A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 12: Tavern and an update

Still excited about his success Eldrian asked Vivian, "So shall we start the tour?"

Vivian started walking and asked over her shoulder, "What do you want to see?"

"Why not a nice place to eat, I am quite hungry after the training and our match."

"Sure I know just the place. What do you want to see after?"

"Mmm, I guess where to find armor and weapons. Where to go to learn skills and magic. Maybe also where to get requests for help."

"That is a lot. I think we will start with more basics. Food then arms." Vivian declared as they started walking.

Eldrian quickly got bored of the houses around him, wanting to look further on at the city. He started to try and look over or between them, as they got to a corner he managed this. What he saw left him speechless.

He saw a massive wall. Probably around 30 meters tall. Due to him always being surrounded with tall buildings he hadn't seen it before so clearly. He just managed to see it due to looking between two buildings.

From the training field, it only looked around 15 meters or so. But now he saw clearly that the wall was almost as tall as a 6 or 7 story building. This meant it was around 30 meters tall. The wall was also a strange color, being a reddish-brown, completely different from Ariel's walls in the trailer.

Eldrian also noticed a tower, similar to those that were in Ariel. Curious what they actually were he decided to ask.

"Vivian what are those towers?" He asked as he pointed between the gap between the two houses.

"Ah, those are called magic towers. Not to be confused with mage towers or mythic towers."

"And what are all of those, you just gave me more questions. Let me rephrase, what are the reason they were built?"

"Ooh, well the magic towers are like defensive siege weapons, capable of massive offensive spells. Mage towers are the home of really strong mages, who don't want to live in the city. Mystical towers aren't well known. We just assume they are leftover from ancient times."

Again, they walked in silence, during which Eldrian again tried to observe his surroundings. He was surprised by how well made the roads were. Completely out of cobblestone, but with no weeds coming out of the cracks or dirt over it. The roads looked almost better than those in his real world.

Soon after Eldrian thought this they arrived at a tavern.

"Here we are, Meats & Sugar inn," Vivian said, excitement evident in her voice.

'She must really like the food here.' Eldrian thought to himself as he followed Vivian inside. Eldrian was immediately drawn to an elegant voice singing a bardic tale as they entered. Looking to the source he saw a lady standing on a stage, in the middle of the room.

"Table for two please." Vivian's voice pulled Eldrian back his trance. It had been a long time since he had last heard a tale sung in such a manner. Every now and then the audience who sat nearby to enjoy the music and beer sang along or cheered as she reached a climax of the song she was singing.

They followed the waiter who led them to a table near a window. Eldrian found this seating very nice. Since he could listen and enjoy the music while either enjoying the view outside or inside depending on his mood.

"So, what would you like to order?" Vivian asked after having thanked the waiter.

"I have no idea what food they have here. Why don't you order for me?" Eldrian replied.

"Sure, can do," Vivian said.

At this moment Eldrian heard the system announcement.

{All players will be logged off for mandatory maintenance. Please excuse the inconvenience.}

{Update will take 15 minutes.}

Before Eldrian could do anything, he found himself waking up on his bed.

'What the hell. Why wasn't there any warning?' He said angrily to himself as he stood up to go onto the forums.

As soon as he entered the forums, he found the top pinned thread was about this update.

[After careful consideration it was decided to update the game to ensure a quality gaming experience.]

[The update contains the following points.]

1. The age restriction of 18 years or Older is being adapted to be according to country laws instead of worldwide. The reason for this is pressure from governments claiming that we, as a company, do not take their laws seriously.

2. The user interface in-game will receive a major overhaul. Many players have complained that it is very difficult to use. We agreed and thus will change the method it works.

Players will just have to call the system in their minds to summon the main interface. From there they can then navigate to the function they want. The navigation will be done by mentally thinking it, and come to the player as a hologram.

3. The method of players dying has been investigated. A case was found that while it might not hurt the player physically, in many instances, their death will scar them due to the vividness of the game. Thus, a method of avoiding this was added.

Players can now call for suicide to give themselves an immediate death. This will result in a full death penalty, but avoid cases of players being tortured or played with by monsters.

