I turned to Alicia. "Shouldn't there be a town or something." 

She shrugged in reply. "How should I know?" Suddenly, something caught her attention and I lost sight of her. A second later I heard a piteous shriek and saw Alicia proudly holding a dead rabbit, which was still dripping blood from a dagger wound. "Lunch!" I smiled at her encouragingly and took in our surroundings. We had exited the portal into a lush green meadow at the edge of a pine forest. A slight breeze ruffled my hair, bringing with it the coppery scent of the freshly killed rabbit’s blood mingled with pine. I noticed that a bar on my interface had filled up ever so slightly with the slaying of the sinister bunny. I tried to bring up my attributes, but received a system message instead. 

The Attribute panel will unlock at level 10! 

I was a little disappointed, though I assumed the developers had a reason. Maybe they wanted players to get a feel for their skills and abilities before deciding where to allocate their points? I let it be for now, turning to Alicia. "Do you want to set up camp here for a bit? Maybe I should figure out how my spells work in case we find something bigger than a rabbit." 

"Good idea!" She beamed. "I'll try to find some materials for a basic shelter and a campfire, maybe set up a rudimentary crafting station. We should make some more waterskins in case we have trouble finding a water source nearby." 

I nodded at her, having trouble hiding how surprised I was at her foresight and intelligence. I had assumed that the first AIs would be, well, less intelligent than I was, but she seemed to be a step ahead of me. Alicia skipped into the forest while I sat down and opened my spellbook. The symbols on the first page resolved into a basic description of spells. 

Spells consist of at least two words. A 'shape' word and an 'energy' word. Each word has both a verbal component and a physical, gesturing component. The more accurately each component matches the intended word, the stronger the resulting spell. More complex spells may include multiple words, but those spells have more points at which they may fail, they will take longer to cast, and they will drain your mana more quickly. 

Okay, that made sense. I knew two 'shape' words, shield and bolt, and one 'energy' word, force. I first turned to the page for force, and let out a little laugh. Whoever designed spellcasting wanted to make the first few spells easy, because the verbal component for force was “New-tun-us” and the gesture was pushing forward, then pulling back with the staff. The word for shield was “Pro-tek-tas”, and the gesture was drawing a circle in the air clockwise, then counterclockwise. Bolt was “Ro-ke-tos”, and the gesture was the similar to that of force; bolt is cast by pulling back, then thrusting forward. After mumbling to myself and practicing the gestures, I was ready to try them out. I learned that the order wasn't important. I could say "Force Shield" or "Shield Force", or "Force Bolt" or "Bolt Force" and get the same result. I decided to make it a habit to say the energy word first, in case I needed to change my mind mid-cast. That way I could change an offensive action to a defensive one on the fly, or vise-versa. I also noticed that each cast drained a blue bar which would then slowly regenerate, which must be my mana. In addition to the mana drain, I also noticed that the color slowly faded out of everything around me with each cast. Worryingly, casting while wearing my heavy armor substantially drained a green bar which must be my endurance, and the more it drained the wearier I felt, and the harder it was to move. That’s why they warned me during class selection, I suppose. 

A cacophony of snapping twigs derailed my train of thought, as Alicia practically flew out of the forest. My eyes followed her, but I looked back towards the woods in time to see a lumbering behemoth composed of fur and claws barrel out after her. Immediately recognizing the danger, I scrambled to my feet. “Newtonus Protektas!” I shouted, gesturing towards Alicia. As the temporary barrier sprang up around her, she turned and stood her ground, her daggers flashing out in front of her, searching for her opponent's flesh. I was already starting to cast Force Bolt, hoping the shield would hold long enough for us to take down the massive bear. “Newtonus Roketos!” The bolt rocketed out of my staff, exploding into the bear's back and releasing a gout of blood. Its last swipe had shattered Alicia’s Force Shield, but it was no matter because the bear had turned and was now barreling towards me. I saw that it was a level 5 black bear, a very difficult opponent even though there were two of us. I barely finished uttering “Newtonus Protektas.” and gesturing in a circle before the bear started biting and clawing at me, but the shield appeared just in time. The sound of claws scraping against the invisible barrier roiled my guts, but it held firm. Alas, I was spent and dropped to my knees in exhaustion, almost colorblind due to my lack of mana. 

