Tutorial as in, a tour? A tour group? Joe could feel the ghost of terrible, mandatory school fieldtrips threaten to consume him. Joe looked pleadingly at Emily. Feeling his stare on her face, she shoved at him. He didn’t budge. They shared a look, then Emily eyed the small group that was making to shuffle off together. She smirked in understanding.
"You want to explore, don't you?" she asked. “But you need to know if you’ll miss anything crazy important” Joe just kept looking. Emily and Joe both shuffled forward as the fox-person began to speak. "Divide and summarize?" she whispered. Joe nodded once firmly. They waited for a natural break
“Are there any questions?”
"Excuse me," Emily said, her hand raised halfway up.
"Yes, in the back." The fox called. "Also, I understand your customs may be different, but for the future, this is how to ask a question. Raise your forearm in front of your face, palm facing forward, and make a back and forth waving motion with your hand. Should you be in a large crowded area, do the same with the forearm above the head."
"Ah, got it. Thanks," Emily said. "My question?" she asked.
"Yes, of course. Go ahead," the man nodded once.
"Yeah, so my friend and I," she nudged Joe again, "we were just wondering what exactly would be covered on this tour?" Joe was looking into the middle distance, thinking or trying very hard to look like he was thinking. Meanwhile Emily and the fox-person stared at each other. “Also, could we get your name?”
The fox-person, visibly confused, opened then closed their mouth before recovering quickly and turning to the wider group.
“This was an excellent point. Names and titles are important, very important.” They nodded once to themselves. “I am the Caretaker of this residence, and while you may call me that most call me Aakil,
"So, you want to know what will be covered during the tutorial?”
“Yeah. Like, is the tour the entire tutorial? What will we be doing, and why?" she asked.
"Fair question,” Aakil held up both hands and rotated them back and forth at the wrist in what looked to be a placating gesture. “One does not get far following blindly following strangers into strange places, Well, we'll be looking at the available facilities, training areas, resources, starter equipment, and, of course, the library, the mess hall, and dining area."
"Excuse me," Emily cut in before Aakil could continue, raising her hand in the correct manner.
"Yes, viritor…"
"Call me Em.” Emily smiled. “What if we don't want to go on the tour, but we do want the equipment and facilities. Can we only get those now, or is that something we can come back for?"
"You don't want to go on the tour," the man narrowed his eyes, and his upper lip twitch.
"Oh, no! I want to go on the tour. But what if we didn't?"
"Then you are of course, free to go. The practical part of the tutorial is not until the afternoon, and you may collect your starting equipment any time. However, I must advise against this. You may miss valuable information,” Aakil said.
"Oh, I’m not leaving,” she smiled and patted Joe’s arm. “Doc Joe is-” she paused. “Doc Joe seriously?” She sook her head. “Anyway, Doc Joe would appreciate if you could point in the direction of the library?" she asked, smiling very politely at Aakil. The entire group was now watching Joe and Emily. Emily focused on Aakil, and Joe... Joe was looking into the middle distance, the second knuckle of his forefinger dragging back and forth against his bottom lip as he thought.
"The library is that way," the man pointed off to a hallway to the man's left, Joe, Emily and the rest of the group’s right.
“Object permanence is strange, Em.” Was all Joe mumbled while Emily was turning him around and nudging him to move.
"Thanks so much," she said, nudging Joe again. Joe just nodded once slowly back at her. He had technically been paying attention to the conversation, his attention splitting between what was going on in the room, and his stat screen. He had been trying to connect with Guide but found himself unable to pull up a full connection. It was like trying to grab a cloud. He could see the fog, feel the brush of humidity against his skin, smell the ever-present earth and asphalt smell that permeated the city during periods of rain. Yet he couldn’t make it concrete.
Giving up, he blinked his eyes hard, once before he darted a glance around the room. The looks aimed his way made him uncomfortable. So, he quickly memorized everything in his vicinity, including his fellow visitors, their tags, and their groups. Then he nodded to Aakil, patted Emily gently on the shoulder, and simply walked out.
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Joe took his time ambling down the indicated hallway. There were many doors. As his eyes traced over them, words seemed to appear over placards on the door as his subdermal interacted with the game world. He wondered if it was some sort of imbedded code in each item’s makeup because he found when he just focused on the idea of ‘scanning’ his surroundings, he got information from absolutely EVERYTHING. The walls, the floor, the doors. The more he focused on getting information, the more information he gleaned.
[Item – Door]
became
[Item – Carved Hardwood Door]
became
[Item – Carved Hardwood Door
Item Quality – 3/5
Item…
Once the information began to get hazy, Joe developed a headache. If he continued to push an almost stabbing pain hit his eye, the base of his neck, and his navel. Joe hunched over in the hallway, dry heaving and feeling distinctly foolish. Pain was a signal, he knew this, but he’d ignored it for progress.
