Meanwhile in a different part of the city…..

Natalie had had the rig dropped off and set up in record time. The last thing the technician that set it up said was, "Here." And gave Natalie a micro card.

"Throw that in the pod liquid, and it will dissolve and allow you to modify your character's attributes when you get in the game."

“Okay, thank you… Now get out of here so that I can play.”

The technician frowned and then moved away closing the front door on the way out.

Now that that was out of the way, Natilie donned her one piece and stepped into the pod. Once she was settled and had the glasses on, they gave her glasses instead of the helmet that the other FDVR player had and closed her eyes; the game world slowly came into focus.

WELCOME TO MY ANCESTORS!

PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER’S NAME

………..

Natilie looked at the name slot and, not thinking of anything better, chose Nat.

AVATAR NAME: Nat

RACE: Elf

OCCUPATION: Undecided

ABILITIES: To Be Decided

SKILLS: To Be Decided

STARTING LOCATION: The Verdant Plains: Introduction town Tutorial Town.

ENJOY YOUR TIME IN MY ANCESTORS

REMEMBER: DO ANYTHING YOU CAN TO SURVIVE

Woah, ominous…

Please choose your character's starting stats.

Constitution: 1

Vitality: 1

Strength: 1

Wisdom: 1

Intelligence: 1

Endurance: 1

Charisma: 1

Luck: 0

Natalie looked at what she had and decided they should all be extra high to make her an instant powerhouse. Natilie increased them all to 50.

Constitution: 50

Vitality: 50

Strength: 50

Wisdom: 50

Intelligence: 50

Endurance: 50

Charisma: 50

Luck: 50

Rory logged out of My Ancestors after what felt like forever. As soon as she got out, she took the helmet off and called to her mother, "Mom, I need help."

In a very short time, her mother came in and helped her out of the pod. Her mother said to her, "I have something really important I want to talk with you about. But first… How was the game? Did you have fun?"

Rory responded, "Yes, the game was fun. Much different than I thought it would be, but not unfun by any means. And The QOL Foundation said that I should be in the pod as much as possible for my recovery. I wonder if that means sleep in the pod, too?"

Her mother responded, "I don't know, honey, but let's get you in the wheelchair, and then we can discuss some things.

Her mother helped her into the wheelchair and wheeled her into the living room abutting Rory’s room.

“The Quality of Life Foundation has sent another check over. They have sent $100,000 to us and promised that every month that you are playing the game we will get another $20,000.”

"What, really?" Rory responded incredulously. "Isn't that a little much?"

"They feel awful about your paralysis that they caused and want to make sure you get back to walking again.", her mother responded.

"Oh, okay," Rory said, not entirely believing it.

"Oh, and part of that money that's not being used to pay off our debts is yours. You can do what you want with it, but I suggest investing it.", her mother stated.

"Oh, okay; anything else you wanted to tell me? I have a lot that I have to start doing and researching before I jump back in game." Her mother shook her head.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“No, I will just be out here if you need me.”

"Okay, thanks, Mom," Rory said, then wheeled herself back to her room.

Rory's room was filled to the brim with her bed, her desk, minus the chair, as she didn't need it anymore, at least for right now, and the pod with all the accessories. Rory wheeled over to her desk and opened up her laptop. She typed in coding in her browser, then opened another tab , typed in swordsmanship, opened one last tab, and checked her bank account balance. That is the first one she saw and she was flabbergasted at the amount of money she possessed. Her mother might be getting quite a stipend, but the last time she checked the day before, Rory had $5.00 in her account. As she looked at the number for the third time, trying to convince herself that it was real, she saw that she had $325,005. Rory was given $325,000 for some reason and had no idea what to do with it.

Rory, somehow, put the fact that she had that much money in the back of her mind and looked at the swordsmanship tab; the search browser had 10,000,000 results. Not like she expected any less. Nowadays, the amount of results were always around that number. There had to be a way to narrow that down.

Rory contemplated on it for a couple minutes and decided that she needed to hire a handler. A handler for her problems, and she could get a really expensive and good one with her money.

Rory scoured the web for someone that she was looking for. She found someone that cost $500 an hour. Rory thought that that would be sufficient for now. She called the number and got an almost immediate response. "Hello, this is Kelley Handling; how may I direct your call?"

“Can I hire you to find some people for me?”

"Absolutely, but you sound a little young; forgive me for asking this, but can you afford us?" the person on the other side asked.

"Oh, I am young, or kind of young, and yes, I can afford you. Actually, if you could connect me right now, I will give you $800 an hour. What I need is time-sensitive.", Rory told them.

“Ohhhhh, yes I will connect you right away. Please wait.”

The line on the other side went to music, and a couple minutes later, someone picked up and said, "Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes, I am in need of a handler. Are you one of them?" Rory asked.

“Yes, I am one of the handlers. My name is Francis…..

Huh, funny

….. and I just want to know what you need because I heard it was time-sensitive and wanted to get started right away.", Francis stated.

"I need you to procure a researcher, the best you can find; money is not really an object, a coder; once again, money is not really an object. And finally, I need some items bought, delivered, and set up for me. If this could all be accomplished in the next 6 hours that would be great. Otherwise, I'll look elsewhere. As I said, this is time-sensitive.", Rory flatly stated.

