8. Best Start, part 1

  After talking with my sister for a while about exactly what her plans for the game were, I came up with the plan to give her the ‘best start’ I could imagine for her. Fortunately, a lot of the groundwork was already done, as she and her friends agreed to start in one of the most explored and established starting zones in the fantasy side of EternalRealms . Apparently the only detractor from this decision was Rick, who would be their tank, because he wanted to focus on the sports Realms, but since they were all getting a discount for playing with Paula, he eventually fell into line.

  When I had started playing ten years ago (Real Time, not subjective), Wildedeer had been one of four starting zones. There were now twenty eight, but the first four remained the most popular for the simple reasons that new players knew what to expect. There were thousands of videos and guides on the local resources and NPCs and factions. While the twenty-four new zones were in various states of exploration by new players and veterans both, those seeking a guided experience generally opted for one of the oldest options.

  That it was where I had started was actually the deciding factor, though. Because Paula wanted to start the game like Luke had started. The real Luke, back when he was seven and Uncle Tommy was signing him up to be part of the experiments to see how DeepDive technology affected pediatric brains. Before anybody knew he was sick.

  I had been one of like twenty kids lucky enough to qualify and get parental permission and all of that. There was lots of nepotism involved, both because my parents owned like three percent stock in the parent company of Eternal Realms , Dreamtime.

  And because Uncle Tommy was one of the overproject supervisors. But nobody thought there would be any actual risk; DeepDive had been around for decades and adults had spent literal years inside virtual realities like EternalRealms . ER was just the best of the options, not the oldest or the only.

  And they were right, ER had nothing to do with my illness. That had been genetic, something that was destined to happen from the moment I was conceived. ER had only made Luke’s life, what he got of it, much better than what he would have gotten without it.

  I was limited to two hours of [1X] per day for the first month, but I was hooked in the first ten minutes. I kept bugging my uncle to let them crank up the settings, but they were worried about the effects it would have on me. Unfortunately, DeepDive did affect a developing mind differently than an adult one. Nobody knew exactly how , because the moment that had been determined, by which point I had been diagnosed, all research into the matter was cut off. Only special cases like mine were even considered. I was lucky, as was the real Luke, that banning me from playing the game I loved with the time I had left would have been terrible optics for any company or politician who valued public opinion.

  Once I had been approved to continue playing – legally it was considered an experimental form of palliative end-of-life care for a pediatric patient, which is why it was able to get around a lot of legal obstacles – I had managed to convince everyone to crank the settings up to the max, and before long I was playing [10X], all day, every day.

  I could do [30X] or higher now that my brain couldn’t fatigue, but I was limited by the servers themselves. The developers had put limitations on how many resources and how much bandwidth I was allowed to use, especially during peak hours. But it was still way higher than a biological player, which is why, even with only a week to prepare, I’d spent months of subjective time getting ready for my sister and her friends.

