Hikoru spawned into the area, his first time in the game. Although he had done a few VR games in his time, this time he was fully immersed, a feeling he had never felt before. This was brand new to him. He woke up lying on the ground. He opened his eyes to the sound of seagulls cawing nearby, and his eyes saw a bright blue sky with a few clouds slowly billowing in the breeze. The feeling of waves lapping over his feet came and went slowly as the tide came in, and left not a moment later. He sat up, his arms supporting him as his blue-gray eyes scanned the area. The surrounding land was beach, that lead up a hill to a dense forest. He let out a sigh as he rubbed his eyes awake. Things seemed calm at the moment, but he didn't know what to expect with an illegal game, so he kept his guard up. He stood slowly as shadows cascaded over him, and he looked to see the seagulls flying over, and a small, white blob falling above him. He registered and quickly back-rolled away from it, dodging the pile of poop from landing on his head. He sighed and stood, shaking his head. If this game was fully immersive, he didn't want the feeling of poop on his head along with the smell, it wouldn't be a good start. He scratched the back of his head as he looked around, trying to find some sort of clue as to where civilization could be nearby. @HORIZON
Did someone just narrate the term Civilization(tm)? Well, there wasn't anything known as civilization nearby but our fresh adventurer -was- on the other hand unfortunate to land near a self proclaimed bastion of it: Horizon. A young lady in a white spacesuit, she was currently in the area and clearly plotting something that was certainly no good. That may in fact be an understatement, Horizon could have very clearly be up to evil. She watched with binoculars as the boy spawned into the area and clicking her tongue, made a couple scribbles in her notebook. That makes 3 days of spawn observation and i'm still only scratching the surface of this new-player zone-in algorithm... Just how exactly is the system deciding these things? From my interviews we've had people fall harmlessly out of the sky, spawn in bandit camps, in seemingly inescapable holes, here or there willy nilly, on a beach with nothing but a cliff to get up, some unlucky bastard even spawned in a dungeon... Could this game's system really be that haphazardly made of shit? Horizon held a hand to her 'chin' (helmet) while pondering the whole matter with quite a bit of frustration. *Snrk* she then stifled a laugh as a bird nearly crapped on the poor kid's face. "Whelp, let's get to work then..." Dusting herself off, Horizon descended her perch of a hill about 300 meters or so from the new guy and made her way towards him. She'd been interviewing seasoned adventurers about their spawn experiences roughly a week ago. Now, she was attempting to compile a kind of star chart of where these newcomers would end up. There were a number of reasons for why she wanted to do this. For one, if she could prevent new players from entering the game by laying a number of traps... like say landmines... in their spawn locations, it might be possible to cut off the player population which would reduce the competition that would get in her way of correctly updating the world. Second, she could potentially just sell that information to gankers. And third, and most lucrative, if The Player Kingdom of Astorea wasn't stingy, she could get a sizable grant to set up a search and rescue unit for new players while demanding a sizable paycheck from the government for providing such a unique and invaluable resource. But first I have to figure this damn thing out!!! Huffing, Horizon at last came in sight of @Hikoru. Then, she suddenly stopped. Wait, I had decided to alter my approach didn't I? Apparently my cool suit is just way too awesome for these new player's scrambled egg minds. They just stammer and try and run away after all, the soft-brained morons. Let's try something different then, a little white lie... "GREE-TINGS AD-VEN-TUR-ER!! I. AM. HORIZON. THE TUTORIAL MACHINE. WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO ANSWER A SURVEY ABOUT YOUR SPAWN EXPERIENCE FOR A POTENTIAL PRIZE?" It was a really crappy fakey robot impression. But who knows? Maybe it'd work.
