The Grand eGress – (Chapter 04) – Star Stone Formation
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The Grand eGress – (Chapter 04) – Star Stone Formation
In the time it took Ambro to blink he was transported off the Star Gazer vessel. Stunned for a moment he found him self standing in the middle of yet another circle. There was field of large star shaped stones surrounding him now. The sun was rising and yet the stone in front of Jeremy cast shadows like a four story building.
This stone set in the middle was clearly the largest and had at least 16 points. All the surrounding star stones were sitting in a circle shaped constellation. They all had points but none of them had anywhere close to as many.
Ambro decided to take a breather. He sat down with his back against the cool and damp star stone and closed his eyes. Breathing deep he ran his hands through the grass next to him.
This game had left him without a chance to collect his thoughts. He was in a game that required him to breathe in nano machines and experience hell. If Ambro was just your everyday guy it wouldn’t be strange if had passed out or died then.
Ambro had a significant amount of physical and mental discipline. H made many gains while completing the martial courses in Plan Exposure. Never satisfied with regular completion ratings, Ambro went out of his way to seek out masters of the arts. Pain Centering was a technique he picked up from a street magician. It was a hand me down trick to help performs to endure until the show was over.
Practicing those mind tricks helped him survive that crisis. Even if he couldn’t think at the time he subconsciously used them.
Something had to have gone wrong with the hardware or programming for eGress. There is no way the developers could avoid a mass lawsuit if everyone had to experience that torture. He already decided that regardless of where the fault lied Axel would have to experience some of the pain he went through.
After all he was supposed to be gathering information on the game. Words? No. Language would not be the form of communication he would use to describe his experiences.
After centering himself for a moment he got up and stretched. Deciding finally to leave this spawn zone, he walked around the star stone. He had taken a few steps and ducked under a large point on the star stone when he ran into something. He fell right on his butt.
“What the hell!?”
“That’s what I want to know!? Someone yelled back”
Turns out what he bumped into was the purple haired guy from the star gazer ship. Recognizing the voice he let the thought distract him from the pain and stood back up.
“ Its you! You were sent here too? Where is everybody else?
“ Wait, wait wait.. agghh this hurts so bad. Your head must be made out of iron kitchen wear.”
“…….”
It turns out that when the scary cloaked man said, “You two will getting off over here.” He had been talking about Ambro and the purple haired young man called Cassidy. After knocking each other othey had introduced themselves. As it turned out Cassidy was also a Beta Tester for this game.
“Hey Cassidy how did entering the game go for you?”
“You mean that cool void space intro?”
“ No I mean when you breathe din the nano’s.
“ That? What could I feel except excited? My head got kinda itchy and everything went black. Then I was standing in the pitch black room where you get your soul carrier assigned. Why was yours different?”
“ You could say that.” Ambro filled Cassidy in on what happened.
“Somebody really messed up if you experienced any kind of pain just logging in. This game won’t be pain free. Only healthy adults will be able to play it but from what you told me that’s way over the top. What are you going to do?”
“First I will have to deal out punishment to my roommate. After grilling him for questions I’ll decide on the next step.”
“ Well you have to let me know what you find out. Nano bot VR is still way too new and risky, if this goes bad I want to know early.”
“Sure thing.” Mulling things over again Ambro got lost imagining the things he could try out on Axel. He was trying to figure out what could inflict enough pain on Axel to make him understand. Doing that with out killing would be difficult.
“Hey Ambro have you activated the quests yet?” Cassidy saw that Ambro was deep in thought. He knew that the other players situation was difficult but he wanted to go on with the game. He couldn’t help but ask.
“Hmm?”
“The quests man, wake up! Has your soul carrier found any quests yet?”
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“Oh sorry, no she hasn’t.”
“She!? You mean you get to log in to a pretty face from here on out?
“ So I’m guessing your soul carrier ended up being some macho man huh?
“Ugh..you knew?”
Cassidy told Ambro what he expected the quests to be like as they left the star stone field. They headed into the nearby forest. From rumors he believed that quests would appear randomly. The soul carriers would be the ones to hand them out.
How this would all work out he didn’t quite understand yet. To get ahead of the competition he thought it best to head into the more ominous looking environment nearby. He hoped that they would run into a beginner monster and initiate an instant quest.
Not having any better ideas Ambro decided to accept the invitation to go explore the forest. He wanted a clear idea about what he would give up if this was his first and last time playing. As soon as he had a feel for eGress he was logging out to spend some quality time with Axel .
“Ok stop it with the creepy grins” Cassidy gave Ambro a look and continued to lead the way deeper into the forest.
There wasn’t much to look at but they would occasionally see things scurrying at the corner of their eyes.
They hadn’t gone too far when suddenly Ambro had a thought and stopped Cassidy.
“Hey Cassidy?”
“Hmm?”
“ Um when we run into something how exactly do we fight?”
Cassidy gave Ambro a incredulous look. He couldn’t help but wonder on how he managed to become a Beta tester. Wasn’t it the basics of basics to get as much information as possible?
“Wait you can’t mean that your soul carrier doesn’t tell you anything?”
“Oh right.” Ambro who was obsessing over how to beat up Axel ended up neglecting his Soul Carrier. He had yet to get around to really thinking about game mechanisms. It only just now occurred to him that he didn’t know anything.
Ambros left eye blinked and heard a sweet displaced voice. It sounded like a young women was talking to him using a speaker function on a phone.
“ Ambro? The trees here are boring.”
“Uh forget that for a moment, can you give me a short intro for eGress?”
“Hmm That’s this place right? I don’t know, I’ve never been here before.”
“You don’t know.”
Puzzled Ambro turned to Cassidy and gave him his best impression of a puppy begging for food. Cassidy couldn’t help but laugh*. He was starting to suspect that far from being an elite beta tester maybe evem calling Ambro a gamer was a stretch.
“What did she say?”
“ She says she doesn’t know” Ambro continued with the pitiful face.
“ How could she not know!? Just cut to the chase and demand a weapon or something”
“ A weapon?” Ambro directed this question to both Cassidy and Palma.
Cassidy said nothing. Then Ambro’s left eye blinked and he found himself holding a long wooden staff. It ended with round knobs on both ends that seemed to be made out of tangled plant roots.
“ Just like that?” Both of the young men were surprised.
“Ambro, I thought you said she didn’t know anything?” Now Cassidy was feeling a little bit foolish. Could a beginner time a joke like that? Cassidy had yet to get his soul carrier to produce a weapon. He wasn’t even sure it could.
“Don’t look at me like that, she said she didn’t know.” Ambro turned his thoughts to Palma. “What’s going on, you don’t know about eGress but you can spit out weapons anyway?”
“ I said I don’t know about this place but weapons? Top tiered green aura soul carriers can usually provide weapons from the start. This simple staff is just what I can give you now but later? Hahaha you will love me.”
Ambro didn’t have to see Palma to know that she was swirling on her roots.
“ Oh you’re quite confidant, and I have to say this will work for me. Whats this staff called anyway?”
Ambro twirled his new staff around and got into a low stance. Then in an instant he used the three most fundamental and powerful movements for any long weapon.
Stab. Sweep, Roll.
“Oh that looks good”
Watching on the side Cassidy could tell that Ambro wasn’t just messing around. He could actually use that staff.
“ Ambrosious this staff is my first gift to you it’s called a branch.”
Palmas voice was filled with pride.
“………”
p.s Jeremy = Ambro, he started thinking of himself as such without realizing it...will be explained later