The next couple days passed in a much similar manner as I spent my time diving deeper into the information available about Realm of Infinity while getting in some extra gym time. I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea since I wasn’t going to be as active after the launch of the game and the better shape I start in, the less overall deterioration I would experience.

Other players started arriving on Thursday afternoon, with two people I didn’t know moving into the second floor. Both male, one was named Adrian while the other was Hidashi as they introduced themselves to me. Adrian was a tall well-built man of about twenty-five years of age with sandy colored hair and a goatee, and Hidashi was an Asian guy with spikey black hair of equivalent age. They both seemed friendly enough, but they didn’t exactly open themselves up to me much. Granted, I wasn’t exactly out there with my life story either, so I couldn’t complain.

It wasn’t until Friday just after lunch time that Archie and Kayla moved into the building. I had just settled into my customary place on the couch in the common area when I heard the familiar voice of my longtime friend and rival speaking in the hall. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I stood up quickly and moved over just as Archie came into sight.

Tall and skinny, Archie had short red hair with a smattering of freckles over his face and a pair of thin frame glasses perched on his face highlighting his bright green eyes. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a thin guy and he grinned when he saw me standing there.

“Well if it isn’t Dale! How have you been?” He glanced behind him and sighed. “Kayla, come on! Dale is already here and looks like he has been for some time!” Archie moved farther into the common area and set down his duffel bag with his clothes while he kept a box of other things tucked under his left arm and against his side.

“Hey Archie, been a while huh?” I shook his hand as he extended it to me, his grip firm and friendly. Despite all of our competitiveness, we really were on good terms with each other and enjoyed discussing the mutual interests we shared. I wasn’t able to get anything more out before a beautiful blond missile impacted my side and made me stagger a step with a small ‘oompf’ from my throat.

Kayla was shorter than myself by a good head and surprisingly strong for her slender build as she wrapped her arms around me for a hug. “Dale! What the hell is wrong with you? We haven’t heard from you in over a year!” Just like her strength, her voice was deceptively powerful as it came from such a small frame.

Now, I wasn’t one to normally deny a pretty woman from hugging me, but the intensity of that squeeze was more along the lines of trying to break my ribs than a show of affection. “Ack! Kayla… Need to breathe here!” I carefully extricated myself from her embrace and gave a mock glare at her.

She looked down in embarrassment, her shocking blue eyes showing no remorse at all for nearing cracking my ribs with her hug. “Sorry. We just missed you is all… Neither of us have had any real competition since you stopped gaming.”

Archie snorted and shook his head. “Don’t let her fool you Dale. We have run into plenty of strong opponents since you left, but I do have to say, none were quite as cunning as you used to be. Still gave us a good run for our money though.” He smirked with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Although, Kayla here has been going on and on about being able to game with you again… Seems that the word through the grape vine is that you are attachment free again and have nothing holding you back from some… Ouch!” He cut off mid-sentence as Kayla’s foot impacted with his shin before she spun and retreated back down the hall to get her bags.

I couldn’t help but laugh at their antics. I really had missed their company and didn’t quite realize how much so until just then. “Yeah, a lot has happened recently. Honestly the timing was rather fortuitous, I have to say. It all happened right before Alex got a hold of me to sign me up for this project here, and if it all hadn’t happened as it did I don’t know if I would have joined, truthfully.”

“Well, despite the shitty nature of what happened, I am glad you are here. We will have to meet up in game and run together again. I have gotten better at shot calling and tactics, but there was never anyone as good as you for that kind of stuff.” He grinned at me and nodded over to the elevator. “But for now, we need to get set up. What room are you staying in?”

Kayla joined us as I lead the way to the elevator and pressed the call button. “I am in room eight on the third floor. Two other guys, Adrian and Hidashi, set up on the second.” The metal door slid open and I held it there as Archie and Kayla stepped in after me.

“We will settle in on the third floor too then.” Kayla paused and tilted her head slightly as I nodded and pressed the proper floor button. “Wait, I know those names… They are adoptive brothers who are in the top ten world rankings for various FPS and team fighting games. Different circles than us, but still damn good players from what I have heard and read.”

That was news to me. I hadn’t really kept up with the gaming community news as much as I used to, and almost never with FPS games anyway, but the fact that they were even here spoke up to the fact that they were just as good as Kayla said. Alex had mentioned that Dumadine was bringing in the best of the best in order to get the good publicity that they wanted. “Hmmm. Makes sense. Not sure exactly how well FPS experience will be fitting in with an MMO game, but we will have to see as we move forward.”

