Virtual Hell

OOC: He's 16 and your 17, right?

IC: "The name's Nick. I was just sittin' here thinking about a VR game by Aeon, and I dozed off." He put a smile on his face to show that he wasn't depressed or anything. "Well, what's your name?" he asked. He was trying to keep his attention to the girl he was talking to, but his phone began to go off. Luckily it was on Vibrate so she wouldn't notice it..or at least he hoped she wouldn't.

 

Michael's portable control panel made a short dinging sound at his desk, indicating a player had just signed into the game. Smirking slightly, he walked back to his desk to investigate. "Leon Heartfield, hm? Let's make things interesting for you," he said as he typed on the device's keypad.

Target Player: Leo
Send: Three small monsters​

OOC: This will be the formatting for monster appearences; what the monsters actually look like is completely up to you.

 

OOC: SWIRLY EFFECT *shot*

BIC: As Leon was walking around dragging his large and heavy weapon behind him making a scrapping sound as sparkles flew from the blade and the ground three monsters appeared before him. "Alright, 'bout time", he muttered to himself as he lifted the blade into a fighting stance. The three monsters where just below his fighting level according to the game but he had a feeling that didn't mean squat if this was realistic. Before the monsters could attack Leon dived right in and swung the heavy blade downward onto one of his opponents crushing it under it's weight. "That was... weak", he thought aloud, "Realistic physics?". The other two monsters seemed to notice their allies demise and attempted to avoid a similar fate. Leon swung at them but they where able to dodge his attacks mostly, taking only minimal damage.

Richard watched Leon fight through his hand held computer as he attempted to track the player's location down in attempt to complete his orders. "This kid's gonna be busy, I might actually find him before he goes offline".

 

OOC: That is correct. :3

IC:

"Ah, the newest one they are getting beta testers for, yes? And my name is Civia," she replied promptly, putting a hand to her chest and bowing slightly, "Civia DeFey. I'm guessing you play it, too. The beta testers have to work together, last I heard." She smiled a little.

 

"Nice to meet ya, Civia. Its Good to have FINALLY found another person who is testing the game other than me." Nick said with great relief in his tone, "I've been...Ok, Excuse me a sec!" He pulled his phone out of his pocket to see who kept pestering him. With little to no surprise, he saw that it was his mother, "Quit calling me!" he said as he slammed on the "Ignore" button, "Sorry about that. Anyway, do you know of any method of meeting up while in the game?"

 

"Nice to meet you, too. The feeling is rather mutual, and I'm not sure. We don't really know the places, and I'm pretty sure that after the first playthrough, they'd take off the helmet and think a while, or give themselves a break. Anyone would." Civia sighed softly, remembering her worry. "If it helps, I'm going on again, then we could plan out something if we meet. Mark a place, find other players...the more, the safer." She smiles slightly.

Just then, her phone plays a ringtone (those default ones), signalling a text. She chooses to not respond to her usual impulse, which is to pull out her phone immediately. "I take it that's from my mom." Civia says blankly as she looks up to the sky, seeing the moon starting to rise. "Well, I'll see you when I see you; what will I know you by there?"

 

"Heh, yeah, I know the feeling. So Called 'Mommy Dearest' Won't leave me alone either." He said, scratching the back of his hat. "As for my Player Name, it's Lars. Made it easy to remember just in case I met another beta tester" He said with a cocky looking smirk on his face. "How 'bout you?"

 

The boy didn't reply, so Rei took that to mean he had nothing more to say. Shrugging slightly, she noticed that it was getting dark. "If you're one of the people playing the game, we might as well stay in contact," she said, digging in her pocket for a scrap of paper and a pen. The best she came up with was a crumpled receipt and pencil, but it would work. Rei quickly scribbled down a phone number on the back and handed it to the boy. "My cell. Text me if you want to form a group of some kind, but don't call. I never pick up calls."
With that, she turned and headed back home.

 

Alex looked at the paper the girl had handed him. "Can do!" he said with a smile. With that, he turned in the opposite direction of her and headed home. 'When I get home, should I text her to play? Or should I wait an hour or two?' he thought. Alex shrugged. He hummed a little tune to himself as he walked in the rain.

 

She smiles and decides to hold her tongue. Through the years, she has been trained as a disciplined young lady who knew her limits. "I guess she does like to never leave me alone." She muses. "My username is Meiyu." She blinks slowly. "Hey, it would be better if I left some kind of contact with you. I don't answer phones, and if I do, I answer really late," she gets a pen and, unlike her, takes Nick's hand and scribbles down her email. She lets go quickly and smiles, "see you, then."

