Chapter 3: The Beginning of the Test
Chris and Veronica were lying in the bed they had created in the Hub that had become their virtual home. Chris had just woken up with a still sleeping nude Veronica snuggling up to him. He looked around at the Hub and realized that while they could have designed it any way they thought of it still resembled their apartment back in the real world. At least before it was sold when they were moved to virtual reality for the foreseeable future.
Chris managed to get out of bed without waking up his wife. As he stood and stretched he also mentally virtualized workout gear for his morning run. While he technically didn’t need to work out ever again, he still liked the felling it gave him and would also help with gaining stats if he did it in Grand Frontier when they started testing the game. He quietly walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him. While looking around the penthouse he noticed that it raining outside the window. He looked outside to see the simulated view the last apartment had.
‘Really glad we decided to make the Hub have a familiar view. The infinite white space was really disconcerting.’
Chris then mentally materialized some ear-buds to listen to music to on his run. When he and Veronica were first getting used to the virtual world they had to use the system menus to create everything they needed. It had taken them both about half of their honeymoon before they could create things by mentally picturing them clearly. Just like his wife, he could imagine and visualize nearly anything, but unlike her when it came to making the images in real life he would fail miserably since he had no artistic talent. The only reason they didn’t need to use the system menus in the Hub was because of how they were both fully connected to the system with no way back to their bodies till Project OI was completed. If it worked they would never return to their original bodies, but fortunately Veronica had a chance if the next step failed and killed him when he tried it.
Chris shook his head to get rid of those far away and depressing thoughts and opened the holographic virtual system menu to pick out a course to run on.
Chris: “Let’s see, I think I will go with the park track today. Park running track off-road version load.”
The scenery surrounding Chris quickly changed to lightly wooded area that looked similar to some city parks. The only difference was the lack of manmade buildings or a path to run on. Chris stretched a bit more before taking off on a light jog to see what the park looked like this time.
After about 30 minutes of running Chris got a notification that he was about to get a visitor to the hub. He slowed down and closed the running track program for the main area of the apartment he had been in before to replace the sunny park. 2 minutes after closing the program and checking to see that Veronica was still sleeping there was a knock on the front door of the apartment. Chris went to let his father in.
Chris: “Good to see you again dad.” He greeted his father in from the unending white space that was behind the door.
Robert: “I like what you did with the place.” He said chuckling. “So how was your month long honeymoon?” as he gave his son an inquisitive look.
Chris: “Just great dad. Honestly I think we are both ready to get back to work and start testing Grand Frontier.”
Robert: “Well that’s good since it’s finally ready for you two to start the alpha test. I would like to talk to both of you for the next part so could you go get my daughter-in-law please?” Robert greatly enjoyed saying that to describe Veronica.
Chris: “Give me a few minutes to wake Lily up and change into some different clothes myself.” It was the first time Chris had used Veronica’s middle name to refer to his wife in front of his father which resulted in an even bigger grin on his dad’s face.
xxXxx
Robert looked at his son and daughter-in-law, who were holding hands that had virtualized wedding rings on them, with a proud grin before he started to explain about the alpha test.
Robert: “Well as you both know we are going to start be in alpha test phase for about 3 months before our 3 month beta. With a 4:1 ration of time that means you both will experience about 2 years of time in the game. I don’t want you to worry about complications caused by this effect on your brains because at the first sign of trouble you will be logged out back to the Hub with a process that will quickly but gradually return you back to the regular passage of time that occurs in the Hub. When you log in you will feel a similar effect, just speeding up instead, when you log into the game. This will look like you’re going through a tunnel when it occurs.”
The couple nodded their heads to let him know they understood.
Robert: “You will both be transported to separate training grounds for the unique class you will each receive.” He eyed his son who was suddenly looking everywhere but at his father. “Chris you should know what classes I’m talking about since you designed them for you and Veronica. The areas are separated location wise so that no one else can access them but you two, even after the game officially launches. I also had Shawn edit them a little to make them better at PvP and stronger overall since y’all will be a sort of moderator once the game officially starts.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Chris: “So which 2 of my admin classes did you and Shawn chose for us?” he said as he gave a mischievous grin.
Robert: “The ones you always wanted to see in a game when you were younger. The “Magic Fighter” and “Valkyrie” classes. You will both be given special class only gear that can be upgraded, never break, and never be dropped if you die. Unfortunately that also means it will be the only gear you will be able to equip in game, but we adjusted your skills to be broader in their use.”
Veronica gave Chris a puzzled look and he explained they were the two most overpowered classes he had created.
Robert: “There is some bad news however” he said breaking the happy mood slightly. “The first is that you will not be able to see each other in game until the beta phase, but you will be able to communicate with each other. You will also still each other while both of you are in the Hub. The second piece of news is quite worse. If you haven’t already been able to tell, there is no limiter on the different senses for your pods. That means you will experience all the good and bad sensations, such as pain, in game while normal players will only have 20% of the pain inflicted. If there is an issue with your brains not being able to handle the pain you will get logged out to the Hub at the first sign of trouble. That is because they are prototypes and Project O.I. requires 100% realism to get the correct results so we can get both of you out of here. So how does all that sound?”
Veronica: “So that’s why sex still feels the same in here.”Chris and Robert both cough and choke on air a bit at the bluntness of the statement. “What is the armor I’m going to be wearing for the next couple years going to look like? Since I’m pretty sure who the Valkyrie is going to be” then giving Chris a slightly dirty look.
Robert: “Actually you get to create them once you get the armor pieces in game just like you would with mentally creating clothing in the Hub. Well that’s just if you don’t like the pre-made designs. Linda came up with since she created the Valkyrie armor and Shawn created the Magic Fighter set.”
Chris: “So is that it, or can we start playing now?”
Robert pointed behind them at a door with “Grand Frontier” written on it that hadn’t been there earlier.
Veronica: “Neat trick for not being in virtual reality long.”
Robert: “Well I better go, lots of work and less time so enjoy the game you two. Oh and the day before the game officially launches I hope you won’t mind if we throw a party here and invite the Ghost and Simmons families?” he stated as he walked towards the front door to log out.
Chris & Veronica: “We wouldn’t want it any other way” they said in unison before Robert headed out of the door and disappeared from the Hub.
Chris: “Well my beautiful Lily, but I do believe its ladies first” I stated as I held the Grand Frontier door open for my lovely wife.
Veronica walked through the door which had a red glowing portal behind it and I followed after into a dark space when a notification appeared
Please name your character
Veronica: “Lilith”
Chris: “Dyno”
After naming their characters images of them popped up
Would you like to change your character appearance?
Veronica: “Make eye color gold”
Chris: “Add long scar across right eye and make eye color red”
Welcome to Grand Frontier
PREVIOUS CHAPTERBack to Main PageNEXT CHAPTER
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Authors note: If a chapter name has The Beginning in front of it its the beginning of an arc or volume and if it has The End then its the end of the arc/volume so there will be a different kind of chapter title starting with the next chapter.
Might take a few days before the next couple of chapters are written.