SANCTUARY SQUARE, NON-PVP ZONE. LOCATION CLASSIFIED.
CLOSEST KNOWN CLAIMED TERRITORY: PLANET EARTH CLAIMED BY THE FIRST
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I was in awe as I emerged from the portal. It was like stepping through a literal doorway as I immediately found myself descending a short staircase into a large courtyard. There were what must have been hundreds of other people walking around, seemingly engrossed in either conversations with others or maybe I was even seeing others finishing up their own tutorials.
“Ummm… How am I supposed to get back home? There’s not exactly a portal up there,” I said as I turned and found a large stone wall at the top of the stairs I had come down.
“When you approach the wall, the system will open a portal directly to your Safe House. Now, as I mentioned before we left your room, others are unable to follow you from the Square back to your Safe House unless your Safe House was their original entrance point.”
On either side of the courtyard, spaced evenly apart with flowers and bushes around their large bases, there were five extremely large statues, lined and turned to face each other. Each statue was made of a different ornate looking marble, carved to what I had to assume were perfect likenesses of the heroes and villains they represented.
I immediately recognized the closest of them, an amazingly accurate version of The First etched out of a white and gray marble. I wasn’t quite the same level of nerd as Jon, who I’m sure probably could have named each of the carved figures, but I did recognize most of the heroes displayed on The First’s side. That’s not to say the opposite side was nothing but a bunch of mystery figures. I did recognize one of them, a notoriously destructive villain that had gone by the name Frightmare when she was terrorizing California just a few years back. Her statue was made of a menacing black and red swirled stone that felt otherworldly and left me feeling incredibly uneasy the longer I looked at it.
“Sanctuary Square is quite literally a square. The shops within the east plaza of this location are dedicated to the Guardians, while the shops within the west plaza are for the Miscreants. Along the North edge are the Neutral Shops. And then there’s the bar at the center of the main courtyard here, The Common Ground, but we will visit that location last. Now, for the time being, you will only have access to the Neutral Shopping Segment. While your actions will declare you on scoreboards for one side or the other, until you have claimed your first territory for either the Guardian or Miscreant team, you will not be granted access to the respective shops”
I started my way around the courtyard, trying to take in everything at once. It was surreal, with perfectly manicured hedges and floral decorations. There were large oak trees that shaded the various tables and benches littering the square. Several others in bright costumes sat, some deep in conversations with each other, others sat on their own with their eyes glossed over, probably deep within their own menus. The shops on either edge of the square were painfully artificial and yet at the same time incredibly detailed and realistic.
I couldn’t tell the exact style of buildings, but the Guardian’s side shops were made of brick, with clay roofs and big bay windows that looked into each shop, tucking inward around a small fountain, while the Miscreant’s would have been right at home in a Halloween movie, with dark metal arches and painted black bricks. I had to crane my neck to look up at the statues of the various heroes. After taking a moment to look at them, I finally realized the three statues following The First were, predictably, members of his team based out of New York. But the last of the five statues was a short goggled man with wild hair that I couldn’t place even if I wanted to. Luckily for me, the statue could be highlighted.
“TechWarden. Level 116 Gizmo Guru. Claimed Territories: 63. Status: Unknown.”
“Never heard of him, that’s kinda odd given the rest of the lineup, isn’t it?” I wondered as I looked back along the rest of the line. “Is he a member of The First’s team? And what’s with the status?”
“I would highly suggest using the internal chat feature while in Sanctuary Square. While the other players might assume you’re talking to me, think of it as a courtesy thing,” Angie said. “To answer your questions however, the statues lining the team’s sides depict the 5 players that have held the territories worth the most amount of points since the start of the game. This does not change whether the players are considered Dead or Alive, as long as they held the record for the highest point total, their likeness will be immortalized here. Hmmm… I guess it’s not necessarily immortalized if someone could knock them out of their spot with enough effort though is it?”