She bows slightly and leaves, deciding that Nick was fine on his own. When she is far away enough, she takes a look at her phone: "Sorry dear", it was her mother, "to some circumstances, your father and I have decided to cancel your self-defense classes. Financial problems. And we need to talk."

Civia stops and stares at her phone.

 

"Heh, sweet girl, hopefully this'll work out.." Nick thought to himself. He placed his hand in his pocket to avoid it getting rained on. He then proceeded to dash in the opposite direction to reach his home and get the e-mail wrote down on paper. When he arrived, he removed his wet shoes to avoid super-scolding from his mother, then proceeded to his room. He sat down at his computer, opened up a browser, and went to his e-mail provider. He looked at his hand, the ink from the pen was still readable, but just barely. He looked frantically for something to write on, the closest thing being a piece of printer paper. He wrote Civia's e-mail down, along with her username, Meiyu.

He powered on his computer and began to type up an e-mail. It read: 'Hey, Civia, It's Nick. Just wanted to make sure I had the e-mail right since the ink was starting to fade. Well, if I do have it right, whenever you want to try and meet up in that Aeon game (Does it have a name?), just send me an e-mail, it'll show up on my phone so it wont take long for a reply. Thanks- Nick.' He hit send and began to do other things on his computer, mainly go and talk on a certain fan-site's forum for a certain famous game.

 

Sammy couldn't really sleep. Yes, she had rested for about an hour or two, but she just couldn't seem to stop thinking about that game. She had to play it again. But what about school? What if I don't make it to a save point in time? What'll happen when mom comes in to wake me and finds me slumped in bed with a headset on, not responding? Ah...wait...it's a holiday tomorrow. Time to play. she smiled as she quickly prepared the game and logged in. Looking around her, she took in her surroundings and felt her pouches and bags. Everything was as it was before. Putting her hands on both hilts of her swords, she touched them again, still unable to believe that it all felt solid and real. I am so out of shape. Even this light armor still feels kind of heavy to me. she thought as she adjusted it a little.

 

As Rei entered her home, she considered going to sleep, but found the pull of the game to be too strong. She'd have to meet up with that other kid later, as she felt her couch melt away as she came to her senses in the game. She liked the full body armor she wore, it was heavy but not unbearably so. "Still have to get used to the feeling of it," Rei thought.
Not seeing any monsters nearby, she decided to explore a bit. She was in a wide open plain that didn't look threatening in the least, but from her previous experience in the game she knew it was still dangerous.

---

Michael smirked as he saw two more players sign on. He didn't send any monsters out after them yet, choosing instead to watch how they interacted with the game. "Worst comes to worst...I'll send other Hunters in to monitor them and interact," he muttered to himself.

 

Rai had nearly dozed off when he woke up and noticed that there was nobody else there. He didn't like being alone; even if he didn't know anyone around. He quickly got up and started walking briskly back home. He was constantly looking around, checking to see if anything was there. When he returned home, he felt a warm wave of relief wash over him. He grabbed a bottle of water, trying to calm himself. He walked up to his room and sat down on the bed, staring at his helmet. Should I...? Rai thought. He shook his head, trying to snap himself out of it. But the more he denied it, the more he wanted to try it again. Eventually, he gave in an started up the game. "What did I get myself into?" he muttered to himself after he finished logging in.

 

Nick finished his forum endeavors, and was trying to decide weather or not to go back into the game. "Should I wait and see if I can find a way to meet up with Civia?..Nah, I'll be fine." he said to himself. He hesitantly turned on the console and placed the helmet upon his head. "Alright, let's do this." he thought to himself as his senses transfered over to the game. He signed in and began to explore. "Hmm..No monsters...weird." He thought. "Man, I still cant believe how real this is! everything from the sun's heat to mt armor's weight!" He thought. He pulled out his Tomahawk in case of an encounter. He walked around for 5 more minutes, still no monsters. "How am I supposed to get used to this if there's nothing to fight!?" he thought. "Ah, whatever, I'm sure something will come up.." He then continued on.

 

So to sum up her day, Civia became a beta tester, her father was as mysterious as ever (but nice), she had no more extracurricular activities and she had to leave school early so she could help out a bit. The cause of their sudden financial crisis was still a mystery, but they all suspected it was their mom's new "blessing" named Kain. A little brother...she knew how annoying little kids were.

Her laptop, quite suddenly, beeped. "You have mail." it said in a robotic voice.

She switched her gaze from her laptop to the console. She looked back at the laptop again. Seconds later, her fingers started flying over the keyboard, composing a reply. "Hey; yeah, you got it right. No worries. Also, no, it doesn't seem to have a name. Maybe they'll think of it when we're done beta testing.", she typed the last two words albeit hesitantly, debating whether she should include "or when we die", but that would give out how paranoid she seemed to be. She continued anyways, "Sure, I'll email you if I think we should meet up. And I'll tell you if I happen to meet any other players."

