Jared lay down on his bed, all sensors fully attached and the Neural interface connected. “Ok, now just like with your phone you should see a little display in the bottom left of your vision. You got it?” The tech was being overly slow and patient and it showed in her voice. Jared nodded in acknowledgement. “Ok, now focus on bringing up the menu. Good?” Another nod as the menu sprung up to a more central viewpoint. “Great, now access connected applications. Great! You’ve got it. Finally you should see an entry there for Aerach. Don’t select it just yet!”. At that she paused, looked over all the connections, checked the monitor one last time and finally gave the nod of approval. “Ok, go ahead, enjoy.” She smiled at Jared, a genuine smile that shared something of the hope Jared felt for this new adventure.
The small room faded away and over the course of several seconds was replaced by an entirely green room. Jared had just started to turn around looking for some indication of what he had to do when a voice chimed in the air.
“Hello traveller and welcome to Aerach! Before you complete your journey to the new world we have a few decisions to make. Are you ready?”
As the voice finished the question a mirror appeared in front of Jared, in it he could see a reflection of himself, maybe a little bit younger looking, certainly standing up straighter but still with the same old grey hairs on his head.
“Choose your race!”
Text appeared below the image “Human”. Jared looked at it and more text appeared. “Humans are adept for every role in Aerach and have no starting advantages or disadvantages.” Ok, not a lot of detail there.
Jared swiped to the right and the image changed. It was still Jared, still with some grey hairs but now mainly at the sides of his head. The basis of the face was the same but now the character was slender, taller, the individual facial features were finer and more elegant and it had long ears that swept back and upwards to fine points.
“Elf”. “Elves have a starting focus on intelligence and Dexterity and may provide a faster start for anyone who wishes to explore the mage, rogue or archery schools.”
Jared stared at the text for a few moments and muttered his frustration into the air “What does that even mean? If I want to be a Mage I have to choose an elf?” Truthfully he wasn’t that keen on how the elf looked, preferring a gruntier, more solid look.
Surprisingly the system voice responded. “No, all schools are available to all races and after some time your initial choice will have minimal impact on any or all roles you choose to play.”
“Ok, thank you.” Jared responded.
“You're very welcome.” The voice seemed inordinately pleased with itself.
Jared gestured subtly and the next race was selected “Dwarf”. Again the image in the mirror changed, it was Jared, but now stockier about 5 feet tall and much broader in the shoulders. The Dwarf was packed with Muscle and was a little fat around the stomach and hips, it had a beard that went down to mid chin that had the same grey colour as the hair on his head. The Dwarf looked hardy and weathered with experience. Jared liked it a lot. He focused further on the Dwarf. “Dwarves have a focus on Constitution and Strength that makes them ideal for players who wish to start in Warrior or Fighter type roles.” Again that was it, the whole explanation, no history or context, just one short sentence.
“Ok, on to the next one.” Jared informed no one in particular but without even a gesture the image changed.
“Orc”, the image was greyed out but looked tall and physically powerful.
“Why is the Orc greyed out?” Jared asked.
“You have chosen to start grouped with another player with a preset choice of starting areas, this excludes any race not currently on friendly terms with the city state of Aleria, including Orcs, Goblin and Drow.”
That made sense to Jared, Mikey had been talking of getting them started together in one of the starting zones.
The Goblin fit the tolkien stereotypes, maybe not as Ugly as they were in the recent holo-cast, it looked nimble and surprisingly intelligent. Finally the Drow looked just like the Elf but with a harder expression on its face, less thoughtful, it looked like it was ready to fight at a moment's notice.
Jared gestured to the right. “No further races are playable at this time, a further update may include additional races.” Ok, the game was pretty new, Jared just hoped that didn’t mean there would be a shortage of content.
Spinning the dial back to the Dwarf, Jared took a couple of seconds to let it all sink in and do a double check on the Dwarf. “It looks awesome.” he thought. With a little resignation he spun it back to Human and selected the human avatar. “If I’m going on an adventure I want it to be as close to the real me as possible”.
