“The entire world held its breath as the clock ticked down towards the opening of New Era of Man Online. Over 50 million people were slated to be a part of the launch with hundreds of thousands more joining the frenzy every day afterwards. Friends and family gathered to experience it. Governments and companies organized groups to explore it. Many religious groups around the world protested it. The launch of the game marked a watershed moment in history.”
From “A True New Era” by Carsyn Hayes
Eleven Subjective Hours until the launch of NEMO
The door to the room opened and Torgon stepped through. He found himself in a clearing of packed earth surrounded by rough wooden cottages. The center of the clearing was dominated by a stone arch roughly a dozen feet wide and twenty feet high. His quest indicator flashed at him.
“You have received a Quest! Basic Quest: Hierarchy of Needs 1. Requirements: Upgrade your personal residence. This quest is mandatory and will remain until completed. It cannot be failed. Reward: Basic Personal Residence and 10 Experience Points. This quest is part of a chain and must be completed to unlock further quests in the chain.”
“System, what are the requirements for upgrading my personal residence?” Torgon asked.
The list of needed resources flashed into his mind. “Basic Personal Residence requirements: 10 units of wood and 10 units of stone. Any quality of wood or stone is sufficient to meet the requirements.”
He carefully observed his surroundings once more and noted that it was divided into distinct biomes. A large forest of mixed trees filled the space to the north. The western side of the space contained a quarry and what appeared to be mineshafts. The east had areas for grazing and empty fields. A beautiful blue lake reflecting a soft sun filled the south.
Abruptly, several people appeared. He waved his hand in greeting and looked at the shining blue nameplates over their heads. It was the core team of experienced players that had signed on to the mission to help guide and train the guild. Torgon eyed each of them speculatively before speaking, “We’re all here. I’m sure most of you know each other, at least by reputation or the briefing materials that were apparently downloaded into our brains during acclimation, but we should at least formally introduce ourselves.” The people quickly formed a circle before Torgon continued, “I’m Torgon. I have a couple of dozen years of experience in virtual reality gaming and a few more years in the older style games. My heyday happened several years before most of you rose to prominence, but I was an independent guild leader and strategist. I am going to handle logistics, crafting and making sure we can produce, purchase, swap or steal necessary supplies as well as being overall guild lead.”
A tall raven-haired woman to Torgon’s right went next, “I am Hyperia, or the Fateweaver as so many vidcasters like to call me. I’ll be overseeing analytics and planning. I’ve been a professional VR adventurer for almost a decade, and I was considered one of the top twenty or so until I lost my sponsorships after my little incident.” There was some chuckling from the others in the group, “I’m glad to be back playing in a professional capacity, and I will do whatever I can to make sure we excel.”
“I’m Ovarrix, my nickname on the casts was the General.” A short and wiry sandy-haired man spoke. His slender frame emphasized compact and efficient movements. “I’ll be leading our large raid teams. I spent a few years on the professional VR raiding circuit before I had creative differences with the son of one my old team’s backers.”
A lean man with long dark brown hair who looked like he should have elf ears spoke up, “I’m Allestor. I picked up the name, The Champion, on the independent VR arena circuit. I’ll be heading up pvp skirmishing. I’ll also be working a lot with our main scouting and exploration groups.”
Everyone turned to the last person in the circle. Brown hair framed a woman’s face dominated by glasses. She gave off the impression of a slightly frazzled librarian. “Hi everybody! I’m Dusty Tomes and I will be heading up our research department. I can’t wait to dig into the lore of the world and find all the secrets.”
Torgon motioned to another group near them, “Those five over there will be our primary scouts. I know them from some past games and they’re reliable and dangerous, except for Steve, he’s just dangerous. There’s Mark X, that’s ten not X, Steve, Ashford, Frare and Physical Ed. They’ve volunteered to do the extra risky exploration at the start and then train others to take over so they can move into their specialities.”
While they spoke, people began appearing in ever increasing numbers. Dozens of children stepped through doors and into their new home. A golden retriever with the nameplate Barkolemew and a large gray tabby cat with white feet named Sir Boots appeared from doorways behind Torgon. The dog started running around with excited children while the cat climbed up Torgon to perch on his shoulder. A few more assorted pets appeared and sped around the base, exploring and displaying an unusual level of comfort with the strange people and animals present.
The children selected for the project ranged from eight years old to thirteen years old. There were a dozen kids in each year group with several adult teachers and assistants per year. Assorted other staff and family members swelled the numbers to over a hundred and fifty people.
“Gather ‘round everyone. We’re going to have a quick talk then we’ll all spread out and prepare for the launch.” Torgon motioned everyone to circle around him in the middle of the zone. “We’re all going to be here a long time, and we’ll need to work together. Before we get started though, I just want to hear a few goals or wishes.”
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Shouts rang out, mostly from the younger children. “Unicorns! Castles! Magic! Giant Robots! No School!”
“Nearly everything will be possible here, except for the no school.” Groans could be heard from some of the kids. “There will be excitement, danger, hard work and most importantly, lots of fun. When the game opens, the adults and those who are 12 and up will be allowed to take the portal into town. If you’re younger than that you’ll have to stay here for the time being while we check on how much risk of injury there is. For us, this is the real world now, not just a game. We’re living here. Now, before we break off to start working on our first quests, can we have some guild name suggestions?”
Excited kids shouted again. “Team Unicorns! Ultra Mega Strike Force! The Ice Cream Guild!”
