He and another guard pulled open the large double doors to allow us entrance, and we stepped inside. Stone walls closed around us, with rudimentary chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, suspended by a chain attached to winches along the wall. It was an interesting touch, and I diverted to test the winches. They worked, lowering one of the chandeliers to where I could examine it more closely. They were clearly weighty ones, made of some sort of wood, but the wood itself didn't burn, lined on the inside with either bronze or copper, I wasn't precisely sure of the difference in look off the cuff, and the flame was being produced from some sort of oily mixture I also couldn't identify readily. Hm... there were ways to learn these things, but it was a matter of getting the time, time I didn't really have right now. I put the chandelier back, and returned to the group where Chrysta was shaking her head, "This is gonna be the flowerpots thing all over again from XIV, isn't it?"

Khargol and Temur both laughed as I stood there, "Come on, those flower pots were like... the most beautiful flower pots ever made in a game!"

Temur snickered a bit, "Yeah, and was it worth catching the servers on fire for them?"

"Hey, SqueEnix fixed it, right? ARR was awesome, and we got those Legacy Chocobos!"

Khargol stepped forward, "That it was... and that's still no excuse for constantly stopping to check out every detail of the changes to the Black Shroud. Now come on, let's go enlist in the foreign military of a death game."

There were chuckles all around, and it was a good sign for the moment. The quicker we could get everyone back to acting normally and making jokes, the better it was psychologically speaking. I didn't exactly feel like laughing, but it was still important to do it. I went first up at the desk, where the Yeoman was sitting behind it, a rugged-looking human woman who'd be given the look of a veteran soldier, "Alright, new recruits I see? Are you registering separately, or as a unit?"

I blinked. Interesting. In most MMOs, we would've all had to register individually but could do so at the same instance. In Valoria, we were being asked for the options, "What's the difference between registering individually versus registering as a unit?"

Yeoman Granger sighed a bit, "If you register as an individual, you get general barracks, but your accomplishments are your own. Register as a unit, and you'll be given squad barracks, with your accomplishments being for the unit. You can register up to eight per unit."

Shelera broke in, "Do unit rooms have locks?"

"Yes. Each member of the unit will get a special key for the barracks room."

Hmm... I knew what I wanted, but I didn't want to just run roughshod over folks, "Give us a moment, okay?"

I turned to face the assembly, raising my voice to make certain everyone hear me properly, "In case you didn't hear, we can enlist as solos or as units. I'd prefer doing units, since it means our points go into a pool, letting us gain in rank as a group, so those who're having trouble can get a leg up. You should also note, being solo means general barracks, and I'm not sure what sort of protection that has to it. Units get a special group room with a lock and key.

"I'm not forcing anyone either way, but I'm in favor of staying in groups of eight. Anyone want off this ride?"

I gave it a moment, but by the looks in their eyes, I was pretty sure we were staying grouped, "Okay, whoever's sticking with units, step up to your respective party leader. That's me, Temur, Khargol, or Layala."

Everyone broke up into units, parties got assigned, and sure enough, we were all staying grouped. I turned back to the Yeoman, "We're registering as a unit."

She nodded, "Fill out the logbook. Names, unit name, and then each of you need to sign."

I nodded and began filling out the form, looking to my upper left with my eyes to check the names on the party list, and make sure I had everything. The HUD for the system was pretty minimalistic, and with the exception of HP, it stayed translucent to give us as much field of vision as possible while still giving us the necessary information. When you needed something more specific, you just needed to move your eyes to the specific area, and the icons became more solid in your vision, with only HP bars being opaque constantly. There were a lot of little quality-of-life things like that.

When it came to name, I kept it simple, naming us the Farrelston Irregulars which was one step shy of just naming us "City Militia". It wasn't a guild name, just our unit name for the militia, so it didn't need to be too out there. My group signed and stepped away as Temur's party took our place at the desk.