“Yeah, but what’s it mean by “Unknown?”” I asked, not getting sidetracked by her obvious bait.
“It means Unknown. The Augment could have been in an accident that has left it questionable if they are dead or alive, or they are utilizing special gear to mask their presence from other players, as some Augments gain notoriety and large targets on their backs from the opposing sides. At your current level, that’s not something that you need to worry about. You still need to make a reputation for yourself first.”
“Interesting,” I said, turning and continuing my trek toward the far end of the square. As I walked, I noticed a player wearing a bag over his head with the eyes cut out. He was pacing back and forth in front of a bench as he scratched at his arm. I could actually hear him talking and I could immediately see why Angie suggested I speak internally.
“I don’t get it. Why am I the only one freaking out about all of this!? Those were people! You had me kill actual people!”
“Hmm, his Personal A.I. has most probably not have activated the Acceptance Matrix during calibration. That’s going to be rough until they can reboot his system.”
“Wait, his what?” I stopped in my tracks, looking back to the man clearly having a mental breakdown. He had been coherent enough to get here, but if I had been the one freaking out and everybody else wasn’t, I’m sure that might have pushed me over the edge too.
“His Acceptance Matrix. It was one of the first things that we loaded during calibration if you recall. It’s a standard feature of the Augmentation process that opens the Augment’s minds to being more likely to be okay with the various new aspects we are rapidly tossing at you. It saves us a lot of time dealing with panic attacks like that guy is having.”
“Is that why-”
“Yes, it’s why you haven’t felt the need to push me on the non-sentient NPCs or the fact that you have a persistent graphical interface in your vision. While I could turn it off, we generally have found those breakdowns are less than fun to watch and overall accomplish nothing, especially when we have gone through all the effort of augmenting you in the first place.”
I felt my gut wrench as I once again found myself stopping in my tracks. I hadn’t been able to quite put my finger on it until just now, but it was that same warring feeling I’d had since waking up and I finally had an explanation for it. I wanted to be questioning all of this, to be freaking out about it, but whatever this Matrix was, it was mitigating those feelings, pushing them down and forcing me to ignore them. Maybe I should be thankful for it. It was easier than the alternative, which at this point was to drop into a never ending cycle of existential worrying about what was and wasn’t my own feelings.
“That’s the spirit Augment!”
“Yeah, how about we don’t do that thing where we respond to my private thoughts when I’m in the middle of questioning my own sanity, sound good?” I asked and continued my trek toward the elegant looking segment.
“Sure thing! If you'd like, you can set my responses to only be activated by directed thoughts or speech toward me. Would you like to enable that now?”
“WAIT WE COULD HAVE DONE THAT THE WHOLE TIME!?” I practically shouted and surprisingly found some sort of feedback sound echoing in my head. Angie started to chirp with laughter, taking a few moments to settle down.
“Sometimes you just have to ask, remember that for the future Augment.” She said as she finished composing herself. “Now, the Neutral Shopping Segment is home to just a few shops, as the majority of the Square’s features are locked behind team selection. There is a basic equipment shop, though your loot boxes have given you gear that really dwarfs anything you’d be able to afford with your current credit stash. You can acquire the basic disguise kit from this store as well. More importantly is the Registration Center. Here, you will register your official player name and, when you’ve reached the stage where you have a few friends, you can also register active player squads. Please Note: While the name you enter here will become your Augment Identity, public perception or your own introductions can affect what you are recognized as by the NPCs. It doesn’t happen often, but every so often you get someone wanting to call themselves Jacked only for their name to evolve into Jacked Off.”
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“Duly noted… Do I uh… need to go do that before we can do anything else? I haven’t exactly come up with a name I really want to use just yet,” I said. In truth, I hadn’t even given it any thought so far and the one person I really wanted to ask for an opinion on it couldn’t really be told. Jon would have had at least a dozen ideas locked and loaded the moment I clued him in.
