When considering a weapon in VR MMOs, you can’t just pick something random. You normally have to be proficient with the weapon you select. By proficient, I mean you need the right stats, class, or levels. In Altera Online I played as a Ranger and focused on Assassination skills. Which meant I focused almost every level on Dexterity and Agility to increase my HIT and CRIT chances. Every piece of equipment I purchased had level and stat restrictions. Some even had skill restrictions based on how I leveled up secondary skills unique to my class.
Frontier Epoch had none of that.
With no specialization in ranged weapons, I could take down multiple Dire Wolves. And with Quentin in the shop's corner rubbing the fur against his cheek, not to mention the price he agreed to pay, I suspected the wolves were tough. Something a novice with no specialization or stats couldn’t ‘accidentally’ do.
Keeping that all in the back of my mind, I looked through the glass displays, with no idea which weapon to pick up. My choice had to be thought through. I couldn’t just buy anything, size mattered! The pack Beatrice had given me was nice, but it was also tiny, and definitely not a “Bag of Holding”.
One weapon Quentin had absentmindedly pulled out for me was a collapsible compound. It had a clip to hang from a belt. A belt I didn’t have yet, but I could take care of that easily enough. The bow’s weight and size were convenient given the previously mention bag situation, but I still had some reservations, so I kept looking.
Another option on the table was a small flare gun looking pistol. Quentin corrected me and stated it was a scatter pistol meant for close quarter combat. After having a wolf try to eat my face, I didn’t plan on doing much of that again. Despite my experience with Assassin type classes in the past, I was okay shooting from far away. Very far away, if possible.
At the far end of the counter, still under the glass, was one last item. It caught my attention due to its strange shape. It was a Frisbee! Or at least it looked like one. I asked Quentin about it.
“Found that one recently when a ship crashed nearby. Because the pilot was lost, the wreckage became available for anyone to take. No one figured out how to use it, but the poor chap had it in his hip holster. It’s gotta be a weapon of sorts.”
It was heavier than I expected and as I looked it over; I noted it was a solid piece. Absolutely no seems. Almost like the developers had accidentally left a placeholder item. Possibly a glitch? I would not pass that up!
“I’ll give to you for 50 Dims for it.” I offered.
“That’s a lot for something that might not even work anymore!” Beatrice exclaimed.
“Hey, it’s a gamble either way. If you buy it and it’s amazing, you got it cheap. But if you buy it and it’s garbage, then you still got it cheap.” Quentin shrugged, not biting at Beatrice’s obvious attempt to rile him up. There was some history there between the two, which made me appreciate the writers for their poor attempts at using the typical early game tropes.
“I’ll make it 150 for it if you give me the collapsible bow and some energy based arrows.” I replied, taking a lesson from my bartering days in Altera Online.
“170 and you get half charge arrows.” He was quick to reply.
“160 and I’ll take your half charge arrows.” But I was ready for it.
“Deal.” We shook on it.
Quentin tossed in a thick pocketed belt made from regular leather for an extra twenty dims, so I was happy. Attaching the bow and strange disc to my belt and putting the currency coin away, I felt like one of those dark knight super heroes from some vids my grandpa used to have me watch.
Thanking Quentin, Beatrice and I headed for the Frontier building.
“Pretty good haggling in there.” She smirked and patted my back.
“I figure since it’s an option, I should do it. Plus, I need to get some food supplies. Those pieces of jerky you gave me were good, but barely lasted me the trip here.”
“Did’ya just get into town? It’s been almost six hours since ya left!”
“I took a detour, hunting for these.” I gestured to the rabbits hanging from my handy belt.
“Rabbits took ya that long to hunt? Did’ya chase them around with a stick or somethin’?”
I chuckled nervously.
“Ha! You really need these frontier courses.” She smacked my shoulder again.
"Yea, I guess so." Pain was definitely unexpected.
“The office is just on the other side of the Town Hall. You can register with them as a Frontiersman and then present your papers to get a plot of land.”
“Really? How much does it cost for a plot?” I tried to do some math and figure out how much I’d need to grind out the dims to buy it.
“It’s free. I mean, you’ll need to clear it, build a house, gather supplies, and survive with all them wild rabbits about.”
“Ha. Ha.” I laughed dryly.
“Hey, you’re the one take’n six hours to get two rabbits. I thought since you took down those wolves, you’d’a been some incredible hunter. I was expectin’ ya to get to town with a few deer.”
“Right. Like that would happen.”
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“You never know,” she shrugged.
“Anyway, what’s up with this whole Frontier land theme you all have going on here?”
Beatrice laughed out loud this time. “Frontier land theme?”
“Yea, you’re living in a cabin in the middle of the forest. Quentin buys pelts from people, and we’re headed to the ‘Frontier’ office. What’s next? Will I find minstrels at the inn?”
“Guess we’re pretty Frontier’y, but that’s because we are the frontier. This planet is actually a 'Frontier' world because a forerunner team colonized it after leaving everything behind and traveling hundreds of years in cryogenic stasis to get here.
“Whoa, you're hundreds of years old?”
“No, I’m first generation. My parents were the popsicles.”
“So you were born here?”
“Yup. Born and raised in the frontier. In fact, I was born in Telstra when it was still a town like this. There was a major boom after the locals of this system finally started trading with us.”
“The locals? So, there are other races here?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “I figured you’d know about this since you were dropped off.”
“I, uh...” cold sweat formed along my back.
“Don’t worry, we all have our stories and things we’d rather keep under a rock for the rest of our lives. I won’t pry.”
“Thanks.”
A group of people came riding in on what looked like a mix between a panther and a lizard that ate nothing but steroids.
