---Richard---
Richard stumbled out of the barrier behind him.
He was nearly butt naked – his clothes still burned off.
What was left did not lead a picture of modesty – you might say his current outfit was even worse than simply being naked.
To start, his feet were covered in fashionably clunky stone boots fused and cast to his feet.
Around his waist was his looted belt – and all the supplies in and on it. Stone scooper one side, mini aether cannon the other. Pouch in the middle full of rope, money, vials of acid, ammo, etc.
Somehow all his supplies had disappeared and slipped his mind in the transition – their return suddenly incredibly obvious without the clothes beneath.
Barely having time to take stock of his circumstances, let alone his surroundings, Richard’s attention was immediately drawn towards the figure charging towards him.
Snow white pelt with a sparkling pink mane. A spiral of iridescent flamboyance at the front.
A fucking unicorn was aiming to skewer Richard not ten seconds into his entrance to this new area.
Before Richard had time to process this situation, a 3rd party appeared – an Indian man with a lightsaber leapt from the right corner of his eye a loud whoop ringing out of his throat.
The Jedi wannabe positively flew towards the beast, then chopped down with the finality of a woodcutter swinging his axe.
Passing clear through the unicorn’s head, the swing twisted at the bottom of its arc – from a chop to a slice that burned a gash through the unicorn’s side from left to right.
In front of Richard, the still charging beast’s head flipped up – cauterized flesh preventing blood, the cut clean enough the wound barely had time to smoke. The head flew up and over the now collapsing unicorn's back releasing a faint sparkle as it flew. The rest of the creature’s body slid several dozen feet toward Richard and stopped just in front of him.
The Indian man turned walked towards him speaking in a foreign tongue. “kya tum ek gumaraah aadamee ho?”
Staring for a second the man's eyes lit up and flashed to his armband.
Hello, have you just passed the exam? Did you get good? My fucking was terrible. Did you see how I completely destroyed that silly pony?
Richard reached around pulling out his own translator.
“Yeah, I saw. Legend. Should have got it on a highspeed camera so I could play it back to you. Actually! Let’s find another unicorn and see what they think of a shotgun to the mane…also do you have any clothing? As you can see, I seem to have burnt through mine.”
Sorry I don't have spare paint, was thinking about that. Shotgun you say? That's boring friend. Why don't you have a laser pistol?
…they seemed to be immediately hitting it off. What was the chance this lightsaber wielding player was cool and what was the chance they were secretly fucked up? Honestly pretty high based on past experiences…
…
Before the pair had time to head off on their ‘epic quest to kill things and gain pants’ a new group arrived.
This group was decked out in full swat gear – their heads obscured by greenish blue visors, their body wrapped in marbled blue and green armour – each carrying identical pistols, blades and blue glowing shields. They approached Richard and his new friend, their weapons trained steadily upon the pair. The new group was completely silent as they surrounded the players, moving with unnaturally coordinated steps.
“I’ll take the ones on the left I guess?” Richard stage whispered to his new friend reaching for his side.
A shot burst forth from one of the armoured figures stabbing into Richard’s hand with a slight jolt.
Suddenly a blue box appeared.
Suspicious foreigners do not resist and follow us. Assuming you do not assault an agent, you are not under arrest and will not be harmed.
Will not be harmed after already firing the first shots huh, Kenobi over here will probably slice the –
Richard heard a faint thud from beside him. He turned to watch his new friend walking towards the group both hands high in the air with a scared look on his face.
…huh…doesn’t look like this is a ploy – he dropped his weapon beside me…
…that’s kind of boring.
Richard found himself checking out. He let himself be somewhat corralled along for a short walk purposefully walking as calmly as possible while ready to throw hands at a moment's notice. While Richard walked, he mentally shifting his new friend back to ‘friendly random player’ status.
Soon they were in a wide open field that had been cleared of trees and grass. It looked like someone had bulldozed the place recently – most of the foliage roughly scraped into a rough wall on two sides.