4. The game forum will be made available in-game. To access the forum will need a player to enter a daydream state. Players are advised to visit the forum only when safe. No system protection will be given while in the daydream state.

5. Not Update related* The next wave of headsets will be sold in a week. At that time another million players will be able to join.

6. Clarification on NPC knowledge;

NPCs know that the players come from a different world. The reason for the summoning is to help the Kalos races to survive. NPCs also have the same leveling and tier system as players. In fact, all life in-game follows this system, thus players can ask them about it straightforwardly.

We have gotten too many complaints about how this was never explained and decided to make it clear.

NPCs know that Chosen can resurrect, and when players log off the same effect takes place after a certain amount of time. This is to help players survive later on, and will have to be explored in more detail by the players.

Eldrian didn't feel much of an impact from these updates. He just felt that the interface update and being able to access the forums while in-game would be really convenient. It wasn't a big matter to him though.

The update of creating an easy way to suicide was also not of much affect to him, since currently, most people died from animals, who generally killed them quickly.

Eldrian then just waited to log back in.

…

"You scared me." Eldrian heard as soon as he was back in-game.

"Ah, sorry about that. I didn't have much control over it." Eldrian said. He really didn't know how to explain it. Next, he asked, "What happened here exactly?"

"You just suddenly fell asleep, lying back in the chair. It was so weird. When I starting wondering if you had had a heart attack, I received a premonition that you would be fine. I had no idea how I received it. It was weird. So, tell me what happened?"

"Mmm, I don't know exactly how to explain. Tell me first what you know of us Chosen."

"You were summoned by the gods, through the goddess of life's powers. Due to this, you guys all have been blessed. Some of these blessings we know, like that you can resurrect after dying, even if your body was completely destroyed. We don't really know what other blessings you have."

"Interesting. When you guys train and gain levels or weapon ranks how do you know it?"

"Well, it is difficult to explain. For most it is like a message containing the information just pops into our heads."

'Like how the interface was at first.' Eldrian thought to himself and asked Vivian, "Can you call this information at any time?"

"Not that I am aware of, no."

"Try. Say think and ask for your weapon proficiency details." Vivian did as Eldrian asked her, after a few tries her eyes suddenly popped open.

"What, how did… This is amazing!"

"Keep it down Vivian. So, what did you see?"

"It is difficult to say, the information just popped into my head like always. But this time it contained all of the weapons I had trained in and the rank they are at."

"Try to focus on one, asking for more detail, like how far it was to being able to rank up again." Eldrian proposed and Vivian again closed her eyes trying to do as he said.

A few seconds later she opened her eyes again and looked at Eldrian anew, "How did you know I would be able to do that?"

"Well I didn't, but if you could it would make explaining a lot easier since all of us Chosen have this ability."

What Vivian had thought of was her sword proficiency, finding that it was more than halfway to rank 4. This knowledge would be so helpful for determining what to focus on. NPCs didn't get concrete numbers like players, but the feeling of progress would help a lot.

"So this is why you managed to gain you weapon levels so fast?" Vivian asked

"It is part of the reason. Since with this, I could determine if my training method was correct or not. I used this to find the optimal method I could."

"That explains a lot. Certainly, for the first rank or two, when you haven't figured it out yet, it will help a lot."

"So, no one has ever explained this before?" Eldrian asked

"I have never heard of it before," Vivian answered seriously. She also realized what this meant. It was impossible that no one had ever discovered it before. Which meant it was being kept a secret from even her dad. Or maybe their entire kingdom had not gotten this knowledge.

"So back to your original question, like you were just able to gain this information through thought, we can return to our world via thought." Eldrian decided to just come out and say it.

Vivian was completely shocked hearing this. She had no idea how to react, at this moment a voice broke their talk.

"Here is your food. I hope you two enjoy." Looking up Eldrian saw a waiter place two plates on the table with food, which smelled divine.

The waiter quickly left after saying that, seeming to not want to interrupt the two for too long.

"Great let's dig in." Vivian said as she took a plate and started eating. Trying to distract her from the revelation she just heard.

As they both decided to eat while processing what they just discussed Eldrian realized how little he knew about his game world. He decided to ask Vivian for more details when they finished the delicious meal.