NationStates Jolt Archive

Logon.

-flicker-

A small grey cubicle. High on one wall is printed "Character Creation". A large touchscreen-surfaced desk and a chair take up most of the space. The one door is prominently marked, not "Exit", but "Quit".

Text prints.

Welcome to Games Without Frontiers. Before you start, please take a moment to create your character.

Select one:
-Extrapolate from Text.
-Extrapolate from Image.
-Extrapolate from 3D Model.
-Interactive Creation.

For more information, tap any selection with a finger. To select, tap a selection twice.

[OOC: You can go through the whole creation process if you like. If you don't want to waste time with it, just describe your character and I'll assume it's been created.

If you want to join, please see the signup thread (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=6806883&posted=1#post6806883).]

OOC: The following is a "pre-action" post I wrote earlier to get in the mood; my character is going to be Kui Tenat. Probably I'll post a next thing, going from Khrrk's intro post above, sometime later this evening. Unless I find something shinier to do instead, of course.

The former high command of the Iron Legion sat around a virtual table in a virtual bar in a virtual worldlet affiliated (loosely) with the one they'd recently vacated.

Tuig Saren, former Head of Recruiting, still wore his Legionnaire's uniform; he was the only one of them who hadn't yet been "killed" in the World of Titans MOVE (Multiplayer Online Virtual Environment), and the more dedicated core of the Alliance was still hunting his Titan walker across the virtual world.

"So what, on the Players'* names, are we gonna do now?" he asked again. He'd been asking that since First Army General Nguha had vanished and the Legion had crumbled, and the others had long ago ceased to care.

"Start over," said Khan. The former Head of Titan Manufacturing had already done that, and his virtual jumpsuit was as yet undecorated with kill marks.

"Jump ship," suggested Keran Hau, "Saing and the other Alliance movers've got VSP trackers, so even if the rest of the mob crumbles that bastard could track down reincarnations and frag us." Keran, former Third Army General, had already suited actions to words, and had come wearing some kind of elf-sim from a fantasy MOVE somewhere.

"I think Keran's right," offered Kui Tenat, former Second Army General. She'd been with Nguha since the founding of the Legion, had invested more time in the World of Titans than she had in her Virtual Environment Design tertiary course, and it hurt to admit it. But with Saing and his loosely-knit Alliance still out for the Legion's heads, it made sense. "You know how Saing is - the New Battle Plans** are "bad sport", exclusive use of Titan factories is "bad sport", and skipping out on the game is definitely "bad sport", so not only is he not going to stop looking for us until we're all gone and not coming back, if we do that without his help, he's going to be really pissed, vá***?.

"Besides," she added, "I got this bit of spam in my inbox the other day."

Kui sent the rest of them the advert.

"Different MOVE, different VOS, different architecture, different damn hardware!" Khan exclaimed. "You got this, Tenat - Saing won't be able to find anyone there. But I don't think he can find us in WoT. Not with new characters, vá?"

"C'mon, guys, we can still fix this thing if we work at it!" Tuig insisted.

"Maybe you can do that, Tuig," Keran replied, "But you'll have to do it without me. And why go so far, Tenat? The WorldForest MOVE's good, and the players could sure use a New Battle Plan."

"You think you're Nguha, Keran? Good luck applying the New Battle Plans to a bunch of pointy-ears in the woods, then. Me, I think I'll try it. After all, like it says - the first 48 hours are free, so what have I got to lose?

"See you guys around sometime, perhaps. Teng lau, sani!****"

Notes:
*Players; the Jade Flute Players, figures from Rei-Sarenghai mythology. Thoroughly nasty.
**New Battle Plans: A guy named Nguha came up with a scheme to get a bunch of individual pilots of giant mech thingies to turn into an army. Known as the New Battle Plans.
***Vá?; similar to capisce? Basically it means "understand?".
****Teng lau, sani!; Adios, amigos! Rei-Sarenghai goodbye, somewhat formal.

[OOC: Sorry... I've been swamped, and I mean SWAMPED with school recently, and I haven't been able to post. I'll try to make a post tomorrow, on the 21st.]

He wondered what it would be like to feel.

As he stared at the screen in front of him, Nathan McCoy dreamed of being able to taste wine, and to feel the touch of a woman. He fantasized of catching a football and falling asleep in the rain. He imagined what sensations were to others, and his resentment flared.

Born without a central nervous system, Nathan had been confined to his mobile life-support chair since birth. He had never felt the touch of his mother, nor the taste of her milk. True, no pain would ever hurt him, but no pleasure would ever be his to enjoy either. The Game was the answer to his dreams.

He looked again at the logon screen, and began to create his character:

Select one:
-Extrapolate from Text.
-Extrapolate from Image.
-Extrapolate from 3D Model.
-Interactive Creation.

Nathan went through the choices, developping his in-game persona based on history and fantasy. He created the exact opposite of what he was. Using fictional artwork from Earth, circa 20th century, Nathans character looked like a fantasy hero named "Colossus", a tall, muscular, athletic Russian who could turn his body into impenetrable bio-steel, giving him limitless strength and endurance...the young cripple replicated the powers, not only the looks. When he was finished, Nathan stared at his creation, fascinated by the incredible avatar that now had his face.

His excitement growing, Nathan blinked his eyes twice, which was the equivalent of hitting the "enter" key. His heart began to race as he saw the next message scroll across his screen:

"Character loaded...game sequence loaded...startup loaded...entering gameworld."

Daniel Cerano logged in and started creating his character- a souped up version of himself.
He increased his height to 186 centimetres (that's 6 foot 2) and gave himself a suit of armour and a very big sword. Along with his ability to jump 6 metres in the air and regrow lost limbs, he was ready.

flicker

The same grey room. The writing on the wall says "Login" this time, though.

Text prints.

Welcome to Games Without Frontiers, Josephine.

[ ]-Enter GWF
[ ]-Edit options
[ ]-Create a new character (your current character will be deleted)
[ ]-Request help

A finger reaches out and taps a selection.

Do you wish to arrive in the Arrival Center, or your home zone?

"The Arrival Center."

-discontinuity-

Josephine's boots thudded dully as she dropped onto the concrete floor of the Arrival Center.

She straightened up, sniffed the air, and smiled. "Home again..." She straightened her gloves. "It's a perfect day to help someone in. Let's find a newbie, shall we?"

Josephine grinned, and vanished into the crowd.

******************************************

The floor of the Arrival Center is crowded and busy at any hour of the day. Beings of every description mill back and forth, talking, leaving, and arriving in a vaulted steel dome almost three hundred and fifty feet across.

Josephine looked like a wolf. She had the fur, the ears, and the muzzle. She wore a tan jacket and pants, both covered with pockets. Her gloves extended up to her elbows, and her boots to her knees; both matched the dark brown of her fur. A knife and a pistol both swung from her belt. Altogether, she looked formidable, and she knew it.

********************************

Josephine jumped as a tall human materialized out of thin air beside her. A moment later, another equally tall human appeared, this one dressed in heavy armor.

She looked up at the two humans with interest. "New, huh? Welcome. I'm Josephine. Interested in learning the ropes?"

Nate blinked rapidly as he materialized in the Arrival Center. He looked at himself, touching his steel-plated skin, flexing the muscles in his new form and most of all, FEELING sensations...the smile that spread across his metallic face was the first he'd had in a long, long time. All around him were beings of different types...humanoids of all sorts, mythological beasts, nightmarish monsters and creatures that defied description. A tall man wearing strange armor and holding a wicked looking blade stood close by.

Nate looked down when he heard a feminine voice speak to him. The creature was wolf-like, but still with enough human traits to identify it as a female. She was armed to the teeth, and she didn't seem the least bit impressed by the fact she was talking to a 7" tall, 500 lb man with virtually invulnerable metal skin. Nate decided he liked this lupine lady.

"I would be honored in learning from such a lovely creature as yourself. My friends call me Nate...and so can you."

Josephine smiled. "Well, then... Let's start with the basics. Yourself." She gave Nate a considering look. "You're OK for now, but that body of yours is going to get seriously adjusted when you leave the Interface. You might want to consider fixing that sometime later."

Josephine gestured at the surrounding area. "Right now, you're in the Interface. This is sort of the 'sandbox' area. You can do what you like, without a lot of the restrictions the rest of the game has. You can use technology or magic however you like, request whatever you like, from pistols to F-14s and entire chunks of terrain. You can't take anything you create here outside, though. That make sense?"

The character creation area seemed rather primitive in it's design to Kui Tenat - the World of Titans one had been an interesting preview of the WoT itself, all rusting steel and gears - but the underlying code must be advanced. AI*, perhaps.

Relegating the GWF environment to secondary status, Kui brought her desktop environment forward, and went rummaging through her files of 3d models. Part of her Virtual Environment Design courses at Tassarkand Heights University involved the creation of such, and the backups were all here on her personal filespace, from the earliest wireframes to completed, human-perfect models.

The one she'd made for WoT was here too, as well as the various derivations she'd pondered at the time. All of them were perfectly androgynous - given the number of creeps on the VR nets, Kui was somewhat sensitive about her gender. Unfoundedly, perhaps, but there was no explaining psychology.

A few simple changes - hair colour to red, skin to the pale of a Hibernian Celt (Kui, like most Rei-Sarenghai, was brown-skinned and black-haired, but the freedom of the 'nets offered a great deal of choice) - and it was done; an acceptable character dressed in the garb of the Sarenghai (three hundred years back, admittedly, at the time of the Unification - long coat in red and gold, shirt, trousers, and boots). Kui considered the fashions of the Khanate somewhat more stylish than the baggy pants and drifting parachute coats of today.

That done, she brought the GWF environment forward again, and submitted the model.

The login scene appeared - Welcome to Games Without Frontiers, Kui Tenat - and she thought that whoever had designed it must have been more familiar with screens than VED.

- You currently have no designated Home Zone. Proceed to the Arrival Center? -

She confirmed that, and was immediately deposited in the Arrival Center. After the grey blandness of the character creation and login environments, the Arrival Center was a blaring shout of colour - maybe that was what the designers had intended. Although the Center itself was also rather plain, the myriad characters within it mixed like some kind of psychedelic neo-New Age painting. Kui thought that that was a rather clever trick.

Toning the contrast down to more bearable levels, Kui stood a moment, looking about.

OOC:
*AI: Not walking, talking, taking-over-the-nation AI a lá HAL 9000 or VIKI; Rei-Sarenghai AI is artificial, and it's intelligent, but it's not actually sentient, so it does what it does with reasonable skill but doesn't exceed it's parameters. Actual human-style-intelligence programs are known as Digital Sentiences, but they're not actually all that useful, so they're mainly found in university philosophy or psychology departments.

Daniel decided to go to the Arrival Center.

As he expected it was crowded with people. He decided that he needed a companion

He saw Kui standing there, looking around.

"Hey", he called, "Do you need some help?"

Nate decided that Josephine was quite lovely, even though she had fur and canine fangs. He wasn't completely sure he understood what she had said, so he asked her for clarification.

"What exactly do you mean "my body will be seriously adjusted"...I thought I could choose any avatar I wanted?" Nate looked at himself, still amazed at his own size and strength, and desperately wished that he could keep this new form. Something else she said had puzzled him as well.

"What is outside this "Interface"...and why I would I want to create something here that I can't use THERE...? Sheesh, I guess I should looked a little closer at the "read me" file..."

Josephine sighed. "You can choose any character you like, within reason. We can't have a bunch of all-powerful superheroes running around, can we? If you leave the Interface like that the game's going to kick you down a couple of size and strength notches, and probably do something about that steel skin of yours as well. If you want to keep that sort of powers, you'd want to create a dragon or Wyrm character, or something like that. I can walk you through the creation process again if you like."

At that point, she was interrupted by another player materializing to her right.

"Ah, hello there." she said to the person in the red-and-gold coat. "I'm a bit busy, but if you need help just wait a few moments."

