As I stepped out the door I just stood there in amazement. All around me the streets were bustling with people, and creatures that I could not even dream of. Moving up and down the streets were various forms of transportation. Everything from hover cars and motorcycles to horses and carriages. In the air above me I heard and saw some kind of spacecraft fly over the buildings and out of sight to my right. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone ridding a large eagle like creature land on one of the rooftops.
I then looked around at the different people, or beings, on the streets. Most of the human looking women were beautiful, and the men hansom. Everybody seemed to be armed with one type of weapon or another and those that didn't looked like they really didn't need any. Some had sword, some had blasters, some had things I really wasn't too sure what they were. But all in all the one thing that struck me speechless was how real it all seemed.
As a man on horseback passed me I could see all the fine details of his armor and smell the scent of his horse. I could feel the wind whipping my long hair around my face and as a large orc passed me I could even feel the heat off his body as her looked me up and down. The I could feel the blush in my cheeks as I realized he was checking out my body!
I didn't see the hand that pushed me aside and to the ground though.
"Look out!" I heard someone yell as I fell. I looked up to see a tall well built man in flowing silver and red robes with a staff of some kind in his hands. He was looking off to my other side as he brought his staff up and it glowed brightly. A blast came from my other side and hit right in front of him, stopping and dispersing inches before it could hit him.
I turned towards the direction that the blast came from and saw a man wielding a wicked looking blaster. Looking around for a way to escape, and finding none, the man just threw up his hands with a goofy grin on his face.
"Goodbye hack!" the man standing over me said as his staff glowed once more. Just before he fired the other man lowered his blaster and fired again, at me! Somehow or other I found the little fan that was attached to my wrist in my hand and open. With one fluid motion I swept the fan in front of me and intercepted the blast, deflecting it off into the air. My assailant screamed out in pain as a bluish glow leapt from the staff and dissolved him into nothingness.
"You ok miss?" the robed man asked as he extended a hand down to help me up. "Sorry I had to knock you down."
"I'm fine, I guess." I replied as I took his hand. I was amazed at how much bigger, and stronger, his hand was than mine. As I regained my feet I saw that he was wearing the badge of a sage! "Oh wow!" I said. "You're a sage?"
"Yep." He replied. "Of the First Order. I was one of the very first ones."
"Was that a Devil then?" I asked.
"Hell no." He told me. "That was just a hack. If that had been a Devil I sure wouldn't be going up against it. Those only the Gods deal with."
"So, what's a hack then?" I asked curiously.
"A hack is someone that either has a modified character card or a plug-in." He explained. "Most common one is the kill anything plug-in. Don't ask me why they do it because when they get caught by one of us we not only boot them out but we fry their character card. That can cost them a hundred dollars, or more if it's a modified card."
Character card?" I asked.
"You're a newbie, aren't you?" He asked with a smile. I nodded. "And you didn't even read the users manual, did you?"
I nodded again slightly embarrassed. "I wanted to get in as quickly as I could and meet up with a friend of mine. Which reminds me, I really need to get going. I only have three hours till my Reality Check goes off and I still need to get all the way across town!"
He laughed at this. "Don't worry, you have plenty of time left in the game." He smiled. "Three hours of real time is equal to three months game time!"
"What!?" I said surprised.
"Yeah, why do you think the Gods had to put in the reality check in the first place?" He replied. "At first there were players that would come in here for up to twelve hours at a time. That translates to a full year in here. In that amount of time people were beginning to lose themselves in the game."
Obviously this had to be something Suzie knew all about and hadn't told me! "So, How long can I stay in the game?" I asked.
"Twelve hours max." He told me as he started to move towards where the hack had stood. "After that then the game itself will boot you out. It's really not good to push it all the way though. If you do that then when you come back in the game you'll wind up at your last start point."
"You mean that room I started in." I said.
"Yeah, there or wherever your current residence is. The room you started in is yours to keep for as long as you like. You can always go there to sleep, eat, or get a clean change of clothes." He told me as she sifted through the pile of clothes and belongings of the hack. "If you decide you want some place bigger or more fancy then you have to buy that."
"So, back to my original question," I started as he picked a few items out of the pile and kicked the rest of it out into the street. "What is a character card?"
"The character card is a card that is inserted into the bottom of your console that hold all you avatar's information. Each card holds only one character, but you can have as many as you want." he explained.
"So, if I want another character I have to buy another card?" I groaned as I realized what my lack of patience was costing me.
"That's right." He told me. "I would suggest that you spend the hundred bucks for the original cards though. There's several companies out there that make cheaper ones but you could spend a lot of time building up a character and if that cheaper card fails you could lose it all. FOG cards are a lot better though, and if they do fail we can restore the characters on them " He said as he turned the blaster over in his hand before tossing it to me. "Here, I'm not suppose to do this but you earned it. It's only a level two blaster anyway."
"Wow, thanks!" I replied as I put the blaster, and the belt and holster that came with it, around my waist. The belt was too large but I knew I could always get a better belt later.
