//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: The Game Begins // Story: Equestrian Earth: A Life Beyond His Own // by Nxegex //------------------------------// Paperback sniffed the air around him as a beam of sunlight struck his head through the curtains of the window in his apartment. If the sun had already risen to that height, and if could smell the trash can already, then it was obviously Friday and he desperately needed to take out the garbage. Rolling over from the position he was is, he fell off of his bed and onto his hooves, still perfectly unwilling to open his eyes. Thank Celestia that he had managed to wrangle a class schedule at the college that freed up his Fridays. Usually he reserved today for his continual hunt for employment, but after three months of applying everywhere in town, he had just about given up. At least his parents across town were still supporting him, paying for his classes and schoolbooks, and his rather tiny living space. They were threatening to cut him off again, though, so he would have to continue sending proof that he was still looking for work. At last, he finally found the strength within to open his eyes. Green irises found themselves widening as his pupils shrunk in pain from the exposure to light reflecting off of the bare white walls. Fumbling around with his telekinesis, he eventually managed to feel his way around his bedside table, where he kept his glasses. Planting them firmly on the bridge of his nose, his vision cleared to grant him the sight of his one-room hideaway. A corner of it was taken up by his bed, the sheets half kicked off with him never attempting to fix them. A large rug took up the center of the room, lightly carpeted with a nice white/blue decorative pattern that went around the border. Blue lines crisscrossed the center evenly, forming a field of white diamonds that had blue fleur-de-lis pointing at wherever the lines intersected. It was relatively clean, he had picked it up off the street like he did with most of his furniture, and after a half hour of beating the crap out of it on a rope outside he had declared it sanitary enough to cover the hardwood floor. Against the wall was a small television, just large enough for him to play his X-Buck on without the image being too small or grainy. Without a table for the TV, he ended up laying on the rug, controller held in front of him within his telekinesis. Placed on the inside wall opposite of the bed was a small refrigerator, where he would often keep a weeks supply of microwavable meals. While mostly consisting of pot pies and tiny pizzas, there was also a very small supply of fruit and vegetables, and any sugary or salty snacks that he would munch on while rampaging through a late night bout of Modern Warpony 2. The instrument used to cook the frozen foods lay on top of the fridge, a battered microwave that still amazingly worked despite Paperback accidentally dropping it while moving in. He would cook true meals more often, but the apartment didn't come with a stove. Against the last wall, halfway between his bed and the door to the bathroom, lay his desk and his only chair. Taking up half of the desk was a monitor that was new when compared to the rest of the junk in the room, and the computer underneath ran fairly decent since his friends were nice enough to donate their old computer parts that they had replaced with whatever was new and better on the market. Being the only working space, the other side of the desk was normally covered in a hodgepodge of papers from whenever he actually worked on his homework. Right now however it was holding his most recent acquirement in the evolution of gaming. A large white box held Equestrian Earth, the next big thing in gaming along with the Interactive Pony Visor, supposedly the debut of virtual reality technology. Pulling open the box more than he had the previous night, he pulled out a shiny white helmet that had a bulky eyepiece. Several wires sprouted like the stems of flowers, connecting the helmet to a similar white cube almost as large as his head. His intuition told him it was obviously a hardware piece that allowed the helmet to connect with the computer and other devices that were compatible with it. Placing the helmet aside, he pulled out the cube. Another couple of thick cables shot out the back end of this one like multiple tails, ending in different pieces that looked like they would match with different machines. He saw one that would obviously connect with his X-Buck, and another that he could plug into the back of his computer. Putting the cube aside as well, he tipped the box towards him, and began ruffling through the remaining contents to find an instruction manual. “I know there has to be one somewhere...” Paperback mused to himself, examining the myriad of pamphlets, pieces, and wires that were tossed out of the box onto the floor. “Let's see... Return policy, throw that here. Warranty papers get thrown here. Ooh!Bubble wrap!” Paperback giggled like a colt as he popped a few of the nefariously fun air bubbles before putting it on his bed for later. “Aha! There's the blasted thing. Interactive Pony Visor or IPV instruction manual.” He exclaimed, using his telekinesis to pull out the little white pamphlet and hover it in front of his face. The instructions on connection and use seemed simple enough. “Simply plug the IPV into the system you wish to use it with and insert whatever game you want to play that the IPV supports.” Pausing for a moment, he performed the menial task of setting the white cube down on the ground, and connected it with the computer using the provided cable. The game disk was already done, having been placed in to install the night before. “Next, place yourself comfortably laying