He blinked into the darkness of his helmet then pulled it off and lay there regaining his bearings. He stared up at the ceiling of his pod unit and sorted through everything that had happened in game while thinking of every possible reason that they would have had to pull him from the game. Was it because of the error? Well there was no way to know until they told him and they likely wouldn’t do it from the other side of the door. He reached over, pressing the release button and the door hissed open. With a groan he pulled himself from the pod and stood slowly, allowing himself to stretch his complaining muscles slowly. When he was done Pag straightened and looked around, his eyes finally adjusted to the light they landing on the figure leaning idly against the wall near the door.
He waved a Pag and offered a winsome smile. “Hey. Sorry to interrupt your game time bud. There’s a bit of an issue with your pod, I’m sure you saw the lines of error codes, so we just need to switch you over to a new one. I’ll just need you to sign this form, same as the last one you signed before getting in this one for the first time but we are required to get another copy each time you enter a new pod.” he said holding out a clipboard.
Pag took it and scrawled his name across the line before handing the paper back to the man and following him out the door,
“You good to hop back into the system? Need a restroom break or something to eat?” He asked Pag as they walked down the hall.
“Maybe a restroom break but I think I'm good on the food until I log out for the day. I have what. 3 more hours real time and I’m good right?”
“Give or take yeah, and to make up for the disruption we will be bringing you a steak dinner, it’ll be waiting for you once you log out.” He said as he turned down a hallway. They walked in silence for a while until he pulled the door open and motioned Pag in.
“There’s a private restroom in there, there’s also a basket of snack foods in case you changed your mind. There may be a slight lag or glitch here and there as the system ports all your data from the other pod to this one. Don’t worry, it’s just the system trying to repair the broken source code. If you need anything or experience any issue in the game just send a message to me, just select developer message and click on Dave.”
Pag nodded and stepped into the room, his brows arching as he took in what must have been the latest design for pods. The sleek black metal was ran through with veins of red light that seemed to pulse, the door hanging open like gull-wing door from a Delorean. He shoved his hands into his pockets and padded over to the open door that led to the restroom to attend to his needs. Even the bathroom was fancy. The toilet bowel was a black shot through with veins of gold and the sink looked like half of one massive amethyst geode that seemed to have had resin poured over the crystals to prevent breaking or protect you from cutting yourself on them while a silver square faucet stuck from the wall far enough to pour water into the geode though had no visible handles to turn it on though did appear to have a sensor set in it to know when hands were near.
Once finished Pag washed his hands beneath the square silver faucet, the suds collecting geode bowl of the sink, the lights overhead dancing through the water and crystals, before he shook them dry, stopping to rub them on his pants for extra measure having been unable to locate any paper towels. With a glance over the basket of snack sized chip bags and other junk food he frowned and shook his head, none of it sounded particularly appetizing, before slipping into the pod.
The material hugged him as he sank into it leaving him to feel like he was floating on water once he settled himself. He reached up and pressed the button to close the door, his heart race picking up as the light around him faded until finally he was bathed in nothing more than the pale red light pulsing from the back of the pod.
With a shudder screens began to pop up and minimize in his view overhead on the roof of the pod, a headache beginning to form just behind his eyes, surging to feel as if an ice pick was rammed into his left eye and vanished. A white light filled his vision, forcing tears from his eyes and he closed his eyes. There was a soft chime and he opened his eyes, a new box popped into view and stayed put, the white light fading to a tolerable level as he stared.
He pressed the yes button and looked around him, suddenly standing in an empty white room.
Pag frowned and shook his head, there was no way he was giving up all those stats and that gear he had just gotten just to start over especially since you weren’t allowed to have alts on this game yet and given everything he had already gone through. He had worked too hard to throw it away, he tapped the resume button and blinked. He stood in the courtyard of the Arcane Core again. That had to be the smoothest transition he had ever had for a log in. The improvements didn’t stop there either it seemed. He grinned as he slowly rotated and took in the view that some how seemed even more realistic than it had previously. This was a definite upgrade.
He looked around again and jumped as he saw Aviva staring at him, mouth agape and a look of pure incredulous disbelief painting her face. The crystal in her forehead glowing slightly as she began to slowly shake her head.
“Wh-what?” Pag asked as he looked her up and down.