Hikoru jumped a bit as a voice came from nowhere, he turned as his tail swayed on it's own, showing that he was cautious. He saw a person in a space suit appear from nowhere. There had been no sound affects, nothing to indicate that it was coming or something from the system. But maybe the game just didn't have the budget to make those specific sound affects. It was, after all, an illegal game. He let out a small sigh as he straightened up, realizing that he wan't in any potential danger. He gave a nod as he continued to look around. He noticed that there were footsteps behind the giant sized character, that stopped directly where it was standing, and the shoe size seemed to fit. Something felt... off, about this. He didn't trust it, and he took a cautious step back. He raised an eyebrow curiously, before finding the words he wanted to speak. "Sure... as soon as you explain what your server code is, what my username is, and what masteries I chose?" He said expectantly. In his time in VR's, a Tutorial AI always knew what his username was and what masteries he chose, so it could help him accordingly. It was a reason some of them asked how his username was pronounced, so it could do it correctly. But he had set up a dummy line in there a well. There was no such thing as a 'server code,' at most a server code could be is the specific ones and zeros that it's made up of, but it has no way to know that information. So even if there was such an ability to learn a player's abilities and even their name, he had a safety net to rely on in case of emergency. He awaited his answer patiently, to see if this truly was an AI or not.
So suspicious! God! Players are just a pain in the ass! I'm going with Option A in the future aren't I?! I really wanna go with Option A!!!!! Just smile, Horizon! Smile! Though it's not like he can even see your face... We're doing this for science after all... "SERVER CODE..." The ----'s a server code...? "YOU ARE CURRENTLY CONNECTED TO... NORTH. AMERICA. IP INFORMATION IS: CLASSIFIED. PLEASE DO NOT REVEAL IP INFORMATION OR YOUR PASSWORD TO OTHERS. A GM WILL NEVER ASK FOR YOUR PASSWORD..." Will that pass muster? Out of the corner of her eye, Horizon looked for an escape route. Next was... Your masteries? I have no ----ing clue buddy! "ERROR. MASTERIES ARE CONSIDERED CONFIDENTIAL UNTIL DECLARED DUE TO THE UNIQUE CIRCUMSTANCES OF TERRASPHERE ONLINE. DO YOU WISH TO FORGO YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS BY DECLARING YOUR MASTERIES OUT LOUD? IF SO, A TUTORIAL IS AVAILABLE. OTHERWISE, PLEASE REFER TO YOUR TOOLTIPS AND EXPERIMENT IN A PRIVATE AREA." Horizon was sweating a little at this point. She was totally winging it. But what she had said, actually in retrospect, was not a lie. Personal information in Terrasphere was a valuable resource. Maybe -the- most valuable resource. It could be kept for a trump card or bartered for gold or friends. Yours, or anybody else's. In a world where you can really feel the twist of a knife in your back, unknowns were without a doubt scary. @Hikoru
Hikoru listened as the thing said North America, and he knew he wasn't messing with an AI. That's a location, not a server code. The next thing it did was say that they were classified, even to himself. This was odd, as usually an AI would keep it's "Master's" information between itself and it's owner. So saying that it was classified was another red flag. And a third thing is that it continued to call it player. He had specifically asked for his username, which was a basic code that could be put into a game, so there was no excuse for that simple mechanic, other than pure laziness. He stood straight, then looked over it's shoulder, giving a pure look of fear "W-what is that thing? It's huge!" He spoke. As soon as the astronaut turned the other way, he quickly lowered himself to the ground and tripped them, causing them to fall over into the sand. Hikoru made quick work and made his way over, stepping on a leg and pinning an arm behind their back. He held tight enough so that they couldn't escape, but not so hard as to cause pain to it's shoulder and leg. He gripped tighter, as the adrenaline was pumping through his veins. "If you were an AI, you would have seen this coming." He said with a small chuckle. "Now, tell me what your plan here was, or else i'll pull that helmet off and leave you to drown in the ocean." He spoke, his words like acid and daggers spitting from his mouth with every word he spoke. He didn't like the thought of spawn camping, and he hated people that thought it was a great idea to torture new players.
