"Master Ferrick, master Ferrick! Please come outside quickly!"

I groaned and and looked up to my apprentice; "Jean, what is it that has made you so hasty this time."

Jean tried to catch her breath, while explaining; "The sign, master. The sign has finally appeared!"

I froze in shock, but recovered quickly. Without any more words I stood up from the chair and made my way to outside. I saw a bright beam of white light ascending into the night sky, shining from top of the "Lighthouse". As I started moving towards it, I took a quick look around. Many other masters were outside too, standing in place, stunned. All of us join the stream of people going towards the "Lighthouse".

We arrived to the plaza surrounding a Humongous boulder. The boulder is of black colour, with thin, dark red and grey lines formed across its surface. On top of the the boulder, there's diamond-like protruding, 3 meters tall, and 2 meters diameter. It's usually shining gentle blue light to slightly illuminate our village during night time, but today a beam shoots towards the unknown sky.

The boulder isn't totally naturally shaped, as some of it has been mined off to make the walls surrounding our village. It has also been hollowed, housing our priesthood and few magicians, which are maintaining the seal over the descent node.

The boulder stands on a elevation, which makes few steps of stairs, and a kind of a town square around the boulder. On top of the elevations, in front of the big entrance doors, stands the head priest of our village.

"Everyone, please stay calm until when the sign has passed. We are currently receiving the awaited message from the gods, and are receiving divine orders how to proceed. Our prayers have been answered, and as its been written, the time of change is upon us. The change might not be instant, but it is imminent! Praise to the holy Esenora!"

Audience broke into a mumbling prayer; "Praised to be Esenora"

I lifted my gaze to the skies, now illuminated by the beam. I could see faint glow of similar beams in the distance, most probably our neighbour villages. The view was extraordinarily eerie, as the beam did not make a single sound.

Suddenly we could hear screams of priests from inside the tower; "Your Holiness, the seal has reformed into a magic formation! Two of the priests disappeared, who were standing on top if it when it changed!"

Head Priest turned around, looking shocked; "The Eternal seal has reformed? Clear the area, and set a watch around it. No one is to go close to it, until we decipher whole of the divine message. As for those two priests, notify their families about their death, and take care of their needs for until we sort this situation out."

"Understood, your Holiness."

I approached the Head priest, who is looking slightly agitated; "Is there anything I could help you with, Brother Tenn?"

He turned around, looking a bit relieved; "Thank you for the offer, Brother Ferrick, but there's nothing anyone of us can do. We are to wait until the end of the sign, and then decide our course of action. Bur I would be grateful if you could oversee the reformed seal, and try to make something out of the new magic formation."

I nodded, and moved to inside of the tower. I walked to the left from the door, and sat down to a bench close to the wall. I closed my eyes and started meditating, spreading my conscious to examine the new magic formation.

"Finally, things are going to change!"

_______________________________________________________________________________

"Mr. Jurgen, the station is ready for you. We can leave in a moments notice and be at the location in 5 minutes. The road is already cleared up."

"Well done, as usual Neil. Let us leave at once"

We entered a black, markless car. Leaving from a parking lot, in front of a huge futuristic building, we entered to a now emptied street. Streetlights flashing on the iPad I'm holding, I reviewed what's going to happen in the next 30 minutes.

"At 8 pm we will start the interview, and it concludes at 8.15 pm. At 8.25 we should be making way to the laboratory. I already notified them that were arriving, and they will prepare everything for the launch. All systems have been tested, and are 99.9% safe. That is, we still only have that one failure in our data."

"As long as this interview goes down without a hitch, systems should be up and running soon, and servers will flood in players. So far we've sold out the 2 million initial receivers, and we have 20 million units stored across the world. Is there anything else that you would like to affirm?"

"No Neil, that's enough. As the system is ready, tell the team to start making prototypes of advanced units."

"Understood, Mr.Jurgen."

_______________________________________________________________________________

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Merry Stranger show! Tonight we've had some interesting discussions so far, but now we are going to go down for the main event. Our next interviewed is going to be Jurgen Slavitcho, the main brain behind the Gorotech corporation! Hailing from the old Soviet area, this man has been somewhat mysterious outside the business, but has came down here in regards of the new VRMMO game his company is firing up today! So once more, applauses to the Merry Conglomerate Mr. Jurgen Slavitcho!"

"Thank you for the welcome, Nicholas."