As the elevator moved up, Jensen spoke up through the hidden speakers. “Dale, I would like to remind you that you are scheduled to be at the medical wing in one hour for your scan to set up your immersion device.”

“Got it, thanks Jensen.” Both of my friends looked around in puzzlement as I chuckled. “That is the AI in charge of the building and the immersion device. His name is Jensen and so far he is a pretty chill AI. Voice takes some getting used to though…”

Archie spoke up before Kayla had a chance. “Cool! We get our own AI? Nice!” The elevator chimed and the door opened to let us all out onto the third floor. He immediately went to room six and swiped his wrist over the security pad and went through the process of assigning himself to the room as Kayla went to room seven and did the same.

“You guys get settled in and talk with Jensen. He will arrange for your scans as well and I will catch up with you guys for dinner.” They both waved at me and agreed to the plans before I stepped back into the elevator to head off to my appointment.

I made it to the medical building early, as I hate being late, and stepped into what looked like a typical hospital hallway. There was a large desk sitting right inside the doors with a man seated there typing information into an AR screen, who I approached to check in with. “Hello. My name is Dale Sullivan and I have an appointment for two o’clock.”

The man nodded and swiped a few screens away and typed something else in quickly before he smiled and nodded at me. “Yes, we have you here Mr. Sullivan. One of our techs will be out in a moment to take you to the proper room. Please have a seat over against the wall and they will be with you shortly.”

I moved over and was just about to take a seat when an older woman wearing a white lab coat over blue hospital scrubs waved at me and motioned me to follow her. “Mr. Sullivan, this way please. We are ready for you in the scanning room.”

Following along behind her down the hallway of closed doors, I noticed that it was set up like a hospital wing with patient rooms along this hall with five rooms to a side. At the end of the hall, the path split in a T, which we took the right turn and proceeded down another short hall with only one door at the end.

“Through here please, Mr. Sullivan.” We entered the room which contained a massive bank of AR screens showing various graphs and medical details, the exact information blank at the moment as there was nobody in the scanner at the time. Another door opposite the one we came through stood slightly open and hid what was inside. “Please proceed into the next room. Once there, please remove all of your clothes and stand inside of the yellow circle.”

“Sure, not a problem.” Following her orders, I moved through the partially open doorway and shit it behind me before looking around. A small bench sat right inside and to the left where I assumed I should stack my clothes for the scan and did just that. The rest of the room was mostly barren except for a single metal bar set at the edge of the yellow circle on the floor. A small groove ran around the edge of the circle and was mirrored on the ceiling.

As soon as I disrobed and stepped into the designated area, the woman tech’s voice filtered in through a speaker. “Stand in the center with your arms at your sides and try not to move too much please. This will only take a couple minutes and won’t hurt at all, but moving around too much will make the process take longer.”

“Got it.” I did as she asked and stared straight ahead. “Alright, I am ready.” I almost panicked as the lights in the room died out, leaving me in darkness until a red sheet of light emitted from the metal pole at the edge of my circle. The light struck my body, making a red line run from the top of my head all the way to the floor.

With a mechanical whirring sound, the pillar began to slowly rotate around me following the track I had noticed on the floor and ceiling, the light contouring against my body as it went. The whole process indeed only took a few minutes, the sensor circling around me a total of ten times. As soon as the lights came back on, the tech’s voice told me to go ahead and put my clothes back on and return to the outer room.

Dressing only took me a minute and I was soon standing next to the woman in front of the multitude of AR screens showing vitals, brainwaves, a representation of my body, and numerous other graphs and charts I had no idea as to the point of. It all really looked quite interesting to me, even if I was clueless as to what the bulk of it meant.

“You are all set here Mr. Sullivan. I have to upload this all to the AI and it will handle programing it into your immersion device.” She pulled up an AR screen over her pers-com and read off it in a professional tone. “According to your contract, you will need to perform another scan every month for the first year of using the immersion device so we can collect additional data for our use as well as insuring that your personal health is not being impacted negatively by the immersion device and software. The AI Jensen will handle setting up the appointment times and shall inform you five days prior to the next required scan to give you enough time to arrange another visit to this building. Dumadine Technology would like to thank you for your cooperation in this and all other matters.”