Walking over to a small white tent – one that reminded Richard of the ones set up at outdoor weddings but with three poles instead of four – they came towards an incredibly charming looking man stamping papers.
He looked like what a used car salesman wished he looked like. Like the man at the booth oozed a sense of “trustworthiness” and “one of the boys” style energy.
…Richard was immediately on guard. No one was that likable.
“Hello! Welcome! My names Nevin.
I hope your introduction hasn’t been too harsh. My boys have been a bit on edge – not that I blame them; we’ve had quite a few strange individuals come through the containment field in the past few days. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble, we just want to make sure you aren’t a threat. Waltzing out of the supposed corrupted zone – do you all know one another? Why don’t you tell me a bit about where you came from? What you saw on the other side and what you are hoping to do here. All voluntary information but if you cooperate I can smooth stuff over and get you a temporary citizenship.
What do you say?” Nevin spoke. His lips didn’t quite match what he was saying – the only tell that his speech was translated.
Richard mentally groaned. What game had a customs office?
…
Richard did the bare minimum amount of cooperation before being directed away from the unnaturally friendly spokesperson.
Staring around somewhat lost Richard…felt bored. No one was really doing anything. There wasn’t anything he could even focus on? Richard spun slowly and finally spotted something interesting.
He wandered over to the edge of the wall strolling up to the only active looking man in sight to see what was happening. While everyone else was sitting on makeshift benches or standing around one man was moving.
The character was barefoot and shirtless. His eyes were closed and he was performing squats while holding a large stone on one shoulder.
Richard wasn’t quite sure what made him stand out in the sea of people. He’d say it was because he was on his own but…there were a few loners sitting by their lonsome and they didn’t stand out in the same way.
This man looked…strangely in between phases if Richard had to put a description to it. Dishevelled but not homeless – his tracksuit pants and tied shirt around his waist dirty but not tattered. Like a college kid had gotten lost in the woods for a night.
…maybe a bit older than college?
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Richard glanced around then looked closer. The most interesting thing about this figure was probably his shirt. The one tied around his waist. It was hard to tell at first glance – especially with how it was scrunched up and tied to itself, but the sleeves were covered in blood. Absolutely splattered. Who’s blood was that? He looked uninjured. Who had he killed? What had made that much blood?
A mystery!
“Hey mate, want a partner?” Richard looked around trying to find a rock to lift as well.
Eyeing the rough wall beside them, he spotted a dirty stone embedded into its length and spent a moment wriggling it out side eyeing the stone lifter still silently doing his reps.
Awkwardly trying to place it on his shoulder Richard gave up and held it close to his chest trying to do a squat as well.
Fuck, this is harder than it looked.
Struggling for a moment beside his silent companion, Richard finally got into a position that mostly worked and did a few reps in camaraderie. Richard didn’t work out a lot but he was relatively good at it when he tried. It was mostly a social thing – working out only really happened when he had a friend who lifted as well.
“I have to get out”. The man finally whispered. His voice rasped slightly as if he hadn’t spoken in a while.
“Out of this field?’ Richard responded side eyeing him as he did another rep. They nodded.
Definitely interesting.
“We are trapped. Walls on two sides. Guards push you back if you try for the other two sides. I feel stifled. We have to get out. I have to get out of this.” The man whispered. He truly sounded panicked. There was a hard look in his eye that Richard liked. A commitment.
“Want to break out?” Richard asked slightly excited. He had just found his new best friend. Time for a pseudo prison break!
----------------------------------------
---James---
James was not having a good time.
Not ten minutes into entering the new “zone” and he had been subdued and placed in a kennel. Trapped like a rat in a box open to the elements.
He wasn’t strong enough.
That was the baseline. All one needed to take away from the encounter.
He had kicked and punched and struggled to beat the armoured men – using stored kinetic retaliations and hasted movements before they had tazed him several times and tossed him into this box.
One of his punches had even bent some of the metal on the armour! Not that that was enough.