Temur named his Temurian Batallion... he desperately loved that name. I'm pretty sure he was just thrilled about the fact that no one who spoke to him even knew his RL name. They all had to call him by his persona. Finally, up came Khargol, excited to get started, and went with Warband of the Wolf. Never a half-measure with him, I'll give him that. With everyone signed off, we got directed to go through a door to the Yeoman's right, and I was starting to notice something... something I hadn't paid as much attention to previously- Her voice was pretty fluid for AI. Generally speaking, you could pretty much tell an AI voice against a human one just by how it rattled off its sentences.

When we'd started out, and in the videos I had seen, the AI voices of the game had been a bit stilted, even this morning as we were learning what had happened. They just rattled off their prepared dialogue, and essentially responded to what you said. It might be worth checking out if the adaptive AI was also altering how the NPCs spoke, since it might have relevance later on. For now, however, we were engaged in getting our militia careers going.

The next room was the Quartmaster's office. This room had us receiving our militia gear, which for now just consisted of a militia tabard, the crest of the purple dragon emblazoned on the chest, along with a basic off-white tunic, a pair of boots, basic brown breeches, belt, tricorn hat, and a small boatswain's whistle that hung as a pendant. Later gear would be cooler looking and more job-specific, but for now, it gave us something to start with. While we could technically actually don the uniform, we all opted to equip it through menu, being ultimately faster than a physical changing of clothes, and not requiring us to disrobe in a room full of near-total strangers.

While everyone else took a moment to look at themselves in uniform, I kept my inventory open, drifting over the pieces to read my tooltips, the text seeming to write itself in script on the page in a way that made it clear. The Militia tabard was the most important piece, putting us in 'on-duty' status for the militia and giving us several things. First was our Detain ability, allowing us to legally arrest, either taking in NPCs who flagged as criminals, or even Players who committed breaches of City Laws. Next was a small passive intimidation and city reputation buff to represent our office.

The breeches looked to be something at least akin to cowhide, light armor that gave a minuscule degree of protection. Normally, I don't think any gamer would be attached to such a small boost to protection, but that viewpoint changes greatly when you can legitimately die. One point of remaining health is one point of remaining health. Most of us already had some degree of at least light armoring. Hunters started with a hooded leather surcoat that fastened automatically when I put the tabard on. The boots as well gave a small bit of protection and the march step ability, syncing your walking pace with other wearers of the boots, allowing groups to stay at a steady pace over time. The whistle had three functions and three charges, the first one flagging criminals for one charge, for two charges local area NPCs would vacate the streets or room if possible, and three would summon a group of four NPC militiamen. The charges were off-global cooldown, coming back at a slow rate, so using them wouldn't get in the way of using combat abilities but might leave you in a tight spot if you blew through them too quickly. The hat, belt, and tunic weren't really anything other than a piece of decoration save for a common trait all of the pieces had: The Set Bonus.

Set Bonuses exist in a lot of RPGs, rewarding players for collecting and utilizing multiple or all the pieces of the particular set of gear they are attached to. In this case, wearing any three parts of the militia gear gave the wearer a 1% boost to militia reputation gain, needed for militia advancement, while wearing five pieces brought the boost to 5% and 10% for the full set. From what I was seeing, we were still missing a few elements: The cloak, militia weapon, and the ring slot, leaving us with a 5% gain until we could attain the full bonus.

Everyone seemed to be done preening for one another and looked distinctly more military now, so we were ready for the next point, getting to see our accommodations. I clapped twice above my head to get attention, "Alright, you all look great. Now, let's get ourselves settled in, take some time for ourselves, and in the morning we'll go ahead and get started on our militia duties."

