“Payson Meyers, you are about to enter the world of Gaia with your pre-selected class of militia and profession of miner. Please note you are playing an altered version of Andalusian Dream, version 12.8B, which is not commercially available. Your species and racial options are limited to bipedal beings with a total of four controllable appendages. Flight through wings is unavailable as a racial trait.” The disembodied voice greeted Payton when she had been fully settled into her hibernation pod aboard the Resilience spacefaring ship on Titan Station.
“People actually do this crap for fun?” Payton asked out loud as the computer droned through its presentation.
“Miss, was that a question?” The voice responded like Payton had not expected it to do.
“Nope, nope. Let’s pick my character.” Payton shook her head.
“Excellent. With the 12.8B restrictions you are limited to three species. Ironblood species are noted for their red blood. Races within the Ironblood species include Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and Firbolgs. Firbolgs are unavailable for selection.”
“Copperblood species are noted for their distinct green blood. Races within the copperblood species include Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, and Hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are unavailable for selection.”
“Firbound species are noted for their additional outer covering such as fur or feathers. Races within the firbound species include Gnolls, Aarakocra, Naga, and Lagromorphs. This species experience sensory limitations and are not recommended for most players. Aarakocra and Naga are unavailable for selection.”
“I just want to be a human.” Payton did not want to deal with all of these complications. Sage was going to be in this game and so she was going to be in the game too.
“You have selected Human. As you selected you want to share a starting location with Sage Meyers, your starting location will be the village of Glossy in the Slank river valley. Close your eyes, count to one hundred, and you will awake in Glossy where your first task will be to secure the town.”
“The AI that named these places should be shot.” Payton mumbled as she closed her eyes.
“Miss, was that a question?”
“Nope, nope. I’m counting to a hundred now.” Payton started counting and she could feel the cold injections start. They had given her three I.V.’s and upgraded her neural chip with an external booster. As she counted, the feeling of the controls on the chair disappeared and she could no longer hear her breath echoing in her visor. She could no longer feel the chair and in time her lips stopped moving with her counting.
She felt herself lower gently into a soft bed and then she was through the mattress to the criss-crossed supports. She sat up and the ship was gone. She was in a simple hut, she could see all the walls from where she lay and the door. The walls were thick branches standing upright even though they didn’t fit together very well. A stone firepit had glowing embers in the middle of the hut.
As Payton took in the view, Sage appeared over the other bed. She had pointy ears and was slightly taller than normal.
“Is that sunlight? This air hasn’t been recycled four times today. And I can’t touch the ceiling.” Sage stood up and reached for the thatch roof and exposed beams.
“It isn’t air at all and you shouldn’t dig Martian tunnels much more than six feet tall.” Payton gave her sister a wink and got up from her bed.
“It has been so long since I could smell something other than sweat. Let’s go outside before the Pinch.” Sage straightened her simple shirt and brown pants, but then both sisters were interrupted.
Both felt a sharp pain at the back of their head that blurred their vision and made them grab whatever they could to stay upright. Then it was gone without as much as a touch of nausea or lingering ache.
“Whoa, that was quite the pinch. And that’s part of the process?” Payton stamped one foot just to feel the boot around it.
“That’s what they said, it’s the last connection to the system. We shouldn’t have anything like that again, from now on it’s just the game for 17 years. The rest of the village must be gathering by now, we need to secure the village.” Sage opened the door to their hut and walked into the sunlight.
Dirt paths connected the dozens of individual huts and larger buildings. Stone wells dotted the little village and in the middle of town hung a rusty, iron bell on a muddy platform. Trees and gardens stood close to the huts like good friends.
Even the sound of the breeze in the trees sounded like music after decades without it.
“Excuse me, please gather around.” A man stood on the platform and struck the bell, drawing everyone around him.
“Thank you. My name is Isaac and I was asked to be an interim leader of our village. I have played this game before and I don’t believe anyone else has. But we’ve got a lot of professional experience and we’re pretty safe in this valley for now. The idea is we have discovered a kingdom in ruins and we can rebuild it. In our huts, we should all have an instruction manual for our profession and class. Our first priorities are food and walls. I would like to meet with everyone who has a profession that can grow food. Everyone else should familiarize themselves with the village, but not leave it.”
“I wonder who asked him to be interim leader.” Payton said quietly to her sister as they walked away.
“It was probably someone in the exile government. The Prime Minister is probably leading things on whichever ship she ended up on.” Sage shrugged. The village, Glossy, sat in the west end of the Slank valley. Trees grew thick in the valley’s bottom and the sides were littered with boulders and tufts of grass.