down with the IPV secured tight on your head, so that the appropriate neural sensors may interact correctly with the brain.” Well, this was also simple enough. Grabbing the pillow from his bed, he plopped it down on the floor in front of him. Telekinetically grabbing the helmet now, he tried to place it over his head. Except it wouldn't fit. Turning the helmet over, he realized that the helmet didn't have a hole for a unicorn horn to fit through. “Hold on. I think I missed a step here...” A few minutes later, he had skimmed through the IPV manual to find where it showed how to interchange the top plate of the helmet for one that was more unicorn friendly. Now the helmet had a stylized white unicorn horn on the front, hollow to allow him to place it over his own. Now so prepared, he laid himself down with his chin on the pillow in front of him, and slid the IPV over his head. As soon as it was snug and tight, the visor filling his vision lit up in a blinding flash that made him close his eyes for a moment. Opening them again, he found himself staring at the desktop for his computer. How do I move the mouse... Okay. That's cool. He thought, as simply thinking about moving the mouse up and down caused it to do so. He practiced moving it all around the screen for a minute or two, before finally scrolling it over and clicking on his prize. His vision went to black as the game started up, the company logo appearing before he was sent to a title screen depicting ponies fighting all manner of nefarious creatures. Commanding the visor to select the 'Create New Account' option, rows of information showed up on his screen. Options of username, password, email and so forth were before him. “But how do I type?” He said aloud, and magically the words appeared in the username text box. “Alright, that's cool, now how do I backspace? Wait. No. I don't want- stop it!” He shouted at the screen, as every word he spoke continued to fill up the bar. He groaned. He probably had to combine talking with mental will. “Back.” He sternly commanded the machine, and groaned again as the computer took him back to the sign in screen instead of erasing the line. Poor choice of words there, Paperback. He thought, as he moved the mouse over to the 'Create' button again. This time he had a better idea of what he was doing, and when prompted to enter a username clearly intoned with force of will “Dime Store Novel.” It was a silly moniker given to him by his group, a play on his name and the fact that he was usually broke, despite that not being related to the phrase at all. Next, he put in a password with the same amount of force. By the time he got down to the email section of the sign-up sheet, he was beginning to get the hang of the speaking portion too, not having to put as much force into his words. He began experimenting further down the line, and by the time he was entering his date of birth he understood that the system would pick up on subvocalization within his head, as long as he was concentrating hard enough. Finally, he was ready to log in. About. Freaking. Time. ------------ His vision with the visor now showed him a view of a clearing in the woods, bright light streaming down from the sky. Standing in the middle was a virtual pony that was white coated with a black mane, average sized, and without a cutie mark. This was obviously a customization page, as several boxes displaying options allowed him to do things like make the pony shorter or taller, or edit the coat color. At first he thought about making his character something stunning and flashing to the eye with neon colors striping the body and whatnot, but he quickly decided that the idea was silly, and just edited the avatar to look like himself. Orange coat? Check. Green eyes? Check. Height and build? Close enough, at any rate. He most likely wouldn't have any trouble in a body that was only a centimeter or so off from his own. Brown Mane? Well, he supposed it was okay to give him just a little bit of flair, making it stick up in spikes a bit in the back. Now it looked far more interesting than the flat, rounded style that he usually kept it in. Next up was the cutie mark. Instructions popped up in his vision, directing him to clearly imagine what he wanted the cutie mark to look like, and then push it through his brain so that the visor could pick up on it, and place the image on the avatar. Concentrating hard, in his mind he envisioned his own cutie mark, an open book with no words written on it. Staring hard at the avatar, a bright sparkle appeared on the flank, and a perfect copy of his cutie mark appeared. Now he was staring at a slightly cooler looking version of himself. He clicked the submit button. The various displays shifted and changed their wording. On the right he saw a long list of classes to choose from, with information bars on the left describing the abilities of each class. But what would he pick? In the Dungeons and Dragons group he was currently playing a cleric, but he was tired of being a support role. Fighters were just a bit too overdone for him, having played one in the previous campaign and not having anything to do other than roll for his greatsword. He could be a rogue, but from what he heard in the lines yesterday everybody wanted to be a rogue. What was it with rogues? He could be a mighty paladin, who with his heavy armor and light array of spells made a devastating tank. Or, he could be a mage class, who utilized a wide variety of spells in a squishy frame to literally rain damage down onto opponents. He was torn, and was about to choose the paladin for some close-combat experience when something made him stop Then, further down the list, he saw it. The perfect class for him. Everything that he was looking for, all in one bundled