She let out a breath, as if relieved to have that speech over with. Giving me an apologetic smile, she shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry, I am required to read that to you exactly as it shows or I will get in trouble. Have a good day Mr. Sullivan and enjoy the game.”

“No problem at all, I understand having to follow the script.” I smiled back at her and nodded my head. “Thanks, and I will see you in a month!” With a polite wave, I headed out of the room to make my way back to the apartment building.

* * * * *

The rest of the week and following weekend went by quickly with a lot of catching up between myself and my old friends, with even Alex swinging by for dinner a couple times so the gang could get back together again. Lots of old stories were laughed over, even after hearing them several times before, and even more time was spent going over ideas and information involving RoI in general.

More people moved into the building during that time as well, and finally on Sunday all of the rooms were full up with all the residents having introduced themselves and a casual level of acquaintance established between everyone. I didn’t know any of the newer members, but Kayla and Archie knew a couple of them and tended to include one or two at a time into our group to hash out thoughts.

Sunday night, everyone retired early in order to get set up with the launch of the game at ten AM in the morning when the servers went live around the world for hard mode characters. Casual account gamers would go active one hour after that, but it still left enough incentive to go with the harder version on launch day when one looked at the fact that only basic quests were repeatable by other players with the majority of quests being supplied on demand by the game AI.

Since there was the faction trial to go through before actually logging into the game world, players were allowed to initially log into the immersion devices starting at eight in the morning, giving them two hours to get through that portion in time for the hard launch of the game.

Monday morning found me waking up early to shower and eat a quick breakfast, most of the others in the complex joining me for the meal with eager anticipation for getting into this ground-breaking game.

A final well-wishing and promises to try and meet up at some point in the game were made as the clock ticked closer and closer to the soft start before all of the residents collectively filed into the elevator that was just big enough to fit them all at once.

I entered my room with a swipe of my wrist and stepped in front of the door I hadn’t been able to enter as of yet, calling out to the building AI. “Jensen, is this room unlocked now?”

“Yes, Dale. All players are able to enter their immersion room at this time and can get ready to hook into the machines. Actual connection will begin in another eight minutes, but that leaves you enough time to familiarize yourself with the machine and get ready for immediate connection.”

A wide grin split my face as I finally pushed open the door I had wanted to walk through for the past week. Inside the room there was actually very little space available. The massive unit that acted as the immersion device took up a large portion of the small room, looking just as Jensen described like a MRI machine. Boxy in shape, there was a round tube-like hole in the face of the device with a table extended out of it which the player would lay down on and be retracted into the unit.

Eagerly, I closed the door behind me and picked up the tight-fitting cap that had to be worn with all the diodes and sensors in it. A flap extended down to the back of my neck and a thin strap wrapped around my throat at Jensen’s direction to secure the last of the sensors to my spinal cord there. Preparations completed, I lay down on the table with my head towards the machine and reached up to push the button to slide the table smoothly into the immersion device.

The interior was dark, the only light coming from the opening by my feet. Inside of the tube was actually more spacious than it looked, leaving me plenty of room to reach my arm up to my face to handle an itch on my nose as Jensen started speaking.

“Initiating pre-game launch in five. Four. Three. Two. One…” As the AI spoke, a soft hum started from the unit around me, and right as the word ‘one’ reached my ears, all light and sound faded away from me until a burst of bright light blinded me momentarily.

I stood within an empty room maybe twenty feet square with a single doorway ahead of me. On the door itself was the game logo, a double loop lemniscate, or infinity symbol, with a fairy resting inside the left hoop of the design.

This was the player’s home room. The place where a person would find themselves after logging into the immersion device and could then select the program they wished to activate by simple walking through the appropriate door. There were options to change how it actually worked, but with Realm of Infinity being the only program available to this system so far I didn’t feel the need to mess with those settings.

Time was ticking and I quickly approached the door to the game, a hand rising up to push it open when I stopped suddenly. Moving felt so natural, to the point where I could feel all of the muscles in my body working together to propel me across the floor which felt solid to my mind!

“Awesome!” Even with nobody around, I couldn’t hold back my excitement at the sensations, then swiftly pushed the door to the game open and stepped through the pitch black threshold. A brief sensation of falling flashed through my body until I closed my eyes reflexively for just a moment. As I opened them once more, I was no longer in darkness, nor even within anywhere that could remotely be classified as Earth!

