The following month past by in a blur. The father-daughter pair left Arizona City and moved 90 miles north to Phoenix, ending up in the suburb of Glendale, in a small townhouse in a gated complex. Bliss was ecstatic to have her own room for the first time in her life, with a door and lock. She even had her own bathroom. Mark left the whole upstairs to her. Meanwhile he got fitted for a new prosthetic as part of his “disability”, this one was a simple cybernetic one, which had a functioning ankle allowing him to do some light jogging for the first time in years. His limp also went away and the pain in his knees was greatly reduced. It was amazing how quickly his life of crippling poverty turned around with the help of some money and a sympathetic doctor.

He got Bliss registered in time for year end finals in North Glendale High School, she of course struggled in the finals though managed a pass. He spent almost 3 weeks of the month in some form of recovery between the cybernetic limb and the IO port installed in his spine, while the living conditions were superior Mark did spend most of the month laid up on a bed for most of it. Leo came through with the capsule as well, installing two in the house and getting Bliss setup for the IO port install as well. Mark wanted to reprimand Leo for taking liberties with how he raised his girl, but in the end gave up, he knew she had wanted an IO port and capsule for years, and while it was easy to brush the issue off when she went to a school where 70% of the kids also lacked one, he knew not having one in a large public high school in a cosmopolitan city like Phoenix would probably isolate her socially so he simply bit his tongue and let Leo get away with his excess.

Almost 6 weeks after leaving Arizona City the first news about Underworld-GOLD being released leaked out. The media explosion around it was so explosive and clearly planned Mark wasn’t able to determine how much enthusiasm for Underworld there actually was. Of course, his doubts melted away inside a week as the hype seemed to get stronger and stronger, on the net and in the news. Stories about past champions and the mysterious lack of information about the old game on the net were headlining for a while. There was even a story about the last world champion, and interestingly even stories that “Mark Ulrich” the e-sport athlete had died in the war. He figured that was Leo’s work though whenever he was asked in person, he’d no comment it.

Four weeks before release of Underworld the Unified Government pronounced it approved for public consumption, and a series of new health regulation was passed with it about safe use of FBEVR gaming systems, including a daily time limit of 18 hours a day logged in, which did get some public complaints from the professional gaming community. The whole controversy seemed mad to Mark who thought playing any game for 18 hours a day was already extremely unhealthy, and he had no interest in playing the game for that long no matter what Leo wanted. Throughout these weeks Mark was busy working with Leo via phone and any old gaming buddy who they knew who was still alive to put together as comprehensive a guide book for LM-STARS.

With two weeks before launch Mark found himself logging into a capsule for the first time in his life. The process was easy, he stepped into the capsule, rest his back against the padded backing, closed a neck collar and guided the “pin” a small plug which mates with the IO port to the port for the first docking and pairing. Once the pairing with the system was complete the capsule door closed and the capsule reclined back into a horizontal position. The pin entered the IO port, causing a painful sensation much akin to plunging himself into boiling water and he lost sight, hearing, taste and feel one after another, almost as if his mind was sinking into a black void.

Then a setup prompt for first time use of the capsule. It asked for a gamer handle and email address. He used his favorite gamer handle Ingtar and email address [email protected] Much to his irritation the handle was of course in use so he switched it up to [LMSTARS]INGTAR which worked fine. He didn’t need to enter a password, of course there were biometrics which took care of identity. He connected his cell phone to the capsule as well, then entered his address to complete registration.

The capsule had other setup options such as tying it to a social media account or YouTube, he left that blank because he knew LM_STARS had their own contracts and contacts. Then he entered something akin to a lobby, where he was allowed to customize his personal avatar. He left it as is, something that looked pretty much like he looked in real life. He had a strange suffocating feeling and realized he didn’t feel like he was breathing properly, the system seemed to notice his discomfort and advised him to take deep breaths until he got used to his virtual body. The sensations for the virtual body were strange to say the least. He had to think about how to even move his limbs, and found even taking a step difficult. It was almost surreal to have two working legs in this virtual world, to feel his toes on a missing limb was an odd moment.

After taking almost 20 minutes getting used to the body enough to walk without looking like he was walking on ice, a call came in from Leo, inviting him to a planned meeting with the rest of the first teem LM_STARS would send into underworld. Mark agreed to the meeting request and was brought into another room, one with 7 other people.

He spotted Leo immediately, Leo was using the same handle he used when he was 14, xXx_THE_LION_69_xXx, the others in the room were [LM_STARS]Beanstalk, [LM_STARS]Schoolgirl_XOXO, [LM_STARS]Suave_Guy, [LM_STARS]HAWKEYE, [LM_STARS]EAT_PIZZA, and [LM_STARS]Latin_Lover. Everyone’s eyes went to the space over Mark’s head, then the black girl in a catholic school girl outfit suddenly spoke up, “New guy Mark, the expert that Leo hired for Underworld-GOLD is finally here. I believe everyone has read the guide. Now is the time to ask whatever questions you want.”

Leo jumped up, his avatar was almost 2 feet taller then he was in real life, a legitimate monster, similar in size to the old Jaguar warrior he used to play in Underworld. “First an introduction” He cut off the schoolgirl mid-stream.

Leo first pointed at Beanstalk, “he’s Jack, 3-time pvp world champion in the World of Warcraft -REVISED-, and two-time champion at the team pvp challenge in Legions of Legends. Jack will probably be starting in Kyoto Japan, and creating a Melee DPS build.”