"And if you weren't a dumbass, you'd have figured out that I have a contingency plan." Ow, ow, ow, ow, this friggen hurts, even with dulled senses, god dammit... There were tears in the corner of Horizon's eyes, but once again, helmet, so yeah. Horizon coughed as she wheezed. "It's a bad habit to stick your cock in any ol' dark place you find, buddy. Observe first, then act. That's the scientif-*cough*-ic way of doing things..." Horizon chuckled through gritted teeth. Before she growled: "Namely, touch the helmet and I'll blow us both to shit. Got it greenhorn?" Funnily enough, that wasn't a bluff. Horizon was both crazy arrogant, and crazy stupid. She hated to lose enough to even equip herself with a 'self destruct' function. Namely, she'd put a bomb underneath all her armor. The little spacesuit---bear suit--- thing laughed kinda crazily through gritted teeth. "Declaring mastery." She sarcastically spat. "I'm a Tinker asshole. I deal with technology, making a bomb might as well be stone age for me. Press your luck and we might just go boom thanks to the one I strapped myself with. Now, wouldn't that be fun?" When it came down to it, blowing something up wasn't hard for her. The problem, was making some kind of detonation system to do it from a safe distance. Horizon had foregone the second part. The end result then, was that she herself, and unfortunately everything else in a certain radius around her, was a hostage. "So anyway, spoiler alert: I really don't wanna die. You attacking me, while suicidal, probably implies that you don't wanna die either. You really *cough* take initiative, dontcha. So let's cut to the chase. I'll make you a deal. I'll answer your questions---any of them---and you in turn, can get the **** off me and quit trying to fulfill your child molester fantasies. No matter what prick you come at me with, I ain't letting you penetrate this suit." Horizon internally sighed. Really got myself a spider monkey this time. I swear to God, I'll track him down and sell him into slavery if he makes me use my Plan Z bomb... "Ya know, I read a pretty interesting quote awhile back. 'Knowledge cannot be weighed in gold.' So whadda ya say? It's a pretty good deal that stands to benefit from your little bout of cleverness in playing a dirty trick on an innocent little girl. Consider it your reward for besting me, but let me remind you, the only other way this ends is in a tie. Ball's in your court stabby." When she finished, a shiver ran down her spine. Horizon was starting to get cold feet after that tirade. The thought of her suit becoming shrapnel and impaling her every which way before expanding outward in a red and white flower was grisly. How bad would it hurt? Would it only be an instant? Even so, being kidnapped was far scarier. Without her suit, anybody, even a peasant could overpower her. Without her suit, she was weak. Dying was preferable to being left in the hands of a stranger she decided.
Hikoru listen as the young astronaut threatened him, calling him a greenhorn and saying that she would blow them up if he tried anything. After hearing everything in silence, it sounded as if she was trying to hide an insecurity, or if she really was that crazy. The young astronaut called themselves a "young little girl", and the profile fit the stature of them, but the mouth certainly didn't. He grit his teeth and gripped a little tighter, giving a small chuckle. "If your crazy enough to blow yourself up, then fine, go ahead." He said with a chuckle. "I have no clue how death works in this game, but i'm willing to try... But, that armor of yours looks real new, really nice. If you die, i'm sure that armor will blow up with you, and would probably hurt as it impaled you once you died... It'd be a shame, you'd be stuck on my level again, no armor and nothing with you." His grip tightened a little more. "And if I was going to touch you like that, I think you'd know. Trust me, I want nothing more with you than to get information." He said, got off her leg, picking her up but still holding her arm. He would trust this person for now, but if they tried anything he could go for the kill shot when he found his chance. He pushed them forward, letting go of their arm and giving it a bit more force so that they were pushed away a good seven or eight inches. He crossed his arms as he wrapped his tail around his waist. "Alright, I let you go, so talk. Where am I, who are you, and why were you spawn camping?" He said with a hint of disgust in his voice. If they were really struggling for funds to buy new things, why did they have decent equipment to start with? He looked down and saw that he was in basic black clothing, with no weapons or helmets or anything of the sort. It didn't make sense to him, and he wanted to find out why.