"Not at all Mr. Slavitcho! Now, we all know you are tight on the schedule, so instead of bombarding you with irrelevant questions and joking around, how about you take the lead, and share to us what you have deemed to be shared?"

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"Gladly. Now you all have been reading different publishments of our current #1 product. Those are of course based on the information we've released by ourselves, but there's also lots and lots of misunderstandings, faulty predictions and downright slandering. Of course it's only understandable, given its a dawn of new technology, which has been kept pretty hidden. But that's the exact reason im here to talk to you today."

"As you know we at Gorotech have always been about customers. That means, we treat customers as they should be treated as, our employers. But also we take care of our customers needs, even when we're not exactly contracted to, taking on various problems and challenges around the world."

"For those who are not aware, we, for example, regrew the whole of Sahara desert into  wondrous plains with our ground-breaking irrigation systems. This is quite off topic, but I use this only as a baseline for what im about to tell you, and as an assurance of our intention and will."

"The new product, Instinct, is a game based into a virtual world. There has been many complains how we haven't published a lot of info about the game itself. Besides some videos, you technically have nothing to grab on, and I understand the frustration. But as always, we at Gorotech value the customer. And this decision of a "radio-silence" has been made in the best interest of you all."

"Instead, we've shown you various videos, and released a lot of technical and related information about various other virtual reality products, made mainly for military- or amusement purposes. Mainly to the customers who had the means or the needs for the said systems and programs. Given all that, you should have pretty good and wide general understanding what to expect."

"But most of us enthusiastics already know of this, Mr. Slavitcho. Don't you have any freebies for us starving in the darkness?"

"Of course Nicholas. Don't make me be a demon to come here just for a tease, haha."

"Instinct will start in a medieval setting. The world has it's own inhabitants, It's own history of thousands of years. You will be the guest of honor. You have absolute freedom of choice about what you want to do, or be. But be noted, that there's several different powers, which will react on what you do, be the reaction helpful, ignorant or hindrance.

"You are able to totally play yourself into dead-end, in which your only option is re-creation of your character. You are also able to thrive, and amass even real world riches. We will implement in-game auction house, where you can trade with other players via both in- and out-game currencies."

"Take note though, you will not be able to buy in-game currency with dollars for example, as it's strictly prohibited."

"All this being said, what we truly encourage to do, is to bring out your truest desires and wishes in this game. This has been made to be an escape, a fresh start for those who have wished for it for so long."

"We have also taken note of the concerns about this freedom on different medias, and we have managed perfect solution. Now it is bit technical, but I will explain it to you in simple terms."

"As we know not all of humankind is good-willing and joyful, the so called scum of humanity is also able to do horrible, terrible things in this game. And how to make sure this wont mentally cripple your everyday, normal citizen? Simply, we constructed a buffer!"

"As you know, our A.I has been on development for over 20 years, and has reached a point of being mostly sentient. That means, it can think like you, or me, but its highly constrained, and submissive on our suggestions. Now between the connection of your receiver, and server there's a buffer, in which the A.I will filter all the content that it deems mentally harmful for the player."

"Testing this system is why we've postponed the release of this game, and it has been 100% proficient for the last 4 years. So rest assured, this buffer acts both as a k-18 filter, keeps your mind in check, and also works as a instant kill-switch in case something out of ordinary would occur. With the time compression technology we are using, managing the data is a cinch to do."

"The said A.I also monitors each receiver for harmful attachments, as well as any forbidden trading happening over Instinct. Remember, our A.I is not a dull program. We welcome you to test its mettle, but on your own risk. Bans are permanent and final, and those aren't even the more severe of the punishments we can hand out."

"There is a lot I could share right now with you, but unfortunately i'm running out of time. On our company's web pages you will find more detailed info, as well as some insights into our technology. I will wish you enjoyable moments with our new product, and remember, there's still about 100 000 receivers up in the are for the late grab via various methods. Thank you."

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that. Thank you Mr.Slavitcho for your time, and I wish you the very best in your endeavours."

"Thank you Nicholas. Excuse me, but I will be on my way now. Neil."

"No problems at all Mr. Slavitcho! Now I know you all still have a lot of questions and comments bubbling inside your minds, but please try to not over flood our site at MerryStranger.com, as we're already creaking under the load of net-TV. This concludes our show for today, and I, Merry Nicholas wish you all pleasant and joyful evening!"

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