Then he pointed at Schoolgirl_XOXO, “this is Holly, global icon and face of LM_STARS, 6 times team pvp champion in Legions of Legends. Currently you can treat her as the boss when I’m not around. Holly will be starting in Tenochtitlan she wants to be an Aztec melee DPS/Off Tank”

Then he pointed at Suave_Guy, “this is Jim, he’s an actual male model, and with Holly is the face of LM_STARS, besides numerous TV promos and movie roles, he’s also one of the better ranged DPS players we’ve had in any MMO style game. In this one I think he wants to aim for the peak of magic, and will start in London and ranged DPS“

Then he pointed to Hawkeye, “This is James, he’s a world champion at Call of Duty – FEVER- 10. This will be his first MMORPG, but when he heard there were gunmen in this game, he volunteered to join the first team. When it comes to guns, he’s a legit champ, he used to be a sniper in the Unifying Army back during the Last War and is the 3rd oldest player on this team between me and you. He’ll be starting in Boston and aiming for gun skills, he’ll probably end up doing some traveling to Europe as he searches out the right gun skills to be a proper ranged DPS”

Then he pointed to Eat_Pizza, “This is Juan, he was part of our Legions of Legends b-team, Personally I picked him for this team because I think he’s ready for the big time. That and he wants to play a Healer, and no one else good enough wanted to be a primary healer for an 8-man raid team. He’ll be starting in Rome Italy”

Then he pointed to Latin_Lover, “This is Ricardo, keep your daughter away from him. Oh, and he wants to be a magic swordsman, so he’ll be starting in Berlin”

Then he jerked his thumb at himself “And I’ll be playing main tanker, though this time I think I’m going to start in Beijing and aim to be some sort of Daoist, the Daoists were some of the best tankers last time around and I’m going to aim at the top of course.”

Mark blinked then raised his hand, “Mark, old Underworld player, and writer of that guidebook you guys got. I’ll probably be playing a revised version of my old Shaman, crowd control with some Debuff and Buffing build.”

Holly aka, School_Girl, seemed about done with the introductions and took back charge of the meeting, “First things first we need to get some basic questions done. Anyone have any questions for Mark?”

Ricardo raised his hand, “How old is your daughter?”

Several of the others started to laugh then Leo slapped him in the back of the head. “Focus”

Jim then raised his hand “Why is the guy who wrote the guide on the main team doing something important like buff/debuff or crowd control?”

Mark shrugged then spoke “I was pretty good in Underworld at that role. I remember how to build it.”

Jim spoke up “No I don’t doubt you were good at this in the past, but what are your competitive ‘Fever’ gaming accomplishments? Everyone else here stands at the peak of billions of players, I don’t think an old VR player really stands out as qualified to be on our first team.”

Leo popped in with an amused smile on his face “Don’t worry about Mark, he’ll be fine. Worse case someone from the B team can take over. Real questions about Underworld?”

Dead silence.

Mark then spoke up, “I don’t know if it came through well but part of the key to finding new skill trees, magic and talents is to explore. Talk to the NPCs, granted their AI wasn’t amazing… who knows it might be better now with this re-release, but generally the quest giving NPCs are easy to tell apart because they have obvious care put into their design. I’ll give you an example. I ended up in a snowstorm in the game around level 100 or so, and was chased by a pack of wolves. When I noticed that one of the wolves in the back of the pack wasn’t ‘red named’ where as the red named wolves weren’t really trying to catch up to me. They were mostly herding me. I was smart about it and chose to NOT attack the animals, and let them herd me. This lead on to a quest which allowed me to meet a wolf god. You have to be smart about gaining quests. What we wrote down in that guide was a tip of the iceberg. This was a game which new builds were discovered all the time. 50 years and probably a billion players and there still was no dominant meta to it.

The keys to a proper build are ‘growth skills’ as in skills which will grow in power with your character anything that grows in power with some of your base stats or level, if you come across a talent tree you have to be careful it’s not a worthless one, what’s a worthless one? One in which ANY skill is worthless at level 1000. It takes some foresight and guesswork, especially if you get a skill tree with optional growth, which means parts of it will be blacked off. You’ll have to use your good sense to decide. Furthermore, in my experience skills which strengthened each other were far more valuable than a lone strong skill. So, look for overlapping skill trees which strengthened each other. Finally, while no buff can be duplicated, for example two skills which buff 10% increase in damage can’t be stacked, two buffs which increase damage CAN be applied if they buff a different number for example one which buffs 10% and the other which buffs 2.5% both will be applied for a 12.5% buff to damage. If you run into a skill or skill tree you don’t know about don’t hesitate to ask, I only included the information I was 70% sure about, there is a lot of skills and skill trees I know about which were not included in the guide because we couldn’t get good information on.”

Leo looked at the others in the crew then spoke up, “No one has any other questions for mark?” He waited a moment then added, “Holly you should meet up with Mark on day one, you’re both going to spawn in Tenochtitlan, he can help you save some time. We’re probably not going to run into each other much however if you find a skill tree or skill you think can help someone else let us know, it might be important enough to make the journey to another region for it. With that lets disperse.”

And thus, ended Mark’s first experience with fever. His misery recovering from it of course will be omitted, something which he did his best forgetting.