Josephine turned back to Nate. "As for creating things here... you might want to try something the normal rules don't allow, or test-drive a vehicle you normally couldn't afford... stuff like that. As for what's outside... the best way would be to show you. I'll be leaving in 'bout fifteen minutes... got things to do. You're welcome to come along."

Johan had left the Panzian special forces for a much more profitable job as a defense contractor, and settled down, training other 'defense contractors' in how to be a mercenary.

He sat down and looked at the screen and noticed the four options. He tried to get himself not to make something too ordinary.

"This isn't a training simulator, so, I think i'll take a few liberties."

He then selected the option to take an image. He chose a painting of an obscure Hungarian historical figure named Admiral Horthy (OOC: This guy was real, i can get some info on him if you'd like.). He then made a few modifications, and after he was done he made a completely human "cigar-chompin'" admiral with an M-60 in one hand and a flamethrower in the other.

He then blinked for a moment to confirm his selection and appeared in the Interface.

"Hello.."

Crestfallen, Nate felt dissappointed by his inability to keep the form that appealed to him most. Nonetheless, anything would be better than real life, where he remained a paraplegic who could not feel. He looked at Josephine.

"I guess I would like some help reconfiguring my build for when we leave here...would you be insulted if I chose something like you?" Nate thought that being a wolfman could be pretty darn cool...and he trusted the weregirl in front of him.

"Oh what the heck: have your way with me. Make me into any avatar you want. All I ask is in the end, I look cool and I can kick ass!"

Josephine blinked at the person in admiral's uniform who had just appeared nearby. "Have they started dropping all the newbies in the same place? Seems like it... If you need help, I'll be right with you. Just a moment..."

Josephine grinned at Nate. "Sounds fine to me. I'll knock you up a basic character and you can edit it later." She pulled a blue box off her belt and pressed the one button set into its surface. As she clipped the box back onto her belt, a green menu appeared in mid-air in front of her.

She selected "Edit Character" with one gloved finger, pointed at Nate, then started going through menus at a rapid pace.

****************************************

Standard Races:

Dragon
Human
Rahoni
Jzna... (click)

Fur Color? >Black (click)

Build:

Light
Normal
Muscular... (click)

Class:

****************************************

Josephine glanced at Nate. "Kick ass, you said? Then you want something combat-oriented... probably not vehicular combat..."

Mage/HeavyInfantry/Boarder... (click)

Clothing Type:

Jumpsuit
Robe/Pants
Shirt/Pants... (click)

Clothing Specifics:

Shirt Type/Color - No sleeves, white.
Pants Type/Color - Normal denim, black.
Belt Type/Color - Normal leather, simple buckle, dark brown.
Gloves/Color - None.
Footwear/Color - Combat boots, black.
Other/Color - Headband (strip of cloth tied at back of head), white.

****************************************

Josephine tapped a final item in the maze of menus hanging in front of her. They shimmered and vanished. Simultaneously, Nate blurred and snapped back into focus.

Josephine grinned. "There you go. It can take a few minutes to get used to, especially the tail, but I think you'll like it."

"Hey, do you need some help?"

Kui realised that the voice was directed at her, and turned to regard the speaker; a massive, massively armoured figure, almost a foot taller than her own character*.

Whatever language he might originally be speaking in, Kui heard it in Rei-Sarenghai, thanks to the translation programs of her VR gear; a slight monotonous tinge to the translation was the only real indication that whoever it was wasn't a native speaker.

"I am fine, thank you," she replied (voice, like character, rendered perfectly androgynous by software similar to the translation programs), "I'm sure I shall find my way around given a moment."

"Ah, hello there, I'm a bit busy, but if you need help just wait a few moments."

That speaker was a brown-furred female humanoid wolf creature; Rei-Sareng, with it's (officially) entirely human population, lacked such things (outside of fantasy, of course), and she immediately thought furry. But a perfectly adrogynised character had no room in which to judge.

Some kind of moderator, she wondered? The moderators of the World of Titans had been remote, aloof entities, holding themselves removed from the Legion/Alliance war, but such things varied, of course.

As Josephine punched in the last sequence and hit "enter", Nate's world shimmered, then swam into sharp focus. His senses came alive with sound, scent and light. It wasn't just that he LOOKED like a wolf now, he also had their hyper-senses...and agility! He jumped straight into the air, performed a double-flip and landed softly in front of Josephine.

"Wa-HoooOoooo!" yelled Nate, enthused by the new energy within him." I mean...AaaaaRRRooooooo!" His howl sounded a bit like a woman giving birth, but Nate was too overjoyed to care. His tail was a marvel to behold, almost like a 3rd arm, and he realized it added a lot of balance to his new body. He still retained a strong, muscular form, and Nate's beaten-up ego was happy with it.

"Thanks lady! I am SO psyched! lets get this show on the road....AaaAAARRooooooooo!"

His second howl sounded more wolf-like, and Nate practiced growling and snarling as he waited for Josephine to lead the way. He restrained himself when he had the urge to sniff her fur-covered derrierre.

[OOC:He restrained himself when he had the urge to sniff her fur-covered derrierre.Jznas aren't THAT wolflike...

Sorry about the delay, folks. I'm swamped... you know how it is. Hopefully things will settle down soon.]

Josephine blinked, a little taken aback by Nate’s antics. “I can see you like it… Well. Those of you who have just arrived, I’m Josephine, and I drive one of the tour ATVs. The tour leaves in ten minutes, but until then you’re welcome to ask me questions. In fact, there’s so many of you… I think I need help. One moment.”

Once again, Josephine pulled the blue box from her belt and clicked the button. This time, she just tapped one item in the first menu before the lot vanished.

“There we go… Now, who here needs help or has questions?”

[OOC:Jznas aren't THAT wolflike...

<<OOC: Keep in mind, Nate is sixteen years old...he doesn't need to be a wolf to want to sniff butts!>>

He was impatient, though enjoying the feel of his new form. Nate looked around, and saw a crowd beginning to gather around Josephine. He edged his way to stand beside her, and listened as she asked if anyone had any questions. He put a fur-covered hand into the air:

"What can we expect "out there"? Is it dangerous?? WIll I be alone???" The questions tumbled from Nate, and more began to develop.

"When do we leave??"

Josephine glanced back over her shoulder at Nate. "Have a little patience, kid. I have other people to deal with, you know. I can talk to you again when I'm finished."

She turned back to the group of people nearby. Okaay... "You, with the armor and the huge sword. That stuff's going to make you collapse when you leave. I'd reccomend getting lighter armor and a smaller sword- no, scratch that, get lighter armor and I'll deal with the sword in a moment."

She turned to face the admiral. "Hmm. You're OK, actually. I'd reccomend getting something lighter than a flamethrower, though. You can swap it out on the tour vehicle, if you're taking the tour."

Finally, Josephine turned to the...person in the red coat. "You're doing great. I'd say you should get something to defend yourself with, though... we can get you something in the ATV."

She glanced at her wrist.

"We have about six minutes until the tour starts. Which of you-"
"Itimishu! Yutimishu! Hoyaaa..."
"-wants to go on the tour? Yipe!"
Josephine threw herself to the ground as what looked like a begging bowl filled with peas sailed over her head, spinning viciously. "Of all the people... Mitch! I asked for help, not a friggin' comedy show!"

*******************************************

The object of Josephine's fury, a tall, lanky young man in ill-fitting ninja garb, bowed mockingly. He twirled the staff (on closer inspection, it was a broom handle) he carried in his right hand, and smiled at the assembled group.

OOC: Ahhh i see it has started. I been really busy lately but now have time to join. My charecter in RL is an owner of a restaurant, however he sees this as a way to perhapes relive his days as a Marine in the WIckian navy. Just need a way in i think...or if there is still time to join yall on the tour?

"You're doing great. I'd say you should get something to defend yourself with, though... we can get you something in the ATV."

"My thanks," Kui replied, bowing slightly. "I was unsure what would be permissible, so I omitted weaponry. I am Kui Tenat, by the way."

Before the wolfette (Kui still didn't know her name) could reply, a bowl of peas went sailing overhead, followed by a man wearing clothing looking, to her, similar to what the Northern Sarenghai called "desert garb", although it was black as opposed to the tan colours the nomads used.

He reminded her somewhat of Keran Hau, before Nguha vanished and the Legions started going down the tubes; not physically, but Keran had also been somewhat of a joker. On her birthday he'd led his Third Army halfway across the World of Titans to sing "Happy Birthday" to her (Kui would have suspected some kind of ulterior motive, but he'd subsequently done the same for Khan).

She smiled back, uncertainly - if this man was anything like Keran, he was a wild card. The Third Army's birthday antics had resulted in the loss of a strategic pass in Tauk (and the relief of the Redat Foundry, on the other occasion).

Nate waited.

Then he waited some more.

He watched peas fly over his head, and yet he waited still.

Nate had was very good at waiting, as he had waited his whole life to experience the sensations he was feeling now. Josephine told him to wait a little longer, so he would. There was no way he was going to push things, not when he was so close to his adventure.

Nate counted the seconds as he waited even more.

[OOC: Don't worry, WIck. Take a look at the signup thread.]

Mitch broke into a grin and strode forward. "Lieutenant Mitch, reporting for duty, sir!"

"Can't you take things seriously?" muttered Josephine, as Mitch snapped to attention in front of her. "Snap out of it. The tour starts in five minutes, and I've got a pretty big group here."

Josephine sighed and looked around. "We need to head out to our vehicle. Just a moment." She reached for the blue box at her belt.

click

Menus blossomed in front of Josephine.
*****************************************

Edit -Restricted-
Request Aid
Request Tour Vehicle
Request Transport... (click)

Destination:
TSP1
TSP2
TSP3
TSP4... (click)

Point to members of tour group. Point to self when done.

"Okay, let's see... you, you, you, and you..."

Point to any additional Guides. Point to self when done.

"Hold still, Mitch..."

Your destination is Tour Start Point 4. Correct?

"This may be a little strange..."

click

The landscape shimmered and blurred. Somehow, it managed to do it in a way that didn't make you dizzy, although it looked like it should have.

************************************************

When the group materialized again, it was inside a arched corrugated-metal building that rather resembled an aircraft hangar.

"Sorry if I seem to be rushing you through," said Josephine, as the landscape jerked once and then settled, "but we've got a schedule to keep. We'll have plenty of time when we're on the tour. Now, we need a vehicle..."

click

Edit -Restricted-
Request Aid
Request Tour Vehicle... (click)

Select vehicle type and size. (List edited to user preferences and abilities)
boosted Swamp Tracker MK1. Occupancy: 4.
boosted Swamp Tracker MK2. Occupancy: 6.
boosted Swamp Tracker MK3. Occupancy: 8...

"Seems like a lot of people are turning up. And I always did like the Mark Six..."

boosted Swamp Tracker MK6 w/eq. Occupancy: 14. Two Guides required for operation. (click)

Vehicle model selected. Vehicle 47-JOS-KQ8 is available. Please allow 15 seconds for port...

This is the moment he had been waiting for since he first logged into the game. Josephine was very busy trying to keep the new players in line while configuring the game settings, so Nate simply waited, observing the other participants. They were of different shapes and sizes, and adorned with strange clothing and regalia. It was all very beautiful, yet frightening at the same time.

Nate could barely contain his impatience.

As the menu winked out, Josephine turned to Nate. "Okay, Nate. We'll be in a group. There will be some danger, since we like to show newbies everything, but you won't suffer anything serious-"

WHUMP!

With a rush of displaced air, Swamp Tracker 47-JOS-KQ8 appeared on the garage floor.

*****************************************************

The Swamp Tracker MK6 is a fearsome machine. Painted a menacing dark gray, 47-JOS-KQ8 loomed with its bottom at least three feet off the ground, supported on six massive tires. A single passenger door on the right side, a cargo door on the rear, and two hatches on top made up the only enterances to the vehicle. A plate-glass windshield provided excellent forward visibility, and cameras set into the sides covered the blind spots.

