Chapter 02

Alara and I looked around Axiscore’s train station. It reminded me of Grand Central Terminal that I once saw in the history channel. Grand stone arches and Victorian age stonework was the main theme once we got off of the futuristic terminal. Hundreds of people were moving like a precise machine. One that would stop if someone threw a wrench into it.

“What should we do, honey?” Alara asked, looking around reminding me of a tourist which I guess we were.

Personally, I was glad she was so calm. This had to be the strangest thing she had ever experienced. Though, she was made out of stronger stuff than the cute girl appearance made her out to be. There wasn’t anyone I trusted more to have my back than Alara. Louella and Izora were a close second, but they had their own duties to take care of. Not to mention I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to get them here in the first place.

“Let’s just look around. There are a few facts I want to check out. Did you happen to see a lot of weird looking words and numbers when you were following me?”

“Nope. One moment I was chasing your consciousness, the next I was in a weird black room,” Alara shook her head.

“Interesting. Alright! Let’s take a tour,” I smiled and started following the major stream of people that was leaving the terminal. As we were about to pass a set of guard bars. They shot open. I stopped and looked around to see people inserting a ticket into the machine. I tilted my head in interest then pressed my hand against the column.

Ride: Basic Cost: 100 Thread / Or redeemable ticket

“Hey! Hurry it up I want to get level two before I get off tonight!” A girl shouted behind us. I turned my head and smiled, her face noticeably blanched, “I mean take your time.”

-Intimidation with a single smile

-+1 Villainous Point

“Thank you,” I quickly paid for Alara and mine’s passage.

I wasn’t sure how, but the game had already put us in a party. The information from earlier had flashed by so fast that while I knew a great deal many of it was useless, or irrelevant. It would be a challenge to learn about the game without alerting an admin or anti-virus software to my presence. The biggest thing was that this was a Full-Drive game, so all the players had their minds basically uploaded to play it.

“Now where to go?” I murmured as we stood on the stairs leading to the station.

“That way!” Alara said, pointing down what I felt was a random street.

“Sure thing, my Love,” I said, and we went that way.

A minute later I realized exactly why.

“That looks amazing! Can we try it? Oh! There’s something sweet over there!” Alara pointed all over the place.

“My Love, we can get one thing. I don’t think we are exactly rich in this world. Plus, we cannot create it as we wish like our old world,” I said gripping her hand.

She pouted but agreed. I ended up getting her a crepe, which she thoroughly enjoyed in my opinion. After we got off what I found out was Food Alley. Looking around I saw a line of people at what looked like an information booth. We made our way over, Alara licking her fingers.

Relief flooded me as we approached, due to a screen that appeared that asked for our inquire. It looked like you would speak to a person only if the information you sought wasn’t available from the database. I moved us to the side then began browsing.

“My Love, you should look through it as well. You might not understand it all, but you might see something that will help us in the long run,” I said.

“O~K~” she chirped before accessing the screen.

Alara had been with me for almost a year now. Of course, she had a pretty good grasp on using technology. She might not be as good as me, but she would definitely give the locals for a run for their money. I glanced over to her and was happy to see that she was actually taking it seriously.

Quickly making my way through the menus, I focused on anything that might help. A lot of the features were pretty basic for a virtual reality online game. There was an inventory system. A quick look through mine showed I had two hundred and ninety-seven Thread, which was this game’s currency.

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There was a world map. The game world was comparative to Earth in size. With hundreds of cities dotting the land. It appeared that players would gain experience points from just about every action they made. From saving a person under attack to robbing a bank it all counted towards their character level.

Separate from that there were power levels. The same experience points would be applied to their power level which would allow the player to gain points to allocate to their powers. If my memory served me right, I needed roughly sixty points to unlock the dimensional gate. To power it I would need another twenty-five points. It looked like we would be here for a while after all.

~~~

A few hours later, Alara and I left the information booth. We had scoured the database for everything that I could think about. Some of the information appeared to be left vague either on purpose or for the players to figure out themselves. At least I had the information I felt I needed to make a good start for us in this world.

“So, what’s the plan, Sweetie?” Alara asked as we walked.

“We need to head Autumn’s Reach. It's basically a junkyard and I feel I might be able to put it to good use,” I explained.

“Ok, I’ll follow you. That always works best,” Alara smiled then climbed onto my shoulders.

“Haha, one of these days you’re going to follow me somewhere you wish you hadn’t,” I smiled warmly at her.

“You saved me from a living hell. As long as you’re there, I can be happy,” Alara said seriously.

I reached up and pulled her head down to me and gave her a gentle kiss, “I would probably be lost without you.”

“And don’t forget it!” Alara stuck her tongue out at me.

