TRYING TO GROW UP

Michael was aware. Blinking his teared up eyes, he noticed various things about his surroundings. One was a gasping women looking at him with love. She looked rather frail and pale but Michael was already stretching his arm towards his mother, desperate for her touch.

Michael was also aware of a man beside the woman. He was rather large, much too large as he loomed over both Michael and his mother. His face was hard and had scars across his cheeks and one almost hitting an eye. He didn’t look threatening however as he looked lovingly at Michael.

“Its a boy!”

A squeal from out of sight made Michael aware that he was distracting himself with bright and shiny things. Michael decided to try out ‘Instant Analyzation” and managed to pack only a bit of time into a second leaving him gasping.

“I-is there something wrong with him!?!?!?”

‘Gah, she noticed.’

Michael’s mother was extremely worried that her baby, healthy at first glance, was all of a sudden gasping for air and sweating everywhere. Even the man was worried and he was looking at someone behind Michael.

“There shouldn’t be anything wrong with him. Give him to me.”

An wrinkly hand suddenly took Michael away from his mother. Frail, old, wrinkly, yet stronger if you actually looked properly. Those would be the best description for the face Michael was all of a sudden facing.

As Michael was checked over by the old man, Michael started to calm himself. When he was back to a normal state the old man looked Michael straight in the eye and Michael decided to stop his intense concentration. The old man only saw a distracted baby and nothing entirely wrong with it.

“Status check!”

Michael jumped at the loud noise and as the Old man looked blankly at Michael, he figured the old man was looking those boxes he saw in the Black Space.

“There is nothing wrong with the boy. His status is normal.”

Michael heard a sigh behind him. All of a sudden Michael was exhausted. Before his eyes rapidly fell he felt soft hands carry him. He also noticed a few boxes in front of him...

For the next few months, Michael despaired at his situation. He already noticed that he was different from other children when he was introduced to several playmates. They were easily distracted by small things and Michael took over the role of leader of his new pack. The group consisted of 3 boys that seemed to like playing with dirty stuff like mud, bodily fluid, garbage and the like. Michael wondered where they even managed to acquire all that since the babies never left their mother’s arms and couldn’t even crawl. The 2 girls followed the boys too but they played with each other more than with the others. All 5 of the babies stared at whatever Michael did since they also noticed he was different.

Michael was bored as heck. He almost wished the ‘voice’ was back and that he could ask for a memory wipe in order to become as baby-like as his posse. The things that could have interested him, the books around the house, plants and alchemical equipment his mother kept, and weapons both his parents had were all placed away from him. He understood that babies like his friends would be in danger with those items but he couldn’t help but hate the ‘voice’ for his bad luck.

After another few months of just squirming on the spot with his group, Michael decided to change his personal mode of transportation.

Michael was in one of the various rooms in the house, specifically the baby playing room. Some of the other rooms included an Alchemy room, Weapon’s and training room, Crafting room, Cooking room, bedrooms, living room, and even a baby changing room. Michael decided early on that it was a rather large house.

In the baby playing room there was a large fenced area in the middle of the room. Not very high, it was still tall enough to keep babies from going over, especially when said babies couldn’t even crawl.

Michael squirmed over to the fence and grabbed a part of it. Pulling himself up Michael tried to steady himself on his two legs like he had seen the older ones do. His baby posse were all staring at Michael.

You have gained +1 Strength

You have gained +1 Willpower

You have gained +1 Concentration

Michael tried to ignore the boxes floating in front of him since he couldn’t read it as he kept trying to stabilize himself. It seemed he lost the ability to read when he was born. He did understand that the last +1 box appeared more often than not.

When his legs stopped wobbling, Michael decided to test his limits. He gradually let go of the fence but grabbed it when he was about to fall over. After repeating this a couple more times he succeeded in standing upright without the need of the fence. By this time there was another dozen boxes in front of him but he just ignored them and they went away. Tired at what he had done, he grabbed the fence once more before sliding down to the grown. He then closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Over the next couple weeks Michael kept testing out trying to stand upright. He also learned to crawl finally but since the other 5 babies also did it, he wasn’t really impressed. Still he was able to stand upright easily after his ‘training’. The boxes had stopped the day after he tried again so he pretty much forgot about them.

After he could stand up and sit down without the help of the fence, Michael decided to tackle the next challenge. Walking.

This time when he stood up and tried to move a leg forward he fell face first to the ground. While he was in pain and about to cry, the other staring babies burst into laughter which caused Michael’s pain to change to determination. For the next few days Michael just sat there and thought of different ways to tackle his problem.

When he finally thought of a plan, Michael crawled over to the fence once more. He stood up quickly and then proceeded to walk along the fence slowly, in order to get the feel of each step. Another box appeared in front of him…

You have gained +3 Wisdom

Which he ignored. Another few days of this and he could walk without the support.

When he could finally walk he sped it up a little at a time. Before another week was done, Michael was able to run around the fenced area easily and after a few days of doing so another box appeared and was promptly ignored.

You have gained +2 Agility

When the various parents came to pick up their children and Michael’s mother was speaking to them, Michael decided to show off. As the adults were speaking Michael slowly pushed himself off the ground and the voices around him slowly died out. After reaching his full height - around a foot and a half - Michael then calmly walked to the fence. He then ran around the area and chortled at the open mouths of all the parents. He should have expected it though. He was only 7 months old yet was already running. He then thought up something on the spot.

Michael stopped in front of his mother and looked her in the eye.

“M-m-mama”

It was a little difficult but Michael had been mouthing various phrases he heard the older children say when he could see them. He knew the word he spoke should be directed at his mother.