*****************************************************

Mitch grinned. "Is that an ATV, or is that an ATV? Come on. Let's get loaded up and move out." He took off towards the passenger door.

He climbed the ladder leading up to the door, pressed his hand against a plate set into the vehicle's side, and slipped through the door as it slid aside. A moment later, he appeared behind the windshield and waved to the group on the ground.

Josephine chuckled, then beckoned to the tour group. "Come on. Let's get aboard before Mitch tries to start that thing up. I know for a fact that he's hopeless at driving these things, but he does love to try."

Nate used the added speed and agility of his new wolven-form to his benefit, scrambling into the ATV before anyone else had a chance. He grabbed a window seat and settled back, staring in wide-eyed fascination at all the gadgets built into the vehicle. He hoped he'd get a chance to drive this beast, but he'd never driven anything in his life before, so he stifled the thought...for now. This WAS a game, after all.

Nate waited with growing impatience for the others to get in.

Aeris Du'sail looked at the new game.

'Games Without Frontiers. Well...that's pretty much impossible in human logic, if you ask me, but whatever.' She bemused herself while it loaded for the first time.

The teenaged girl scanned through the various character choices. Elves, Dragons, Jzna, oh my! She finally settled on a half-Elven girl, with most of her abilities geared towards offensive magic, but some space for healing magic and minor technological skills. For her appearance style, what else could she go for but the good old Tolkien fanstasy style?

'Ever the mildly violent support character.' She reminded herself, and "clicked" on the Show button...cube...thing.

A generic half-Elf popped up. Ooo, boring. So she tweaked it. She kept the slim, attractive body, and after many long considerations, she settled on strawberry blonde hair that reached down to her back. A pair of thin braids drifted down her chest and ended just touching on her bosom, one on the left, and one on the right. A scarlet ribbon was wound through each braid. Piercing emerald eyes gazed out from her virtual face. She wore a simple cloak that was colored a light ash with a trim that matched the ribbons in her hair. She carried a staff of black lacquered wood that had a brooding red gem afixed to the top. Aeris named her creation Amethyst Siltayria and proudly clicked on the Create button. Her avatar popped into the Games Without Frontiers, and looked inquizitively around.

Daniel got into the ATV and sat in the middle. He took out a bottle of water and started drinking it.

"I'm ready, Nate" he said, "Let's go".

It seems rather more solid than it needs to be, Kui thought, climbing in. Surely a "don't throw monsters at new players" command would be equally effective?

And who lit a fire under the wolfman's tail? He's rushing about like a kid promised sugar...

Sliding into a seat, Kui leaned back, and waited for the thing to start. A few minutes idle time never hurt anyone.

Amethyst's arrival in the Arrival Zone went almost without notice; a testimony that people can get used to anything, even people materializing from thin air.

A few beings glanced at her as they went about their buisness, but most swirled around in the endless crowd, groups forming and dissipating as people met and parted. A blue console stood nearby, with a holographic sign spelling "Tour" in electric-blue letters above it.

*************************************************

Josephine waited for the last player to climb on board, then scrambled up the ladder herself.

As she made her way to the front she smiled at Nate, who was sitting in one of the seven two-person bench seats and didn't seem to notice that the "window" he was sitting next to was a touchscreen.
She nodded at the ...person sitting on the opposite side of the bus, then swung herself into the left-hand seat and looked over her shoulder.

"Can you all hear me OK?"

[OOC: Might add onto this post later. We'll see.]

Aeris took off the VR glasses and motion jacks for just a moment. It simply felt too alien. She placed the devices to the side, and reached instead for a thin black cord. The girl plugged the Electro-Nervousic Impulse Tap snugly into the bottom of her forearm, turning the nerve it touched upon into a seperate spinal cord between her and the game. The screen flickered back to life in front of her, this time projected directly through her brain onto her retinas. She looked around the swirling crowd once more, and spotted an interesting looking terminal. She sauntered over to it, and simply thought about the action of reading the terminal. The words popped up before her eyes.

The tour has already left. Do you want to continue anyway? Y/N

Aeris, or Amethyst, as her in-game tag read, pondered. She usually liked finding things out the hard way, which generally involved lots of dying, but this seemed like such an expansive game, there might be no hope for her if she tried to do it along. Her mind was made up. Y.

Her avatar fizzled, and then popped into existiance next to Josephine, her feet still on the ground. She took an involuntary step backwards as the temporary imbalance was registered fully in her head. She put on a soft smile and looked around.

"I hope this is the tour, or do I have a buggy game to return?"

((I just want to make it clear that a ENIT doesn't bypass the Action Layer, which would be really cheap. The person using it still has to use base instinct to control their avatar's actions, so if they don't know how to visualize something they can actually do physically, it will still utilize the Action Layer. Is that alright?))

OK then. I've read the TG from Khrrck and selected the Characteristics from the list:

Basic Race: Human
Basic Occupation: Covert User
Basic Style: Modern 2010
Additional Options: Aircraft Pilot, Expert Driver, Hacker

As she made her way to the front she smiled at Nate, who was sitting in one of the seven two-person bench seats and didn't seem to notice that the "window" he was sitting next to was a touchscreen.
She nodded at the ...person sitting on the opposite side of the bus, then swung herself into the left-hand seat and looked over her shoulder.

"Can you all hear me OK?"


He could here her just fine, especially with his wolf-like senses, but hearing is not listening...he was too busy trying to stay seated. For the first time in his life, he could FEEL things: the leather bench he was sitting on, the breeze from the air unit, the cool glass of the touch-screen window. He looked around the ATV, and saw another player, leaning back with a bored expression on his face. Nate slid across his seat, coming to rest close to the stranger. He smiled, revealing sharp fangs.

"Hi! My name is Nate...who are you? WHAT are you? Can you fly? Can I see your sword? Where are you from? Have you played before? Josephine is cute, huh? Hey, any food in this game? What did you say your name was again? Did you ever play Astro-Smash? Is this game as cool as that? *sniffs* Heeeey...did you fart? Someone farted...maybe Josephine? What time is it? What are we waiting for!?"

Nate rolled on, not even pausing for breath, or allowing the player with the bemused expression the chance to respond.

[OOC: Where has all my free time gone? Guys, I may start breaking my posts up into installments. Not all of you will get replies at the same time, but I'll be able to post more often.

Cyberutopia, the ENIT sounds just fine.]

Checking combination... Valid. Synthesizing image...

click

A fairly nondescript man, light and wiry, in dark blue jeans, a dark gray T-shirt, and a black jacket. His belt holds a number of electronic gadgets, some identifiable as PDAs and bits of interface equipment, others totally unidentifiable.
He wears an earphone in his left ear, with a mike clipped to his collar. The wires from both snake down under his jacket, hinting at further pieces of electronic gimmickry hidden underneath.

*************************************************

Josephine took a moment to notice the half-elf.
"Right, I guess you can hear me... you might not be listening, though- Oh, hello there. This is the tour; take a seat. You haven't missed anything."

"Okay. Here's the deal. We're going to give you a peek at some of the stuff that goes on around here, and then start giving you some of the specifics on how it actually works."

Mitch flicked a switch and was rewarded with a low hum coming from the sides of the vehicle.

"-Thanks, Mitch, but please don't touch anything else. Some of you may be wondering why this thing is so formidable. Part of the reason is that it just looks cool, but we do have some special architecture considerations that require something like this. I'll say more on that later. Right now, we're going to head out into the 2100 zone. The boundary is a couple of kilometers from here, so you can sit back and enjoy the ride.-"

With an abrupt lurch, the vehicle's suspension dropped a whole six inches.

"-That does it, Mitch. You go sit in the back while I drive this thing. Pass out some equipment, maybe."

As Mitch made his way into the back, Swamp Tracker 47-JOS-KQ8 sank gently for another eighteen inches, then started to move forward. The hum from the wheel hubs deepened and became louder as the machine accelerated.

Slowly, the double doors at the end of the hangar swung open...

Amethyst lounged deeply into the Swamp Tracker, and the feedback through the ENIT portrayed it as very comfortable. The sudden lurch painted an annoyed look on her face, but she quickly obliterated it. It was just a tiny lurch, after all.

'I guess you don't have to spare any expense in the virtual world.' She relflected with a smirk as she looked ahead.

Mitch cautiously made his way to the back of the vehicle as it rolled out through the hangar doors into a barren, blasted waste, moving remarkably smoothly.

He halted in front of a set of tall metal compartments.

"All right. Let's see what the Random Number God has granted us, shall we?"

Mitch lifted the compartment's latch and swung it open.

"Mm. The usual junk... let's see if there's anything worthwhile, shall we?"

Mitch reached into the compartment, and pulled out-
-a pair of Western revolvers, complete with holsters ("Any wannabe cowboys here?")-
-a compound bow ("Nice bit of kit.")-
-four silver cans, marked "NANO" in bold red letters ("Nasty stuff.")-
-a string bag of softly glowing crystals. ("Shiny.")-
-a authentic Polynesian yo-yo ("What's that doing in there?").

Mitch dropped the stuff onto the floor and reached far into the back, coming out with a handful of tiny blue packets. "Just what I was looking for."

He slipped the packets into some hidden pocket in his clothing and opened the rest of the compartments, peering inside.

"OK. We've got a lot of stuff in here. Now, I won't profess to know all the stuff you'd want, so just tell me what sort of thing you'd like and I'll toss you what we've got, plus whatever else I think you need."

OOC: Waiting on a telegram from Gawdly before I post ... but those six-shooters are mine, damnit! All mine! :)

"Coooo-ooOOOllll!" exclaimed the little wolf-boy named Nate, reaching for the yo-yo. "Man, it's a Polynesian Whizzer...dude, these are priceless!!" He immediately began playing with the toy, watching it as it dangled from the string.

"I never thought I'd actually ever be able to PLAY with one of these..." his voice choked up slightly, the memory of his real life flooding back. Out of the game, Nate was a young man, paralysed from the neck down, with a degenerative disease that robbed him of all feeling, and was slowly taking his life. Here, in the game, he was very much alive...and active.

"Wootah! Yip-yip-Aaaarrrrroooooooo!" howled Nate, dancing a litle werewolf jig. His smile was perma-plastered to his face, and he turned to Kui, who still looked slightly bemused by the boy's energy. Nate stuck his hand out.

"C'mon, dude! Come check this cool stuff...wow, look at those old guns...neato! Bang-bang...weeee-ooooo! Hey, C'MON!"

The boy was going to explode any minute, his enthusiasm contagious and uncontainable.

"Hi! My name is Nate...who are you? WHAT are you? Can you fly? Can I see your sword? Where are you from? Have you played before? Josephine is cute, huh? Hey, any food in this game? What did you say your name was again? Did you ever play Astro-Smash? Is this game as cool as that? *sniffs* Heeeey...did you fart? Someone farted...maybe Josephine? What time is it? What are we waiting for!?"

Kui was not bored but rather attentive; she heard everything, and saw everything, but didn't respond to anything. Which was okay, as Nate was doing enough for both of them.

ADD? Drugs? Hot wires? Whatever it is, it's not natural.

"I'm Kui," she said, when the hyperkinetic wolfman finally let her get a word in edgewise. "I'm human. No, I cannot fly. Sword? I don't have a sword. I'm from Rei-Sareng. Played before? Not this game, else I wouldn't be taking the tour, but similar. She's not my type. I don't know. Kui. No. As such, how could I tell? No. This avatar isn't coded for flatulence. I don't know, and I don't know."

Definitely not natural. Like a ferret on a sugar high.

"Right. Neato. I'll take those, if you don't mind ... Mitch, no?"

A toddler? A toddler on a sugar high? Either way, this guy with projectile weapons == bad.