Horizon detonated the bomb. Just kidding. Dusting herself off, Horizon gave the young man an incredulous look, but really it just looked like a turned off computer screen on account of her helmet. "Oh NOW he wants the tutorial." She muttered to herself under her breath and crossed her arms in thought. She decided to cooperate in a matter of fact tone. Horizon was many things, but she did keep her word. Someone whose word wasn't worth anything wasn't worth much themselves. She believed that with all her being, though that was about the limits of her integrity. Horizon held up her pointer finger. "Answer 1 then, you're in Brisshal. Typically a run of the mill rpg starter forest, we're on the outskirts right now, so you'd have to head some ways west in order to get to where you should probably be going. That would be honeyhome village, it's a sleepy little starter town where all the greenhorns gather. Maybe make some friends, or put a nice knife to someone's throat, who knows, you do you." Horizon sighed. "On that note, a looooota people like grinding boars over there for some reason. Ze-roh clue why. This game runs on mastery points, so it's not like there's anything like levels over our heads. I mean, you can grind out the mastery on living targets, but just the same, you could also not be a psycho and just train normally like a normal human being, ya know?" She held up her second finger making a count of two. "I'm Horizon, and I'm researching Terrasphere, partly as a hobby, partly because frankly, the world needs me. You'll find out why in a couple hours when you feel a shit coming on and decide to look for a public restroom. Hope you have plenty of leaves in your inventory... But I digress." Horizon went to three. "I'm currently conducting a top secret project in order to reverse-engineer the algorithm for how cheeky transfer students like you arrive in this world. I'm getting closer but I'm also, frankly, reaching my limits. When you hit a wall, big data can sometimes paint a picture though, so that's what I'm doing, amassing data to see if I can uncover a hint of the logic behind why people are spawning all over the god damn place. A pattern. That'd be something very good to know in this brave new world, wouldn't it?" Horizon paused for breath. Once one gets her talking in a way that lets her show off, she can be really hard to shut up. "On that note, 'spawn camping' as you've so gracefully put it, is next to impossible. Nobody knows where anyone's gonna up and end up. Well, except for me, kinda. So basically, the spawn itself is more dangerous, you might land in an ant pile, you might land inside some wolf's ass. Doesn't matter. People have died in seconds. Count yourself fortunate." Horizon counted to 4. "You didn't ask but I want this info for my own purposes. There's this funny little place called Astorea, it was carved out by players and is a nation -for- players. Super light novel like, but there ya go. They'd probably fund me for life if I zero'd in on how spawning works. I'd get my grant then in return they would be able to come and find all you little starlets and catch you before you hit the sand and glass the place. Keeps the collateral of the natural world that DOESN'T belong to us to a minimum and get the world's forces of the righteous all moving in the same direction." Horizon smugly counted to 5. "And you, my friend, landed at the worst possible time." Horizon laughed. "Storm's a comin', some real shadowy shit to darklord it up in this country. Good thing you know how to get stabby, because everyone's shoring up their resources. Me? I'm taking cover in a bunker. I'm talking a monster army crawling out from the depths of hell here. If everyone seems just a LITTLE on edge, that's prolly why. Might be time to make some friends and find a way to ride this out. If you even know how to make friends anyway. Either way, if Astorea loses, we're ****ed." (^In reference to the coming world boss event preparations going on^) Subtly, or maybe not so subtly, Horizon had backed up little by little as she spoke until she had to somewhat shout from where she was standing to get her voice across. She wasn't getting close to Michael Myers ever again, she decided. Horizon cupped her hands and continued to shout: "Anything else ya wanna know sweetheart? No offense but you made for some pretty crappy data, so I'd like to go and find someone else! AH! Before that! How'd you find this crappy game! Don't tell me you're REALLY the sort of person to click on a suspicious email?" Horizon laughed. I'm not sure why. She'd clicked on that same suspicious download link herself...