“There is no way.” she said shaking her head harder she muttered before turning to walk away.
Pag frowned in confusion and shook his head as he began to walk towards mount dealers on the edge of the city.
Pag stopped in his steps and slowly turned around to see the girl huffing as she stalked towards him. He felt his brows furrow as he declined the invite and began to walk again
He waved the invitation away, not missing a step and picked up his pace.
“Don’t you dare decline again.” Her voice was low as she finally caught up with him and crossed her arms.
“I cant join a party with you to complete whatever quest it is that you need, I just got handed quests related to the war that kinda take precedence over social quests.” He said as he reached up to wave the invitation away.
“Ya well I just got the same quest, I’m now part of the group you’re supposed to rendezvous with.” she said grabbing his wrist. “I’m not letting you out of my sight” she huffed quietly as she shook her head.
“Wh-what why?” Pag asked as he took a step back trying to pull his wrist from her grip.
“Because, it makes no sense why someone like you was able to synchronize, and at 100 percent no less.”
“What do you mean?” he asked furrowing his brows.
“That pod they put you in, it hasn't worked despite everyone's best efforts. In fact every single player who tried to use it before you died.”
“Did one of the devs rewrite your coding to screw with me, because I feel like one of the devs rewrote your coding just to mess with me. Sounds about right that they would rewrite an NPC’s programming just to mess with me.” Pag said with a laugh.
“No, I’m an A.I.” Aviva said as she began to inspect him with a perplexed expression.
“You’re the games A.I. ?” he asked trying to pull his wrist free again. “Sure and I am from the planet Mars.”
“No, not the A.I. I’m only one of them.” she said as she circled him and poked at him in random places.
“Cut it out.” he said swatting at her and jogging a few paces away from her. “Look what ever this is, I’m not interested.” He said.
Pag growled and reached up to dismiss the invitation.
Pag stared at her and shook his head slowly. With a wave he brought up the message menu and clicked until he located Dave’s name. He stared at the blank message for a moment before settling on what to send. He tapped a short message out on the small transparent keyboard that popped up then hit send.
When there was no immediate response he waved the menus and other windows away and with a final glance towards Aviva he began to walk towards the stall that sold mounts at the edge of town. “I have a quest to complete, if you want to screw with me then you can do it while I do this quest” he called over his shoulder.
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The sound of rustling, then hurried footsteps reached his ears before she offered a response. “I’m not trying to mess with you, I just want to figure out what it is about you that allowed you to synchronize.” Aviva said as she caught up to him.
“No idea what you mean, I’ve never had an issue using a pod before.” His voice was distracted as he waved up the mini map that indicated where he needed to go and began to consider what would be the best route to take. There didn’t seem to be much information on terrain or even possible levels of mobs in various areas.
Pag stopped and turned to Aviva. “Question, why do the maps have next to no information on them?” he asked her crossing his arms.
“Your maps skills are probably low level.” she said simply with a shrug. “Most people tend to ignore those skills because they don’t majorly affect the game.”
“Ok, so how do I raise the levels on those skills and, will raising the levels add like monster levels and terrain?” He asked scratching his chin as he glanced at the mini map again.
“Well there are a lot of skills regarding maps but yeah those would be some of the things that you would be able to see with high enough levels.” Aviva nodded and cocked her head to the side as she watched him.
“What's the fastest way to level them and would that be something that can be done along the way to our main quest objective?” He asked.
Aviva stared at him for a moment before glancing off to the side, making a few gestures then looking back to him. “It looks like for the first few ranks its fast leveling, even without a trainer. Looks like there are books that can be bought or borrowed for it or you can go the traditional path. Study a lot of maps and make a lot of them by hand.”
Pag laughed and gestured. “Ha, I knew you were a dev.” he said turning to resume the trek to the mount stall.
“What?” she asked in disbelief. “For accessing the system?” she asked with a scoff. “A dev can’t do that if they’re in game, candle boy. They have the same access rights as a player does in game.”
Pag didn’t respond as he stopped at a particularly dark intersection, merely glancing both ways before he stepped off the curb continuing towards the stall. He glanced down and grimaced as he realized the puddle he had just stepped in was actually another one of those foul trenches that ran through the city. A sigh slipped from his lips and he rubbed the back of his neck as he looked up at the horizon.