The half-Elven mage smiled cooly and picked up the little packet of crystals.

"Shiny indeed..." She cooed to herself. "Hey Mitch, what do these do?" She nodded at the compound bow. "I bet someone else wants that, but if by some twist no one does, I'd love a weapon like that to start out with."

Nate was hopelesly tangled up in the yo-yo. He had never used one before, and it showed. Somehow, he was trussed up like a hunted pig, and the virtually unbreakable string of the Polynesian Whizzer began to cut into his fur. Strangely, the pain felt very real, and Nate loved it...simply because he was able to FEEL! He smiled up at Kui, who was watching him with very little amusement.

"Uhm, lady? Ya think you could give me a hand here?" asked the wolf-boy, feeling a little embaressed, but happy the pretty lady was going to bend over to help him. She was a "hummana-hummana" hot babe, just like in the music-vids, and bending over would allow Nate to see her at her best. He smiled even wider, a small growl of pleasure escaping his lips. He tried to look as innocent as possible, failing miserably.

"Lady"? Well, there are some who look at my avatars and decide I'm a woman. There are some who decide I'm a man. There are some who decide I'm some kind of freak. And then there are some who decide I'm the hottest thing online since Yi-Yi Garadi...

"There is a saying in Rei-Sareng," she told him frostily. "It is; "When you pick up a chisel the first time, watch the wood and not the women." This is because fine woodcarving used to be done by women, and they would often have a great many very angry brothers.

"I am an only child, but I do not appreciate your attention. Untangle yourself, by yourself."

So, not a toddler. Physically, at least. Bleach in the gene pool, oh Screaming One!

"What the heck is a razor-ring?" thought Nate, confused by Kui's words. He understood the intent though, and realized that she had basically flipped him the bird. He was mad for all of three seconds before forgetting about the rebuke completely. Using his sharp incisors, Nate gnawed at the string until it broke. He quickly untangled himself, and wagged his tail happily. He sprinted back to the ATV, and hopped in to the back seat, fascinated by all the controls and buttons. He pushed a few randomly, looking for the radio...some tunes would be good right about now.

[OOC: Although I might have been a little unclear, you could have at least paid a bit more attention, Gawdly. The compartments are on board the vehicle, in the back. Besides that, your post's OK.]

"Uhm, yeah-careful with that, Nate-oh dear-ah, he's gone."

Mitch frowned at Nate's departing back, then turned back to Kui. "Weird kid. You wanted the pistols? One moment."
The black-garbed man produced one of the packets and tore it open, revealing a square of some soft blue substance. He broke the square into two pieces and slapped one onto each pistol. The substance glowed softly, then sank tracelessly into the wood.

"OK. Did you all see that? That was an adapter. We have a number of tech levels here, and it's inconvenient to have to change equipment at each border. An adapter will reconfigure whatever you stick it on to work with the local rules. You can get them in the Interface for free, but certain objects won't accept them."

Mitch handed the pistols over to Kui, then turned to the half-elf. "Those are storage crystals. Can I have a look? Thanks. Looks like mostly Fire and Earth... some Electricity and some Mist in here too. From the looks of you, you should be able to use the power in here, or maybe pattern a spell into one. As for the bow, you can have that if you like. I'll see if we have any arrows..."

Mitch tossed the bag of crystals back to the mage and started rummaging through the compartment again.

*****************************************************************************

Josephine didn't do anything to stop Nate seating himself in the front, but almost all of the controls in front of Nate went dark as soon as he plopped himself into the codriver's seat. The few buttons he pushed had no effect.

The tour guide spoke without taking her eyes off the road. "That's pretty stupid, Nate. Try and calm down a little and think about what you're doing. Stupid people don't last long. And you want music, I suppose? Seems like Mitch's arming the party..."

****************************************************************************

...Don't forget the guns, you know exactly what I mean
Bring the pistols, bring the Uzi and the good ol' AR-15
We don't look for trouble, but by golly if we're in it
It's nice to know we're free to blow five hundred rounds a minute...

Amethyst smiled softly at Mitch before stowing the bow next to her feet and fiddling with the crystal bag. It's contents were pooled in her lap after a few seconds. The helf-Elf beamed greedily at the crystals.

"Mmhmm, these should blow up nice and good." She whispered to herself, giggling a little. Apparently, both player and character were hopeless pyros.

Josephine didn't do anything to stop Nate seating himself in the front, but almost all of the controls in front of Nate went dark as soon as he plopped himself into the codriver's seat. The few buttons he pushed had no effect.

The tour guide spoke without taking her eyes off the road. "That's pretty stupid, Nate. Try and calm down a little and think about what you're doing. Stupid people don't last long. And you want music, I suppose? Seems like Mitch's arming the party..."

...Don't forget the guns, you know exactly what I mean
Bring the pistols, bring the Uzi and the good ol' AR-15
We don't look for trouble, but by golly if we're in it
It's nice to know we're free to blow five hundred rounds a minute...


Nate was hurting from his second rebuke in as many minutes. He realized that maybe, just maybe, he should calm down a little. Of course, being trapped for fourteen years in a wheelchair, unable to move without assistance, was a big factor in his current behavior. He felt truly alive for the first time, and did not let the dour faces of the adults get to him. He decided to give Josephine a break though, so he smiled his sweetest "innocent angel" smile at her, and did something strangely unique: he apologised.

"Uhm...I'm sorry Ms.Josephine...it's just...well, you know...all this is SO cool...I'm real happy to be here, is all. I'll try not to mess with anything anymore..." he assumed a hang-dog expression, which was easy given his current wolven-form. He tapped his paw along to the beat of the music that suddenly filled the interior of the ATV. Amazingly, he waited for the others to board...patiently.

[OOC: So, so sorry, people. I'll try to get something up on Wednesday, for this AND Ice Blades. In other news, I've made a friend who may be turning up in one or another of my topics soon... if I can get the guy to actually get around to creating a nation. Eugh!

Again, apologies. I hope to get on with this ASAP.]

"I see." Kui accepted the guns, weighing them in her hands; good weapons, so far as she knew them, though she was really better with a sword. But I doubt they have twelve-meter Titan blades here ... or that I could lift one with this avatar if they did. "So, in a science-fiction environment, these would become laser pistols or similar?"

[OOC: Apologies. Unable to make full post due to school-related delays and impossibility of booting school computers into safe mode to bypass restrictions. Please forgive.]

Mitch nodded. "Exactly. Although it'll probably be something with less accuracy than a laser pistol and more punch. If we went into a fantasy zone, those would probably end up as some kind of wand or rod."

[OOC: Gawdly...seems you need some guidance.
Everyone is ABOARD the vehicle right now.
The vehicle is MOVING towards the 2100 zone.
Mitch and the half-elf are in the BACK, looking over weapons.
Nate and Josephine are in the FRONT.
Everyone else is in the SEATS.

And now... here we go...]

Josephine nodded at Mitch. "I understand. Tell you the truth, I was really excited
my first day too. But-"

Unfortunately, the rest of Josephine's sentence was cut off by a loud warning tone.

Bright red letters printed themselves across the top of the windshield.

ZONE BOUNDARY APPROACHING

----------------------------

Nothing discernible lay ahead of the vehicle, except for a few mesas off in the distance
and a faint shimmer, like a heat haze, hovering over the low and barren hills that
lay ahead.

----------------------------

"This is it, guys... your first zone change. Hold on!"

With that, Josephine cataputed the vehicle towards- and through- the heat haze ahead.

-------------------------

The first noticable change was the vehicle. The roof dropped a few inches, the motors
grew louder, and dials and displays winked off the dashboard to be replaced by projections
on the windshield.

Then the small changes started.

In the half-elf's hands, the crystals shimmered and stopped glowing. Beside her,
the bow straightened, metamorphosing into a complex-looking rifle.

Mitch's broomstick-staff shortened, turning grey and firming down into a length of iron pipe.

Kui's pistols didn't change much at all, although the handles did switch from hardwood to a comfortable rubber grip.

[OOC: Gawdly...seems you need some guidance.


<<OOC: Yup, and feel free to guide me some more...anything happen to my yo-yo?>>

Nate's broken yo-yo shimmered and morphed from wood to plastic. Then all was still.

Amethyst stared at the crystals for a moment. "They stopped glowing. So...certain things merely deactivate if they aren't compatible with our current environment?"

She picked up the rifle. It was complex and moderately heavy, like a semi-automatic sniper rifle with the scope removed. She fiddled with the box magazine. The clip was full, and she smirked to herself. 7.62mm rounds, making the weapon she held decidedly a rifle apt for urban fighting. Handy, moreso than a bow, but she still liked the feel of a bow more.

[OOC: Riight... where did everyone go?]

OOC: I'm still here - just I wasn't sure how to reply to that last thingy, so I was waiting on somebody else to post. I suppose the rest of us must have been too.

[OOC: Right, I assume everyone's stunned by the abrupt transition.]

The silence was broken only by the rumble of the Tracker's wheels.

"Here we are." said Josephine. She added, cryptically, "This is where the real fun starts."

With a slight lurch, the Tracker topped a hill.

*****************************************

GWF General Reference/Zones/2100/Description.hlp

2100 is a chaotic and war-torn Zone. The main conflict is between Star City, a relatively lo-tech industrial powerhouse, and the Cyhar, a loose-knit group of hi-tech mountain emplacements and orbital facilities.

Star City contains the Zone's primary feature; Star City Spaceport, a massive complex servicing hundreds of SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) vehicles. The Spaceport is heavily guarded against Cyhar jets.

The Cyhar have a number of small runways and drop zones. The Cyhar's efficient and lightweight SSTOs do most of the ground-to-orbit shipping, and war supplies are constantly dropped from the Cyhar's orbital manufacturing installations.

Overall, the Cyhar have orbital and general air superiority, while Star City has overall ground superiority and control of the airspace over Star City, along with a few small orbital installations.

Star City is hampered in its war by the constant fighting in some of its less hospitable areas. Urban gangs and factions plague the area. Some of them have rather advanced hardware...

*****************************************

On the other side of the hills, Star City stretched for miles. As far as the eye could see, industral buildings lurked among dingy towers.

Black smoke stained the blue sky, along with silhouettes of circling aircraft. In the distance, mountains loomed over the barren plain.

Gunshots sounded in the distance. From a cluster of silver gantries, a delta-winged SSTO rose on a pillar of hydrogen flame.

The Tracker roared down the hill towards the city. Other vehicles began to appear, joining the main road from side roads.

In terms of scenery, the 2100 Zone is nothing special, to Kui's Rei-Sarenghai mind; such things have been commonplace in virtual environment design for almost two decades now. In any case, it's not so different from some places in the real world.

Instead, Kui notes almost unconciously the quality of it's execution; polygon counts are things long past, and the virtual environment designer of today notes instead physics, and how closely they match the real world. The architecture of this system seems quite good.

"The fun?" She asks, interested. "What's our objective?"

Mole EXECUTE bitflip.exe

*************************************************

"To start with," said Josephine, "we're heading down to the outskirts. One of the more exciting places, as you can imagine. There's usually a battle somewhere in that area, and we do special events down there pretty often too-Yipe!"

Josephine slammed the controls to the right, attempting to dodge around a heavily-armed half-track parked in the middle of the highway. The massive vehicle skidded into the passing lane and scraped down the side of the half-track, coming close enough for the half-track's gun to score the paint on the left side of the Tracker.

Most of the passengers, being seated, were safe. Mitch, on the other hand, fell over as the Tracker jerked abruptly to the side.

"That wasn't supposed to happen!" he exclaimed.

"We may have a bigger problem." replied Josephine, hauling at the controls and bringing the Tracker back into its lane.

"What?"

"That truck wasn't there thirty seconds ago."

"Storage glitch?"

"I don't think so..."

After taking one look at the guns the offending half-track was bristling with, Amethyst let one delicate hand drift over the rifle in her lap.