“Excuse me, you’ll do my house next, right?” A voice interrupted Payton at work. Her instruction manual recommended filling the space between the branches of her hut with mud. There was no shortage of mud in the bend of the river and with only one wall mudded up the hut was much less drafty.
“Uh no, I think I might actually be at this for a few days to take care of our hut.” Payton turned to see a slightly balding man wringing his hands together behind her.
“Oh, well. Would it change if I could pay you? Once I get access to my account again, I can pay you in earth coins. Even several earth coins.” The man raised one finger for emphasis.
“No, I’m not sure earth coins are going to be worth anything. If you want your hut sealed up, you should do it yourself.” Payton took a handful of mud from her bucket and slapped it between branches.
“First that upstart tells me I should grub in the dirt because I’m a ‘gardener’ and now you want me to handle mud. Do you know who I am?” The man’s face went red and he went as far as to kick Payton’s bucket of mud.
“You’re the guy with a muddy shirt.” Payton flicked the rest of her handful of mud at him. It painted a streak of muddy dots across the linen.
“You are going to be whipped for this! I am a senior shareholder. You’re going to mud my house or I will cut your water rations.” The very angry man shouted with his fists clenched.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“There aren’t any water rations and we don’t whip people. So go back to your house before we have problems.” Payton adjusted her grip on the bucket’s rope handle and got ready to hit this man with the bucket if it came to it.
“Peasant.” The man spit on the ground and ineffectually tried to clean his shirt as he walked away.
“Who was that?” Sage came out of the hut in time to see the angry man start yelling at the next person he met.
“Our neighbor. Earth Co share holder. I’m going to break his nose at some point.” Payton applied another handful of mud to the wall.
“That’s nice. You might have to get in line, I think he’s a people person.” Sage said with a smirk. “I need your help with my first class quest.”
“What is your class anyway?” Payton smoothed out the mud and wiped her hands on the walls to pretend they were clean now.
“I’m a Clerk. With my experience, I should become a bard before the tutorial is over. What are you?”
“I’m a Militia, whatever that is. I’d like to finish this house. Are you sure you can’t do this alone?” Payton surveyed her work on the wall. The day was getting on and this second wall was not even a quarter of the way done.
“Yeah, it’s really dangerous out there.” Sage folded her arms nervously.
“If we die, just respawn? Is there a penalty for dying aside from loss of time?” Payton set down the bucket, she already knew she was going with Sage.
“I could die a dozen times without getting into this manor. It will be good for your profession, I’m sure you need metal tools to be a miner.”
“What’s in this place that you need so bad we have to go there on day one?” Payton started looking around for the traditional first weapon, a stick.
“The lord of the manor before this ice age was a patron of the arts. He had a famous quartet and a bunch of other musicians.” Sage explained.
“We’re in an ice age? Why wasn’t that explained? Are we going to freeze to death tonight?” Payton stopped looking for a stick and turned back to her sister.
“It’s the end of an ice age. The ice wall retreats further north every day. And Andalusian Dream is not a hand holding game. The manuals for these beginner classes are a stretch and we’re lucky to have someone experienced with this place. Not everything is intuitive.” Sage followed her sister and visibly relaxed her shoulders.
“When you say the world is dangerous, do you mean like that unsanctioned mining station or documentary on lions kind of dangerous?” Payton picked up a thick stick at the edge of the village.
“Some people described it as lions let loose on a space station. So our ability scores are reduced depending on how much damage we’ve taken. At half health, we’re only half as strong as normal. It’s worse if we get sick or poisoned, so be careful what water you drink.”
“Why is it always water?” Payton broke twigs off her branch and started looking around for wooly mammoths and sabertooth tigers.
They hiked out of the valley, through the trees, and into the foothills. Pine trees covered the hills all the way to the rim of the valley. Berry bushes and wild shrubs struggled for space and sunlight between the trees. When they crossed the boundary of what the game considered the village and wilderness, bars representing their health and stamina at the corner of their vision.
The carpet of pine needles shuddered when the twins got close and four, fat toads emerged from their hiding place. They were bright yellow and orange with disconcerting eyes.
“Those look poisonous, are those poisonous?” Payton backed into her sister who had a book out and was writing with a charcoal pencil.
“I don’t know. When they bite you, let me know how it hurts.” Sage pushed Payton forward gently, but not hard enough to move her.
“I know you didn’t like the mines, but pushing me on poisonous frogs is a little much.” Payton punched her sister in the arm and watched the toads hop closer. It was like watching bean bags with legs flop on the ground.
The nearest opened its meaty mouth and shot its tongue out. Hard knobs on the tongue scratched Payton’s arms as she tried to block the attack with her stick.