“Confirm selection as Human?” the system asked. “Um… could we make the Avatar a little taller and look a little younger?” Jared asked without much hope, Mikey had said the avatar would be based on their real selves. The avatar grew subtly, the grey hairs were now speckled liberally with black and there were less lines around the eyes. “Confirm avatar?” the system asked.
The Avatar looked like Jared had when he’d hiked Kilimanjaro with Jessica, they’d been 48 at the time and had been in the best shape of their lives as they’d spent nearly a year training for the hike. He had the temptation to ask for it younger again but having seen it he couldn't change it again. It was just too perfect, too great a memory to change again. “Confirm.”
The edges of the room started to shimmer, a rotating swirl formed. The colour was shifting in flashes of green and blue.
A notification appeared and Jared brought it up. It brought up a character screen with the notification Character creation complete. In the top left was the name, currently just showing Jared, below that it showed race as human, Level was 1. Made sense.
Below the level the character stats were listed:
Constitution: 12
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 12
Intelligence: 12
Willpower: 12
Charisma: 7
As soon as Jared glanced at the stats the system voice informed him “Based on your extensive experiences in real life you have been assigned at level 8.” Ok. “Based upon your proudest accomplishments the following stat increases are granted.” A series of pop ups flashed into view.
“Doctor of Biochemistry +3 Intelligence.” “Well,” Jared thought, “that’s one way to summarise 9 years of study.”
“Various publications on cell behaviour modelling +3 Intelligence.” “And a lifetime of work summarised in as many words, thanks!”.
“Hiking and Running activities +2 Constitution.” Running activities here included more
than 15 marathons, Jared just sighed in acceptance.
“You have received 1 stat point for each level which you can assign as you wish, assign now or wait until later?” Jared confirmed the wait till later option, he didn’t even know what each of the stat points did yet, though thinking back, he had played some games with similar ideas and remembered something pretty similar. Focusing on “Constitution” to bring up more information he was met with an expanded text. “????” “Four question marks, that’s all the extra information you’ll give me on a stat?” He asked out loud.
“Information relating to Aerach and the underlying system rules must be found in-game.” came the reply. Jared imagined the voice sounded quite smug about the whole situation.
The patches at the sides of the room were now flashing to a deep blue and were clearly forming a large swirling circle.
Nothing else happened. With some exasperation Jared asked, “Do I not have to choose a class and a character name?”. The response came swiftly. “There are no classes in Aerach, only schools which can teach you various techniques and capabilities. Would you like to change your name?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Does my name need to be unique?”
“No.”
Jared took a moment, he remembered a few games where he had been forced to call his character weird combinations of famous characters, Gimlot, Strifer and so on, his real name had never even been close to an option. Thinking about it for a moment he decided to leave it, why couldn’t there be a Jared in a fantasy setting?.
“Leave my name as is please.”
“Confirmed, thank you.”
The colours in the swirl started to deepen taking on a purplish hue, in fact the colour had started to creep into the centre of the swirl as well. “Do you have any further questions?”
“Um… What's the objective of this game?”
“The objective of the controller AI for the Aerach world is that the players are happy and feel fulfilled.”
“Ok, but what’s my objective?”
A slight delay passed before: “To be happy and fulfilled.”
Jared wondered if he was the only person asking this because he didn’t really know what to expect, it had been 15 years since he’d played anything similar and even then he’d only played casually.
“Is there not, like, a big, bad, evil guy or something that I'm meant to help defeat.”
“There might be, would that make you happy? I can inform the controller AI.”
“You’re not the controller AI?”
“No, I am a separate entity tasked only with setting up characters and answering player questions before they enter Aerach.”
The purple colour now filled the entire swirl and Jared could make out vague outlines of 2 men standing in front of something long and tall and very blurry. One of the men seemed to be pointing in Jared’s general direction. As Jared’s attention was focused there the “Separate entity” asked “Do you have any further questions?”
“Um … No, I don’t think so.”
Even as he was speaking, the image in the swirl grew sharper and he could see the pointing man was holding a short sword and wearing what appeared to be mainly leather and chain mail armour, he had a round iron helmet on his head that left his face completely bare. The man he was speaking to was far more intimidating. He was covered head to toe in plate armour that gleamed beneath a weak sun, he had two swords strapped across his back and a shield strapped to his left arm. His helm was shaped at the top with a lion's head, mouth open in roar and a mane of red cloth fell from the top of his helm down around his shoulders. He wore a tabard over his chest in pure white with a red spear embroidered in the centre, a hand holding it aloft. What was most intimidating however wasn’t the armour but the size of the man, “He must be six foot six inches tall” Jared thought “and built like a brick wall.”