She hit the send button and placed her laptop on the couch again. She screamed to the kitchen, "Mom, I'm going to play, alright? Don't touch me, no matter how selfish that sounds. I'll explain later...or when you ask me."

"Okay, honey. I can't be disturbed either, anyway."

Civia nodded and approached the console, taking the helmet and walking back to the couch. She stops. "Tell Joshua to not touch me or play the game. It'll be awkward if he's in my virtual body."

With that, she put the helmet on, and she was in her virtual, pink-and-red-themed jester-girl outfit. She felt her thigh, to see if the cut was there; it wasn't. First thing on her mind was to get a bag, for inventory. She had a few pockets though; that could carry a few stuff. Deciding to move quickly, she presses on.

-~-~-~-

Laurence was still at work, and of course, he was working. Hard. He was ashamed; he lent the money to a colleague of his, but he never payed back, and it seemed he wasn't willing to. Why had he been so careless with his hard-earned cash? Now his family was suffering. What about Kain?

"Ah, darn it," he mutters, as his fountain pen makes a big blot on the clean piece of paper. "Bah," he waves a hand.

He was asked to do a report. Unfortunately, his laptop crashed and he was the only one in the office--well, not really alone. The head janitor stuck around, cleaning all the junk the rest of the staff left around. Aeon wasn't exactly all shiny and new. There sometimes strayed a few snack bags (they always came from a fat employee named Rob), a few pieces of paper...but aside from that, yes, Aeon was pretty and white.

Laurence looked at his watch; it read 10:30. 10:30 or 10:32. He couldn't tell. As pretty and cool as his watch looked, a watch with no lines whatsoever was hard to deal with. You couldn't tell just how many seconds passed, how many minutes passed, and sometimes, it was hard to tell 1 from 2.

"10:40." He muttered, wanting to keep working and reduce homework, adult style.

 

Seeing that Richard one homing in on Leon, Michael decided to keep the boy in the same place so his Hunter could contact him. He typed on the device once again.

Target Player: Leo
Send: Two medium monsters​

After the command was sent, the device notified him of more Players signing on. He smirked once more. "Excellent..."

---

Rei was getting somewhat concerned about the lack of monsters. The area she was in just seemed too peaceful for a RPG, and her years of gaming had her instincts screaming that quiet was never good. Growling slightly, she started experimenting with her helmet's settings, finding an option that enhanced audio reception. She turned it up all the way, picking up faint sounds of some kind of fighting. "A fight...either it means monsters fight each other here, or there's another Player involved," Rei said to herself. Keeping the audio up, she did her best to follow the sounds.

 

Sammy walked around absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells of the environment around her. She kept her right hand on the hilt of the sword on her right, since she didn't have pockets in the game. Just pouches purely for inventory. She predicted that the bags would soon be full of too much stuff for her to carry, since she was a bit of a hoarder when it came to unknown items. Continuing on, it wasn't for a while before Sammy suddenly felt a little uneasy. It felt a little too peaceful. Not that there was anything wrong with peaceful, but she figured any game, especially and MMORPG, would have monsters running about 24/7 for training and quests and background. Right now, there was nothing. Just the wind blowing and the leaves of trees rustling. Am I going to get jumped? Well, I should be careful. I don't even know if the next area will have monsters of a higher level. Plus, there hasn't been a message at all. What's my mission? Where's the next save point? Is there a town nearby? I wish I had a map. All these thoughts raced through Sammy's head as worry was starting to give way to panic. Of course, she also wondered about the possibility of her dying in the game, and never coming back, but she tried her best to lock that thought at the very back of her mind. That's unsafe. I sure hope I'll be okay.

 

Nick continued on, getting slightly more irritated at the lack of monsters to kill. "Man, I've seen children's games with more action than this! Where's all the monsters?" He angrily thought to himself. He looked around very carefully to see if there were any signs of other players, or even an NPC. "There's not even a town or village in sight..Man, WoW's world setting ain't got nothin' on this!" He Looked around more to see if anything was there. Still nothing. "Well, Nowhere to go but forward.." He thought. "ONWARD!" he yelled to himself as he ran forward.


OOC: I apologize for that, I wasn't sure if that applied to the first time or every time. Won't happen again. :)

 

OOC: I'm gonna ask that you rewrite that, there's a reason why you can't remove the helmet until you reach a certain point (details on that will be revealed as the plot goes on). I don't think I was quite clear enough on how the transfer in game is; since your conscious is not in your physical body you can't feel anything that's being done to it in the real world, which is why you can really only "return" when the game lets you at a certain point. Sorry. D: