Alex wanders about downtown as he thinks about Zavier’s test. The streets filled with people but Alex pays them no mind, and they seem to move out of his way on their own as if knowing he wouldn't avoid them. This test of his fathers’ was honestly not a big surprise to Alex. Zavier would often try to teach his children life lessons in the oddest of ways, which explains Alex’s skill in a variety of skills such as dancing, acting, hunting and, due to one particular summer’s result woodcarving. Vivian, of course, was given similar challenges except hers often consisted of mental exercises such as debate, writing, and psychology. So his father using a video game to try and teach Alex people skills was not strange though the lack of challenges for Vivian did catch Alex by surprise.
Alex, however, preferred his isolation. People were terrible creatures often only wanting something from you before trying to take whatever they couldn’t con out of you. In his mind, a good barrier between people kept his plans safe and his family out of any problems he might cause them if something went wrong. That philosophy was why he had never told anyone his real identity and always used a different appearance when gaming in VR, sure it didn’t stop the determined rich but dealing with a single irrate pretty boy every so often was more comfortable than dealing with the general masses.
How his sister could stand going through fan mail of all things he would never know. Though perhaps performers, in general, were required to do such a task similar to how a businessman dealt with taxes.
Regardless Zavier wanted him to show skills in interpersonal relations, and Alex knew he severely lacked in such matters. He could get some help from his sister … No that would be a terrible idea. Her glee in acting as his teacher would be far too humiliating and she would no doubt lord it over him until she needed something. Infinitely better would be to go through the challenge father had put forth. With that in mind, Alex arrived at a nearby coffee shop which served as a typical meeting point for him to interact with one of the few informants Alex allowed to meet him in person.
Kale waited in the dimly lit shop for a man who would give Kale the last bit of money he needed to buy an RO account, and that would make the meeting worth every minute. The shop was a normal meeting point for the stranger that went by Shadow, the AR tech in the shop made it a favorite meeting place of couples and those who wanted to keep secrets. Shadow always appeared as something bizarre, and their sudden appearance often gave Kale a heart attack.
“Nice to see you, Kale.”
Shit, they already showed up. Turning around Kale saw a small dragon sitting on his shoulder.
“Nice to see you again Shadow.”
“No pleasantries please, I have things to do, and recent events have caused issues for my original plans.”
“Does that mean you don’t need my information?” Kale hoped that wasn’t the case. Few would find his knowledge useful until the game started.
“No, I need a bit more than I had planned, however in a different vein than normal. Which groups are jumping into RO? I know Grimoire fell apart recently but haven’t kept up with anyone else.”
Thank the gods! “Ah, well aside from the common giants I have noticed a few who might interest you. Elysium, Blood Rose, and Ghost being the most likely. The first is a big RP group they tend to focus on the lightside of gaming. Most of their past has been finding angels and gods in other games, getting on their good side and wrecking whatever evil the devs cooked up for the game.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
BR is a crafting guild, they focus on “ “I hate to cut you off Kale, but I won’t be doing my usual work this time. Got some time on my hands so I’ll be going for a more direct experience this game. Always wanted to slay a dragon or two and I think its about time I got onto the frontlines.”
Wait Shadow isn’t hiding this time? “You are going to be doing things yourself? I thought you focused on being a shadow ruler in games?”
“I do, but a bit of IRL stuff has changed my mind. Also, I expect to make something off that information.” “Of course Shadow, next question is free of charge.” “Good choice, I’ll be saving that for another day.” The dragon continued to talk about other games and even the occasional real-world situation causing the meeting between the two men to last for a good hour.
Alex left the shop in good spirits; most of his gaming ventures would be wrapped up this week. With RO not releasing for another two weeks that time would give him the ability to start working through any plans he could come up with after he looked into the information Zavier gave him. Thankfully he didn’t need to worry about Zavier getting any headstart on him. Knowing his father, Alex had a good few hours before Zavier would even look at the information and likely did not look into it beforehand. Zavier had a tendency to be incredibly fair to everyone and giving himself an information advantage was against Zavier’s style, at least until the contest began, then all bets were off.
Stepping into his family’s home Alex was met with silence. His sister was likely in her room doing planning just as he would be soon. First, it was his turn to cook dinner not that Zavier would show up considering Amelia’s google search. It was, however, family tradition to make dinner every night. Alex and Vivian took the weekdays while Zavier took weekends and made breakfast to apologize to his children. He always felt bad for failing to be home more than once during the week. So Alex tossed the tablet onto a holo monitor while looking up the recipe for something new. Making Souvlaki while looking at the information Alex had, he learned quite a bit that the devs had kept hidden. Most of which ruined any chance of planning he could have. Players would enter the game with a random choice of which faction they would join. This mechanic would break up quite a few guilds as many of their players would not want to wait for the leaders to figure out a way to combat this system. A random faction meant random starting locations, though it seems a few primary factions would always be available. Alex knew the vast majority of players would want something special especially with the idea that becoming someone of significance would require effort from the player. Most would try for a group they didn’t think others were a part of or they thought was cool.
Additionally, the game had no attributes or levels as most MMO’s did instead everything depended on a player’s skills and the mastery of their abilities. This would mean that knowing the difficulty an enemy represented would be incredibly hard. Especially with the variability in their skill system, two creatures with the same skills could be entirely different in playstyle due to evolutions of the ability which changed their entire dynamic. Now Alex understood why DE warned players that solo exploration was so dangerous. The information DE gave Alex was not incredibly detailed, but rather it mostly consisted of essential systems and an understanding of the state of the game when it began. Nothing that would give him an incredible advantage but instead allowed him to start with the correct mentality for the game and would let him adapt to the game faster than others.
Moving to his sister’s room Alex knocked “Hey dinner is finished, and I’m not going to wait on you to eat.” The door opened to show five women around a large table, Vivian’s inner circle and Alex realized the information he gained would let his sister’s group explode into the game. “Hey, Alex, you wouldn’t happen to be interested in some dessert would you?” Camille asked she was a tall, curvy woman, and Alex knew she was dating three guys, who had decided to share her rather than fight over her. “I’ll pass, I rather enjoy living.” “Thanks, bro, me and the girls will be out soon. Someone needs to put some clothes on first though.” “Your house is too hot Vivi!” calls out a voice hidden behind the bed. Alex never could understand those women, why Molly decided to live in Florida of all places if she hated the heat he would never understand. Perhaps going to his room would be a better plan. Zavier only required them to eat together if they didn’t have guests over. With the girls over his dinner was free to move into his room now.
Two weeks of planning and eliminating potential distractions flew by and Alex was waiting for RO to come online. He wouldn’t need to do anything for a few days, so his plan was to no life for most of that time. Hopefully, the last week of combat practice in another game would help him some. Alex had realized in that week that his micro knowledge on combat was far behind his macro understanding of a game’s systems. A flaw he would need to fix quickly. “Time to start, Begin Raestta Online.”