“That burns. That is clearly not good.” Payton hopped to one side as the next toad waddled within range of its tongue. Her arm began to go numb and the scratches still burned through the tingling. She brought her stick down on the first toad and then quickly on the second.
They deformed with a splat and the other toads hopped closer. Payton kicked one and then stomped on the other. She slipped and fell backwards away from the toads.
“Are you ok?” Sage closed her book and hurried to help her sister stand up.
“I’m fine, what were you doing while I was doing all the fighting?” Payton got up and picked up her stick. The end she’d used on the toads was steaming and slowly bleaching to a lighter shade.
“My manual said one of the first goals people work towards is a bestiary. So if I record details of the wildlife and landscape, I’ll gain experience and be able to sell my information to whoever compiles the whole work. Have you read any of your manual?” Sage asked.
“I was a real miner and I’ve gotten into lots of fights. I don’t need a book on how to do those things. But what do I do now that I’m poisoned?” Payton asked. The numbness was beginning to fade, but now the burning was getting worse.
“I don’t know. That would be an herbalist or cleric class. I don’t know if there is a potion maker profession. There is no way anyone in the village can cure it.” Sage shrugged.
“Will it just go away? Or are there healing potions I can take until it goes away?” Payton’s hand went slack and she dropped her stick.
“Uh, I don’t know. It was only a frog, it shouldn’t be fatal.” Sage frowned as her sister began to turn pale.
“They were toads and they certainly could be fatal. Do you know how many flies we’d attract for these things? Where is this manor anyway?” Payton picked up the stick with her other hand. Sage pointed into the forest and they hurried to get there before Payton succumbed to the spreading poison.
“If I die before I can tell you again, you’re the worst sister in virtual reality.” Payton growled as they came within sight of the manor. The ice wall crouched over the manor. Whatever had made the ice wall, it couldn’t come within a few yards of the manor and had made a dome-shaped hollow space in the ice over the manor. The ice had retreated enough that half the manor was free yet still rested in the ice’s shadow.
The wall itself marked an abrupt end to the forest and extended as far as anyone could see. The craggy face rose high in the air, high like a skyscraper from the history books. The manor had been the seat that ruled this area once, but the ice wall dominated even the trees and birds now.
“Do you see anything that wants to kill us yet?” Payton asked as they passed over the remnants of the manor’s stone walls.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I should have a stick too.” Sage couldn’t find a stick on the lawn beyond the wall and settled on a stone that was too big to fit in her palm. The courtyard was empty, but it didn’t want to stay empty. Outbuildings’ doors banged from the inside. The barn door shook with what must have been strong hands to make the hinges shake so.
“I don’t think those are toads, we should run.” Payton said and her sister agreed. She turned to run away from the manor, but saw her sister run for the main door. Sage dropped her rock and grabbed the latch with both hands. The latch moved, but the door jammed and refused to open.
Payton kicked the door hard and it slid open enough for the sisters to sneak in through the door. The banging could still be heard in the house and now they could hear beating on doors from inside the manor.
“Where would the instruments be?” Payton slammed the door shut and kicked a wedge back under the door.
“The sitting room. It shouldn’t be far from the entrance.” Sage looked down the hall in time to see a grey skinned arm break through a door down the hall. They went the other way and found an ornately carved set of double doors. The room on the other side made Payton feel like she should take off her shoes. It was definitely a room she would have wanted to climb on the couches and upset mom in the process.
“There!” Sage dashed across the room to several stands holding a string quartet’s instruments.
The sounds of doors breaking convinced Payton to close the double doors and desperately pull a chair to brace them shut. Her right hand was nearly useless, but the chair was so light that it didn’t give her left arm any trouble.
Gray arms burst through the door without trying to open it first and Payton staggered away. She swung at the arms as they widened their holes. Her stick connected, but the discolored end splintered without affecting the arms. Servants in fine livery pushed through the door with eager determination and immediately went for Payton.
Payton threw the stick and grabbed for anything to put between herself and these new attackers. She grabbed a lace shawl off the couch and then felt the chilly touch of their hands. She expected them to bite her, like zombies from movies before, but they breathed on her instead.
Their breath was strangely scentless and bitingly cold. The burning in her arm faded, but the cold grew worse until it suddenly stopped. The sight of the attackers froze and then faded to black. The pain stopped like someone had flipped a switch and Payton was disoriented by the sensation of floating in the air. Then her feet were touching the ground and wind moved her shirt again. The world turned white and then color slowly returned to her sight.
Congratulations, you are the first in your settlement to die. You bold soul, gain +10 to your health.