The knight, Jared guessed, shouted out a command and with it Jared realised he could now see and hear everything on the far side of the swirl clearly.
“Stand ready, It's going to pop any second” and with that the knight pulled the swords from his back, discarded one and the straps behind him and drew the shorter one.He banged the short sword against his shield, a roar and clanging of spears on the ground drew Jared’s attention to the men behind the Knight. Jared could now see there were about 10 men there standing behind a fence made out of chopped logs, each one dressed more or less like the pointing man.
It looked like a scene out of a fantasy holocaust, everything so real and detailed. That was a relief anyway; it looks like Aerach hadn’t gone for any stylistic, animated or retro approach to character and world design. In fact it looked incredible, the most realistic he had ever seen. With that thought the swirl started to grow and the whole scene started moving towards Jared. The pointing man gestured again and moved a little behind to the left of the knight. The knight set his stance with one foot behind the other and his shield ready in front.
It felt like they were rushing at him, Jared desperately looked to his left and right, seeing the green room being swallowed by the swirl, the scene in front grew even closer and a rushing noise filled his ears, like he was sky-diving. All he could hear was air rushing past him. The world shook and Jared stumbled. The room flashed through purple, blue and green and something grabbed Jared around his navel and jerked. Jared stumbled a step as he didn’t go flying across the room, merely losing his balance a little. The noise was gone and in its place came a tense silence with only sounds of movement and the creaking of leather filling it. Sunlight pierced his eyes as he looked around wearily, squinting in the direction he thought all the men should be.
“It's a man, human sir!” a voice volunteered somewhere to his left. Turning to look, Jared once again found himself looking straight at the Knight and the men arrayed behind him.
“Huh’ the knight responded, he seemed to relax a little bit, but didn’t let his shield down. “You there!” the Knight gestured vaguely “ Can you understand me?”
Realising the question was directed at him Jared responded “Um, yes, I think so, um, I mean I can, yes.” There it was, Jared stood on Plymouth rock and those were his first words, fantastic.
“Good, well who are you then and what are your intentions towards the free city state of Aleria.”
“I’m Jared, a new player, um, I come in peace, I guess.”
The Knight looked at him incredulously, “You guess you come in peace? Look here, declare your intentions or I will cut you down on the spot!” That did not sound like a good start. Jared cleared his throat.
“Uh, I mean no harm to you or the free city place you mentioned, I’ve just arrived.” Excellent Jared, another entry for the books right there. The Knight didn’t look that much happier but he did sheathe his sword and open his stance a little.
“Well you're the fifth human to arrive here in two weeks and none have attacked us, but we have to be sure, everyday Goblins and Orcs are launching attacks through that damned portal and we still have no idea where they are coming from or how the portal got here. Where have you come from? Do you know who set up the portal?”
Jared gave that one a little bit of thought before shrugging “Well I’m from Earth, the real world and I don't know about Goblins and Orcs and so on, I thought they couldn't appear here.”
“Another Earthling hey? Like the other four before you. Hmmm, I don’t know which world the Goblins are from but our mages say "It's not this Earth you are from.” He took a moment to think before suddenly barking. “Well don’t just stand there, another raid could pour through at any moment and we need to prepare.” And with that he turned his back and walked towards his men.
A strange sound drew Jared’s attention behind him, like a low deep fizzing noise. There was a deep blue glow hovering in the air about 10 feet behind him.
“Sir!” a voice called out “Portal is opening again.”
“Again?, already? Back to stations!” the Knights voice called out. Jared didn’t look, the sphere was pulsing between blue and purple and growing. It started to spin, throwing out little sparks in purple and blue and even a few in green. Jared watched it enthralled for a further 5 seconds before the Knight shouted out again.
“Move you damned idiot, that could be another raid party.”