From there, we followed the hallway around and came to a series of doors, one of which I saw had a lock and latch that bore a silver glow around them, marking which unit barracks we were each assigned to. Stepping up, I used the key and stepped into what would be our new home for a time. The room itself was, like the rest of the barracks, primarily made of stone with wooden support beams. Closest to the door was a thin barred window, with another on the opposite wall at the far end of the room, allowing for a cross-breeze. Both windows had internal shutters that could be closed to ward off chill. Seven bunks stuck out from the walls, each with its own footlocker and nightstand, complete with a hurricane lamp and basic bedding folded up at the end. Down the center, a purple rug formed a line down the middle, with two chandeliers like the ones in the main hall hanging to provide more lighting.

The end of the room was built around a large fireplace that had an armchair to either side and two small tables along either wall, as well as a Valorian banner above the mantle. Along the far wall, to either side of the fireplace were doors, single doors. I strode through the barracks room, and opened the one to the left, revealing a small office. It had a simple wooden desk, one chair behind the desk, and two chairs in front of it. Behind the desk were a couple of bookshelves that had various tomes on them, most being empty logbooks that could be filled in by the unity commander, with others on Valorian military codes, day-to-day operations, as well as Valorian military history. A small corner fireplace was located right where the main fireplace would be on the other side of the wall, and another door opened into what would be my bedroom. The accommodations for unit commanders were a bit better than the rest. The bed was a bit bigger, as was the footlocker. Another corner fireplace lined up with the fireplace in the main hall, and I also got a small writing desk with some personal books. I also got slightly better-looking bedding and space for things, as well as a high-backed armchair, which I plopped down into.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I was by myself for the first time, given a moment to just be Luke, an account and gamer. I'd kept pushing the freak out down the road, but it was finally time. I sat, shaking and crying for a time. I couldn't let them all see how scared I really was. Live or die, I was now responsible for all their lives in a very real way. I'd gotten this far on holding it together, half-baked guesses, and other distractions, but the whole thing was just too big, "We could really die here."

I could've kept it silent, but saying it aloud felt better, nailing in the confirmation. I leaned back in my seat and stared generally upward, "Fuck."

Outside my room, I could hear others similarly feeling it all fully landing. We were trapped in this virtual world with no idea how to get home, and we all were aware that we could easily die here. I needed to get my thoughts out, but at the same time, I couldn't just go doomsaying to the group. Morale was fragile here, and no one was ready to hear it yet, so I did the next best thing I could think of: I went to my new writing desk and pulled out the first of the blank books. I grabbed a quill pen, and began writing,

"Revelsday, 23rd day of Lugin 837AC (Saturday, May 23rd)

I... God, I don't even know what to write here, but I suppose this is as good a start as any. My hope is that, even if I die here, someone will eventually find this log. We began this game roughly a day ago, and I don't know if we'll survive...

Okay, let's start from the beginning. My real name is Luke, and my avatar name is Lugh and I am now Unit Commander for the Valorian Irregulars. It wasn't horribly original, but I happened to like it. Like others, I entered this game on the launch weekend. As far as I can tell, things were essentially 'normal' when we started. The game did what games do, but that changed somewhere in. We have no access to settings, we can't log out, and there's no way to contact the outside world. The whole thing is absolutely terrifying.

I've banded together with others, choosing the path of a militiaman, at least for now. It's safer, we can group together, but I'm not sure where we go past that. There are so many unanswered questions. How did this happen? Was it an accident? Why has the game's clock become the same as real life? There are so many, and they're all banging around in my head, and each leads to more questions.

I'm terrified, but I'm leading a party. I can't let them see me be scared. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of people all having the same moment of panic, and while I don't profess to be a some grand scholar, a mass of panicking people is never a good thing. I'm hoping that in working as militia, we can help rein in the worst tendencies of folks, and get people working the problems in front of us, and they are legion. The game does require you to eat, so we need regular food for not only ourselves, but everyone on the server.

I keep focusing on the problems, on the others, pretty much on anything other than my own feelings, because it's easier. This whole thing could end in moments. If the server crashes, if we get taken offline, so many ways that we could all die at any moment. If the time increments are the same between here and Earth, then we're definitely trapped. My sister would have stopped by by this point and taken me out of the rig if she was able to. So what's happening on the outside? Are we all still laying wherever we were? Or did some authority move us to a hospital for longer term care? And how long until it no longer matters if we survive the game or not?