Tendrils of light were just beginning to claw at the inky midnight sky and the stars were fading from view. He had never been to this part of the city so he had no clue exactly what time the stall that sold the mounts opened or what the best time to stop by for a good deal would be. With a wave he brought up his menu and looked at the time he had logged so far in the game for this shift. Thankfully the walk this far had eaten up most of the time. He only needed another four in game hours, or one real world hour, before he could log out and get full credit for a shift.
Pag waved the menus away and looked around. “Do you know of any taverns or pubs around here? I’m not sure what time this place opens and it also may be a good idea to eat something before we head out on the quest. Also I need to set my God.” His voice, though quiet, carried on the cold air across the cobbles in a thick white mist.
“There's a tavern a ways down that avenue. Has some pretty good stew and always makes their bread fresh.” Aviva said gesturing to the left. “It's not particularly fancy, looks dreadful in fact but the owner is a really nice widow. She should be there, doesn’t go out much in the winter.”
“Let me guess arthritis?” Pag snorted
“Nah, this far north we get some pretty rough winter squalls that will destroy your ship in a blink so most people don’t ship much in the winter months.” Aviva said as she headed off in the direction of the tavern. She threw a grin at him over her shoulder. “She's a pretty high level player, knows a lot about maps. What God did you want to select?”
“Either Oelia or Ruhna.” Pag said with a shrug.
Aviva turned to him arching a brow. “Best to go with Ruhna then. Oelia is about Creation. Your class is about Destruction. I don’t think you two would get along. We can hit a temple on the way out, all you need is to walk in and accept the invitation to make Ruhna your god if you don't already have a primary one.”
Pag felt his brows raise and he stood there for a moment before following her down the avenue. Despite the lack of street lamps or torches they were still able to see fairly well with the growing golden light that was rapidly beginning to burn away the shadows blanketing the city. The buildings down this street were obviously old, though some showed signs of renovations and repairs, many looked like they were a breath away from collapsing into their foundations.
The building they approached was three stories of pale blonde wood that leaned on its neighbor, an obviously newly renovated smithy with all red wood and twisted black metal accents. The blonde wood showed signs of patching and repair but its age was evident on its weather worn exterior. The covered porch and the massive door that it led to were both obviously new, so much so that the supplies used to install them were still lying where they had been discarded.
As they made their way up the stairs and across the porch Pag marveled at the solid and quite even construction, noting that aside from their foot falls it was silent and not a single board squeaked. Not even the door made a noise as it swung inwards, a wave of rich smells pouring outwards in its wake and immediately making his mouth water. He swallowed hard and picked up his pace, closing the distance between him and Aviva as they approached the bar.
The main room of the tavern was dimly lit by two small fireplaces on either side of the room and various small candles nestled in green or clear bottles that occupied nearly every table in the room. Pag looked around, his brows furrowed at the complete emptiness of the place.
“Stay here for a moment, she doesn’t like it when strangers wander about her tavern and has a tendency to shoot first and ask second.” Aviva said resting a hand on his arm for a moment before walking behind the bar and through a narrow door.
He stood there for a moment then looked around the room and found a reasonably trustworthy seat near the fire that still had a direct line of sight to the door that Aviva had gone through. His muscles began to loosen as they sat there, the heat radiated by the fire sinking into him. He drummed his fingers along the table quietly as he fought, unsuccessfully, to swallow back a yawn. Pag blinked and rubbed at his eyes to clear the moisture that had risen from his yawn and looked around the room again.
“She’s not here at the moment but Neb is. He is one of the guys she hires to keep an eye on the place for her while she's out on the seas, she’s currently doing some quest to take down an octopus or something. He said he’ll have breakfast up to us in a few minutes though. That stall that sells the mounts opens up in about an hour or so.” Aviva said as she trudged through the narrow doorway and over to the table he now occupied. “He also said that he has a few of the basic map skills books you can borrow but most of the stuff is gone with Scout but he has no idea where she went exactly, she didn’t give many details about her quest.”
“Well at least it’s something.” Pag forced out around another yawn.
Aviva arched a brow at him and snorted leaning back farther in her seat. “Any idea what sort of mount you want?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Something that won’t eat my face preferably.” Pag muttered as he rested his chin on a fist. “Knowing my luck though.”