I found myself standing in the middle of a grassy clearing in the center of a forest, trees surrounding me evenly at about a hundred paces away. Sounds of birds chirping and softer sounds of animals running around in the woods filtered into my ears while I felt a soft breeze tickle along my cheeks. Everything just felt so real, like I wasn’t in a game but there in person!

A bright sun shone down over the forest giving plenty of warmth and light, letting me see clearly all around. I turned a full circle, taking in all of the sights from atop the small rise I was standing upon. Looking down, I noticed I was wearing a standard outfit of black pants and a white shirt with simple shoes on my feet to complete the beginners outfit.

“Ahem…” A voice behind me nearly made my heart stop, as there was nobody there when I had first looked around me. Spinning quickly in place, I saw an elderly man standing before me, wrinkled face staring up from the base of the hill. He was slightly bent with both hands clasped to the top of a walking stick and wearing simple brown robes over his thin frame. “Ah, there you are Outlander. Welcome to the Glade of Trials. To start, what is your name?”

I frowned slightly, kind of disappointed at such a generic start for the game, but then again this was just the pre-game assessment with the AI getting a feel for my personality and gaming style in order to place me in an appropriate faction. Well, time to get the show on the road!

There was no thought involved to selecting my name, as I always used a variation of the same thing in every game I played. “My name is Calamity. I am assuming Outlander is what you call adventurers like myself who are coming into the game?”

The old man frowned slightly at the name I gave, and pretty much ignored my question. “Calamity, eh? Are you sure this is the name you wish to use within this world Outlander? Once you have chosen, there is no going back on that decision.”

Figuring this to be some kind of name confirmation setting, I merely nodded my head and replied to him. “Indeed. My name is Calamity. What is your name sir?” I tried another question, hoping to draw some information out of this NPC in any way I could.

“Very well, Calamity. An auspicious name you have chosen for yourself in this world. Maybe it will turn out that the calamity befalls you instead of the other way around, hmm?” He chuckled dryly at his own words and thumped his short cane slash walking stick against the hard packed dirt at his feet.

I felt a wave of anger starting to rise within me at my questions all being ignored while an AI mocked me on my name choice and lashed out before I thought better of it. “Oh, my name is so terrible, is it old geezer? And how do you know that I won’t be the calamity that rules this world when all is said and done?”

Shaking his head at my outburst, the man sighed. “Oh the impetuousness of youth. I remember the days when I was young and headstrong… But no time to reminisce now. No, no, no. Now is the time for action!” He practically yelled that last bit in his dry shaking voice, then coughed a few times as it seemed to have irritated his throat. “But first… How about a drink for an old man? At the base of the hill behind you there is a water skin. Please retrieve it for me?”

I was a bit miffed at being treated that way, and was honestly considering telling the guy off when a better idea struck me. “Very well…” I turned and walked down the hill, finding a small pack laying on the grass behind a jut of rock that made it impossible to see from the top of the small rise. Opening the bag, I found several things. Two water skins actually, a few packets of travel rations, a strange stone made from what looked to be obsidian, and finally a small glass vial of clear liquid.

There had yet to be any prompts or UI of any kind so far, so I tried something new and concentrated my focus on the glass vial, which caused a small window to pop open before me.

A vial of poison.

This contains a single dose of toxic substance that will cause the poison status on any target that ingests it. Deals a maximum of 25 HP worth of damage per second for thirty seconds with a 25% chance of paralyzing the victim for the duration.

A simple bit of math on my part gave me a grand total of 750 damage! Wow. That seemed a little OP for a starting item. Maybe I wouldn’t get to keep these items once the actual game started… Well in that case, I supposed I should have some fun with it.

Originally, I was just going to drink the water in front of him and laugh, but there were more entertaining things I could do. Flipping the cork off of the water skin, I popped open the vial of poison and poured it in before swirling the water around a bit. Corking the vial, I tossed it back into the bag thinking I might get some other kind of use out of it before the day wore out. A quick sniff at the water told me you couldn’t tell anything was put in it and I was hoping the effect wouldn’t be too reduced since I mixed it with a liter of water.

I was just about to put the pack on and stand up when another idea hit me and quickly swapped the poisoned water into the bag and carried the clean one in my hand. The pack fit nicely on my back when I stood up and began making my way over the hill once more to find the old man.

