Virtual Dive, "Ice Princess Academy," Fennoth

Dawn, Prime Shard, 2565 A.D.

Archos Alpha Site, Northeastern Continent

"Miss Robin, the bells."

"Wha - " Alessia looked up from the map she was hunched over. The librarian had come back. The bells were indeed ringing, but she hadn't noticed. "Is it lunch time already?"

"Yes," he nodded, "ten minutes past, actually, but I didn't want to disturb you." He touched the bridge of his glasses. "I can escort you as far as the courtyard."

"Thank you, but -" Alessia was about to say she could find her own way but caught herself. "I mean, thank you Valjon. That would be appreciated."

"This way, then." He gave her a soft smile and proffered an elbow, which she had to take. The noon light angled in through the windows just so to warm the features of his face, while soft background music played from somewhere in a tentative, shy flutter.

"Thank you for the escort," she said on cue as they parted beneath the snow covered branches of a tree in the courtyard. "The library is quite large, so I could have gotten lost."

"Anytime, Miss Robin." Valjon gave a small bow. "You are welcome to come back and peruse the stacks anytime."

"Stupid romance flags," Alessia thought. "The things I do for a library card."

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Alessia strolled through the elaborate Academy lunchroom. There were at least thirty girls sitting around a dozen tables, with half as many boys sprinkled into the mix. Most of the lead student characters were at one of the two head tables. Alessia passed them with only a slight wave to her tour-guide Amanda Park, heading instead for the side wall where a few girls had instrument cases tucked under their seats. The table had a few advantages: background characters wouldn't, ideally, interact with her much unless she prompted conversation; the musician table was neutral for the Valjon route; there was ample light from the windows; and it was right by the luncheon drinks table with all the juices and teas.

Virtual food had never been quite perfected. While 3D printed food blanks with matched flavonoids gave an approximation of eating, nothing could quite replace the texture, taste, and temperature of real food. Alessia had never liked eating in virtual games.

Drinks were another matter, entirely. Every pod had a water tank, for both gaming and legal reasons. And most drinks were water-based. Slight modifications to the texture could be made with additives or carbonation. Alessia smiled and took a green apple and iceflower mocktail to her seat.

It was still a strange sensation, knowing the water itself was real, but that she wasn't actually holding a glass. Only the 'lip' of the glass was genuine, a contoured piece of plastic against her lip that allowed the machine to funnel the flavored water into her mouth. But it was delicious, nonetheless, and the scent of apple tickled her nose. They'd even given it a subtle hum as the cyan liquid moved in the glass - was the Fennoth iceflower supposed to be a musical plant? Alessia sipped on it in quiet appreciation after introducing herself to the table. As expected, no one really pressured her into conversation.

Alessia pulled out a notebook from her schoolbag. The library research wasn't ideal in terms of speed, but she had already found a few possibilities. Anything she wrote in the notebook could be saved to a game file and accessed later from her wrist data chip, so she'd marked things down as she went.

Fennoth had an embarrassment of waterfalls. It seemed they were everywhere, frozen or unfrozen, even in areas that didn't make much geological sense. But then, Fennoth didn't have naturally formed terrain - it was a generated surface, modified by programmers and artists at key points. "Of course they would want a bajillion waterfalls," she sighed inwardly. "And probably all the mountains for skiing they can cram in."

While Fennoth was colder than Earth, it was intentionally cold. Even the map of the Arctic had been marked up with hot springs, towns, and steam caves. The most stunning locations would serve as backdrops for tourism and games - but no one was going to spend all of their vacation hiking an impossible mountain pass or sledding for days across an empty plain. Otherwise impassable features were usually near a river or other waterway, perhaps meant for cruises. After looking through a dozen maps, Alessia was starting to get the sense of it. There was almost a honeycomb pattern to the planet in how it's heights and depths were arranged, rather than the broad continental plates and long mountain ranges and trenches of Earth. Islands were common, and most continents weren't any bigger than Australia or Zealandia.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Where could it be?" Alessia took advantage of the game's lunch scene to further narrow down the possibilities so far. She had definitely seen mountains, and several wide frozen waterfalls, in the rift through the sky mirror. But it didn't seem like a fjord or oceanside cliff - even the lake at the base of the falls had seemed small. "What am I missing?" They'd only caught fractured glimpses looking through, as the mirror portal itself reflected Dawn. Had there been any structures? Any distinguishing marks? Any -

"Sound?" Alessia looked up. A female student with braided hair was plucking on a strange stringed instrument. "What's that?" Alessia asked.

"Oh, sorry!" The girl flushed. "I didn't mean to disturb your lunch. I was just tuning my Sitar."

"That's all right," Alessia gave her a nod and the girl went back to her task. "Was there another sound when Farash disappeared?" She closed her eyes, shutting out the visual data from the game, and muted the game for a brief moment so she could focus on the memory better. There had been a sort of shattering sound when the mirror started cracking, and they'd all been screaming. Farash's jumpsuit had rustled as he was sucked upwards, and there was a clacking as he was pulled through. In the distance, as the rift began to close and mirror shrink away, a high keen wailed, like angry wind through a holes in the rock of a high place. Yet otherwise, the scenery had been still. Was there something on top of or behind the mountains?

She opened her eyes and unmuted the game. A couple girls were glancing at her as if she'd just fallen asleep sitting up, which is probably what it had looked like. "Maybe I should just log out, next time." Alessia coughed lowly and they quickly looked away.

She snapped her notebook shut and stood, excusing herself from the table. If any of the girls were offended, it shouldn't be too much of a problem; Alessia had no future plans to actually complete the game. But she had to suffer through a couple fake classes and game events before she could sneak back to the maps.

Or could she play hooky? She sneaked a glance at the game manual as she walked to the first class, the information appearing like a sheet of paper in the air. She could play hooky, indeed - the game wouldn't force her to attend classes, anyway. But she'd also lose counters with certain characters, and eventually lose school privileges like library access.

Alessia fought the urge to hit her forehead with a palm as she slid into a seat next to Amanda Parker and exchanged pleasantries. No quick way out. "Fine then," she groused and pulled out the Textbook. "Titles and Etiquette of the Five Sovereignties," the title read.

"Etiquette class is my favorite," Amanda gushed next to her, true to her guide role. "It's how we learn to interact in the social world without embarrassment - even use words as a weapon or defense. Good etiquette is like putting on the robes of a higher class, or a golden key to every social club. Not that you need that, being a princess and all."

Alessia nodded and let her ramble about the class until it started. She wasn't particularly interested in etiquette from a thousand years before she was born, but there was a strange sort of entertainment in just watching everyone else in the room get so into it. She sat back and rolled her shoulders. She could treat it as an amusing break before diving back into the maps.