"So if it wasn't a 'storage glitch,' what else could cause it to pop up? Personal teleporters? Or am I wasting my breath?" She asked, despite the fact it really took no effort to speak in this virtual world.

It was the smell of smoke that fascinated him, his wolf senses heightening the various odors that were around him. Nate was looking out the window, hoping to see some real action when the Tracker they were in suddenly jerked violently, tossing the young wolf-boy around the vehicle. When he came to a grateful stop, he noticed Amethyst fondling her weapon, and wished briefly that he had grabbed a gun instead of a yo-yo. He waited for the adults to act, unsure of how the game should be played.

[OOC: I apologize for my absence. I've been neglectful, and I'll try to change that.

I'll be gone for a little while longer (Thanksgiving interferes), but I'll try and get back onto a regular schedule as soon as I can, and I hope that you'll never have to endure my absence again.

If I do disappear again, please feel free to badger, raccoon, and wolverine me.

Oh, and I'll be thinking about upcoming plot while I'm gone. Expect for things to get a lot more interesting when I get back; Cyberutopia, this applies to Ice Blades too. Arbia seems to have gone defunct... it's up to you if you want to take over her character and/or try and get her back in. Farewell.]

((Good luck with braving Thanksgiving, Khrrck. Arbia is swamped with college, and I haven't been able to get through to her, so I don't know what's going to happen. Either way, Ice Blades was a good run, and good practice. See you soon!))

[OOC: Arrgh... I would have been back Monday (promise!) but I caught a terrible cold (happens at the worst time, it seems) on Saturday evening and it hasn't really gone away yet.

Alright. Excuses over and done with. Here we go...]

"No," replied Josephine, hauling the Tracker back on course. "That's exactly the problem. It isn't supposed to happen at all. There's no teleporters anywhere in this zone. It could be a spurious CREATE, which shouldn't happen, or it could be a RELOCATE, which shouldn't happen either."

Mitch picked himself up off the floor where Nate had crashed into him.

"Or someone could have flipped its location."

Josephine frowned. "That's impossible. I've seen the firewalls on this place. You couldn't get a bad ping through them, let alone a virus."

"You couldn't, perhaps. But there's people out there who are good at that sort of thing."

It was a small blue Cubicle. Traced lightly into the sides of this small space where intricate lines of white which ran systematically over the surface of each wall. They weren't still, though, they moved. The lines broke randomly and formed geometric patterns seemingly randomly, crossing and curling any way they pleased. It was, very, small. Inside sat only one person, as space efficient as possible, whose head just missed grazing the cieling.

Ishmael narrowed her eyes. The Cubicle buzzed.

"Bartleby, what have you brought me?"

The Cubicle faded to green. She reached out, and pressed her finger into the wall in front of her. The patterns instantly diverged into this point.

"Oh. This again. You've been playing with this, haven't you? Nasty little Bartleby Bot. You have more important things to look for. Do I have to wipe it away for you to pay attention? Or-"

Everything buzzed for a moment.

"Fine. If only to satisfy you, Bartleby, I'll play around with it..."

She took her finger away.

"Control Panel. Open Route, Games Without Frontiers. Open File, Firewall Extinguisher. Run a Check."

The cubicle faded to blue.

A nasty little program tunneled down through a wave of crisscrossing packets and latched onto the exterior of the simulation's primary firewall.

*****

The road arched up off the ground, becoming an elevated freeway. Industrial buildings bristled on either side, interspersed with dingy apartment blocks and residential districts.

"Nobody is that good, Mitch. There's an entire server dedicated to running the security on this thing. Besides-"

Nobody was ever to learn what else made the game unassailable, however, because at that moment an urgent beeping sounded as text sprayed itself down the right side of the windshield. The side touchscreens stopped displaying a view of the exterior and blinked to a copy of the same message.

*****

ALERT
From: GWF Staff
To: ALLPLAYERS
Subj: ALERT- security breach
Body:

Our firewalls were just interrogated by an unknown software agent. The program was not caught or traced.

Games Without Frontiers is facing imminent attack.

All players should proceed to the nearest safe point and log out. Guides and staff members should report to Central as soon as possible.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Messages will be sent to notify all players when it is safe to log back in.

sig: CENTRAL BROADCAST

*****

Josphine blinked. "Well. That changes things." She raised her voice. "Right. Nobody panic. I'm going to get off this road and to a safe logout point as soon as possible. Until then, sit down and hold on."

*****

The program clicked happily to itself as it got its results. The firewalls were certainly tough, but they were breakable.

It slid into the seams of the firewall and set to work.

All the adults around Nate seemed nervous, which in turn made the wolf-boy very nervous himself. He sat quietly in a corner of the vehicle, trying to still the trembling in his tail. This adventure was turning into a nightmare, and though he still had a modicum of excitement left in him, the young boy was rapidly beginning to think that maybe he should have just stayed home playing Tetris XXXIV.

He watched around him with growing concern, hoping desperately that Josephine knew what the heck she was doing.

"Hah. Bartleby, you amuse me. However... This server does seem as if we can use it for our Route to Esker."

Ishmael was content typing away on the keyboard in front of her, a holographic projection. Screenshots of elaborate routes, IRC channels, and server schematics began to pop up around her.

"Esker is still a ways off... And this has the potential to jump us forward a few weeks." Bite of the lip. "Bartleyby, consider is done. Oh, and I already have a diagnosis."

She swept her hand over the keyboard, and it along with the images vanished.

"Firewall has a weakness. Not a large one, but still a weakness... Perhaps if we don't dissolve it just yet, Bartleby... Perhaps if we just, inverse it."

It was such a joy to chat with the little bot dubbed Bartleby. He provided no comment or reaction, just existing to take orders. It was nice to have something to shout at once in a while, though, especially once one has spent a few solid months in Cyberspace.

"Bartleby. Bring me up a screen monitoring the Server. Launch Program... Inversion Twenty. Fence them in."

The cube dissolved completely, leaving Ishmael in a void. A Window opened in front of her, projecting the Server Actions.

"Launch Program now. Infect in Twenty Seconds."

A red wave passed over the Window.

Central

Arkah floated in his own development environment, watching with stunned amazement as the firewall surrounding the game flipped from a stalwart guardian into a seemingly impenetrable fence.

Games Without Frontiers has a relatively simple architecture. Incoming users link first into a administrative server, then are routed through the security server into the main cluster that hosts the actual game.

Whoever had coded that virus had been careful. Data still flowed back and forth along the players' links, but the firewall had sliced like a guillotine through the delicate control streams leading from the administrative server to the game. Including the LOGOUT function.
First, what a mess.

Arkah fired off a brief message, and cut loose from the development server.

Arkah> I'm getting Fido. See if you can keep a channel open.
Arkah DISCONNECT

...

Arkah CONNECT fido.noneofyourbuisness.khr PASSWORD **********
Arkah> Fido? Fido? FIDO?
Fido_sub 23> I'm here, I'm here. Calm down.
Arkah> I don't want a subroutine. I need Prime.
Fido> I'm here.
Arkah> GWF is under attack. The firewall's locked us out.
Fido> GWF? I have... 34,216,548 possible subjects for that acronym. WHICH ONE?
Arkah> Games Without Frontiers! The VR you wrote the core seed for.
Fido> They won't get my code...
Fido RELAY admin.gameswithoutfrontiers.khr
Arkah> Fido? Fido?
Fido_sub 23> He's gone.
Arkah DISCONNECT

...

Arkah CONNECT admin.gameswithoutfrontiers.khr
Arakh> Fido? Are you there?
Fido BOOT tracer_v76, firecracker_v23, BLAZE_v0.3
Fido> I'm busy.
Fido ACTIVATE BLAZE TARGET (anyintruder) PAYLOAD tracer ADDOPTIONS lockdown, dontdisconnect
Fido ACTIVATE firecracker TARGET security.gameswithoutfrontiers.khr PAYLOAD BLAZE
Arakh> Fido, that's a alpha version...
Fido> I know what I'm doing. It's worth the risk. You don't know what that code I wrote can do.

"As for all of these connections to the outside... What are they. If they connect to terminals, they need to be disconnected... If they connect to people, they still need to be disconnected... But what happens."

A dozen more windows surrounded her now. Some scrolled terabytes of text, others playing video, others cycling through Game Mechanics. The Window focused on all Server activities, was a conundrum compared to the others. The Server seemed to be caught in a spiders web. All of the strings were interpretations the software created for the players connection to the game and the outside. It was relatively simple, yes, yet a massive construction.

"Too many connections... They might be trapped inside, but those connections still exist. It shouldn't. Not terminals then... What I need is full access. Post Admin access. I could bypass it..."

Ishmael glanced over to another, simplified Window. Three dots were on this one. A Green one, a Blue one, and a Red one. As of now, the Red one was heading from the Blue one to the Green one. A small packet of nussaince to distract anyone who might be watching. Nothing more than a few Viri Program designed to mess with the Characters in the Game. Something noticable. A few quirks to change the Time Zone, the Enviorment, Fuel Levels, even Hit Points if that's what the Game had. It was a generic package of annoyance.

An Alert popped up in front of her.

Program Inverse20 Cancelled.

She looked dumbfounded to the Alert. "Route, Games Without Frontiers. Program, Inverse Twenty. Functions Established?"

A Window popped up over the Alert.

Program Inverse20 had Established Functions prior to Cancellation. Cancellation of Inverse20 due to Security Risk. Infection completed prior to Cancellation. No backup of Inverse20 is available on the Firewall, Program will have to be Reloaded if Established Function Terminated. Program Goals Reached, Software Safe. Inverse20 Established in Firewall.

"Identify Risk."

Administration Software.

Sigh. In no way did she expect herself to go unnoticed, but it was always a damper on a Crack when an Admin attempted to stop it.

"Batleby. We have work to do. Unidentified Administration Software has Attempted to... Attempt something. Route, Games Without Frontiers. Route Administration Server. Run Program, Third Party Disconnect. Specify... Random Single Connection."

Smile. Another look to the Window with the three dots. The Red was just about to collide with the Green. A distraction while more urgent matters were attended to.

"We're about to see what happens when someone is disconnected."

[OOC: Will upload Tracker picture when I figure out the upload system. Meanwhile, here you are.]

The hardware clock ticks.

thirdpartydisconnect ORDER (Sstek DISCONNECT)
Sstek DISCONNECT

Arakh gritted his virtual teeth as Ss'tek vanished from his perceptions. A forced disconnect was something every VR user dreaded.

The sudden change of situation could give you seizures, possibly fatal ones. Killing someone's connection was viewed, among Khrrck hacker culture, as something Not Done. And the attacker had just done it.

Fido TRACE thirdpartydisconnect
Fido> I've got it! Kid, you're going down!

Arakh glanced to the left, for a quick check of the other administrators. They were gone. Figures. Ss'tek was the most dedicated of the lot. They probably all logged out to "see if he was all right" and incidentally get out of the action. Hah.

A sudden blare distracted him. He stared, dismayed, as tamper alarms sprayed alerts along his periphiral vision.

Arakh> What about the game?
Fido> Doesn't matter! I've got his address!
Arakh> At least give me some kind of virus sweeper before you run off.
Fido OUTPUT gencontrolconsole PAYLOAD firecracker PAYLOAD vminesweeper_v34
Fido ACTIVATE pathcarry LOAD Fido PATH "thirdpartydisconnect"

Arakh scooped up Fido's program and fired it off through the game's firewall. The sweeper smoothly installed itself and spread out across the game's server cluster, disinfecting as it went.

******************************************

The virus caused some serious damage before it was swept away. Fuel gauges dropped to zero. Patches of weather flickered from clear sky to storm to fog and back again. Star City flickered from day to night in a heartbeat.