~~~

We sat on the train as it rocketed through the landscape. The further we went the less people that remained on the train. I found it fascinating that the rails were seemingly made from energy. They would appear as the train traveled, then vanish just as fast. After nearly five hours there was only one man remaining, a kid really, that couldn’t have been older than twenty. Even he got off soon after that. There was still an hour to go before we reached Autumn’s Reach.

Alara had long fallen asleep leaning against me. As a dungeon core she didn’t need sleep, but when she was stuck in her avatar for several decades, she had slipped into a semi-conscious state to escape the pain for a while. When I saved her, she kept the habit and would sleep in my core room at times.

“Autumn’s Reach! Autumn’s Reach!” the announcer said fifty minutes later.

“Alara, we’re here,” I said gently.

“MMM, five more minutes,” she mumbled.

“No. Come on time to wake up,” I said picking her up and throwing her over my shoulder, fire-man style.

The train angled upwards for a while, glancing outside I saw a landscape that appeared to be made from junk. I wasn’t paying attention while were approaching but the junkyard like landscape stretched into the distance. I looked up and was hit with a sense of Deja Vue. A structure that reminded one of a massive trees that reached into the sky. The train crested the edge of the giant disc platform that made up the canopy.

A city appeared glowing in the moon. I couldn’t be sure of the dimensions, but it was massive. A city that looked like New York in the early 2000s sat proudly atop the platform. There wasn’t any activity as it was late in the night, but the station lights were still on. The train slid into the station with barely a hiss.

The doors popped open and I stepped off the train. As if not letting me think about it, the train doors closed and shot off before I even had a moment to think. I shook my head. It was probably related to the number of people on the train. As I looked around, I noticed a clock on the wall right as the hands struck midnight. I suddenly felt the phone in my pocket go off.

!Its MIDNIGHT!

-You defeated 0 Villains

-You defeated 0 Heroes

-You Earned a Total of 0 Experience points

-You Earned 0 Hero Tier Points

-You Earned 0 Villain Tier Points

-You Earned 1 Villainous Points

I closed the notification for now and focused on my surroundings. Unlike Axiscore, this station only had one building that was just large enough to cover part of the train while it stopped. There was an actual teller dozing at a window at the exit. I adjusted my grip on Alara and walked over.

“Excuse me,” I said tapping on the window.

“Huh?!” the man spluttered as he woke up.

“I need to give you the tickets for the trip, correct?” I asked.

“Uh, Yes! Yes,” the man nodded. I wondered if we were the first players to come to this city. I handed him the tickets, Alara had slipped hers in my hand at some point after I picked her up. She really didn’t like waking up and has threatened to kill people before.

“Then here you go,” I said.

“Thank you. Have a pleasant stay,” the man said with a small bow of his head.

I sensed something come down from the entrance of the train station when the man pressed a button. Walking outside, I breathed in a breath of the crisp night air. It appeared it was mid-fall here. I really wished the train had arrived at a more decent hour, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I looked around then choose a direction at random and started walking. Alara bouncing on my shoulder the whole time.

A while later I found us in what looked like an abandon part of town. Everything was boarded up and looked like it hadn’t seen people for several weeks at the least. I would need a workspace of at least a warehouse size for some of the things I wanted to try so this was a good place to start. I walked over to an odd shaped warehouse and pressed my hand against it.

- City owned warehouse.

- Purchase: 100,000 Thread

- Steal: Villain Meter: +10

- Villain Base gain +25% Thread/Day at Midnight (Current Base 550 Thread/Day)

Just like the information booth said. I could go the legit path and buy the building, or I could steal it. There were a few more attachments to stealing it, but it was annoyingly vague on that part. While I debated what to do the sun broke over the horizon and like a flower, Alara woke.

“Morning, My Love,” I smiled at her.

“Mm~~, where are we?” she asked looking around.

“Autumn’s Reach, we arrived last night,” I said.

“Oh.” She looked around at the lot of the warehouse. “Not very pretty,” she said as she yawned.

“Indeed, but I’m sure with your talents you’ll be able to lighten up this area in no time,” I snickered.