"I can do that. Give me 3 hours to get the items ordered, delivered, and set up at your house and another two to get the people over to your house.", Francis boldly stated.

"Alright, thank you. You have my house number, phone number, and necessary information, right?"

"Yes, I will talk with you soon. Goodbye, Ms. Hope.", Francis said as a parting statement.

Okay, this was crunch time for Rory. She had a lot that she had to do in the three hours before the people arrived at her house. First, she needed to take a shower. Next, she needed to get some food in her system, and then, finally, she needed to nap.

She would be doing the coding and learning swordsmanship from watching videos, but now that she had a handler, that stuff was unneeded. Rory knew that Kelley Handling was monitoring her computer screen so that they could attend to her every need, so Rory typed in a notepad.

* I need a way to talk with and interact with people I am paying.

* Is time compression a problem?

* Sleep in the pod?? Good or bad idea?

Rory knew Kelley would understand that the first one was for them and that they would ignore the other two.

Rory decided to put her head down for a little while; she had a headache and quickly fell asleep. Rory dreamed, but it was just a memory of her last actions in the game before she logged out.

Francis showed me the steps for the footwork. They seemed easy enough. Isa tried them out but quickly realized she didn't have the muscle memory for them. And Francis was a demanding teacher. Every time she screwed up, it told her, showed her again, and waited for her to try again. Hours passed, and out of all the steps shown, she may have only gotten through 4 of them. With near-perfect memory, Isa remembered there were 12-step combinations, and she only got through 4.

Every time she completed a step series, Francis would say, "Adequate," and then they would move on. Francis told her that, eventually, she would be doing these in sequence or with upper body movements. Francis also told her she needed to be flexible for all of this. The funny thing, Isa realized, was that flexibility wasn't part of the game system, but it became a limiting factor for combat styles. Isa didn't understand.

After hours of rigorous step work, Francis showed her the various sword forms she could do once she got better. Francis described them by their name and function.

"This first form is Shadow Style. It is used as an opening style or if there is only one opponent. This second form is Obelisk Style. It is meant to be used with a two-handed sword, double-sided sword, or in a two-handed grip. It is used for defense, with strong, brutal attack swings. These swings can open up weak points for the other forms to take advantage of, but this is mostly a defense style. The third form is Swift Style. It is fast and nimble. You will move around quickly in this style and jab more than swing. It is a style that is made for small, but numerous injuries. You will probably sustain injuries in this style because you defense is low. Your only defense is your speed. As you rank in the sword styles, the ranks are the same as yours. To reach the next holistic rank of swordsmanship, you must have the next rank for all the forms. This means that I can use all the forms equally at Divinity level. Swift Style is also the first form you will learn. But you will become swifter, hit harder, and be harder to injure the more you rank up. We will go over other forms, but they are for very specific circumstances. Their names are: Deflection Style, Sheathing Style, and Quality Style. Deflection is for ranged projectiles, Sheathing is for a finishing move, and Quality is for showing off your prowess. They all rank up quickly because they have less use. Any questions?"

“Yes… When are we going to start?”, Isa asked.

“When you get the first 8 forms of footwork adequately learned.”

"I will log off soon, so that will be in some time."

"Well then, keep practicing the steps, you know; I have made sure no fatal errors are present. The steps can also be used to dodge attacks, regardless of whether you have a sword or not. So you can use those moments to practice as well."

“Alright, keep Evie at it until I come back. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Francis nodded, and Isa logged out.

Rory woke up with a start; how long had she been sleeping? Rory did notice that the thought of doing the steps in her mind came easier now, if only slightly. Rory looked at the time and saw that 2 hours had passed. She now only had 1 hour to do everything she needed to do!

Rory called out to her mother, “Mom, can you make me a sandwich? I am going to wheel myself into the shower and get cleaned up." Rory heard her mother say yes and wheeled herself to the connected bathroom. There was just enough space to wheel herself into the shower. Rory awkwardly took her clothes off and took a shower. Rory knew her mother would clean off the wheelchair once she was back in game.

When Rory returned, fully dressed again, the sandwich was on her desk. But what she noticed right after was the team of people in her room. One hooks up various things to her pod, and the other two await her instruction.

Rory looked at the two waiting and, thinking she had figured out who said, "You, I need two things from. I need you to learn how to code for a familiar in-game. A pet of sorts. And I need you to learn how to create skill books with coding. That one takes priority. Since the game has time compression, I'll be in there for days in real-time, so I expect you to contact me. Link up with this dude," Pointing at the guy hooking everything up. "I have something essential I need to learn as quickly as possible. At least the basics of it. And you," Pointing to the other guy standing next to the guy she was talking to, "I need you to research anything you can about My Ancestors. That is your entire job right now. I need to have all the information I can. This game goes live tomorrow, so I expect your job will get easier after today. Wait, what is today? Doesn't matter, I am getting back in."

Rory saw the questioning nods on the guys' faces and realized she had gotten them confused. Rory shook her head and said she was sorry. The guys didn't mind.

Rory wheeled herself into the bathroom and, glacially, changed into her swimsuit. Once she wheeled back out, her mother was there, ready to help her back in. Rory was surprised her mother was as okay with her being in this game as she was. Well, I guess it didn't matter.

Rory’s mother helped her into the pod and once submerged saw the familiar

WELCOME BACK TO MY ANCESTORS!