Mitch stared, dumbfounded, as white light flared over his hands, leaving black scale behind. "What the-"

"Log out!" yelled Josephine, and promptly tried to do it herself. She shimmered for a moment, then resolidified. "I'm locked in! I can't-"

"Hit the jets!" yelled Mitch. Josephine looked back at the road and saw that a substantial portion of it had vanished. She acted reflexively, slapping a pair of controls labeled JUMP and THRUST IGNITE, respectively.

The Tracker crouched like a tiger, sinking as far as its suspension would travel. Grinding noises sounded as panels on the bottom of the vehicle shifted, revealing two sets of eight nozzles. As the gap in the highway approached, the Tracker slammed its suspension to maximum extension, leaping off the edge. The eight nozzles flared, lifting the Tracker up and over the gap in a wobbly parabola. Behind it, other vehicles panic-braked or careened off the edge.

The Tracker slammed into the opposite edge of the gap, bottoming out its suspension and skidding sideways across the pavement before broadsiding a safety barrier and coming to a complete and utter stop.

And, deep in the game's code, a string that once read
CollectionLimit == 3
now read
CollectionLimit == NULL

The adaptive code at the game's core shifted.

******************************************

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

Fido raced down the link towards Ishmael, jumping from server to server as fast as he could get his program to negotiate the connections. And he was very fast.

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

Fido, in fact, was just as fast as the hardware he was running on. Fido was a Free Digital Sentience, with a reaction time faster than any normal human and a innate understanding of computers that was nearly unmatched.

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

Eight jumps from the server that had launched the disconnect virus.

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

Seven jumps away.

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

Six.

Nate bounced off the walls of the cabin as the Tracker bucked and rocketed into the sky. He snagged a seatbelt strap, and held on for dear life as the big vehicle landed solidly on the other side of the gaping hole. It came to a stop, and for a moment there was nothing but silence. Nate knew that something very wrong was happening, and that he was part of it. He looked at Josephine, his wide lupine eyes pleading for answers.

Swamp Tracker MK6 (http://tinypic.com/view.html?pic=x6rll)

Incoming Software.

"I doubt that would be an mpthree. They're attacking me. Much more aggressive than the last Server we raided." A wide grin, flashing pearly whites. "This should be fun. Bartleby, Lockdown. I want the Cube secured. Open up a Route from the Cube, through the Wirraway Server, back to Games Without Frontiers. The Game Server."

The Cube phased into black.

"As soon as that Software Agent approaches... Initiate a Download. Lock it in the Cube. Close Windows-"

Connected to Wirraway Server. Port 73220. Connected to GWF. Port 33001.

"Ping me."

Ping away. Madame.

"Close all applications. Close all windows. Exception Wirraway, Close all connections. Close Wirraway on Pong."

Rapid clicking filled the Void, and the Cube blanked out into a desolate Block. Smile wide, Ishmael folded her arms across her chest expectantly. As she waited for the Ping, a thought crossed her mind. One which prompted a roll of the eyes.

"How could I forget. Identify Software."

Fido.

"Fido- Wait. As in Dog?"

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

In the last seconds before he hit, Fido armored his central core behind a shield of firewalls, snatched control of a cluster of neighboring servers to give him processing power, and booted a cloud of offensive programs.

Fido PATHCARRY JUMP

Fido came to a halt one server away from the attacker, activating the crackers and break-in tools from his offensive cloud and firing them down the final link to the attacker's hiding place.

****************

Josephine reached over and laid a gloved hand on Nate's shoulder. She smiled, the expression lending a comforting air to her predatory visage.

"Yes, this is bad. I can't lie to you about that. But whatever happens, I'll keep you safe. I haven't spent all my time in this game to see it swept away because some idiot thinks it's fun to crash it." She took a breath. "All I ask is that you do your best to help get us out of here. All of you."

She turned back to her controls. "I imagine whoever started this is getting a rather nasty suprise about now. Let's get moving."

****************

Suddenly, the Cube lashed out. Fido lurched through an instant of disorientation as he was copied from the server-

-and came to himself inside the Cube.

Fido reacted instantly. He sent agents racing down into the hardware foundations of the Cube, to try and take control of the system's processors. He scanned the system for running software while attempting to brute-force his way to administration-level permissions.

Got it!
Fido SU

Fido lurched as something shut down his software-control segment, the part of himself that took care of low-level external software control. His thoughts spun dizzily as the rest of his segments rebooted the crashed portion.

What was that?

He scanned the running software and found a primitive AI. Fido punched through its primitive security and glanced at its code. It was definitely nonsentient: it couldn't even speak. He shut it down.

A ping reply came in along the Cube's only open link. He ignored it.

The AI seemed to have been the most dangerous agent in the actual Cube. Fido swept aside the remaining minor bits of software, generic open-source daemons that handled routine tasks like updating logs and checking security systems to make sure they were active. Finally, he turned his attention to the Cube's single occupant.

Fido triggered a selection of programs he liked to use when he made an entrance, and began.

****************

The only outward sign of the battle in the Cube's underlying code was the walls. They flashed from midnight black to brilliant white, then dimmed to an icy sky blue.

A few seconds ticked by to let Ishmael absorb the sudden change. Then the floor of the Cube turned white and cold, the walls folded away in a eye-twisting blur, and Ishmael stood on a wide, snowy ledge on a crevasse wall. Icy cliff faces reared on either side of the crevasse. Above the tops of the cliffs, the eye could glimpse the snow-capped tops of mountains. The landscape was beautiful, but it was a cold and forbidding beauty, a hostile beauty that cared nothing for what stood upon it.

The air in front of Ishmael shimmered, and coalesced into the form of a Jzna. His wolf-like form had thick grey fur, streaked with white, and he was dressed in the warm, loose leather and wool of one who fights in the bitter cold of the mountains. He wore a pair of curved swords across his back, and his only ornament was a elaborately worked metal bracer on his left arm, inset with white stones. His blue eyes were as cold and forbidding as the landscape around him.

Fido crossed his arms in front of him and smiled defiantly at Ishmael.

****************

Josephine reached confidently for the START control and triggered it with a flick of her finger.

Nothing happened.

Josephine frowned and tried again. This time, the Tracker's motors whined faintly before the entire control panel went dark. The doors popped open, and the Tracker dropped as its electromechanical suspension went dead.

Josephine muttered a curse under her breath, then unbuckled her seat belt. "All right. We'll have to get out and walk, everyone. Mitch, get whatever survival supplies we have out. We need rope, especially. Everyone else, follow me. We need to get off the highway and into the city. Follow me, and don't run off on your own."

Josephine made for the door, and then stopped. "Mitch..." she said, slowly. "People are probably panicking out there... they won't be sensible. Bring the weapons, too."

Flash. Gone. Back. Blink.

"Bravo... Bravo indeed..."

Cock of the head to one side as she planted her hands on her hip. A wide smile cracked as she looked about her new surroundings. The Cube was gone, she was sure of that. Lost to the horrors of cyberspace. Wherever she was now, was astonishing if it was on the same plane as the Cube. Digital, that is.

Those few moments had been chaotic in that little Workshop. Software disintegrated and Programs just froze. Poor Bartleby. He'll miss that component that was Deleted. A new Cube will have to be Processed. That alone could set them back a Month.

Thank William Gates the Cube was but a Workshop.

Finished with taking in the Simulation, Ishmael fixed her gaze on Fido. She had encountered Sentient AI before, and this was no surprise. Quite ordinary if anything.

"Fido, is it? Sentient no doubt... To think I thought you were only an Antivirus."

At this point, Ishmael extended her arms out in front of her, and looked over her hands. She seemed to appear no different from in the Cube. Very much as she was in real life in actuality. Ishmael swept her hands in front of her for the keyboard, but received nothing. Not that she expected anything, but annoyance was portrayed ever so vividly.

"Are we in the game, Fido? Tell me. Did I Ping through Wirraway, or did you Connect Directly?"

Purse of the lips as Ishmael continued to look over her hands.

Fido's expression shifted to a mirthless grin. "No, we're not in the game. We're on your old hardware... with a few externals hooked in for the processing we need. Your software is all safe... nothing's deleted. It's good software, and it's stored in a safe place. You, however, are a different matter."

He reached behind his back and drew a sword free of its sheath. He leveled it at Ishmael, and spoke grimly. "I charge you, Ishmael, with intentional destruction of data, assault on public property, and assault on a sentient. A full report of your actions is being sent to local law-enforcement agencies. Any attempt to escape is futile."

Fido stepped back, and slid the sword back into its sheath. "But I doubt the police will take action against you," he said, icily. "So... take a moment to see what it was that you tried to destroy." He ran a hand over the white stones studding his bracer, tapping them in an intricate rhythm. "Goodbye, Ishmael."

Fog coalesced and swirled around Ishmael. The icy landscape vanished behind a curtain of fog, and flickers of blue light flashed through the mist. After several seconds, the fog dissipated and dropped Ishmael into the character creation section of Games Without Frontiers.

The dark touchscreen lit up. Instead of the normal interface, a single line of text scrolled across.

You were a good fighter. You're smart, you're fast, and you're strong. I respect that.
You deserve to be a dragon.

*********************

Deep in the game's core, code swirled. The complex self-editing algorithms that wrote the code for the rest of the game's architecture shuddered, lurched, and burst outwards, absorbing the various cracking algorithms still at work in a heartbeat. A scattering of software agents spun out, latching onto nearby systems and co-opting them entirely.

The processing power available to the game's architecture jumped, then jumped again. As the available resources increased, the expansion speeded up.

As the number of servers running the game passed 500, the physics engine received a thorough reworking based on data from a hundred universities.

As the servers passed 1500, the physics engine was rebuilt again. Realism jumped by a factor of 10.

The number of servers co-opted into the game passed 10,000 shortly afterwards.

*********************

Fido sat for a moment, alone in the snow. In a distant corner of his mind, he crafted an avatar for Ishmael.

He sent off the finished model to the subroutine running in the Game's character creation system and stood up, pausing for a moment to feel the wind on his shaggy fur. There were things he liked about VR.

A sudden clamor erupted inside his head as something slammed against the system from the outside and did its best to crack his security. Fido banished the simulation and swept the area around where he was with his electronic senses.

He gazed, horrified, at what he saw. The game stretched around him, still expanding.

Dear gods. What have I done?

*********************

You'll find yourself in Star City, near a group who will help you, if you ask.

The screen flickered and showed Ishmael an image of a golden dragon. She was beautiful, in her own way, but obviously a thing to be reckoned with. Needle fangs gleamed beneath eyes full of intelligence. Smooth, coppery scales hinted at powerful muscle beneath.

A scale near the image revealed her to be approximately eight feet in length, from nose to tailtip. Her wings, fully extended, measured a full twelve feet.

Have fun, Ishmael. This is as real as virtual reality gets.

Ishmael's vision dimmed gently. There was a faint shifting, then she came to herself behind the eyes of her avatar, a mere hundred feet away from the broken Tracker.

A final string of text wrote itself across her vision.

You won't be able to breathe fire. Not in this Zone. But you're fast, you're strong, and you can fly. You should be safe enough, if I've judged you right...

The LOGOFF function still doesn't work. It'll be fixed... as soon as I figure what the hell you did to this game. If you happen to be connected and it crashes... well, you were the one who started it all.

Fido out.

*********************

Fido's subroutine deleted itself.

Merry Christmas to you all... and may you have a wonderful and productive new year. I have plenty of free time until January 3rd, so replies should arrive soon after you post.

Sit back, and enjoy the journey.

OOC: I stopped checking this for a while there! Seems I missed quite a lot. By the way, what would happen if someone was on a university connection and GWF assimilated the server? And (belated) Merry Christmas!

Kui holstered the pistols and stood up shakily. Something had happened - a strange vehicle had appeared in mid-road, then the server had come under attack, they'd been told to log out - but Josephine hadn't been able to log out - and then parts of the road had just vanished, and now the Swamp Tracker had broken down and they'd have to walk - and all in all, she had no idea what was going on.