I don't have answers for anything... and frankly, most of the answers don't truly matter at the end of the day. Right now, the object is survival. -Lugh, Unit Commander Valorian Irregulars"

I felt a bit steadier having gotten at least some of my feelings out, but the counterbalance to that was the sounds of others breaking down in the main room. I closed up the journal for the time being, placed it back on the shelf, put my game face on, and went out into the hall. People were split between people crying, and people trying to comfort them. Up until now, everyone was too busy moving to really feel the weight of it all, and now, they had stopped. I let it go for a few minutes because everyone needed their moment before calling out, "Troops! I know it's been a hell of a day, and we're all feeling raw right now. It's good to get it out, take some time for yourselves to process things, but know this: We're going to find a way to survive, we'll find a way to beat this thing, and our best chance is to stay together. I'm going to meet up with the other leaders, and work out our next move. For now, go to the mess hall, get food in you, and take some time. In the morning, we'll start the work. Dismissed!"

I went outside and went to the other doors that I'd seen the parties go into. I knocked on the doors, and soon enough, I had my fellow party leaders in a group in the hall, "Alright. How's everyone settling in?"

Khargol answered first, "Mine are mostly settling in, but... yeah, it's rough in there."

Temur seconded that thought, "It's finally starting to catch on that we're really trapped in here."

Layala, similarly, picked up the sentiment being expressed, "It was one thing this morning. A lot of folks probably figured it was some sort of temporary bug, that we'd be out of here by now. I checked, and the settings are still all locked."

"Okay... Not sure about the rest of you, but I'm looking for whatever passes for a drink in these parts. Anyone coming along?" I motioned my head out of the barracks as I spoke.

The mention of drinking had all three of the other unit commanders in agreement, so we dipped out as group. We found ourselves at a nearby tavern, Soldier's Rest, that was just a block over from the barracks. It had clearly been themed after serving the militia and army types. We grabbed a seat by the fire, and ordered up a round of drinks, as well as bread, mustard, meat, and cheese. For a bit, we all just sat there looking around the tavern, unable to really get the conversation started. Even Khargol was abnormally silent for someone who rarely had a thought he didn't immediately verbalize.

This tavern was more leaned in the direction of serving the military, with a central bar, rather than one off to the side like in The Broken Wheel. Purple dragon banners hung about the place, and a number of the NPC patrons were wearing the tabards. The upside was that militia members got a discount here. We got served our order before Temur broke the silence, "I do not know about the rest of you, but I look forward to finishing up our militia business as quickly as possible. I want to get clear of the city as soon as we can."

Layala was taken aback immediately, "Are you kidding? This is where we're safest. Why leave?"

Khargol shook his head, "I get both sides of it. I mean, yeah, the city's safe but I kinda wanna go out and see what else is out there."

Temur shook his head, "It's not that. The city's only safe right now cause people haven't really accepted that their old lives are gone for the foreseeable future. As soon as the players realize they aren't getting out of here, it's gonna go bad fast."

The thought was sobering. Some had already left the city, their inner instinct telling them to rush through, to move up as fast as possible. More would head out as they thought it out, but for most people, they'd take Layala's stance, "Yeah... we can probably wrangle up some more people for militia and fill out the ranks. That'll give us a player police force and hopefully take off the worst of it, but there's a bigger issue. There's really only so much coin you can make from quests in the city, and once those are done, people don't have a way to make income outside of dailies. That means people sleeping in the streets, and things start getting bad. If someone doesn't step up and get people moving, we're all going to be in for a rough run."

Khargol took a giant pull of ale, spilling some of it around his orcish tusks, and slammed down the mug, "Then let's get 'em moving!"

