Standing up out of the pod, I stretched out my stiff body. Took care of the necessary pre-bed bathroom activities and went and laid down. There was no way I was getting to sleep, brain was too wired from the experience.
“Ava, connect to group chat.” A floating screen appeared in front of me, and to my surprise most of my gaming friends were on it.
“Vax!” Jacobs' voice called out. “You are famous, Buddy!”
“I’m what?” I asked, confused.
“DionSphere shared an elevator ride with you, they caught some of your guided tour.” A link from Kendra popped up on the text channel as she spoke.
“You’re pretty,” said Peachy.
“You all in Landing now?” I asked, not wanting to explore being called pretty, as I clicked the link.
“Nah, us four are sleeping on the train from Deep Sea World to Landing. It’s a two hour trip. Fist’s still trying to farm the last of the rep he needs and we can’t help him with it. So we figured we would call it a night and pick up with him in the morning when he has caught up.” Jacobs said.
“We got the game’s ‘you’ve been playing too long, go get some sleep’ message.” Peachy chimed in.
The link opened up a video showing a player in mostly the starter gear, but a simple leather duster over the top. It looked like they were stood in the queue for the ride up the cliff.
“Well Viewers. This is it. We are finally going to be riding the lift up the cliff!” He turned and followed the crowd of people onto one of the elevator carriages. I realised the stream was another player acting as a camera for the talker “I’m really looking forward to seeing the city from above.”
Just as the last of the passengers boarded, a smart uniformed man and woman joined them.
The man stood about six feet, long hair loosely tied back with a ribbon. He was in leather trousers, tucked into leather boots, a loosely buttoned up white shirt with a simple green tie with the emblem of the Explorators on it. Over the top he wore a black leather trench coat, an armband over his left arm showing the same emblem as the tie.
“Such a cool look!” said the streamer to the camera.
The camera person’s eyes snapped to the woman, she was a head shorter than the man and a little skinny. She wore black knee high boots with a slight heel, tight fitting leather trousers and a white blouse sticking out of the full length black leather jacket. Her loosely tousled red hair covered by a black fedora, which cast the upper part of her face in shadow. Despite the slight difference between them, it was clearly a matching uniform appearance. It took me a moment to realise that was my avatar seen from the outside, I felt dread building, did I do something embarrassing?
“There are five slots reserved on each carriage for the use of officials. We didn’t bump anyone, and being last, we get the best place to see one of Landing’s sights.” The man said to the woman, before turning her towards the front of the carriage.
The Camera-player turned to look out over the city as the carriage rose up out of the building.
It panned over the whole of the city, much like I had done not that long ago.
“Wow…” the woman said, a sentiment echoed by other voices nearby.
“Spectacular, isn’t it. I’ve been here nearly fifteen years, and I’m still not tired of it.”
The view was interrupted by the underside of a building built out over the cliff. The carriage rose up into a room, and then levelled off and started moving across it. When the two had stepped off the platform, the Camera-player and the streamer quickly followed.
“I think she is a player!” the streamer said to the camera and they hastened to catch up
They came out into the plaza, there was a moment as the Camera looked at the fountain appreciatively. Checked out the hedges to the left and was then dragged by the streamer over to where Christoph was explaining about the Embassy road.
“Embassies, senior functionaries, what is left of the gentry,” he said. “It’s not quite as cramped for them as it is for everyone else down below, but it is a lot less than any of them are used to. Complaining about it is about all some of them do.” While this was happening, the Camera-player had accessed his HUD, and above the woman’s name it said [Ship Navigator] Aenara Ravenscroft.
He turned and pointed at a gate opposite the embassies’ road. The plaza stretched until passage was impeded by a series of white marble stone pillars, connected by inverted arches in the same stone. It was all topped by an immaculately manicured evergreen hedge of the darkest green. Two intimidating mages stood guard before the ornate black gate which was the only visible means of passage in that direction.