package of magic and badassery. The Spell Warrior. An arcane magic fighter class that channels spells through the caster's melee weapons for incredible effect. How could he not choose this? He read more of the lore, and found it all astounding. Spell Warriors often lead disciplined lives, far more rigorous than that of their fighter or mage counterparts due to their nature of combining two highly exclusive disciplines. A spell warrior might spend their days training hard under the sun, while at night he studies ancient tomes of magic. The life of a Spell Warrior is not an easy one, but to the devoted it can be immensely satisfying. That sounded difficult, combining magic with might. Browsing further down in the class features, he noted some of the bonuses and drawbacks. Some of the perks from the fighter and mage class were there, albeit powered down a bit. A primary drawback that marked the class was a ten percent experience penalty. While steep, it made perfect sense to Paperback. It stated right in the lore above that Spell Warriors have to train twice as hard to master the disciplines that they used. While the penalty would make his leveling slower, the opportunity to play such a challenging and mentally rewarding class was too good to pass up. Selecting the Spell Warrior class, he felt his point of view being shifted, slowly moving him towards his avatar still in the center of the clearing. His mind merged with the body, and he felt himself able to move his virtual limbs, a decidedly different experience from moving them in reality, since he was still aware of his body in the real world. The clearing which was the backdrop for the creation of his new form melded into itself, and from itself into nothing. He stared into a white expanse, formless and without depth. The emptiness soon parted however, because in his vision a figure emerged into existence. An equine shape, features obscured by the blinding light which emanated from behind her, rose forth an indeterminable distance away. Whether massive in the distance or right in front of his eyes he could not tell, but a sweet voice spoke into his head. “Hello Paperback, are you ready to begin your journey?” Paperback blinked when the figure said his name. The voice was decidedly a mare's, but who was it? How did it know him? So many questions raced through his head, but he chose to ask only one, for asking more than that might lead down a myriad chain of questions that might never be answered. “Who are you?” escaped from his lips, staring in wonder at the figure. The figure chuckled. “Such a yearning mind, always seeking new stories and new answers. Not a who, but a what. I am the central A.I of the game, but many have taken to referring to me as the Goddess.” A central self-aware intelligence that watches over the players? A goddess indeed. His mind brought the old term to his head Deus Ex Machina, God from the machine. This certainly brought a literal meaning to it. Words sprung to life in his head, and he spoke them before realizing what he said “High above the Goddess stays Her face looking ever down O'er her subjects she cast her gaze Yet on her head she wore no crown” The goddess chuckled again. “If your strength is but a quarter of your wit, you will do well in the world. A realm of friendships both old and new await you, Paperback.” she spoke, as the goddess began to fade into whatever realm of unbeing in which she spent her time. “A darker side of magic and old monsters of lore reside here, however, and you will need all the friends you can get.” ------------ Paperback groaned, feeling hard ground beneath him. The light of the goddess was gone, but he retained a coherent memory of the conversation. It was thought provoking, to say the least. What had caused him to blurt out poetry like that? Yes, he wrote some whenever he was in the right mindset, but sharing it like that was just plain embarrassing. Looking around him, he found himself standing on a large, circular, decorative stone platform, perhaps twenty meters wide, purposefully designed to look impressive with spires rising up from the back and sides, the front opening up onto a street of some sort. There were a variety of ponies around him, some were shaking their heads and looked about as dazed as he probably did. Translucent profiles could be barely glimpsed above players' heads, and Paperback saw that by focusing on an individual one it would become solid, showing a name, class, and level. He experimented, quickly changing from player to player to view their profiles and classes. Rogue, bard, ranger, rogue, fighter, rogue, mage, paladin, rogue... He didn't see any other Spell Warrior's like himself. That ten percent experience penalty must be really off-putting. As he was looking at all the other new arrivals, which slowly spread out and started roaming the city, he could see more ponies fading into existence. Most were new players like himself, equipped with nothing but a basic knapsack, but every now and then there was the odd higher level pony. He saw one fighter at level five, who after arriving promptly ran off down the street, loudly muttering something about cockatrices. This must act as the respawn point in the world as well as the point of entrance. Paperback thought. Just then, Paperback noticed an elderly stallion down the street eying him sideways. About fifty paces away, this strange looking unicorn was blue with a gray mane and beard, and garbed in a wide-brimmed gray hat with a deflated top. A robe of matching color covered the front half of his body, leaving a symbol of a question mark clearly visible on his flanks. The awkward eye contact continued for another fifteen seconds before the elder waved for him to come over impatiently. With no idea of what else