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Fortunately, Alicia managed to sneak up behind the bear, sinking both of her daggers into its kidneys. The combat log showed that she dealt bonus damage from flanking as well as the backstab. Taking so much damage in such a short amount of time stunned the bear temporarily. All I could manage was one hefty swing of my staff to the side of its head, causing a loud *CRACK*. With a piteous roar, the bear fell to the ground in a heap. "Wow, that was close, where did you find that thing?" I asked after catching my breath. The barest hint of slivers remained of my mana and endurance bars, and I saw that Alicia was panting with exertion. 

She looked down at the ground sheepishly, "Well, I kind of figured we could take it, so I, uh, lured it out here." 

I was speechless. We nearly died, I thought for sure it was an accident! We could have set traps or something! Oh well, all's well that ends well I suppose. I rolled my eyes and said, "You're insane. Did you at least get the supplies to set up camp?" 

"Oh, yeah, I found all that stuff ages ago. I just thought we might as well have some fun. I was starting to get bored." After that revelation, she set to work skinning the bear with her daggers. While humming a happy tune, mind you. On a more positive note, we both had advanced to level 2. I didn't learn any new words, but I checked my spellbook and saw that I was gaining proficiency in the three words I already knew. In addition, my energy, health, and endurance all increased. Alicia had removed the supplies from her pack and stacked them nearby, so I started to set up the camp. After a short time, we had a campfire with a cooking spit, a rudimentary shelter, and a rack to dry the skins. There was so much bear meat that we decided to cut most of it into strips to dry over the fire and make into jerky. The game did a passable job of simulating hunger and eating. I could feel the emptiness in my stomach, and it was enough to bring the bear jerky to my mouth and pretend to eat to alleviate the cramps. I even began to feel full, and after a while pretending to eat seemed enough like the real thing that I barely noticed a difference. After having dinner, we laid out our bedrolls in the shelter and slept. Or, perhaps Alicia slept. After 20 seconds with my eyes closed, I exited the VRE and found myself back in my apartment. 

The chair had worked its magic, I didn't feel cramped or uncomfortable at all. I did, however, need to use the bathroom, so I took care of that business. I also realized that it was 8pm and I hadn't eaten in hours. I opted for a light dinner and checked the news. The internet was abuzz with the revelation of AI within Epic. Some people were excited, some were afraid, but most people seemed to think it was a good thing that the AIs were confined within the VRE. In searching for game-related news, I found there was quite a bit of grumbling at the apparent lack of towns and cities. Players don't like it when their expectations aren't met. However, other players who'd met up and collaborated had found the building and crafting systems to be remarkably robust. In just a few short hours small cabins had been constructed and some tribal villages had been founded. Alicia and I had not ventured far from our portal exit location, so it wasn't surprising that we hadn't run into anyone yet. Maybe it would be a good idea to pack up and go exploring tomorrow in search of one of these budding villages. 

Satisfied that all was stable in the virtual world, I checked my real-world provisions. I'd done quite a bit of shopping in preparation for my two weeks off, and had a seemingly endless supply of granola bars and bottled water, as well as instant breakfast shakes and microwavable dinners in case I was craving something with a bit more substance. I popped a generic meal claiming to be chicken into the microwave and tried to figure out where I was in this new world. This was a question on a lot of players' minds, and some patterns had already started to emerge. Apparently, Epic and the real world shared the same 24-hour day/night cycle, and players found that the hours matched perfectly depending on where they were geographically located. A lot of the fledgling villages were concentrated on the east and west coasts of the United States, which wasn't surprising. I was living in a small town in the Midwest, so it was unlikely that I'd find any villages nearby. Other players had reported seeing landmarks like the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Lakes, suggesting that Epic simulated real-world topography. With the amount of data collected using satellite imagery, perhaps that was easier than creating a fictional world. Still, with such a low population density it could get quite lonely, but I imagine that's why every player was paired with a companion AI. After finishing my dinner, I realized it was already 11pm, so I crawled into bed, prepared to dream of what the next day might bring.