“The Sage’s Collegium had claimed it for their own when it was determined to have once been a centre for learning. The Mages guild emerged shortly after and has come to hold a majority position in their politics. Those of us not of the Art, tended to, shall we say step lightly, around those who could manipulate the elemental forces.” the camera panned to the gates for a moment. “I was always advised to just stay out of it. However since the arrival of their Majesties, it seems the politicking has gone into overdrive. The influx of new scholars, bringing with them their full libraries, senior scholars who came with an expectation of seniority…” he ran his hand through his hair.
“Oh?” she asked.
“It’s been described as a powder keg, with a lit fuse. I’d suggest not going in at all, but as a mage, I think you will have no choice. I urge you to be careful there.”
“It looks quite peaceful,” she said, her voice slightly whimsical.
“True, but then so does a fireball until it hits the target and…Boom!” his hands mimicking an explosion. “Ahead is the Royal Palace. Our destination.” He turned to look at the woman for a moment. “It will save us some hassle if you assign the Explorator Title,” he remarked. She looked to be doing something with her HUD, the title changed to say [Explorator].
The Streamer and his Camera followed them until the pair walked beyond a group of soldiers guarding one of the gates, who stopped them and directed them towards a different door for arrival registration.
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“Did you see her gear?” the streamer asked, a slight shake of the Camera. “Must have been one of the first to arrive. Already joined a faction and leveled enough to get gear. Jim, do you mind?” a second later an overlay filled the screen showing an inspection.
“She was wearing something called the Explorator Mage set. Set bonuses to mana generation, spell damage and a shield? It looks like each piece also gives bonuses to dodging, stamina, defensive bonuses…depending upon the piece. This is low level gear as well, but looks strong.”
“Would have been really useful in the dungeon.” quipped the camera player.
“Mage though…the front runners have all been claiming that magic is a bust? It’s too hard and does less damage…maybe you just need the right gear.” The overlay dropped away and it showed the Streamer in full focus.
“Well viewers? What do you think? Aenara someone to keep an eye out for?”
I closed the video as they turned and headed for a door on the outside of the bureaucracy building.
“Well…that’s embarrassing.” I said to the others.
“Nah.” said Voice. “It will be for those who have been loudly claiming magic is rubbish though when they see what you can do. It’s only kicking off because it’s the first look anyone has had of an Explorator set and it looks totally bad ass. A couple of the battle crazed types have unlocked the Warden shop, their sets have similar bonuses, but look more like Knights or Spartans.”
“Is the city as gorgeous as the stream looks?” Kenda asked
“Oh easily. But it is packed. I think a lot of the early game is about trying to clear out space and find resources. There is talk of rationing. Depending upon what you want to do, i’m guessing there are quests for clearing out the skyscrapers to make space for people to get them out of the warehouse slums. Others for hunting or fishing. Possibly some quests involving setting up farms for those wanting that sort of experience.”
“That matches up with what i’ve been seeing.” Darksider said. “The PVP nuts are all grumbling that there is barely anyone in the no-man-lands, and the bases keep changing hands without anyone fighting for them…”
“What do they expect?”Jacobs added dryly. “They’re all grouped up together and are zerging around in clumps…all of them expect someone else to do the defending so they can reap the glory of the conquest.”
BenchPress connected as I was about to log off, apparently he had faced the storm by helping to reef the aft-sail and had been thrown overboard when the Kraken crushed the hull. Getting a chance to sail was really exciting to him. We chatted for a while until exhaustion finally caught up with me and I logged out.
The next morning, I checked group chat as I ate breakfast. GoldenFist had reported his grind complete and that he was on the train at about two in the morning. The five of them were planning to meet up at 8:00 and said they would meet me at the plaza as soon as they could. In the meantime, my goal was to visit the Royal Palace and get our guild created. No one was entirely sure what it required all we knew was that you had to get authorisation from there.
I rolled out of the bunk, the room was a lot brighter at this time of day with the curtains open. There were a couple of female Explorators still crashed out, but for the most part the room was considerably less occupied than it had been the night before. I left the room.
“Orientation is just down the corridor.” A passing corporal informed me, indicating the way he was going.
I followed him into a room with sixteen chairs, laid out in pairs with a table, like a traditional classroom. There were 10 players already sat down, so I took a seat in the back row.