James had definitely put up a good fight. At least for a minute or two…however he had been surrounded and the armoured men had cheated. Used strange weapons which turned the ground to quicksand and locked up his limbs when they hit.
Now he was biding his time till night. Then he would try and run up the wall, then crawl away into the night. He would leave. Train himself till he was stronger than come back and burn this place to the ground!
…maybe that was an overreaction but James hadn’t felt that helpless in a while and he hated it. He was supposed to have gotten stronger. He was supposed to be above being forced into places he didn’t want to go or forced into doing stuff he didn’t want to do.
He wanted control over himself.
He wanted to be stronger.
That frustrated energy built until James found a spot to exercise – at least that way it would feel like he was doing something.
…
After working his muscles for a bit – he hadn’t gotten any stats yet but he could tell an achievement was soon going to arrive – a nearly naked man came over and joined him.
…was he making fun of him?
No. The character who had arrived was actually putting in an effort to do some reps…
James didn’t know what to do. What to tell them. An awkward energy was beginning to build so he had to say something right?
Why were they naked? Why was no one commenting on it? Was James the weird one for thinking this was weird? Probably. It was usually James’s fault in social situations.
Why did they want to work out right beside him? There was a whole stretch of wall free – why come over here and force him to socialize?
Finally James decided he had to say something just to fill the void. Not knowing ‘what’ to say, he ended up confiding in the man. Just spilling his thoughts – should have kept quiet. What if they went and told someone?
Against all odds, James’s confession seemed to give the strange man energy.
“Want to break out?” The man excitedly whispered. Like that wasn’t an obvious answer – like escaping itself would be fun instead of just a required action to be free.
James really didn’t know how to talk to people. Why was this a problem?
…he wanted to be stronger. Talking to people. Confidence. That was strength too wasn’t it? He should stop running away because ignoring something he was bad at was weakness.
Kill the weakness.
Explaining his haphazard plan James watched as the naked man placed his rock down on the ground and started doing something with a strange tool to it.
“Sure, could work.” The man started while liquifying the stone and squeezing it through a funnel.
“We wait till night, scale the wall. Fuck off into the night. Solid simple plan… If you are still in the planning phase however, I have some ideas as well. Some brainstorming action. First off. Let’s find the food and toss this confusion powder into it. Then we can blow up the shitty wall with carefully embedded explosive shots – I’ll use my new skill to blow them all at once.
“Finally in the confusion we can get a pair of those suits – did you see they have like exoskeleton things? I could sense the slots in them when they brushed by. If we knock out the NPC’s wearing them I bet we can swipe a pair. Did you get a skill slot yet? If you can’t tell I want some new clothes and thought one of those suits might be fun…OH! We could also escape then double back around and pretend to be one of the men searching for the escapees and lead them off on a wild goose chase…Just some ideas…” the man trailed off. James had been nodding along the whole time – wait was he serious?
“That…that’s some ‘ideas’.” James tried to say as calmly as he could.
Excuse me. These are your citizenship. Sorry for the delay – Just took some time to finish the background check and to process your DNA samples to test for corruption. You are clean…
Either way you both are free to go now. I’m also supposed to mention we are heading back to the city if you want to come join us – we should be back before night. Plenty of places to stay in Stable.
A young woman stood holding two flat strips of metal. One for James one for the strange man.
…what?
They were…Just…letting them go?
James…didn’t really know what to say to that. He really wanted to just run. Head off into the wilderness where things made sense. There things either wanted to eat you or didn’t. Simple. Here you had to deal with not knowing what was happening or why…
Surprisingly the naked man also looked disappointed – but James suspected that was just due to not being able to blow something up. The man seemed just a bit unstable – but maybe that was just him?
James really just wanted to leave but…he had promised himself he would do something. He would complete his quest to gain both aether and mana. He would head back to the city and figure out how to learn about aether as painlessly as possible. Then and only then could he escape back to the civilized wilds.