That did get Jared’s attention and he moved further back towards the Knight and his men, still watching the portal. The portal suddenly seemed to heave , it jumped in size to about 10 feet in diameter and also jumped forward halfway to where Jared was slowly walking backwards. Out of shock Jared jumped backwards and bumped into the Knight who angrily pushed him aside. The portal contracted and expanded in flashes of no more than a second and was now painfully bright to look at. A final flash of purple bathed the entire area in light and with an abrupt roaring noise the portal disappeared and Noel was standing there. He stumbled around a bit for a second or two and just as the Knight moved forward Jared called out “Noel, that’s you right?”. There really wasn’t any doubt, just as Jared’s avatar looked just like him so too did Noel’s, just, maybe, Noel’s avatar looked even younger.
Noel looked around, clearly feeling some of the same confusion Jared had just gone through. “Jared?”
“Yup, I've just made it ..” Just as he was about to explain they were interrupted by the Knight.
“You know this person? Two of you at the same time?” his voice definitely carried right through their conversation.
“Yes, this is Noel, a friend of mine.”
“You! … Noel, do you harbour any ill will towards the free city state of Aleria?”
“What? What’s he talking about Jared? Free state?”
“He just wants you to declare you’re not going to attack him or his city.”
“Oh, right, well, yes, I guess we shouldn’t start all this out by attacking a city, maybe leave that till later eh?” Noel smiled at this, he was clearly more in his comfort zone than Jared was.
Just then a look came over Noel’s face, some disbelief, some relief and what was clearly Joy. “It worked, Jared! It worked! Look, LOOK AT ME! Full control, no pain, I’m speaking clearly, It's amazing!” and with that he grabbed Jared by the shoulders and started jumping up and down, dancing in a circle with Jared in the centre. Jared smiled hesitantly but with it came the realisation that Noel was right, here he was dancing around in a Circle and there was no pain in his hip, no ache in his left knee. He felt strong, he felt fully rested in fact more than that he felt, physically, like a young man again and not just his 48 year old self, no, much more like 30 or 25. Jared joined in the dance a little more enthusiastically jumping up and down with Noel, like kids at a nightclub when a rock song came on. He couldn't help but laughing in pure joy, not just for how he felt but also for the expression on Noel’s face - that relief, that joy and that sheer disbelief that it had actually worked as promised.
“Ok, you two! Great, I’m delighted you're so happy to be here but once again you’re in the damned way of my men defending this God’s forsaken portal!” The knight hadn’t started out softly and by the end he was absolutely shouting. “And What in the hells did he mean when he said he’ll leave attacking the city till later?” That last finally brought the dancing to a halt.
“Nothing, he was just joking, we aren’t going to attack the city. Right Noel?” Jared gestured towards the Knight, trying to indicate, subtly, that Noel should take in the size and generally armed and armoured quality of the guy, especially considering they were both unarmed and wearing basic clothes. Noel, still smiling and seemingly unconcerned, responded directly to the knight “No, don’t worry my man, we’re more of a bad guy killing team than a city attacking team, in fact maybe we can help you? Surely there is some quest or something you want us to help with?”
The knight looked them over once again, seeming to focus more intensely on each of them. The noise he made in response could only be a complete dismissal, not even involving words. “Pssssh, look, Noel? Right? I appreciate your enthusiasm but you don’t even have basic weapon skills, never mind an actual weapon. What I actually need you to do is move off the road there and get out of the way of our Portal defence. The village of Sandyford is an hour or so up the road there, I’m sure you can find some work there which might actually help us. Of course you can always try your luck in the wilds.” he gestured vaguely behind and to the left of the road where after 200 feet or so there was a pretty dense forest. “Either way, and final warning. GET OFF THE DAMNED ROAD.”
Noel smiled at that and slapped Jared on the back as they walked a little bit to one side of the road, Jared opened his mouth to suggest going to the Village the knight had mentioned when:
“Sir, Portal!”
“Again?!?”
They both whipped around and sure enough in the middle of the road that blue and purple glow was back. There was one difference though, where initially the portal had flashes of blue and purple throughout, now there was a dark red heart to the portal. The red heart pulsed, alternating between a deep dark maroon and a brighter pure red colour.
“RED PORTAL!” Screamed the guardsman.