Aviva laughed and shook her head. “First things first. There is no such thing as an absolute herbivore. If given the chance most animals will try meat. Example number one, chickens, chickens are cannibalistic if given the chance. So much so that rose tinted glasses for them are a thing. That being said there are horses and there are Leprin. Neither should try to eat your face unless you’re grievously wounded or they’re starving and both have fairly decent travel speeds.”
Pag nodded and thought for a moment. “What’s a Leprin” He asked, sitting up straighter and turning to face her.
“They are magically created creatures that no one is sure where or when they originated from. They are the antlers of a deer, the torso and head of a Hare but the hind quarters and wings of a bearded vulture. They also seem to have the weird need to rub themselves in red stuff that a bearded vulture has.” She said picking at a splinter on the table, glancing up as a man approached them with two loaded trays of food. “Thank you Neb.” She said as he sat them both down on the table.
“No problem, I’ve got the coffee started in the back. Should be ready in a few moments. Got a new shipment in last week, had a really good blend called ‘Hylanders Grog’ in it. It’s pretty good. Coffee roasted to have notes of caramel, chocolate, and vanilla while not being overly rich. Not as acidic so its easier on the stomach despite being a darker roast” Nick said as he waved and padded back to the bar area before he disappeared back through the narrow doorway.
Pag watched him go, marveling at the incredible yet functional and neatly trimmed beard that the man sported, shaking his head to refocus on the conversation.“That sounds like a rather odd creature. Are they docile?” Pag asked as he grabbed a bowl of stew and a thick hunk of still steaming bread.
“Yeah if they bond with you they’re super docile and sweet. The ones sold here in town are young and can’t fly yet but are big enough that they can carry a rider and supplies for about 10 hours a day at a constant pace and only need the occasional break.” She responded off offhandedly as she mimicked his actions.
“How do you get one to bond to you” Pag asked before taking a bite of the stew. He closed his eyes and relished the rich flavor of it. The sweetness of the carrots with the sharp earthy flavor of the herbs and celery chasing the chunks of meat and potatoes through a thick gravy. He slowly opened one eye as he dipped the bread into the stew, letting it soak up the gravy, and popping the chunk in his mouth.
“Easy, offer a bone to eat or something red that they can roll around in and dye their feathers with. If one of them is interested then they will bind themselves to you.” Aviva said around a mouth full of bread with a shrug.
Pag blinked and swallowed. “That sounds too easy.” he said cautiously.
Aviva shrugged again. “That’s how it is. There’s nothing more to it. They’re actually the most common mount because of how docile they are, especially compared to a horse that needs a ridiculous amount of training and lots to food while on the road.
“But why the antlers?” Pag asked leaning closer watching her for any hint of deceit.
“To defend the rider from bandits and such I guess.” she said with a shrug.
Pag frowned but said nothing and shoveled the remainder of the stew into his mouth, barely tasting it as he finished it off. He sat the bowl back on the tray and grabbed another hunk of bread, this time taking note of the bowl of butter and smearing a generous spoonful on the warm bread and grabbing a piece of cheese. “I thought there were books?” he asked as he took a bite of the bread.
Aviva nodded. “Yes, there are but seeing how you eat it’s probably best you wait until after you eat to look at them.”
Pag stopped chewing, cheese halfway to his mouth, and looked down at the crumbs coating his new clothes. He grimaced and brushed them away. “Right” he sighed and sat the cheese back on the tray. “I kinda forgot that we have to eat in game or we feel it. Then I got carried away” he grumbled as he rubbed at a drop of gravy on his robes. Aviva glanced at him but offered no response as she continued to eat. Pag leaned back in his chair and picked the cheese back up, this time eating slower to avoid another mess.
Once they had finished the food on the trays Nick returned, replacing them with a new tray of coffee, cream, sugar and steaming pastries dripping with jams and icings. Next to that he sat a small stack of books. “Let me know if you need anything else.” He said before disappearing again.
Once again Pag was struck by how incredible the other man's beard looked. He shook himself grabbing a pastry and one of the books. “Basic map reading and creation.” He read under his breath before taking a bite of the pastry. The flavor exploded into his mouth and he groaned as he glanced down to see a system message.