I played a Peacer that stuck to Eirnir in Mental World Online. I was excited to get back to the game, after so long of just reliving the memories of the game in my imagination I couldn’t help but think the real thing would be so much better.

I walked together with my glorified handler to the doctor’s office in the integration ward. She stopped before the door, making a slightly open mouth and looking down before looking at me to speak.

“Personally, I’ve seen a lot of your type come through here. I want you to know that although nothing may not be wrong with what you’re doing... that doesn’t mean you’re doing fine.”

She had a creased face, she looked older. I wish I cared like that. You’re not a horrible person, but don’t expect me to like you just for having positive feelings.

I felt like there was a sense of destiny. I hadn’t told her the truth about something, I wanted her to know. Just for the record. It’s not because I wanted to tell the truth, I just didn’t want her to misunderstand.

“I think you’re right,” I said.

Her eyes grew a little wider for a second there. Shocked, huh? How many said that with a straight face to someone like you? I felt special. I don’t want to admit it, but I felt like I accomplished something there.

“Take care of yourself, ok, Maimou?”

She then left me at the door. Probably, the smarties wanted the handlers to escort you to the doctor to say goodbye like that. A parting for them to move on to the next idiot, and the idiot to move onto a better world. A world like Mental World Online for me.

I went inside.

“Maimou? Okay let’s get the brain chip turned back on. Make sure not to use it too much in the first hour, I’ll give you a stabilizer on the way out in case you experience system shock. Tell someone in the ward to give me a call if you do, this is just a precaution to minimize damage. Got it?”

He said as he set me up in the chair and fiddled with a thousand different things and adjusted this widget and that. How smartie can you be? It’s annoying. I won’t complain about the result though.

Various beams and sensors were glued to me at various parts of my body. I don’t know how it works, I just like using it, okay? Tried searching that once and my head spun like a top.

“Okay, now try to access the net.”

He handed me a board so I could visualize it better. Some people just use their hands, I could never do that. It was annoying to have to carry around a small sheet of plastic just for this though.

I turned on my profile, and looked for the Mental World Online icon, saw it, and grinned

Entering Augmented Reality...

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I couldn’t wait the hour. I was just glad to be playing again, I thumbed the stabilizer as I walked. I wonder if anyone else played in the ward? Somehow, I don’t want to associate with them. The augmented reality portion of the game was useless to me because if I went outside it was usually dark and no people were around. That was the reason I was outside in the first place, it was dark.

After I got my key from the guard I headed to my assigned room. The living standard of this place was definitely higher than home. As I checked into my room, with the little designs everywhere and the living space setup was clearly designed by an artie. One room occupancy, guess they didn’t want double bunking as a reward for people who got out of central ward. I’d enjoy the freedom, the common area, the free food, and the lack of groups. At this point, the goal was just to make sure you were fine collecting things by your own then consulting with the integration specialists.

That wasn’t going to go well. Maybe I’ll think of a way to stay here for awhile?

I opened my room and saw bigfoot laying on my bed.

Is bigfoot supposed to be green? He casually looked over at me, his three eyes and weird alien like eyes on stalks stuck out of his head made me jump.

Oh wait, is this a monster? From the game? I looked carefully and saw he was a bit transparent.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just exploring this world. That’s right. Monster’s aren’t supposed to talk. I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”

Said the bigfoot as sweat poured pooling down my face.

“W-wait.”, I squeaked out. This was the most fun I’d had all month. I shut the door, and the bigfoot stepped back to respect my space as I made for him.

“You can talk? What, did someone program you to say lines or something like that?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if some crazy artie with smartie skills did something like that. Is the augmented reality part of the game always like this?

“Ahgo.”

“What?”

“My name’s Ahgo.”

“Enough of that, what about your unexplainable sentience!?”

“It’s a long story. I may get some people in trouble, so I’ll have to leave you in the dark. Goodbye, Earthling.”

He walked through the wall just like that. I ran outside and down the hall for a couple minutes to see if he would show himself. I was too scared to knock on the neighbors door to see if I could get a glimpse of him, besides he might have just left the whole building. I couldn’t go far outside to find him, there was only a closed off park here. As I jogged out to the park I saw the green bigfoot with the giant red cape walking away into the air like there was a trail in the sky.

Just what the heck is that? He’s like a flying saucer!

I stood there shielding my eyes from the light as he walked into the sun and beyond. My heart racing as he disappeared over the trees.

Just what the hell was that?

As I collapsed onto a nearby bench I just relived the memory over and over trying to process what had gone on. Arties, smarties, the lot of them probably just pulled another fast one on me. Wasn’t this a plot by my handler to freak me out and get me more time here? They’d surely think I was insane. No, most of them probably don’t even know why it was crazy to see a talking monster in augmented reality mode. My time in here may have actually made me insane. Maybe the urge to play the game caused temporary insanity. Maybe it was a hallucination. Yeah, let’s go with that.

I was shaking as I returned to my room as collapsed on the bed. Not good, a guard asked how I was. He saw my tag too, probably assumed it was system shock and scheduled a doctor’s visit right away.

I whipped out my board and checked with my brain chip under the Wellness Center application. Yep.

Few days from now. I sighed and flung the board randomly with the swing of my arm as I spread myself out on the bed. I couldn’t get used to these comfy beds, too much padding too high, too many bigfoots on them.

I pulled out the stabilizer and injected it just to be sure, and went to sleep. I didn’t feel like doing anything after seeing that.

Entering World Online…

It was midnight in reality, so it was dark here in Eirnir too. I read that the weather and day and night cycle was set to mimic your location in most online games these days. Probably some mental effectiveness law I didn’t hear about. I was browsing the boards with a board while online in the game, looking for clues about that bigfoot. Some people were talking about a troll raid boss walking around Hygea, I don’t care about that combat part of the game at all. Whats a troll look like anyways? I saw a shot someone took with their mental camera. They mentioned that name he said, “Ahgo”, as well.

Apparently, trolls look like Ahgo does. Sightings were around the guild hall of Havesiosi and Hygea in general. None of the topics centered around him being in augmented reality though. I’d have to go. As a Peacer, they couldn’t kill me. That’s part of why I loved this class, no violence. Especially in a game where people liked violence and could break your stuff on a whim, setting something up and having others defend it was the best part.  Strangely, I wasn’t interested in building today. I looked at the place where I built a shop for someone else. The shop owner had it redone by another Peacer, my work was gone.

It’s better that it’s gone, at least I have something else to do. I went down into the sewers to see if the Rat Kingdom was still there. Good, I knew no one would go down this far.

“H-hello?”

A random girl with skimpy clothing was there in the sewers. Mynise was her name, Negativer level 60 with the guild…

Havesiosi.

I’m excited.