Maybe he could find a painless way of gaining some supplies as well while he was there.
…and maybe a way to shake off the explosive tag along while he was there.
----------------------------------------
---Maddy---
Maddy stepped through the barrier and emerged into a deep verdant forest. The trees looked almost prehistoric – like something out of a dinosaur movie.
Standing close to the barrier she looked about carefully. Her scythe was back. As was her bag.
No sign of her companions yet – were they okay? She wouldn’t trust the last message stating they were till she saw them.
Not wanting to wait unprepared, Maddy cautiously pulled out a charcoal pen and began to sketch on the side of her weapon.
Some quick changes to the layout and tons of little lines of what exactly she wanted later and Maddy cast her spell.
“Parasite these Trees with Slumbering Seeds” she spoke, dumping her entire combined pool into the working. The words sounded better this time around – of course her spell sounded better when no one was around to hear her. Just her luck…the spell seemed better formed then any of her previous now that she had time to watch it.
The changes to her previous spells were minor – she simply wanted to use her voice to carry her eggs into her surroundings after all. The main additional goal at this point was to make them last as long as possible. Dark-Life mana to make them better able to sink into hosts. Each egg was also an orb because why not – that concept really was similar to her ‘scythe’ pseudo concept just more complete. All it really did was make her spells stronger if she made them into orbs. Easy enough to do.
Feeling more comfortable after seeding the surroundings, Maddy continued to wait for her pool to refill. She had time and needed to think.
…
What had that truth been?
The one with the old woman. What secret did it hold? Assuming it was actually the truth, it meant the natives were being controlled somehow to act a certain way around travelers. That had some horrifying connotations, mind control? Were they – the travelers – invading a land? …the zones seem too artificial to be a real place they are ‘invading’. Were those people kidnapped from somewhere?
Why were they made to act less ‘real’?
What was Maddy supposed to do with this information…be nicer to the natives? Figure out how to free them?
Jess stumbled out of the barrier a few dozen feet to the left.
“Hey! Over here!” Maddy called jogging slightly over to regain her companion.
Jess looked battered – Maddy was almost worried her own trial had been real after all but…the wounds were different. Mostly small round bruises as if Jess had been attacked by a hail of rocks or beaten with metal balls the size of ping pong balls.
She looked brutalized but happy.
“Hey, we are the first out? Thanks for this it feels amazing –“ Jess moaned slightly as bruises faded. Maddy had immediately cast healing roots from her life pool, pulling mana out and running it through the spells written down on her scythe.
“Looks like it, how was your trial?” Maddy asked stepping back.
“Not too difficult. I’m more concerned about that truth – did you know we had less of a choice to leave the tutorial than we thought?” Jess asked.
“What do you mean? Let’s combine all the information we got” Maddy responded. Maybe with more information she could better puzzle out her own gift.
Before Jess had time to explain, Troy stumbled out nearly directly beside them his eyes bleeding – Maddy immediately rushed to perform her duties as her teams leader putting the conversation on hold.
Then, following the flow of the conversation the group ended up walking away from the barrier following a rough path through the prehistoric forest.
Right around when Maddy wanted to bring up the information exchange once more a series of crashing sounds rang out causing her whole group to jog towards the noise.
The first thing they saw when they entered the clearing was what looked like several high tech drones dive bombing a palace made out of fur. A woman sat outside the massive building waving a wand that sent out bright pink sparks.
One of the drones got too close and was hit by the wand – it ‘pop’ed’ in a cloud of pink smoke becoming a toy bear. A second came in – it too being attacked by the pink sparks until it broke and transformed into a potted plant.
The final drone turned to fly away but was attacked by what looked like a paw coming out of the furry building – the paw appeared to melt out of the wall and continue to extend, far, far longer than it should have been able to. The snake-like paw stretched all the way over to the corner of the clearing and smacked the retreating drone – hitting it so hard bits of metal and plastic were flung away.
What had they walked into?