“Nope, while some Augments choose names rather quickly, most take at least a few days to figure that detail out, normally they get the idea off of something some random civilian shouts at them during one of their early skirmishes. You won’t be able to activate any NPC created quests, but you can still gain experience from completing Crime Alerts and patrolling your neighborhood for encounters and street level crime until you have settled on that. Though that won’t stop anything that has already been set into motion.”
“Well it’s good to know that’s not on that much of a time limit,” I said and almost as if anticipating Angie I added, “Although I’m sure there’s some secret hidden factor working in the background that’s going to be a bitch to deal with the longer I take.”
“Now you’re getting it!”
“New Achievement! Off With the Training Wheels! You have completed the onboarding phase of Infinite Ascension. Though this is only a Wood Level Achievement, it is worth celebrating! Reward: You have been granted 3 Drink Tickets, redeemable at The Common Ground for any beverage.”
“Oh sweet, free drinks,” I said as the tickets materialized into my hand. I examined the three tickets, each emblazoned with a simple logo for The Common Ground and the words: 1 Free Drink, Top Shelf Excluded. I ignored the fact that the description had claimed they were for any beverage and decided to just move on with it. I was a Captain and Coke kind of guy anyway, I didn’t have time for expensive booze that I could barely appreciate. With a dissolving light, the tickets returned back to my inventory. “When we got here, it said this was a Non-PVP zone, does that mean there’s no bar fights or anything like that?”
“They can happen, but it generally results in the offenders getting placed into Critical Level Threats as a punishment, so don’t go looking for trouble.”
“Good to know, okay, I’m going to hit the equipment shop then really quick to get that disguise kit for these boots, then I want to check that bar out,” I said and climbed the small staircase up a level to what was, in reality, an overly ornate strip mall.
While the rest of the square had been relatively full, there were only a handful of other people loitering in this relatively small area. Maybe I should have stopped to try and mingle, but I had never been the most social of people, hell I lived with Jon simply because we had been friends from childhood. I could barely even remember the last time I made a new friend and now really didn’t seem like the time.
As I looked along the shopping center, there were signs for three shops. Off to the far side was a single door with a sign labeled Registration and I made a note to return later. In the center was a full paned window with swirling text that read Slick Louie’s Hemming and Other Needlework Needs.
“So there’s a Tailor and an Equipment shop?”
“Yes, some loot boxes will provide enchanted crafting materials, if brought to one of the tailors here they can craft or enhance your gear. You should also note that not all crafting material needs to be brought to a tailor to be utilized. Really, you can more or less ignore this place for now unless your gear ends up getting damaged.”
I walked over to the last shop that had a simple sign that read Greg’s Gear and Gadgets. A few others exited the shop and I highlighted a few of them out of curiosity, but they each came up as “??????” which I assumed meant they weren’t registered just yet. There was the familiar sound of a dinging bell as I pushed the door open and entered a pristinely kept shop. I hadn’t been in a lot of gun shops, but I had seen at least a few shows with them and this reminded me of those, except far, far cleaner. The walls were bright white and a long, glass counter bordered three edges of the room, blocking access from various pieces of gear.
From a small curtained doorway at the back of the room, a man dressed in a perfectly tailored pinstripe suit entered the space. He had a long, groomed mustache that actually curled up and he looked at me with a raised brow.
“Gregory. Owner of Greg’s Gear and Gadgets. This is a non-sentient NPC. Gregory does not have a last name, he does not have a family! He lives in the apartment above this shop and he does one thing very very well. He tinkers. Gregory’s shop is filled with equipment perfect for the beginner Augment, just be careful, you can poke your eye out with some of these toys.”
“Welcome Augment, please do look around, we’ve got consumables on the shelves as well as a few specialty items. You don’t look quite like a Miscreant, but I warn all new customers, if you attempt to take a product from my store without paying, you’ll be hit with a nasty debuff and the gear will just be flashed back to the shelves,” Gregory said as he leaned onto the counter and gestured at a sign on the wall next to his backroom that said Shoplifters Will Be Exsanguinated. I wasn’t exactly sure what his accent was, but it felt… high class.