[Item – Carved Door (Study Room)
Item Quality – 3/5
Item Material – Hardwood
Ite...
As he stumbled into a wall, he idly contemplated what his physical body was doing right now, and if it would be enough for his mother to want to wake him. He made careful notes of everything he was feeling, and what the cause of each sensation was, then waited for the pain to pass. It felt like a slow process, though in reality it was probably only a few minutes before he began moving again.
It passed by before he came to a set of ornate doors carved from a dark wood that beautifully complemented the pale beige stone of the large building’s walls. Joe looked up at the blank space above the door, and the word [Library] filtered into his vision. His lips twitched upwards as he pressed his palm against the door where the two flat metal slabs were placed at about hand height, the word [PUSH] materializing over them. It was like one of the optical illusions Joe had seen where the message only appeared if you were looking at it from a certain angle.
The moment his skin met the door a strange sensation, like pins and needles mixed with a static shock, jolted into his hand, up his arm, and down into his chest right below his diaphragm. He felt something stirring there, as the back of his neck tingled with the aftereffects of something decidedly other taking a quick trip through his body. He shuddered as the doors creaked open, and made a mental note to himself that simple said ‘be careful what you touch’. This profound statement went under its own section, which he had his vAIA call: ‘Potential Concerns & Curiosities’. He asked his vAIA to add ‘Does magic come from the sternum or the base of the skull?’ while his mind was on the topic. His legs, unlike his mind, had focused on getting him past the threshold to potential knowledge.
The smell hit him first. It smelled like parchment and stone and ink. It was an unfamiliar smell to Joe, something he'd experienced only in his younger years when his intelligence had gained him admittance to a school for the exceptional. It was an actual physical place where he would go every morning to learn. Sure, what the school meant by exceptional had mostly meant ‘pedigree,’ ‘wealth,’ or ‘influence’, but it turned out remarkable talent could occasionally, and with great reluctance, open the barrier to entry.
Joe had received his first paper books at that school. He remembered marvelling at real ink on real parchment. At his young age, it had been a wonder he'd never forgotten. It wasn’t that paper wasn’t available, it had just gone mostly out of use by the time subdermals had become wide-spread enough to really push it out of popular use. But here and now it was so abundant that its scent was in the air.
Joe found himself in a single room. It was a large room, certainly, but it was just the one. While the room was made of the same kind of stone as the building, the once bright stones now carried a cozy, shadowy weight to them in the windowless room. That was before factoring in the literal weight they were carrying. Books on recessed shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and rows of bookshelves were spaced evenly across the floor on intricately carved wooden shelving units. A ladder made of metal with glowing legs was bound to a railing that spanned the perimeter of the room, and yes, the legs of the ladder were actually glowing, not just his subdermal showing a glowing image, and not the popout effects of the game, but real radiant light that seemed not to really come from any source Joe could discern.
Beautiful. The place was beautiful. Desks were littered here and there, and if he squinted hard, he thought he might have been able to make out a private room of some sort in the back. Joe tried zooming in with his chip to get a better look at the door, but found the action was blocked by something. He felt a gentle rebound and his vision instantly zoomed back out. The sudden viewpoint shift caused a hint of nausea. He made a note to try and figure out what that was later. A delicate throat clearing caused him to turn his head.
He'd noticed the desk the first time he'd entered the room, and the woman behind it, but his attention had been entirely absorbed by the enchanting sight of the books. His attention was suddenly brought back into focus by the woman who sat behind what appeared to be a reception desk made of a lighter wood than the shelves. As he approached her, her focus was only half on her work, the rest of it on him. She looked his outfit up and down, smiled slightly, and raised a single brow.
"A Visitor, I presume?" She asked. Joe nodded once. "And what can I help you with today?”
“Borrow or pay?" Joe asked. The woman pressed her lips tightly together, glanced around, her eyes going wistful before they firmed, focusing back on him.
"Borrowing is free if you’re reading in here, nothing ‘borrowed’ here leaves this building. Otherwise, it will not be a payment we collect when we retrieve the book." She smiled. It was not a nice smile.
Joe nodded once.
"History," Joe said. The woman blinked at the seeming non-sequitur.
"Pardon?" she asked.
"Books on history," Joe ‘clarified’.
"Ah, yes. Well," the woman stood. She wore a half-sleeved dress that went down past her ankles and covered everything but the tips of her shoes. When she went to step out from behind the desk Joe held up a hand and continued.
"Also, medicine," he said.
The woman blinked again, before nodding once and pulling out a small notebook and a quill pen. "Anything else?" She asked.
Joe smiled fully for the first time that day. "Yes," he said, bright teeth flashing. "Magic."
The woman stopped, looked at him, and then smiled a small, if genuine, smile of her own. "Yes, that we can accommodate. History, Medicine and a Primer for Magic."