to do in a game that he knew barely anything about, Paperback trotted over to the bearded stallion. As he approached, a singular green name appeared over the head of this figure instead of a profile, marking him as an NPC. The name said 'Query' and below that in hyphens it said 'Tutorial Master'. As he closed the last few steps to walking distance, Query began speaking to him in a slow, musing voice that rumbled in a baritone pitch. “Ah, I was wondering when someone was going to answer my summons. So many new players in the city, and yet most of them completely ignore old Query here.” The stallion paused for a moment to straighten his hat, and cleared his throat once before continuing. Paperback stood patiently, eager to find somewhere to begin in this game. “Welcome to the world of Equestrian Earth, Dime Store Novel!” Query continued, using the moniker that was probably plastered above Paperback's head as a profile, along with everyone else. “Since you are new to the city of Aeroslida, I am here to give you directions, and to hopefully start you off on your own grand quest. You seem to have the hang of the Interactive Pony Visor pretty well, so let me just brush you up on some of the more common gameplay elements you might not be aware of.” “First, if you haven't noticed already, you are currently carrying a knapsack, which will be your most important tool throughout your early levels. It will hold all of your gear, and the loot that you will find while exploring the world. If you open it, a menu will be brought up that will show you all of the items you have, along with inventory space left available. Try it now.” Paperback reached over to the brown sack that was strapped to him. Lifting up the flap, he suddenly found his vision filled with empty transparent circles, where any gear that he got in the future would be placed. “Good, as you see, the circles spread out to cover your entire vision. You'll be able to see through them, but the more gear you have, the more your vision will be blocked. It's suggested not to go digging through your items in the middle of a fight. Now, to retrieve items from your inventory, you simply need to think hard about what item it is you want placed into your hoof, or in your case possibly, telekinesis. I'm placing an item into your inventory now. I want you to equip it by selecting it in your pack and thinking 'equip.'” Following the lengthy tutorial instructions closely, Paperback saw an item pop up in the top left circle of his inventory. It was a hammer. Focusing his vision on it, he saw that it was useable as a melee weapon, albeit probably one of the most basic ones in the game. Using the subvocalization technique that he had worked on earlier, he selected the hammer and it fell out of his inventory, and he felt added weight on his side. Looking over, he saw a holster now wrapped around him, hammer located ready inside it. Focusing his telekinesis, he grabbed it and swung it around experimentally, making sure he got the feel of the weapon and how he was supposed to use it. “Hah! You're a natural. Generally when I get ponies coming to me they're the ones that actually need my help. I'll breeze through the rest of this now. Also in the inventory you can scroll left or right, bringing you to either the 'equipped' screen, where you can view what you are currently using; the 'social' screen, where you can add, message, respond and generally keep track of all of the friends that you make while playing the game along with the people that you're ignoring, but that really isn't nice, now is it? There's also the map screen, where you can view the world and the places you have discovered. ” Query seemed to just go on and on and on. Did NPC's have to stop to take a breath in between their sentences? It didn't seem so. “Anyways, I've probably taken up enough of your time, but can you do a quick errand for me? I need something delivered to the innkeeper but I have to stay here in case other players need help...” Here we go, this was the part that Paperback was waiting for. The inevitable quest chain that would teach him everything he needed to know and then some about the mechanics of Equestrian Earth; and if he was lucky, would put him a step ahead of all the people that had started playing last night. Taking the package into his sack, he cantered off down the cobblestone street, eager to begin. ------------ The stereotypical beginning quest chain was as mundane and copied as it came. After arriving at the innkeepers and delivering the package, he was asked to go downstairs and kill five rats that had infested the basement, at the same time giving him instructions on the combat system. The quest chain went on and on, with Paperback being the content little errand boy for what seemed to be half of the NPC's in the large city. While wandering, questing and pest exterminating, he had gained enough experience to reach the second level. A conveniently placed quest NPC who was a red recolor of Query named Talent, complete with an up arrow for a cutie mark, took him through and explained the talent trees that each class had. The Spell Warrior class in particular branched off quite tree-like in two directions, with combat oriented talents on the left and magic oriented talents on the right. Following the middle path up the center of the tree presumably led to powerful combo physical/magical talents, but he could only see the talents that were directly connected to the first one that he put a point into, which was called Strike. Strike was your standard straightforward melee ability. At the first rank, it's activation increased the physical damage of the next attack by three percent, with a relatively low cool down time on the ability. It would max out at five ranks, giving him