He was still standing right where I left him and I approached with a big smile on my face, hooking a thumb over my shoulder at the bag on my back. “Nice pack I found it all in. Here is your water!” My grin took on a bit of an evil twist with a gleam in my eye suggesting I was up to no good.

“Uhm… Hold it there… Give me the other water skin that was in the pack! I don’t know if I trust that look you have going on there, and with a name like Calamity I don’t think I should take anything you willingly hand over.” Bingo! Just what I was hoping for. The AI wasn’t stupid, but at the same time it wasn’t exactly overly smart either. A bit of misdirection and implication and the program played right into my hand like I wanted.

I let a hurt look cross my face, lips drawn down in a pout as I reached behind me and pulled out the other skin. “Awww… There goes my fun.” I tossed the good skin down at my feet and then held out the tainted one I pulled out of the pack to the old man. “Fine, here!”

A look of triumph crossed his wrinkled face as I played my part by looking dejectedly at the ground. He popped open the skin and took a long drink of the water, draining nearly half of the skin in a couple long swallows.

Grinning, I bent down and picked up the good water and took a drink myself. I looked over and saw the old man’s eyes bulge nearly out of his head as he watched me drink, then choked as the poison in his skin took effect. He seemed frozen in place as a health bar appeared over his head, slowly dropping by about 5% a second. Nice! Looked like the paralysis worked too! And it should be more than enough to finish the geezer off.

Choking gasps came from his lips and I tilted my head at him, a look of anger finally crossing my face. “Is there a problem sir? Oh yeah, you don’t answer my questions… Sorry I can’t help you!” I brightened up as I stepped in a bit closer to him, watching his health bar tick away each second. “On second thought, I think I do know a way to help you!”

He had just enough control over his body to let a look of hope peek out through his eyes, but it quickly died away when he noticed the malicious smile returning to my face. This is how I always tended to be in games. Kill first, sort it out later. PvP games tended to have a lot of people out to get you, and I had learned that the best option is to take others down well before they had a chance to get me. And this guy just pissed me off, even if he was just a NPC.

My foot lashed out, sweeping the bottom of his cane out from him and causing the old man to topple over once he lost the balance of his stick which rolled out of his grasp. A low groan of pain came from him as I sauntered over and lifted the cane, looking it over critically, without bothering to try and call up a menu on the item. It was all a show after all. I wanted to set the AI straight here and now that it wasn’t going to fuck with me in this game and I wouldn’t take its shit. Turning around, I lifted the cane over my head in two hands and brought it crashing down on the old fart’s head.

You have dealt 110 damage!

(12 weapon damage + 10 Str modifier X 5 for striking an incapacitated target)

The text popped up in open air next to where I hit the man and I cursed, waving it away quickly. I would have to fix that in the menu when I got a chance later on, but for now the frail looking man still had about twenty percent HP left. Time to help him on his way to oblivion!

You have dealt 100 damage!

(10 weapon damage + 10 Str modifier X 5 for striking an incapacitated target)

You have dealt 105 damage!

(11 weapon damage + 10 Str modifier X 5 for striking an incapacitated target)

You have killed Old Man.

Unfortunately, this is just a practice area and no experience or loot is given out during this time.

Well shit! They could have given me something for that! Then again, I wasn’t aware of the damage multiplier for hitting a paralyzed target, so I guess information was a good enough reward for such little effort. I nudged the corpse at my feet with the toe of one foot, wondering why it didn’t vanish and finally noticed quite a bit of blood…

Scratch that, a lot of blood! Looking closer, I noticed that I did a good job of splitting his skull open too and the results were quite vivid and graphic. I knew this was a video game, and the sight didn’t make me sick or anything, but I could see some people getting way too involved in the surroundings and suffer some sort of breakdown. Shrugging, I turned and took a deep breath of the fresh air and thought about what I should do next.

Yeah, I just killed the guy who was supposed to guide me, but oh well. Worst case scenario I deleted this character and made a new one, starting over again with a different outcome hopefully. Nah, since I was able to kill the NPC so easily, this had to be an option the AI thought might occur. With that in mind, I walked up to the top of the hill and sat down on the grass. I had just plopped down on my ass when a new window popped up.

Congratulations!

There is no right or wrong way to pass these trials, and you have shown just how you deal with a given situation! Due to the outcome of your encounter, it has been decided that the player Calamity will start in the town of Tyrith under the faction of House Tyrith.

Have a good game!