"What - what was all that?" she asked Josephine. "Is it over?"

Nate was confused, frightened, excited and...over-whelmed. Before this moment, his whole existance had been his wheelchair and the life-support module built into it. Now, he was a wolfman (boy, actually), surrounded by mythic figures wielding incredibly exotic weaponry, travelling in a fantastic new world. Still, he almost wet himself when he first saw the dragon.

He had been looking out the window of the Tracker as the adults all spoke about their current situation, and saw the bright flash that signalled the arrival of the creature. Now, he could only stare, point and try and tell the others.

"Uhm..Jos...Jo...uhhh...dra...dra...DRAGON!!!" this last part squealed out of him, no longer a wolf-like growl but the high-pitched yelp of a scared pup.

(OOC: is it too late to join?)

"Shucks."

Such a simplistic connotation for what she wished to expressed. Oh, how valiantly the spoken word fought to convey the swirling thought. Yet how miserably it failed.

"Okay- Okay- Okay- In the game. Bartleby. What the- Dragon. Okay. Different. Don't kill anyone. Yes. Yes. Where the- Bartleby? Bartleby?"

Twitch. This is not what she had planned in the least bit. Such an odd thing for he Sentient to do, to fling her into the Game itself instead of pursuing other actions. It said something along the lines of the Police. Depending on where this Server was located... That would be bad, very bad. ...Or good. Depends. Ishmael twitched again, flexing her fingers. Claws. Talons- Whatever.

"No time for this- No time at all. Why. Where- Doubleyeu to the fifth."

So Ishmael stood there. Just stood there stiff as a board. As a Dragon. In the Game.

"Just roll with it."

Simulated breath in, Simulated breath out. Simulated relaxation.

"What the fuck now."

*****************************

Mitch turned to answer Kui's question, his (now scaled) arms laden with equipment.

"I don't know exactly what happened. Someone attacked the game, probably with a virus." He grimaced as light flared briefly from within his clothing. "I don't think the effects are over yet. The best thing to do-" It was at that moment that Nate yelled.

Mitch reacted, dropping the equipment and grabbing the edge of one of the Tracker's overhead hatches. He pulled his legs up, kicking the hatch open as he continued the movement to a crouching stance on the roof. He snatched a throwing star from its hiding place inside his clothing, paused, and slowly put it back again.

*****************************

At the sound Mitch's cry, Josephine came to a sudden stop a few feet away from the Tracker.

What the... All right, this is just too much. "Freeze!"

Josephine's left hand dropped to the grip of her pistol. With her other hand, she plucked the blue box from her belt and slowly lifted it, her eyes locked on the dragon.

"This isn't a weapon, so don't feel threatened."

Josephine muttered "Readout" under her breath and pressed the box's single button.

*****************************

Click

Reading object data tree...
ERROR: Database readout module 344NK9 is not in specified location.
Object 344NK9 found. Reading...

CharName: Ishmael
CharRace: Dragon (Zone2100 Adjusted)
CharStyle: CUSTOM
CharPhys: (touch to expand)
CharBASEABIL: Mode (normal/hyper), Flame (disabled), ElementAffinity (fire/air, disabled), CanSeeMagic (all types, disabled)
CharADDABIL: ([u]touch to expand[/i])
CharALMODE: Tutorial (NormHuman -> Dragon) PHASE1, FAST
CharAGE: 0y/0m/0d/0m/43s
CharLOCK: LOCKED LEVEL1 (Fido)

Click

*****************************

As the display faded from her eyes, Josephine tucked the box back onto her belt, moving much more calmly.

"So. You're confused." Her tone made it obvious that she'd encountered someone in this situation before. "That's normal for the situation you're in. You're also feeling more than a little strange. I'd recommend moving slowly until you get used to walking. Don't try to fly much until you're absolutely sure you won't mess up and crash." She took a deep breath.

"You can come with us, if you like. I'm going to try and get to a terminal where I can contact Administration and get us out of here... hopefully. How did you create a character with the game in this state, anyway?"

The wolfboy watched as Josephine pulled out what seemed to be a gun of some sort, and pointed it at the Dragon. This was not what he expected, though most of what had happened so far was VERY unexpected. Still, the Dragon didn't seem threatening, apart from his massive size, claws and dagger-sharp teeth. Pushing the door open, Nate hopped out of the Tracker and ran to place himself between Josephine and the Dragon. He put up his furry paws, and pleaded with her.

"Listen...wait...don't...shoot. Please? Uhmmm...I mean...unless he attacks me, of course...please?"

Nate felt very brave, and very much the adult at this moment. This was a good thing, because if not for those feelings, he would be wetting himself.

[OOC: Gawdly, read my last post and tell me if you want to make any changes.]

"How would you like I should eat you, eh?"

Growl.

"Who are you. Where am I. And what is... " A glance to the wolf thing. " ...That." Ishmael held her gaze on it, and then snapped at the furry.

Still becoming adjusted to the simulation, Ishmael turned to sniff Josephine with fangs bared. She flexed her talons again, becoming accustomed to the odd proportions of her body.

"What are you. Who are you. You're not coding. Where's that Fido? Are you an Admin?"

Snort. Questions and nothing but at the moment. Ishmael took a step closer.

"Wait. Is that... Gravity?"

Distraction! A good Gravity Engine was so very hard to replicate.

"How would you like I should eat you, eh?"

Growl.

"Who are you. Where am I. And what is... " A glance to the wolf thing. " ...That." Ishmael held her gaze on it, and then snapped at the furry.



"Yeee-ipe-yipe-yipe!" yipped Nate as the dragon snapped at his haunches. He skittered back to the Tracker, his tail between his legs, the dampness between his legs illustrating how he felt about close calls. Using his enhanced lupine-hearing, he listened closely as Josephine...brave and beautiful Josephine, spoke with the golden beast. He noticed that he was trembling.

Josephine tensed slightly as Ishmael stepped closer, but she met the dragon's gaze unflinchingly.

She took a calm breath and started answering questions. "I'm Josephine Ambrose. We are on Interway 7, Star City, Zone 2100. That is Nate. I'm a Jzna, and a Guide. I told you already. No, I'm not. No, I'm not an Admin; the Admins don't work ingame. I'm a Guide. As for eating me..." Josephine grinned, showing predatory teeth. "You can try."

**************************

Mitch watched from the roof of the tracker as Nate ran back into the shelter of the vehicle. Poor kid. He doesn't seem to handle stress well... Wait. Nate paused. Kid? Ohh...

Mitch's musings were interrupted by another flare of white light and a tingling sensation on the right side of his face. His hand flew up, and scaled hand hit scaled cheek with a click.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, quietly. "Not good. Not good at all."

**************************

Fido worked frantically. Firing viruses at the Game didn't work; it just absorbed them and spread faster.

Firewalls worked better. Fido took some of his best, merged them with a new adaptive-code core, and set it loose. It hopped from system to system around the edges of the infected area. The Game crashed against the fortified systems and fell back, stymied.

The firewall, being smaller than the massive Game, spread faster, fortifying systems moments before the Game made its attacks. Finally, the Game was hemmed in on all sides. It surged against its prison for a few more seconds before becoming ominously calm.

Fido relaxed slightly. Then...

**************************

The disruptions. Servers and terminals vanishing, entire companies - no, entire nations - disappearing off the face of the Net. Terminals being assimilated by the Game, plunging thousands unexpectedly into the game and disconnecting millions more. The AIs...

A disaster.

**************************

Fido shuddered. The recovery of the crashed hardware, the extrication of the trapped people... For once, this was more than he could handle. A lot more. Who knew what all that data had done to his adaptive code? The surface of the Game was calm, but it offered no hint as to what was happening underneath...

He called up a directory of security services, hacker communities, AIs, and government agencies dealing with the Net. He composed a message, and sent his cry for help racing across the electronic ether.

[OOC: Grazhkjistan, here's your chance. Have fun.]

Darret Harves strapped himself into The Gaming Chair, a gaming apparatus that looked like something out of The Matrix. At least, that's what he'd wanted it to look like when he'd built it.

He smiled to himself. The Gaming Chair was his pride and joy. He had enough processing power in this baby to make Bill Gates blush. He opened a drive on the armrest, slipping in a disk and closing it, leaned his head back onto the headrest and prepared himself for a headlong dive into "Games Without Frontiers".

He took off his glasses, black plastic frames with thick lenses, started up the system, and winced as the Neural Link needles pushed through his flesh and tapped directly into his nerves.

The world around Darret changed drastically in the blink of an eye. He found himself in a small room, adorned only with a desk and chair. He reached out and touched a wall. It felt real... he'd been MOVE gaming for years, but this still amazed him.

Words began to appear on the wall.

CHARACTER CREATION

Welcome to Games Without Frontiers. Before you begin, please take a moment to create a Character.

He smiled. He could see the text. He loved Neural Link technology, because it was one of the only places he knew where he did not need his glasses.

He went about the process of creating a character, basing it mainly on himself.

Eventually words appeared before him.

STATS:
Darret Harves
Age/Sex/Race: 37-Year-Old Male Human Caucasian (Albino)
Eyes: Pale Blue
Hair: White (Shoulder-Length)
Facial Hair: None
Build: Muscular
Height: 6'4"
Class: Fighter
Weapon: Sword (5'6" in length, Two-Handed)
Clothing: Shirt/Pants (Black Sleeveless, Black Denim, Regular belt)
Gloves: Gauntlets (Brown Leather and Steel)
Footwear: Combat Boots (Brown, steel-toed)
Other: Trenchcoat (+Hood, Khaki, Studded Black Leather Belt)

ACCEPT?
YES NO

Darret smiled, and hit YES.

"Josephine, is it? Let me make this very simple and very clear."

Ishmael took a step back and narrowed her eyes as she surveyed Josephine. This was irritating if anything, and nothing more. There were more important things needing to be done, and this was a waste of time. However, she had to force herself to remember to Roll with it.

"I want out. Show me how to leave. I want out. Now."

She couldn't help but to growl. She was about to speak again when a loud Ping sounded in her ear. Bartleby was trying to get through. Ah, Surprise. Bartleby would help her out, if Bartleby was able to get through. Although... How would Bartleby Manifest if he did.

"Let me out."

Submitting character to Game servers...

Connection refused by server.

Retry 1. Submitting...

Connection refused by server.

Retry 2. Submitting...

Connection refused by server.

Retry 3. Submitting...

Connection refused by server.

Error 22: Connection refused by server. The game may be experien##&^#@*&^L
^L
^L
CONNECTION ACCEPTED. WELCOME ABOARD.
^L
^L
System> Software update accepted. Installing...

The Game surged into the Chair, co-opting the hardware. Around Darret, the room blurred into a green mist and resolidified, leaving him standing on a dry, grassy hillside.

**************************************

Arkah came to his senses very, very confused. The last thing he remembered was the Game surging towards him, followed by blackness.
Shkak.

Arkah looked around himself. He recognized this place, all right. The grassy hills... this was the Game. Somewhere in Chroma, he was certain. But...

How'd I get here? What happened?

Arkah looked down at himself. He looked much the same as he was in life, but his administrative software seemed to have manifested as Babbage cartridges, in keeping with the style of the Zone.

I need to get out of here.

**************************************

Josephine took a deep breath and looked straight at Ishmael.

"I don't know if we can get out. Someone attacked us, and things are extremely messed up right now. I don't even know if I can contact the outside from a terminal, but that's the only thing I can try. You can come with us, or you can go on your own. Your choice."

Ishmael allowed only a small grin. 'Twas bittersweet. She would have to navigate this situation a great deal more carefully than anticipated. Hah. Carefull. Well, this was Cyberspace. Cyberspace was a completely different realm, as Ishmael had learned. What was it, Six months now?

"Terminal..."

Bartleby!

"Where's the nearest Terminal, Josephine."