a full bonus of fifteen percent if he decided to fill it up all the way. He had also passively gained the Spellsword ability, which allowed him to cast spells in tangent with the strike talent. At the moment, he knew no spells, but Talent had told him that various trainers of the different classes could teach some to him for a fee, or he could learn them through talents or scrolls found in treasure. This was in fact the next quest, to go to a trainer, who sold him the Shocking Grasp spell, a low level close-range lightning technique which he could combine with Strike for great effect. Now Paperback was nearing the end of the quest chain, he could feel it. He had steadily been sent to see more and more important ponies in the social ladder. A visit to the blacksmith had earned him some basic bracers already, and he had upgraded his carpenter's hammer to a kitchen knife when he gathered tomatoes for a chef. The current quest that was assigned to him in the chain was to apply for citizenship papers at the office of domestic affairs, in the capital quarter of the city. This had to be the final one, not much else made sense to come after. One final little formality quest to get out of the way to give him some starting bits and turn him loose in the world. That was all that was standing in his way. Of course, the final quest would have a boss of some sort, even a tutorial line like this one. As he walked up the steps to the office where he was to apply for citizenship, a sly looking gray NPC earth pony burst out of a back room with a sack over his shoulder, a dagger held in between his teeth. A call of “Stop him, he's a thief!” sounded forth from the room the rogue had just left. The only pony there to stop him was Paperback. Finally, some true action. A chance to be the hero. A subconscious part of Paperback's mind that he was always aware of but never payed attention to jumped forward, demanding him to act now and stop this dastardly thief. The other part forced him to remember that this was still just part of the quest, part of a game. Still, he could at least act the part, couldn't he? “Halt, criminal scum!” Burst forth from his lips as his telekinesis pulled his knife out of it's poorly crafted sheath. The thief immediately aggravated onto him, which wasn't much of a surprise, it was probably scripted into the event. “Out of my way!” the scoundrel cried through clenched teeth, swinging his head wildly to cut with the dagger still in his mouth. Paperback took a hit across the side of his shoulder. The game itself didn't really register 'pain' to the player, but would give a little stinging sensation to the brain through the headset. The magnitude was low enough that it would barely register discomfort, even with foals, but would remind the player that they are indeed damaged. Crippling strikes to limbs would cause the player to lose the ability to move the affected limb properly for a few seconds, delaying them further in combat. Keeping the knife close to his side to try and parry the next attack, Paperback returned the favor with a quick jab using the Strike ability, empowered with Shocking Grasp. The knife glowed with a stray spark of electricity that arced into his opponent's body when hit, causing the thief to snarl in pain as the knife sunk a few centimeters into his chest. The attack however, left Paperback completely open as he retrieved his weapon, and he earned himself another slash for his efforts. Feeling his hit points go down, Paperback smirked, because he was doing more damage than the thief, and probability stated that the battle would be his. The battle went with the two opponents trading slashes back and forth for another five seconds or so, until Paperback's strike ability came back up. Lunging forward again, he scored a slash across the face, and the thief dropped his bag and knife, crying surrender as he fled out into the street, where scripted guards ran up to arrest him. One of the guards walked up to Paperback, and Paperback knew his quest chain was finally complete, because his quest marker pointed directly at this stallion. “Good work on stopping that thief from escaping. Who knows if we would have been able to catch him in time?” Paperback responded, “I could not stand idly by as a rogue made off with stolen goods. I simply did what was necessary.” He gave a short, light bow of respect to the officer. “And the guard thanks you for your assistance. Here, I'd like you to have this as a token of our appreciation. Now, I must be off. I need to take this criminal to jail.” The officer pulled a folded suit of armor from his pack, and Paperback felt it transfer into his. As the guards walked off with the thief in tow, Paperback peeked inside to find a Rusty Chain Shirt. Armor-wise, it was certainly better than going exposed, but it was rather lacking as far as this game's armor went. He put it on and immediately felt it's encumbrance added to his invisible stamina stat. It gave him some partial protection around the middle, but his legs and head were still completely exposed except for his bracers. Paperback turned around to face the inside of the building again. An aging old pony with a quill cutie mark hobbled up to him and spoke, “Oh thank you for stopping that robber. You must be Dime Store Novel, correct? Query told me that you would be stopping by, and asked me to write up your citizenship papers in advance...” ------------ Two short minutes later, another quest was complete, and Paperback was 'officially' a citizen of Aeroslida. And to top it all off, he had just leveled to three. This game was amazing! Level Up! Paperback has reached Level 3! He has gained the following skills Strike Rank 2: Next physical attack does an additional 6% of damage. Strike swift, strike true.