His mother started to tear up and when she finally calmed down she ran out of the room and half squealed/shouted,

“Aaron!! AARON!!!! Michael just spoke!! HE CALLED ME MAMA!!!!”

The other mothers were still holding their children yet they looked Michael with an expression Michael didn't understand at the time. They also seemed to look between Michael who was standing up and staring at them and their own children who were still drooling a bit and digging for jewels.

Due to gaining the attention of adults at such a young age, you have gained the stat ‘Charisma’. +10 to Charisma.

You have gained the Title: Target of Envy. As the first person to gain a Title, the stats, rewards and penalties for this title has been doubled

Target of Envy[p=left]Due to your advanced skills in life compared to your compatriots, you are the target of envy from others.

You will be less forgettable but will also gain more animosity from anyone you ignore.[/p][p=left]+20 to Charisma.

+20 to Agility.

+10 to Strength.

+10 to Vitality.

-100 Fame.[/p]

Michael just ignored the rather large boxes that appeared.

**This is a bonus and really doesn't tie with the main story. If you wanna know the reality aspect then go ahead. Future parts involving people from reality will be in extra chapters**

On various televisions across Earth a certain talk show was being shown live using the most recent universal translator created by the company Terra, the creators of the upcoming game ‘Gaia’. The man being shown was average in every way, from his height to his looks, from his hairstyle to clothes, everything about the man screamed normal. This man however was the developer of the AI that created ‘Gaia’ and is also the one currently running Terra. The man’s full name has never been disclosed.

“Welcome sir...what do we call you anyways?”

The host was a middle age man with an air of nobility one does not find in many places on Earth. Even in the actual nobles you wouldn’t easily find a person that could dominate a room with their presence alone. Sir George Killen was such a person however, and his talk show invited various important people across the globe, regardless of their social, political, and religious standings. He even once invited a rank 1 terrorist leader and then helped him run away when the military came running.

“You can just call me John Doe. John is fine.”

The ‘normal’ man’s voice was moderate and a small smile was on his face as he faced both Sir George and the camera.

“Alright John. People are ecstatic about your company’s new creation, ‘Gaia’. We have had the ability of a Virtual Reality for several years, again because of your company, yet people haven’t suspected a game to come out for years yet. Even now, only the most powerful countries have been able to create any use of the VR system and that was mainly for educational and military use. Why, and how has your company been able to make the game so quickly?”

“Well, first thank you for inviting me here Sir George. Now onto the topic of the VR game. First thing people should know and understand. I did not create the VR machine. I only created the AI. After I created her, her name is Jane Roe by the way, I tasked her with ways to improve human happiness. She came up with some absurd ways, some like kill all the unhappy people which had about a 30% chance of success. Virtual Reality however was at the top since a person could live an unhappy reality here but go to the VR and have a vacation rather easily.”

“Interesting, so can you tell us how your AI was created?”

A slight twinkle was in Sir George’s eyes as he asked this and lent some evidence to what the critics refer to as his top ranked mischiefness.

“Alright.” Shock from Sir George and most of the people watching, especially the programmers.

“First you need a computer strong enough to support the AI. Then you make an AI whose task is to make a slightly better AI making AI. Understand? No? Well lets just say if you fail at doing this, then the chances are your computer will burn up first, the AI will degenerate instead, the AI will gain sentience and view humans as harmful and try to kill all of us, or the AI will just kill you and live in relative solace. Chances of those happening is around 99.7%. For someone not me.”

An arrogant answer for a crazy question.

“Fine then, can you at least explain the game in general? And this ‘NPC system’ you are talking about.”

Sir George was a little gruff in his questioning but he couldn’t fault the man for his answers.

“Sure, first off the game is running at 5x speed. This means a person that works 8 hours a day and sleeps 8 hours a day can leave 4-8 hours for the game. That is about 20-40 hours of in game time. Enough for a short, yet restful vacation. The game follows the generic rules of an RPG game but also has to follow some of reality’s rules such as ‘repeated training makes you stronger’. And for the NPC system...let me first say, the game is already running. Yes, it is running, no it is not on some secret Beta Test. The game is running for the NPCs in the game. And it is running at around 20x speed. For the next year, all of the NPCs in the game will go through 20 years of life. All of the important NPCs have been created recently and during these 20 years they will get stronger. Understand, these NPCs are supposed to be not any different from us. They can unlock hidden classes and go on immense adventures. And they had 20 years in the game as opposed to the new players. This is a game ruled by the NPCs and you people will need to find a niche to crawl through in the game.”

“This seems incredibly unfair John. Why should people even play such a difficult game?”

John just smirks at the deadpanned question from Sir George. He must have noticed it was a question from his network and not a personal question.

“Well for one, these ‘Hero’ NPCs will only have 1 life. Players have an infinite number of lives and that gives players the advantage of recklessness. Two, players can pretty much rush through 72 hours of gameplay easily without rest while the NPCs actually live there so they have to spend 1/3rd of their lives sleeping.”

“That will be all I will say about the game at the moment.”

Sir George’s mouth was open in the act of asking another question but had to snap close at John’s comment. Sir George also looked like he wanted to punch John repeatedly until he got what he wanted but decided to just close the show.

Let's go back

Or shall we continue forward?

Edited on October 23, 2013 so that it would look better to the eyes. Also...WHO THE HECK WAS JONATHON!?!?!?

**I am awful at writing reality. If you have any tips about it...blah and names. My naming sense is horrible if you haven't noticed. I mean there are 2 Johns already... I'm gonna be forced to name some random guy Aragorn or Legolas and a girl Celeste. PLEASE GIVE ME NAMES!!!! [th_0tive.gif]

And blah. On to my virtual vacation since I have no more assignments for a while. [th_084_.gif]