"Why are you curious about getting more character card right now anyway?" He asked. "Didn't your character turn out right?"
"It's not exactly what I thought it would be." I told him truthfully.
"Let me see." He said holding out his hand for my MAP that I just now realized that I was still holding in my hand. I handed it to him and he scanned through several screen until he came up with my stats.
STR. 8
INT. 12
WIS.10
DEX.18
CON.17
CHA.16
"Hell, I don't see anything wrong with this character." He told me. "As a matter of fact, this is a great character! I have over twenty different ones of my own and only one of them has a 18 in the primary skill! And a 17 constitution to boot!"
"Yeah, I know." I said trying to act like I already did know this. "I just wish my strength was higher."
"Why? With your class most of your primary skills are dexterity based." He flipped through a few more screens.
"Look at this." He told me as he showed me the screen. "You even got an inheritance! That fan you have is a plus 5 plus 3 Fan of Deflection. It gives you a plus 5 to deflection of projectiles and a plus three to deflect magic and energy. And it works on both sides of the world!"
"Both sides?" I said.
"Yeah, Ether is divided into two distinctly different sides to the east of Epic city magic begins to lose it's ability and technology rises. To the west technology starts to fail and magic reigns supreme. Epic city sits right on the dividing line of the two so it has both in equal amounts but limits each of them to a degree." He explained as he continued to look through my MAP. "There are the heavens and hells too, but I don't advise you going there."
The heavens are, just like in old mythology, right over head and you could actually fly up to them, or take one of the many portals around the world to get there. Be careful though, the Gods really don't like people just traipsing up there to look around. They might drop some heavy punishment on you for the insult or send you on some near impossible quest. Although, I have heard of several sages who earned their badges by completing Devine quests, but you're too low in skills to even attempt that right now."
"The hells are found at the bottom of deep caves, further down than anybody in their right of mind should even think about going. The Devils rule down there. They are the real hackers in the game. They don't just have modified cards or plug-ins, they have actually pulled their console apart and hooked it up to computers so they can do anything they want in the game. Most of them feel that the Gods didn't make the game hard enough so the constantly make new monsters and items to mess with the players. They love nothing more than when some PC goes wandering down into their hells. Believe me, they can really fuck your day up!"
"Personally, I think the Gods let them stay in the game for their own entertainment. Usually both of them stay in their own areas and just send out others to do their bidding, but I've heard of major wars between the two side that challenged even the Gods power. They always win though, but they never pursue the Devils into the hells to finish them off."
He finished up looking though my Map and handed it back to me. "The only thing I can see wrong with your character is that you need to distribute your skill points." He told me.
"Skill points?" I asked.
He just shook his head and sighed. "Yes, you get ten skill points to start with. There are over five hundred different skill for you to chose from but you will have a few that are cheaper for your class. Hand to hand, small melee weapons, small ranged weapons, and dance only cost you 1 point. Flirtation and seduction, which are subclasses of the distraction skill, only cost you 1/2 a point. All other cost you more per point and some are not even able to be learned by you."
"I would be very careful how you distribute those points though. All skills after these have to be learned. That means that you will have to find someone with those skills, of at least level ten, and pay them to train you." He cautioned me. "I would suggest you put at least one point into each of you primary skill and distribute the rest of them through those same skills, that is unless you have another skill you wish to start out with."
"Now, since I figure you don't know this either, experience is only earned through the use of your skills. Each and every skill earns experience depending on how much you use it. All skills are considered to be at level 0 until you learn it and get one skill point in it, at that time you are level one in that skill. Your level over all is how many levels you have in all your primary skills divided by 6, which is how many primary skills every body has. Your overall level determines how many hit points you have, so it is very important to try to keep you primary skills up before going for other skills. The top level for any skill, as of right now, is 50."
"What skill do I need to get better at using this fan?" I asked.
"That would be considered a small melee weapon, even though it's a protection device. In that fight back there you would have earned experience points for using it if you would have had the skill points in that category. As it was you were considered as being 0 level but the bonuses from the fan and your high dexterity put your skill at 6th level, 3 for the fan and 3 for your high dexterity."
I nodded my head. "Well, thanks for all the pointers." I told him. I held my MAP out one more time to him. "I really must get going, but could you tell me where this is?"
He looked at the blinking light on my map and then touched his arm band. I was startled when it transformed into a MAP! "You Map can become any small item you want it to be, but don't try to use it for protection. It may be indestructible but it is that way because anything that would cause it damage passes right through it." He looked at his MAP, that had all the streets on it instead of just the one they were standing on. "That's in the Tree Gardens section of town. It's mainly a Elf hang out but there's some pretty nice places there. You can take a cab there if you can find one down in the side of town, or the bus station is just a few blocks away. There's also the subway, but if you decide to take that then you're going to force me to escort you there."
The last part was said with a smile on his face. I stood there for a few seconds deciding what to do.