“Greetings!” Said the corporal, excitedly. “Welcome to the Explorators. This is the basic orientation class for Voyagers. I am Corporal Simian, most just call me Sims. Can I just confirm you are all here for the Basic Orientation?” He looked around at the room. “Excellent.”
“Let’s start with the basic rank structure. The Explorators are split into two arms, the Operational and the Field Agents. The Operational Arm are the staff who are all directly employed by the faction We are structured like a military organisation. At the bottom we have Privates who report to Corporals, who report to Sergeants, to Staff Sergeants, to Lieutenants, to Majors, to Commanders and everyone to the Admiral. We handle the day to day running of the faction, a lot of logistics and ensuring everything works.” he looked around the room confirming everyone looked like they were paying attention.
“The Field Agents are outside of the chain. They work to complete individual tasks as and when they desire and are then rewarded for the work they do. As Field agents you will be expected to complete a minimum amount of tasks each week, but how, when and where you choose to do that is up to you.” He leant back against the wall.
“Tasks might be things like Exploration, travel to an unknown location and you map it. Report back what you find and if it is unknown information you will be rewarded for it. You won’t get anything for a map of the plaza for example, but if you give us a map of one of the housing towers which has just been cleared before anyone else, that would be.” He paused for a moment.
“Or if you find something someone else missed in an explored place, that will also be rewarded. Be thorough, the more you cover the better your reward.” He wrote ‘Exploration’ on the board. “This is our bread and butter. We are the Explorators, our primary task is mapping the new world.” I nodded, this is the reason I was interested in the Explorator.
He next wrote ‘Retrieval.’ “In addition to general exploration rewards, we also reward the retrieval of rare resources. Depending upon city needs, these can be very worthwhile.”
“Like food?” one of the people near the front asked.
“Right now? Yes. While we’re not starving, anything which will allow us to raise the ration amounts would be rewarded. Not as much as helping some wardens clear a tower while mapping it, but it would be rewarded.”
He wrote ‘Investigation’ next. “The final category is Investigation. Digging into the past and finding out lost knowledge. We are pretty sure it was our ancestors who built this city, but…it’s unlike anything we had back home. How they did it? The technology they had to make it…lost to us. Anything which can help us restore that lost knowledge is rewarded. We have also been tasked with finding out what happened to them, anything which leads to those answers, also rewarded.” Something I was also really interested in finding out.
He finally wrote ‘Missions.’ “Up until now, everything I have listed you can just go off and do and report back to us. Missions are where we have detected a priority. Maybe someone has discovered a cave with some rare ore in it that is desperately needed. A mission might be offered to map the cave or mine some of the resources. There will then be a bonus reward added because the task is considered a priority, if it is particularly hard, or because someone has paid to have it expedited. Possibly even all of the above.”
“What are the rewards?” Another voice from the front asked. A good question I thought, he’d spoken of rewards, but not what they were.
“Money and Rep. Money goes without saying, I hope?” he checked the room, I think we all got it. “Rep is your reputation to our faction. It will give you greater access to the various missions, access to our knowledge, support from those of us in the Operational arm. It will also give you access to our faction store where you can get gear not available to civilians and access to the better crafters and discounted goods. This can be accessed once you have reached private. As you rise in rank it gets better.”
“Ok, let’s go to the mission desk and you can all get your first mission.” he led us out and into the main room with the map model.
“This is our map of the city region.” he explained pointing at it. “Blue flags mean fully explored. It’s possible something has been missed, but unlikely. Green’s have had maybe one or two reports. Amber flags, we only have a rough map, but have been cleared. Reds are partially explored. And the blacks are buildings no one has been in yet. If you are looking for a new place to go in the city, this is a good place to start. There is an upgrade on the store which will allow you to have a copy of this in your HUD." That sounds like a useful upgrade to have.
“Over here.” he indicated a series of crystal balls at the other end of the room. “Are the mission terminals. Put your hand on it, and your available missions will be displayed. Choose one, complete it. And then report to the front desk over there.” He pointed to a man waving on the other side of the room.
“I think that covers everything you need. Any questions, come see one of us.”