The people wore leather armor with straps and buckles, but there were also metal attachments. The one with the fun hair had a glowing stone attachment to his left shoulder just above his heart. I could see a faint glimmer around his body. It had to be a personal force field.
“Hold up a second,” Beatrice said, catching my elbow.
“What’s up?”
“We don’t want to get caught up with those people. They’re from off-world.”
“How did they get here if your hundreds of years away from other planets?”
“They aren’t from our planet. They are from a different race. Look at his face closely.”
I squinted and examined him more closely. The one with a shield had a flat and wide nose with no top lip, like a lion’s face. “Whoa.”
“Don’t stare neither!” She smacked me.
Rubbing my head, I asked, “What are they?”
“Those are the Spectrii. They’re at war with the Anh’Qatar back on their homeworld, so sometimes the draft runners escape and grace us when their presence. Something about Frontier not formally being a part of the commonwealth.”
“Why don’t the Spectrii or the Anh’s just take over this planet?”
“See those personal generates on their chest? They provide an environmental bubble around their bodies that lets them live on this planet. Otherwise, the atmosphere would be toxic to them. The Anh’Qatar are the same, but they wear full body suits instead of walking around like the Spectrii.”
“Interesting.” The world was finally starting to flesh out.
“Yea, let’s head into the Frontier office. Those guys will head further up to trade in Telstra. They probably just finished a hunt.”
“Hunt for what?”
“Beats me. I don’t ask. ‘Sides they don’t speak the same language and keep to themselves. Which I’m just fine with. Don’t feel like facing off against an alien with tech a few years ahead of ours. It’d be a waste of energy.”
“Why’s energy such a big deal?”
“Energy is expensive on frontier planets. We ain’t got the same infrastructure as others. That’s why Quentin gave ya half charged arrows. Only the big cities have free runnin’ electricity, thanks for the mainlines.”
“How many cities are there?”
“So many questions! The Frontier office will have all the information you want. They even have pretty pamphlets and everything. Plus, if they can interface with your Neural Link, they can download all the data directly to you for access later.”
“Ah, ok. I really hope they can interface with my Neural Link then.”
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
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“Please insert your primary appendage into the cylinder.” A very bored young girl sat behind the counter at the Frontier office. Beatrice dropped me off and left, saying she needed to finish up her business around town. She promised to give me more dims when she was done selling the rest of the Dire Wolf parts.
“Please fill out the information on the screen,” the girl gestured to the enormous machine. It was like a vending machine with a hole and a large screen with writing on it. I filled out the form with my given name, Zander Valecross. For the Origin field, I put ‘Erth’ to be funny and ‘Citizen’ as my occupation.
After a moment, a red X showed on the screen with the words ‘Unable to process’.
Each of the options I tried was rejected. Ultimately, I got frustrated and put in a bogus name of ‘Carrot Fields’. That didn’t work either!
“It won’t work.” I told the girl.
With a huff, she got up and walked around the desk. “Let me check.”
She tapped the screen, and the error cleared out. Then she pressed the check mark again, prompting the ‘Registration’ screen.
“I just did that.”
Never in my life had I seen actual daggers in a person’s eyes until that day.
It dawned on me that the slim device she had been engrossed in was her phone as she returned to the desk. The thinness made it difficult for me to connect the dots immediately. Additionally, there was a lack of exposure to advanced technology, except for Quentin's gadgets. This, along with the peculiar device that stubbornly clung to my left arm, putting my citizenship at risk.
“Mr. Johnson, the machine won’t let this guy register and I already tried to submit the app again.”
The moment dragged on for a bit as she had a one sided conversation before asking, “Sir, what model of Neural Link do you have?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“So you just picked out a random one without knowing its model?”
“No, I didn’t choose it myself.”
“He doesn’t know. Yup. Ok. I don’t know how to turn it off and on again. Ok fine. Ok I got it. Bye.” Placing her phone on the desk, she crossed her arms and said, “Just pull your arm out and we can try again later.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t.” I gestured to my arm.
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I mean, my arm is stuck in this stupid machine.” I tugged at my arm.
“Oh wow, that’s super weird. It only clamps down during the reading phase when it’s trying to locate and scan your chip.”
“I don’t have a chip.”
“Oh... then.” She winced.
That’s when I felt it. A sharp stinging and burning sensation in the fatty tissue between my thumb and my pointer finger.
People outside probably thought a little girl was being tortured as they walked by.
After a while, the girl finished my registration and allowed me to leave, but she made it clear that their shop couldn't fix my neural link, no matter how much trouble it caused. Their machine wasn’t compatible with my interface. So that was just fantastic as well.
Walking out of the Frontier office, no new information, no Neural Link fix. In pain, and pretty exhausted, I ran into Beatrice.
“How’d it go in there?”
“Horribly.”
“They didn’t answer your questions?” she asked.
“Oh you mean, did they give me a hand full of pamphlets about how amazing it is to be a Frontiers resident who contributes to the...” I pulled a pamphlet from my pocket and opened it to read, “prosperity and well-being of all future New Terra residents?”
She snickered.
“You have got to be kidding me! They couldn’t unlock my Link thing, they didn’t offer me a quest to hunt more Dire Wolves, I didn’t get any information about the Specter people or the Annas. All they did was stab me and put a thing in my hand with my name and occupation.”
Pulling a device from her pocket, she waved it over my wrist and started laughing as she saw the information. “Carrot Fields? Is that really your name?”
“NO!”
“Then why did you put that?” she ask skeptically.
“It didn’t take the name I put in at first. I figured if I put in bogus info, I could just finish the process and change it later.”
“Well, I guess we’ll be looking forward to your harvest next season then, won’t we, Little Carrot?”
“AH!”