Temur and I share a sardonic laugh, while Layala sighed, no humor in her tone as she spoke, "I'm glad you're all having so much fun with this."

I coughed a little, "It's not that we're not taking this seriously but at the same time? Come on, this whole thing is insane. We woke up today to find out that Tron is real for some reason. Okay, let's work things out. Khargol, much as I love the attitude, I don't think it'll work right now. Anyone who was gonna rush off on the road to adventure pretty much already booked it, so whoever's still in the city by this point isn't likely to jump to just because you rolled up all excited. I'd suggest starting with ideas on how we progress from here. I know I said to learn all the jobs, but we can't learn them all at once."

We got into the discussion. The first thing was to tackle the party layouts, which was really the simplest part. With eight-person parties, the safest build for the group was two Tanks, two Supports, and four DPS split between ranged and melee for each eight-man. The hitch was that we'd pretty much been picking people up at random, so we didn't have that perfect balance yet, not until we could unlock the job change. In order to do that, we would need to build up until we could graduate from our starting jobs. For right now, we were DPS heavy, and it was easy to understand why. Heck, I was ranged DPS. The number of folks operating on the baseline of 'Damage numbers go brrr' was pretty stacked, and generally was in most MMOs. DPS guys got to throw a lot of damage around which is just fun. In second place were the Tanks, because you still got to get up in there. The last of the three to be chosen was Support, cause let's be honest, in most MMOs they're sitting kind of at the back, and have to concentrate on switching between DPS and support stuff like healing, buffs, and debuffs. People chose based on what was fun and looked 'cool'.

That equation, however, was changing now that we were in a death game. A lot of people wouldn't want to frontline for the obvious reason that getting wailed on was a good way to die. Yeah being a tank gave you more ability to withstand damage, but it pre-supposed that you would still be the guy standing out at the front pulling all the enemies down on top of you. By the same token, melee DPS players would be looking to switch out to ranged or support jobs, really just anything that let them hang back. They were still needed, though, both to help peel mobs off the tanks and help protect the backline. Melee DPS also tended to have the highest single-mob damage, whereas ranged DPS was more centered on Area of Effect damage, so melee DPS equaled 'Screw this guy in particular', while ranged was 'To whom it may concern'.

We moved players around between units, evening out our balance, and then... we just sort of sat there. As long as we had things to discuss, the conversation was quick, but removed from the 'solve how to not die' stuff, we were all sitting on a lot. Layala finally broke the silence, "Has anyone else noticed the food is kind of bland?"

"Yes!", We all responded.

Given a moment to think about it, there was an obvious explanation, "We're in the low-end tavern of the starter town, so my guess would be that if we want to eat better, we either need to go to more upscale places or start working on cooking skills, cause I do remember some of the testers talking about later food being pretty good."

From there, we did talk about some stuff that was pretty cool, and that gave me a moment for a question, "Did anyone notice the NPC dialogue? Not so much the words themselves, but how it comes together. I was noticing it earlier, that Yeoman Granger's speech felt more fluid, like real speech, instead of the AI voices we've gotten used to. Still some ticks, but definitely better."

Temur nodded, "Yeah, actually. The original dialogues I was hearing had the usual slight stilt between words, but it's lessening now. Still kinda there, though. You think it's the AI improving?"

I nodded, "Yeah, but that might have more implications for the game. If this is just the starting city, then why bother crafting the sort of AI learning that would have that as a function?"

Khargol rolled his eyes, and motioned to Layala to join him up by the bar as Temur and I descended into a rabbit hole about AI learning. It was not his first rodeo with us. Where Khargol and I were old college buddies, Temur and I shared our nerd heart. We got really into these sorts of talks, and rapidly left the rest of the group in the dust. Our Discord group even had a corner for us that the others would move us into when we got going. All in all, we had a nice evening, then returned to the barracks as everyone else was getting ready to turn in. Doing a quick headcount however, we were short one, "Hey, anyone know where Chrysta is?"