Hikoru listened, and listened, and as she spoke more and more his eyes widened little by little. It was a lot to process, and a lot thrown at him all at once. He listened and scratched his chin. Processing about four and five. There seemed to be a player-made area, something he had never heard of before. Curious, he made a mental note to check on it later. If it's possible to make towns, that was definitely something he was interested in. He would have to read into it later when he was out of the game, as he was sure he could possibly grab something from his friend he had made. She asked how he had gotten here, and he realized she had made space between the two of them. Quick as a flash, he sprinted forward, jumping up and front-flipping over the small girl, landing with a forward tumble, then turning to her. "I have friends, in low places." He said with a chuckle. "I met a guy who sent a message to me that said he had a game that may interest me, and sure enough I got the email not a few moments after. Either he knew the guy who made this game, or it was just coincidence, i'll find out later. For now though, I have another question." He said with a chuckle. "And please don't try to run, if I wanted to kill you I would have held on until you blew yourself up. Now I just want information so I can survive in this place." He said with another chuckle. "So, Horizon, why are you doing this? Just for money out of pure curiosity? Either way i'm intrigued. I've never heard of a game with random spawning, and i'd love to see your numbers. However I realize we aren't on the best of terms, due to my reactions, so I won't force them out of you." After a few moments, he looked towards the woods. "So, this is... Briss-shall?" He tried to pronounce it. It didn't exactly roll off the tongue, but he would get it eventually. He looked back at Horizon. "So where is the nearest town?"
Now he's just showing off, huh. "Yeah so when the feds come knocking you can just tell em you're just holding it for a friend huh? That'll surely work. Right as rain! And me, run? *Pfft* I'm just advancing in the other direction buddy so don't get a big head. I don't eat broccoli and I don't like it on my plate but it doesn't give me nightmares either." Waving him away like an old southern man she continued walking as she talked. "If you wanna go to Brisshal just head west. From there, it's more or less an all roads lead to Rome situation. If you can't figure that out, there's not hope for you. Just die in a ditch somewhere and do the moss a favor." Horizon laughed continuing. "But my numbers though eh? What? YOU'RE curious? *Pfft* I don't think they'd make a lick of sense to ya. But they're not ready either, so I aint sharin'." Her last answer was to a question she'd skirted over. Her motive. It was a line of thought that gave her some pause. Finally, she settled on an answer that would satisfy her. "...How do you think God felt when he said 'let there be light?'" Horizon sarcastically snorted but there was a quietude behind what she said, a kind of reverence. "Why then, why at that moment, and what did it decide to do afterward? It's a mystery, but regardless, I wonder what it felt like. Just as well, it's the prerogative to great people to lift the lessers among us out of the filth. The answer's simple buddy, Horizon's motivation is her compassionate heart." Timing that ending on her arriving at a metaphorial fork in the road, Horizon stopped walking. "And this is where we part ways greenhorn. I've been kind enough to turn you North so now West is just on your left. Git, I'm sick of your face. And if you change your mind and really wanna push your luck with a lover's suicide, frankly, I'd love for the shrapnel from my ribs to tear that smug look right off of your face and send it flying along with your guts." Horizon started off on her own path. "Sayanara bucko." And with that she disappeared over the horizon, her namesake. <EXIT THREAD>
Hikoru listened as she brushed off what he said. He just chuckled and listened as she did her spheal, pointing him the direction he needed to go. She also said that her numbers weren't ready to be shown, and he respected that in a sense. He let out a small sigh and looked in the direction she pointed. Although it seemed crowded with woods, he was sure he could make it there without a hitch, as long as he stayed high enough in the air and kept his noise to a minimum, so he didn't awaken predators. He had no clue what to expect from this game, and if the creatures were like the players here, he knew that he would be screwed if he didn't play it safe. She said that she had pointed him in the direction of North, so he just looked left and sure enough, there was actually a small trail leading through the woods. He was surprised he hadn't seen it earlier, then again, he had been busy trying to survive his first five minutes into a new game. He gave a laugh and a nod as the young player said their goodbyes, and he just waved. "I'll be waiting to hear from you again, and to see your progress in this game." He lowed his hand, then sighed. "Because i'm sure i'm bound to run into you again, hopefully next time without the bomb threats..." He said as he turned to the path and started to make his way towards the town, to start off his first play time in this game, and hopefully not the last.