  And then the day came, and I couldn’t have been more excited.

  ~~~~~~~~~

  “Jorge, nice to see you. It’s been a while,” I said to the old NPC guard. He turned to me and, after a moment, grinned widely.

  “Why, if isn’t [Luke Benton]! I haven’t seen you in … oh, it’s been months for me. How long has it been for you?”

  “A few years,” I admitted. “I haven’t had much reason to come back to Wildedeer lately, I’ve been keeping busy elsewhere. But I have a few friends from another realm who will be making their first visit to this one today, and I thought I’d greet them in person. I’d be happy to take over your duty for the next few hours, if you don’t mind.”

  “Bah! If you weren’t a captain of the royal guard I’d have to tell you to go stuff yourself! Did you at least check with the local captain before popping up out of nowhere?” The greeter inquired.

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  “He knows about it,” I explained. “I’ve been trying to keep my presence in town on the down low, however, which may be why you weren’t informed. You can go check with him to make certain that--”

  “A royal captain wouldn’t lie about something like this, I know that,” he admitted as I passed the [Reputation Check]. “But are you certain you’d like to cover my duty for the day? There’s nine scheduled new arrivals, first time outside their birth Realm for all.”

  “Oh?” I scratched my beard – part of the disguise for my coming roleplay – “I only knew of my six friends. They’re being processed in the Scotchcreek Dimensional facility in their birth realm at the moment.”

  “Aye, they’re on the list. With three others from different places in the same world,” Jorge explained. “I’d be happy to take care of those if you want to focus--”

  “I’ll handle the lot of them. Here’s a silver, go have a few ales on me, Jorge,” I informed him, flipping him a coin. “Three extra won’t put me out, and I like guiding new explorers. You know that.”

  “Aye, thank you, captain,” Jorge said, tipping his helm at me as he stepped off to follow my advice. The moment he did so, the [Greeter Menu] popped up, showing the preferred names of the incoming arrivals. Paula’s I picked out immediately, as I did for Sam’s but the rest were typical screen names, which meant that the real-name masking protocols were in effect. That was fine, I’d figure out which ones were part of Paula’s party and which weren’t soon enough. And since I was acting as an official greeter for the time being – a role that is usually done by an NPC but veteran players can qualify for – I couldn’t treat them any differently anyway, except for Paula. Who, as planned, was the last scheduled to arrive.

  I quickly marked her arrival as the end of my scheduled greeting duty, which would signal my NPC replacement to arrive moments afterward for any other new players who walked into a processing center today for their first-login procedures. It took about a week before you could play from home with a helmet, before that you had to go to one of ER’s many processing centers, get medical clearance, and use their full-emersion deep-dive equipment until your brain was mapped well enough for the portable equipment. After that, you just needed six-month checkups, unless you went more than a month without playing.

  ‘BrickWall88’ was the first of the scheduled arrivals, and I had a feeling that he was the lineman that Paula had spoken about. I waited patiently as the clock ticked down until our subjective times synchronized. Then, with the purple zap of someone logging in, a tall, heavy guy appeared. He had chosen to increase his apparent age to that of a thirty-something year old man, but the way he carried himself was pure teenager.

  “Welcome to Wildedeer, oh traveler from another Realm. I am Captain [Benton], of the Royal Guard. You have logged into something of a special event in which I have replaced the typical greeter for--”

  “Yeah, so, you’re supposed to like, give me money and directions and stuff, right? I’ll take the cash, and then there’s a gym or something I’m supposed to go to.”

  “Ah,” I said, realizing that he was ‘One of those players.’ EternalRealms was a pretty roleplay heavy game. If you didn’t play along with the NPC’s, they wouldn’t play along with you, and that limited your options in game significantly. Hopefully ‘BrickWall’ didn’t refer to the thickness of his skull and he’d figure that out before he did too much damage to his [Reputations].

  “Due in part to the special event you’ve logged into, your beginning coin has been increased by ten times,” I informed him, tossing him a coinpurse. “There are several training facilities to choose from in this city that welcome new explorers. The first--”

  “I’m going to be the tank, or whatever, so point me at that one,” he cut me off again.

  I sighed. Didn’t even thank me for the coin. Simple politeness to the NPC’s on the first day was a huge boon to your [Reputation] later in game. And because I was acting as [Greeter] in an official capacity, I was treated as an NPC by the game for that purpose. This idiot had just gone from [Neutral] to [Unfavorable] with the city guard, especially because I had increased the allowance from my own pocket. Oh well.

  “You’re probably looking for the training hall, then. Tanks typically fight with a shield and one-handed weapons. They’ll supply some training equipment and teach you how to use it, then you can buy the real stuff with the coin I just gave you,” I informed him. “I’ve marked it on your map, as well as the market-place and one of the local taverns, the GreenMeadows. I understand that you have friends you’ll be meeting up with there later.”

  “How did you know that?” the teen asked suspiciously.

  “ EternalRealms provides a customized experience for each user,” I reminded him. “Those players who start with an already established party are usually guided towards each other right after their initial tutorial is completed, which yours will be once you’ve spent a few hours training with Master Gelbeck.”

  “Oh,” he said, and that was it. He just walked away. I sighed, trying to ignore the knowledge of just how badly this kid was going to mess up his local reputations before I had a chance to set him straight. I knew from experience, however, that it was better to let him make his mistakes now, in the starting area, than to try to hold his hand and let him arrive in one of the important zones where he could actually do some long term damage to his account.

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