“Um, thanks,” I said, walking along the glass counter and checking the back wall. From guns to boots and capes, there really seemed to be a little bit of everything. I really wasn’t even sure where to start. “I’m looking for some disguise kits? These boots kind of stand out and my A.I. told me I couldn’t really wear normal shoes now if I wanted to have these on in case of an emergency.”
“Ah yes, that is a problem you all tend to run into,” Gregory said as he knelt behind a counter, returning only a moment later with a small black box. “The disguise kits are good and all, but at the end of the day, you’ll still be wearing those boots and I can guarantee they aren’t all that comfortable.”
“They aren’t that bad, and I don’t exactly have a huge budget,” I shot back as I walked over toward him and eyed the shoebox.
“These are Illusory Slippers, the most comfortable footwear this side of the Mississippi.” He announced and with an almost comical flourish he pulled the lid from the box. I couldn’t help but laugh as he tossed the lid to the side and revealed a pair of actual fuzzy black slippers. They were the kind you’d put on with a pair of big socks when the temperature dipped really low and I highlighted them out of curiosity.
“Illusory Slippers. Equippable Footwear. Color: Black, but no one is really going to know that. These comfortable, memory foam lined shoes offer no stat boosts, but they do have one very very nifty feature. MEMORY. FOAM.”
“Memory Foam. This feature, when applied to an equippable item, allows the storage of three non-game generated items in the memory of the equipment. Simply touch the slippers to the chosen item to copy and voila! If the stored items are of the same class of apparel, the item can transform to take on the appearance and function of the non-generated item. So if you set it to copy your sneakers, you can run like normal AND still suck at basketball. Price: 5500 Credits.”
I almost felt my jaw drop at the price. Buying them would mean emptying most of the credits I had received so far but I could immediately see the benefit. The disguise kit was necessary to hide the boots because I couldn’t use the equipment system to put on or take off my ordinary shoes, but with these I could swap between them right through my B.E.L.T, and if I was going to have to rebuy the kits over time, that would easily cost more in the long run.
“You know what, you’re right, these boots really are pretty uncomfortable. I’ll take them,” I said and my credit counter briefly showed a red -5500 before settling at 1100.
“Perfect choice, now, I do not recommend wearing them until you have saved your desired looks into the Memory Foam, they would look absolutely atrocious with your current getup. If you come across anything good though, I’d be happy to buy it off of you,” Gregory added as I turned and walked back for the door, waving over my shoulder as I exited back into the crisp afternoon.
“New Achievement! Big Spender! You spent more than half your available wallet on your first visit to the equipment shop. Hell, you didn’t even think twice or check around to see how much other stuff cost… or negotiate. We even told you about the conversion rate! Are you just bad at math or did you not realize those shoes just cost you $550? Oh well, we’ll never know if you could have gotten those slippers a little bit cheaper. This is a Silver Level Achievement. Reward: You have received a C:Tier Loot Box.”
I waved the achievement away as I mentally cursed at the price. She had mentioned the conversion rate but I really hadn’t taken the time to do the math. Still, I had made all of that just off of achievements and it was hard not to be curious with a new loot box in my inventory.
“Can I open loot boxes here or does it have to be back at my own Safe House. This is a Non-PVP zone, that should count right?”
“That is a very astute and fair question coming from you! Color me surprised,” Angie said with another laugh. “But unfortunately, no it does not. There are shops in both the Guardian and Miscreant sections where you may do so, but the general square and Common Ground bar do not count as eligible safe houses.”
“Eh, I guess that makes sense, okay, where to next, the bar?” I asked as I hopped down the stairs and looked toward the bar that sat at the exact center of the square. In a motion that was becoming surprisingly natural I materialized one of the drink tickets and held it up as I said aloud, “Cause let’s be honest, I could reeeeally use a drink right about now.”