev was afraid of causing a scene and summoning the massive security mechs he calmly nodded with a smile towards the instructor. Dev made sure to show absolute politeness to the NPC.
“Thank you, sir. May I ask for your name and any additional guidance you might have?”
“Youuu are right. I have not introduuucced mysssself. I am insssstruuuctor, Huun’reh. One of the very firsssst uuuundead to reawaken duuuring the Alliancce’ssss troublessss and itssss mosssst loyal member.”
Dev had intended to use the game to explore and take in the sites in order be inspired to create his novels. So he didn’t take the time to read about the game’s storyline or setting. He had no idea what the Alliance was or what troubles it had suffered through, but he had to admit that he was intrigued about the undead claiming it was the alliance’s most loyal member. He made a mental note to check it out later.
“Of course, Instructor Huun’reh. You are indeed a cherished member of the Alliance. I would be honored for any teachings you might bestow upon my unworthy self.”
A little bit of flattery didn’t harm anyone and after so many years of working for narcissistic bosses in real life he had gotten pretty good at sneaking in some to any conversation. Modesty and humility came even easier due to his early upbringing.
“For now youuu have not completed any of the training couuurssssessss. Buuut I do believe that thissss little droid hassss ssssomething for youuu?”
Dev saw that the little droid was going to explode from an electronic ulcer if he didn’t get a chance to speak soon.
“Do you have something for me, 44007813-CR41G?”
“YYYYYYYEEEESSSSS!” Peepers popped off the ground excitedly again. “What I have for you is a Managerial Acquisitions Transmissions Entity. Or M, A, T, E for short. This little device has all you’ll ever need! And YOU CAN’T live without it!
“Whether you want to be an adventurer, a producer, a miner, a gatherer, a researcher or an explorer-.”
“EXPLORER!” Dev interrupted him, hoping he would shut up soon. Or at least take a breath.
“Well then! You need M.A.T.E. to help you out! With it you can see a readout of your current physical condition where ever you are and a complete view of your entire inventory. It’s also useful for remembering any skills you’ve learned or any quests you’ve taken on. And! As a special bonus it is fully upgradeable so if you get the parts you can increase the M.A.T.E.’s abilities. As an explorer I’m sure you’d be interested in the ability to create your own maps right?”
“Yeah, that sounds very useful.”
“Then make sure to visit the Bibliotheca and talk to the head Librarian. If he thinks you’ll survive he may just lend you a Maps Upgrade for the M.A.T.E.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure to do that.”
“Then, my job is done!” And Peepers cheerfully raced out of the plaza. Even the Instructor had disappeared from Dev’s side before he knew it. Though he quickly found him talking to other players who were starting to file in.
Dev chose the closest obstacle to start.