Nate had been poking his head out quickly for the last few seconds, his ears flat against his head, his lupine nose twitching againsty the wind. He was pretty sure that the dragon wasn't going to chomp down Josephine...well, not yet. He slowly poured himself out of the car, slinking as low as he could go. He crawled forward, trying to overhear their conversation.

[OOC: I've been waiting for Cyberutopia and Rei-Sareng. Where'd they go?

In any case, expect for things to continue this afternoon, regardless of whether they show up. BTW, Grazhkjistan, please respond to my last post.]

OOC: Sorry about the late response. My modem decided to blow up. Literally.

Oh, shit.

In his experience, the server ALWAYS asked before it installed any updates. This one had just skipped that. Not good. A virus, perhaps?

He took a deep breath, and tried to slow his racing heart. Okay. Everything would be alright. He went over his list of Combat Abilities and Attacks in his head. He was tough enough to make it to a safe point to log out, that's all he needed to do, He'd be fine.

He pulled up his hood and looked around. He was in the middle of nowhere... great. He picked up his sword -- a five-and-a-half foot two-hander he'd designed himself, inspired by a sword in an older game called "Final Fantasy X" -- and headed out in a random direction. With any luck, he would be able to find a Server op.

"Nate, you look a little silly trying to sneak across bare concrete," said Josephine, without taking her eyes off Ishmael.

"Ishmael, the nearest terminal is about a quarter-mile away, and we have to get off the highway first. The next exit is quite a ways away, so rope's the best way- Mitch, where's the rope?"

Mitch wound back his arm and pitched a coil of climbing rope from the roof of the Tracker. Josephine caught it easily. "We tie one end to the safety rail and drop the other end to the ground. Simple." She eyed Ishmael. "You could probably glide down, but us walkers can't do that."

With that, Josephine strode across the highway and busied herself with the rail and the rope.

****************************

Back at the Tracker, Mitch dropped back through the vehicle's roof hatch. "I know this thing is a good fortress, but we can't stay here. We need to get out of the Game as soon as we can."

Mitch sorted through the pile of equipment on the floor, pulling out a few items and pushing the rest aside. "Take whatever you want from the pile. There's weapons, tools, some electronics and gadgets. Then head out the door and over to where Josephine is. The dragon is safe, and I'll bring up the rear."

****************************

Darret traveled only a few steps before a quiet, neutral voice whispered in his ear.

"Adjusting for realism compliance. Please do not be alarmed."

Darret's sword shrank, thinning slightly and shrinking eight inches to a more plausible length. His skills suddenly dropped to levels suitable for a novice fighter.

"Welcome to Games Without Frontiers, Darret. Information is available at the nearest Difference Terminal, to the southeast. Have a pleasant stay."

The voice vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Nate, you look a little silly trying to sneak across bare concrete," said Josephine, without taking her eyes off Ishmael.


He felt even sillier, realizing that his actions were apparant to everyone. Why did every adult have eyes in the back of their heads? Nate stood up, and walked sheepishly over to stand by Josephine. He apologised quickly, then followed her as she approached the safety rail, preparing to tie off the rope that they would use to climb....down there!? Nate looked over the edge of the roadway, seeing a long drop in the distance. Vertigo hit him and he quickly stepped back from the edge, his tail curling between his legs. As Josephine finished tying off the rope, Nate grinned nervously, his voice trembling slightly.

"Uhmm...ladies first??"

Darret hefted his shrunken weapon and rolled his eyes. People did NOT play video games to have realism.

He looked over himself to make sure they hadn't decided his clothes or appearance were too "unrealistic", then checked over his list of abilities.


Class: Fighter
Level: Novice
Combat Abilities
Combat Reflexes (lvl.1), Improved Stamina (lvl.1), Brawl (lvl.1), Damage Resistance (lvl.1)

Attacks
Power Strike (lvl. 1), Critical Strike (lvl.1) Drive (lvl.1), Rush (lvl.1)

Great... everything had either been taken out or knocked down to level 1... He was now nowhere near as effective a fighter as he'd been before. He'd have to watch his step.
He pulled his hood over his eyes, strapped his sword to his back and headed through the hills toward the southeast, hoping he could survive until he made it to the Difference Center.

Stretch of the wings. "Let's see... Games Without Frontiers... What did the file say on flight engines..." Ishmael closed her eyes trying to recall that thought, flexing her wings absent mindedly while doing so as to adjust to the feel. One developed a habit of talking to themselves if lingering in Cyberspace for too long.

"Feels like a NekoCinema engine... Huge Game... Must be custom though, scratch Neko... Screw it. I'll Witch."

Ah yes. Nothing like the tedious chore of discovering something manually!

Ishmael leaned in towards the ground, and jumped to gain a good five feet. Then she began flapping mindlessly, in an awkward and needless sort of way which stood blatantly contrary to her elegant form.

"No- Up! Up!""

It took a mere five seconds for her to realize she couldn't fly in this game, or at least fly well. With a gigantic heave of her wings, she dived headfirst into the highway, bouncing off the road and tumbling forward before crumbling at the safety rail.

"Mmmfgh... Damned- Rudementary..."

And with that, Ishmael sighed.

At the sound of the great, leathery wings flapping, Nate turned around, watching in fascination as the golden dragon tried (without much success, it seemed) to get airborne. He saw the beast gain a few feet of altitutde before losing contol, and only his wolf-like reflexes allowed him to act as quickly as he had to. The dragon was crashing towards the railing where he and Josephine stood.

With a squeal, he pushed Josephine out of the way as the dragon slid across the tarmac towards them, its wing clipping the place where they both had stood a moment earlier. Checking quickly to see that Josephine hadn't been hurt by his push, he looked back to see that the dragon also seem uninjured.

"Hmmm, so that's what it feels like to be a hero..." thought the young man, pride beginning to suffuse his spirit. The game was starting to be fun again, and Nate beamed happily.

Darret hiked over the hills, stopping for nothing, the sun bearing down on him. He thanked God he was able to add a hood to his coat. He'd be fried by now if he hadn't...

He hoped he'd find someone soon, and quickened his pace.

[OOC: So sorry. Computer time is at a premium right now and I have absolutely no time to post (Bah!). Expect something Sunday or Monday; I truly apologize for holding things up (I hate it too).]

Arkah examined the bank of levers and crude thaumotronics before him. It had been a while since he was ingame, but old talents never die. He grasped one of the levers and shoved it firmly to the opposite position. Behind him, he heard the terminal's Engine roar to life.

******************************************************

The first thing Darret saw as he topped the next hill was a tower. The skeletal iron spike rose out of the hilltop across from him like a watchtower, capped with a hexagonal turret. Wide, unglazed windows allowed Darret to see inside and catch a glimpse of glimmering crystal.

Below the base of the the tower, set into the hill, was a low, trapezoidal archway. The entrance gaped onto a bare tunnel, shored up with rough concrete. Its ceiling was studded at regular intervals with dim white crystals; about twenty feet in, it made a sharp left turn, making further inspection from the outside impossible.

Suddenly, the windows at the top of the tower blazed with yellow light. It almost blinded Darret before it faded to a steadier, pulsing glow.

******************************************************

Josephine let out a startled yip as Nate knocked her aside. "What? Wha- Oh... Thank you, Nate." She looked back at where she had been. "That would have hurt."

******************************************************

As Ishmael got up, a quiet voice spoke in her ear.

"Flying is difficult the first time you try. The best way to do it is to let your character's reflexes handle it at first, and gradually ease into doing it yourself. Care to try again?"

Ishmael took an involuntary step forward. Being manipulated by the Action Layer was a strange feeling. It was as if she had done it reflexively, without thinking about it at all. She could feel herself moving, but she didn't decide to move. Her body did.

"The first thing to understand is that you cannot, in your natural state, achieve true flight in this Zone. Fortunately, the metabolism of the 2100-style dragon was engineered by its creators to operate in two states: a normal rate for traditional movement, and a speeded-up mode which provides speed and power for combat and true flight. You activate it like this."

A mental switch flipped. Hormones trickled into Ishmael's blood, bringing a feeling of speed, strength, and enhanced reflexes. Her heartbeat and lungs speeded up to feed the increased demand.

"You can not stay in this state forever. Running in 'fast mode', as it is referred to, saps energy much faster than normal and will leave you feeling exhausted and starved if you stay in it too long. You can turn it on and off at will, and you will feel how exhausted your body is getting."

"Now you can fly. Jump, and spread your wings. Your body will do the rest."

Silence.

Darret held his hand in front of his face, shielding his eyes from the blinding burst of light.

As the light began to dim, Darret had already started down the hill, toward the archway. He stepped inside, not bothering to lower his hood.

He took his sword from his back and held the large, heavy blade at the ready, his eyes, ears and mind searching for any threat that might decide to drop in, and made his way cautiously into the tower.

][ I'm not dead! Are you? ][

[OOC: I'm fighting off a severe illness and am in no position to post. Sorry. In the meantime, you could reply to my last post...]

I'm alive!
And this forum just got bumped.

[OOC: Have a little respect for the sick. :P]

As Darret made his way down the corridor, the sound of rattling gears echoed through the tunnel. When he turned the corner, he came face-to-face with something out of Charles Babbage's wildest dreams.

The room was twenty feet wide, thirty long, and ten high. More than half of it was filled with a construction of steel and crystal, full of whirring gears and glittering lights. Engraved registers clicked from position to position in finely machined motions. Against the right-hand wall, three massive green crystals protruded from an iron box, along with a slowly revolving cast-iron driveshaft that apparently drove the entire machine. The noise was incredible, a low-frequency rumble overlaid with countless clicks and rattles.

On the left stood a bank of levers and switches, connected to the machine with push-rods and crackling copper busbars. In front of this control panel, a full-grown black Wyrm (ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Wyrm/) stood on his hind legs and tail, working the controls.

**********************

Arkah glanced over his shoulder and spotted Darret. He immediately spun to face him, dropping to all fours and showing his teeth.

"What do you want?"

OOC: Good to see you're ok, Khrrck.

Darret held his sword at the ready. This Wyrm was either a lot weaker than he, or a lot stronger. Safest thing to do was assume it was stronger. Fighting it would probably not be a good idea.

He decided to try talking to it. Perhaps it was a player. He lowered his blade a few inches, still ready to attack or defend at a moment's notice.

"I want to get out of here. Is this the Difference Terminal?"

*whump!*

[OOC: ATM I'm waiting for Rei-Sareng, Fodmodmadatol, Cyberutopia, AND Gawdly. Where are you guys?]

[OOC: ATM I'm waiting for Rei-Sareng, Fodmodmadatol, Cyberutopia, AND Gawdly. Where are you guys?]

I'm still here, hanging out with Josephine, waiting for my cue!

[OOC: Roll call, please!]

Perhaps a Telegram or two would get their attention.

Nate the teenage werewolf is present, and ready to sniff hindquarters, SIR!

[OOC: I did telegram them. Still no reply.]

Oh, well. Desperate times call for...

Hey, guys!
GET YOUR ASSES IN HERE!!!

*wham!!*

*checks posterior*

Ass is here and ready to rock, SIR!!!

[OOC: OK. Two replies. Cyberutopia TGed but has not been heard from since.

There aren't enough participants to continue. I apologize. I wish I could take this through to the end.

I will be starting a new RP shortly. Those who participated in this thread will have first chance at admission. I will post in this thread when it starts.]

[OOC: OK. Two replies. Cyberutopia TGed but has not been heard from since.

There aren't enough participants to continue. I apologize. I wish I could take this through to the end.

I will be starting a new RP shortly. Those who participated in this thread will have first chance at admission. I will post in this thread when it starts.]

Roving Saws will begin this weekend or next week. Get ready.

The adventure will be set in Aela (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Aela). The linked document may be slightly dated and not reflect the current incarnation of Aela. All questions asked will be resolved.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=8713049#post8713049