Seamus chuckled slightly, “I get a choice?”
Vicky’s voice gave the impression that she was embarrassed, “Yes.”
A smile came to Seamus’s face and he let the warmth he felt come through in his voice, “I don’t see how that will entertain you as I’ll probably make more than a few mistakes, but yes, watch to your heart’s content. Just next time please stay away from the two questions I don’t want to talk about.”
She turned to face him, her smile bright as she raised a hand as if to say goodbye, “Thank you, Seamus.” As she finished speaking Seamus felt the room slip away from him and he noted the clock blinking away with five hours still to go before sleep claimed him.
Seamus came back to his senses to find the clock blinking as it counted down the last minute before early access launched. He wondered what kind of starting area he was going to be in, he recalled being told that he would be in a dungeon at the start of the game. As the clock kept ticking Seamus could feel his excitement start to rise, he was about to have a taste of freedom again. A whole world waiting for him to explore it while the staff kept tabs on him to see if this long term immersion was viable. He said a silent prayer, even though he didn’t believe in God, praying for this to work so Kaylee could have a full life again. He watched as the last ten seconds ticked away one by one until they vanished, leaving him in darkness.
Game On
Alburet came to in the dark, with a faint, flickering light coming from a narrow gap at the bottom of a door. Letting his eyes adjust, he could make out a small square room. The small straw pile he lay on was the only thing in it. The door was thick wood with three iron bands reinforcing it. He could make out a status bar in his left peripheral vision that held his name and two colored bars, one red and the other blue.
“Game on,” Alburet whispered with a smile. He wondered how to open the character screen when a see through panel came into being before him showing his character. Looking it over, he was able to quickly take in all the important details.
Alburet
Human Summoner
Level 1
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 15
Charisma: 19
Health: 110
Mana: 200
Spells:
Demon Skin
Abilities:
None
Alburet touched the health number on the character screen and a tool-tip popped up: “Out of combat you will regenerate 10% of your total health every second.” He checked Mana and got a similar message, but with a little more info: “During combat you will regenerate mana based on your wisdom stat.” Alburet tapped Wisdom to see what it would tell him there: “Your mana will regenerate at 1.5% of your total mana every second in combat. Total mana pool based on Wisdom.”
Each stat had helpful information when he checked them. Strength added to melee combat damage at a factor of 10%, minimum one. Agility did the same for ranged combat, while Intelligence gave 10% bonus damage to spells. Charisma gave a bonus to influencing NPCs in conversation and when meeting them for the first time. Constitution was the way to get more health at a ten to one ratio, while each level gave a flat 50 more health on top of that.
Tapping his spell, Alburet read the description then blinked when he got to the end of it. “Demon Skin: This spell hardens your skin, taking on the appearance and nature of true demon skin. Mana cost: 50. Duration: 1 hour. Adds 10 armor to base rating. Does not stack with other armor, whichever value is higher will be used to determine armor value. Self target only. To use this spell press your hands to your chest and say the words “Demon Skin.”
“So, built to the lowest common denominator,” Alburet sighed. He then pressed his hands to his chest and spoke the words. As the words left his mouth he felt a small pulse from his hands, looking down he could make out his normal skin darkening as it thickened some. An icon appeared under his mana bar, informing him he now had the buff Demonic Skin.
Wondering about notifications, Alburet noticed a small blue square in his lower right vision which was blinking. Touching it opened up a slew of messages, he scrolled back to the top and read through them.
Dear tester,
You are in the Forgotten Prison. As your starting location is non-standard you have no equipment besides the robe on your back. You will have to figure a way out on your own and pick up equipment as you try to gain your freedom. Thank you for assisting Mindblown Entertainment with our test.
Good luck, Mindblown Entertainment CEO Stephan Colart.
Thank you for completing the early access evaluation. Your actions during the evaluation have netted you increased base statistics.
1 extra Constitution gained.
5 extra Intelligence gained.
5 extra wisdom gained.
14 extra charisma gained.
We hope you enjoyed the evaluations and wish you luck in Alpha World.
Alburet chuckled. Well, at least the time with Vicky had given him some really nice boosts. So he had to figure a way out of this forgotten prison on his own. Standing up, Alburet stretched and smirked. “Let's get started, shall we?” he muttered to himself as he advanced on the door, wondering how he was going to get it open.
Quest: Escape the cell.
Reward: One hundred XP.
Chuckling at his first quest, Alburet examined the door. He frowned when he found there was nothing on the inside to grab or hold. Just a spot for a key in the door, and not having anything to even try picking the lock he was at a loss. “Well fuck, now what?”
Alburet hammered on the door with his fist, getting a surprise as 0's appeared floating in the air before him. The same blue square he had the messages in began to flash again. Stopping his hammering, he opened up the message box.
You hit door for 2 damage, door unharmed due to armor value of 25.
You hit door for 2 damage, door unharmed due to armor value of 25.
You hit door for 2 damage, door unharmed due to armor value of 25.
You hit door for 2 damage, door unharmed due to armor value of 25.
You hit door for 2 damage, door unharmed due to armor value of 25.
Sighing, Alburet sat on the floor as he closed the message box and looked for a way to open the options menu. As he thought about it, a new pop-up appeared in front of him. Nodding, Alburet went through the options and set the combat messages to be mostly translucent and go by in his lower left peripheral. He set the damage received messages to red, along with any status effects that would affect him. He could now ignore them or pay attention to them as needed.
He pulled up the sensory options, noting that they were set to the maximum and grayed out to his touch. Shrugging, he shifted to all the other options and noted a mini-map button. Toggling it on, he saw a translucent small map icon pop up in his upper right vision. It showed a small room with him in it and that was it. “Fog of war, eh?” Alburet mumbled.
As he closed down the menus, he heard a faint scraping sound in the hall. Laying on the floor he looked through the four inch tall gap under the door to see hallway stretching off in both directions. To his left and moving toward him was a set of bone feet dragging a thin chain behind it. As it neared, Alburet was able to make out the skeleton with tatters of cloth on it walking, dragging the chain behind it. Watching as the skeleton drew closer, Alburet was surprised when a small icon of the creature appeared next to his status bars. It had a name and a single red bar next to a picture of the mob, Lost Key Holder.