One of the grumbling kids caught his attention and made him smile. “You know, I get that you’re complaining about having to wait to explore the town when the game starts, but I think you have a good idea for the guild name. We’re going to go with Risk of Injury.” The guild tag populated underneath everyone’s name tags.
“We all have quests to upgrade our personal residences, and we can go ahead and jump on the progression train. Let’s get started gathering. We’ll split into two groups, Team Wood and Team Stone. We can upgrade houses while we wait for nodes to respawn. We should have enough people per team that we can get it all done and still explore the guild base. Our base starts with two of each type of node per rank 0 house and another two hundred of each for a rank 0 guild base so we have about five hundred total nodes of each type available out there. Once we have houses done for everyone, we’ll see what the next part of the questline is and see how much time we have left before launch. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m excited to start expanding my house. I want everyone to wait on allocating their free experience and their spare attribute point. None of us are sure what we are going to focus on or enjoy the most so the flexibility will be nice. However, keep in mind that no plan survives contact with the enemy, so if you find yourself needing a boost, use it. You will always be able to earn more experience.”
The two groups formed and began the long process of harvesting the materials to build personal houses. Torgon took the gathering tool out and thought about shifting it into a pick. The material of the axe flowed like liquid and changed its form into a basic mining pick. He noticed that a bit more than half of the people had already started quarrying stone and willed the gathering tool in his hand to change back into an axe. It shifted smoothly in his hands, making a small lumbering axe with a single sided blade. Jogging over to the forest, he squared up on the tree and began chopping. The tree wasn’t very tall, less than 20 feet in height, but it had a diameter of almost a foot. Each swing took chunks of wood from where he hit the trunk. A progress bar indicated how much was left to finish chopping the tree down. All around him progress bars on the nodes gradually filled while gathering axes and picks swung in an increasingly steady rhythm.
Happy cries went up after ten minutes as the first set of nodes were harvested. Once the trees were felled or the stone quarried, it transformed into a block of material easily stored by touch. The nodes indicated a respawn time of an hour. After comparing notes, it seemed that each node gave one experience point to the crafting master skill and nine experience to the gathering skill. The gathering skill would take a thousand xp to hit level 2, the general craft skill would take ten thousand to level and it would take twenty thousand xp to raise a person’s character level to 2. The children were focused and excited. They were being allowed to do physical activity so long denied them with their conditions, and their actions had measurable progress.
Torgon and the rest of the leadership team started construction on the first set of houses after enough materials had been gathered. A wire framework indicated the placement of each block of material. When a unit of stone or wood was place, the material morphed to fill out the area of the house frame in about a minute. Each house took only ten minutes to upgrade. When they finished a set of notifications greeted them.
“Quest Completed! You have completed the basic quest Hierarchy of Needs 1. Your personal residence has been upgraded to Basic and now features 5 wood, 5 stone, 5 farming and 5 herbalism nodes. You have been awarded 10 free experience points. Your personal residence is part of a guild base, and the gathering nodes have been added to the guild nodes.”
“You have received a Quest! Common Quest: Hierarchy of Needs 2. Requirements: Upgrade your personal residence. This quest is mandatory and will remain until completed. It cannot be failed. Reward: Common Personal Residence and 100 Experience Points. This quest is part of a chain and must be completed to unlock further quests in the chain.”
“System, what are the requirements to construct a Common Personal Residence?”
“The constructions requirements for a Common Personal Residence are 10 Basic Wood, 10 Basic Stone, 5 Common Wood, 5 Common Stone and 5 Basic Core Units.”
None of them had any idea how long it would take to acquire common materials or core units, so they set that quest aside and continued working. The guild base bustled with activity. Children ran and played and worked and the caretakers and families worked and played alongside them. As the time for the world to open neared, all the residences were complete, and the parties were assembled to explore their new world. When the countdown finished notifications again filled Torgon’s view.
“You have received a Quest! Basic Guild Quest: Rise or Fall. Requirements: Advance your Guild Hall to Level Basic. This quest must be completed by Year 1, Month 1, Day 7 at 12:00 Hours. This quest is mandatory and cannot be refused, only failed. Time Remaining: 6+ Days. Rewards: Every guild member will receive 100 Free Experience and 10 Guild Contribution Points. The Guild will receive 2 Control Slots”
“You have received a Quest! Basic Guild Quest: Teach a Man to Fish. Requirements: Acquire 100 Basic Fishing Rods for your guild. These can be crafted, looted, purchased or traded for. Higher quality rods can be substituted for Basic Fishing Rods on a 1 to 1 basis. This quest must be completed by Year 1, Month 1, Day 13 at 12:00 Hours. This quest is mandatory and cannot be refused, only failed. Time Remaining: 12+ Days. Rewards: Every guild member will receive 100 Experience Points and 10 Guild Contribution Points. The Guild will receive 1,000 Guild Contribution Points, 1 Gold Coin and 1 Control Slot.”
“You have received a Quest! Basic Guild Quest: Knowledge is Power. Requirements: Construct a Library at your Guild Headquarters. This quest must be completed by Year 1, Month 2, Day 1 at 12:00 Hours. This quest is mandatory and cannot be refused, only failed. Time Remaining: 30+ Days. Rewards: Every guild member will receive 1,000 Free Experience and 100 Guild Contribution Points. The Guild will receive 10,000 Guild Contribution Points, 10 Gold Coins and a random Siege Crafting blueprint.”
The stone arch in the middle of the base blazed to life. It was filled with swirling blackness, creased by violet lightning. The portal was open.
“The World of New Era of Man Online welcomes careful travelers. Please enjoy your journey into the unknown.”
