“Call is connecting” the little voice from my Computer Brain Interface sounded in my head.
“Call connected”
“Hey you're the second one here” Rebels voice appeared in my head.
“Well i’m the only other one with a work schedule i get to choose” i responded.
“That’s true, how is writing your next novel going anyways.”
“Not that great honestly, still haven’t been able to decide what to write about.”
“Aria has joined the call” my CBI informed me.
“Hey Aria, are you already off work?” Rebel sounded confused.
“Oh, no not yet, i’m just on break but you said you had major news so i joined in as soon as i could.” Aria’s voice had a song-like quality to it that always soothed people. That’s what made her so good at customer service, that and her seemingly endless patience.
“Dorian has joined the call” my CBI sounded again.
“Hey guys what’s up, so spill it what's this awesome announcement” you could hear the grin in Dorians voice.
“No, no not so fast we are still missing nora of course you knew that seeing as you guys have class together. I'm guessing that you finished early again” you could almost hear the eye roll as Rebel spoke.
“I almost always do” Dorian sounded proud of himself.
“Isn’t that because Nora actually bothers to take notes and you just copy hers later” Aria managed to keep that from sounding like an insult as she spoke.
“Hold that thought she is on her way out right now” Dorian Said.
“Nora is Connected”
“Heeeeeeey guys so what's up with this announcement” Nora nearly shouted as she joined the call.
“Is everyone listening?” Rebel continued without waiting for a reply “So you know how my dad has a bunch of money and connections because of his job.”
“Are you just trying to brag on us again?” Dorian teased.
“Well he got us all presents for my birthday that’s coming up soon”
“Did you just ignore me that seems a bit rude”
“Wait a present for all of us that seems a little strange” Nora interjected.
“Normally it would be but for this present i wanted to be able to share the experience with my friends” My mind wandered to the skiing trip we went on 3 years ago it had been a blast and the last time we all saw each other in person.
“Ok out with it already i have another class soon” Dorian demanded
“Fine, fine he is getting all of us pre-drop copies of terrene online” There was only silence for a few seconds after that. Followed by cheers and hollering from everyone on the call. Terrene online was the newest game to combine fulldive CBI technology with advanced Variable Perception of Time technology, also known as time dilation. We had all been talking about it for close to two months now it was surreal to think we would get to play it early.
“So how early do we get to play it?” My question cut through the cheers
“One month early, which at a time dilation of an hour to a week means we and 995 others will get half a year in game before the general public”
“Wait only a thousand players this is insane” Dorian voiced everyones thoughts. The rest of the call went on about us discussing how we wanted to play and what we were excited about.
The next week passed in a blur with me being unable to think of anything other than the game and it seemed it was all me and my friends talked about in our daily calls. Over the last week we had discussed some of the important parts of starting the game. Rebel had told us about some of the info on the game they had gotten. First of all when the game started we would be asked if we were playing alone creating a group or joining one, we would be playing as a group. Rebel would create the group and the password would be 119 being a combination of our ages, mine being 24, Dorian being 26, Nora being 22, Aria being 25, and Rebel being 22. The second thing was when the party was created Rebel would be asked if we wanted to be spawned separately, nearby, or together. We had decided that nearby seemed like the funnest option for the group. The third piece of information was where we wanted to spawn in the entire world was a combination of eastern and western fantasy but the important part was the player density. We decided we should spawn in a small town far from any big player hubs, Rebel again would be taking care of this part. Since they were starting in a group the game would start them in a party as well which would make sure that even though they spawned some unknown distance from their friends they would be able to find each other.
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I laid down on my bed and waited for midnight, we all decided to play as soon as the game launched for our first session. As the clock ticked over to midnight I relaxed and closed my eyes, then I proceeded to initiate the game. I was immediately hit with the slightly nauseating feeling of the time dilation beginning. Shortly after the feeling passed and I found myself floating in the middle of a starry night sky. A window popped up asking for my access key, we had all received them last night from Rebel. I was then asked how I was playing. I selected a join group and imputed the password we had decided upon, hoping I wasn't ahead of the others. The screen changed again showing myself and the names of all of my friends as well, with a status beside each that said character creation. I readied myself then began to go over the screen for character creation.
The first selection I needed to make was race. The screen read Race is an important choice for your journey. It will benefit you with some starting abilities that may even get stronger as you progress through Terrene Online, however you don't need to worry about stat raised based on race as we want all race and class combinations to be viable. Choose wisely as it's incredibly unlikely that you’ll ever get the chance to change your race. However, some abilities are possible to get through other means.
“Huh… it's interesting that they say it's incredibly rare as opposed to saying it's impossible to change”. My mind began to race with thoughts of what this game had to hold for me and my friends in the future. I scanned down the list of races: Human, Orc, Veshar, Durdan, Drakekin, Sylvette, Avorti, Desrosi Starting at the top seemed like the logical step.
Humans looked as expected and had no abilities of their own; instead they could choose two skills from other races that didn’t require special physical properties. Orcs could range from blues to greens to purples for skin tone and stood slightly taller than humans; their two abilities were toughness which reduces all non magical damage taken by a flat percentage that scales with level and bloodlust which raises all your physical starts while low on HP. Next was the Veshar who looked like Elves but with tan skin tones and bright eye colors; their first ability was magic born which raised mental stats when at high HP the second was meditate which allowed you to meditate for two hours as opposed to sleeping for eight. Following them was the Durdan who were basically dwarves but their skin had stone growing out of it and their eyes looked like burning coals; their abilities were craft master which increased the stats of equipment you create which scales with your level and hardy which gives bonuses against poison and disease damage which scales with your level. The Drakekin half dragon race that came in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes; their two abilities were a breath weapon you got to choose as well as drake eyes which allowed you to see farther and raised perception the perception raise scaling with level. The Sylvette looked like small humans but with green and purple skin tones and nature growing on them they are listed as fairy folk; their abilities were magic born the same as the Veshar and light footed which gave a flat percentage boost to stealth based skills which scaled with level. Second to last was the Avorti which were animal hybrid demons and came in a staggering variety of well everything when it came to looks; their two abilities were demonic eyes which gave you vision in the dark and beast form which allowed you to turn into the animal your demon was a hybrid of. The final race was the Desrosi which were angel like humans with shining eyes, pale skin and wings; their two abilities were unchained which allowed them to learn any other races abilities as long as they didn’t require special physical traits and winged which granted you limited flight that scaled with level.
On top of the choices for races there was also the possibility to be a half breed allowing you to take one skill from each race however, there were restrictions. The humans and orcs could breed with any race but veshar and durdan couldn’t breed together, neither could the drakekin and sylvette, and neither could the avorti and desrosi.
“This is annoying, I really want the demonic eyes ability and the unchained ability but those races can’t breed together”. As I was double checking race abilities to see what I wanted to do I stumbled across a chance that might work. I chose avorti halfbreed and took the demonic eyes ability then I chose human as my other half allowing me to choose any one skill from the list that didn’t require special physical traits using this ability I chose the unchained ability.
Next came class the screen read Class is an unchangeable and extremely important choice you will get two starting abilities with your class as well as your class defining to some degree your play style. I looked over the list of classes it consisted of: Warrior, Berserker, Gladiator, Rouge, Ninja, Swashbuckler, Mage, Shaman, Bard, Priest, Sanguine Sage, Paladin, Brawler, Thug, and Monk. I looked at the three that intrigued me Brawler, Thug, and Monk. The Brawler was a class based around unarmed combat; its two abilities were unarmed combat which increases the damage of your unarmed strikes based on strength and dexterity the other was toughness like the orcs skill which stacks with the racial ability as well. The Thug was a more strength based unarmed class; their two skills were Beast Blows which increases your unarmed strike damage based on strength and Opportunity weapons which increases the damage you deal with improvised weaponry. The final class I was interested in was monk a mostly dex based unarmed class; their two abilities were martial arts which raised the damage of your unarmed strikes based on your dex and qi control which allowed the use of qi based abilities. Thinking about the differences I finally decided that monk was the playstyle I wanted to have in this game.
After i chose monk the screen changed again asking me to choose a style of martial arts and a huge list appeared before me it was daunting but i already knew what i wanted i searched through the list until i found it taekwondo, a martial arts i had practiced when i was younger but had to stop because i couldn’t afford it. After that a screen popped up asking me to choose a qi ability to learn from a list of five the list consisted of, empowered strike, vertical run, wind sprint, eagle eyes, and Flame strike. Out of the list given I selected empowered strike, a simple skill that allowed me to strike harder at the cost of qi, then it asked me to pick another and I took a little more time on this one. Vertical run could be useful it allowed exactly what it entailed, wind sprint allowed you to run faster and that could be useful as well but I didn't want to lose my party so I decided against that one. Eagle eyes was the ability to use qi to see farther away it was another good contender. Flame strike was just the fire version of empowered strike so I think i'll stay away from that for now. So between Vertical run and eagle eyes, i thought for a long while before settling on Vertical run.
Next was to create my avatar. I decided to make them look like me for the most part. I’m six foot two, lean but well muscled with a strong jaw and brown eyes and a mess of black brown hair. My avatar looked the same but with black wolf ears and tail. After I finished my avatar creation I selected done and was greeted with a new screen ability point distribution. All my skills: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma started at eight points with twenty-four points to spend. I started by raising all of my attributes by two points using half of my points. I proceeded to put six points into dexterity four into constitution and two into wisdom. I could feel my reaction time and awareness increase as I raised my stats. I clicked finish and was greeted with a message that said Welcome to Terrene Online.