Chapter 01-03

Alex stood before the door into what he considered a better world. The tall Victorian style door taunted him to walk through. It was time for another life to begin. He took a deep breath and slid open the door.

The new players arrived in the world on a grand train. The whole central continent of NuValla and the continent to the north were connected by an energy monorail that had stations in every large city. The arrival train, where new players spawned, was decked out as a new age Victorian train car. The walls and seats were velvet, there was polished wood, and the floors were carpeted in dark rich colors.

Alex glanced around the room and noted the three other people sitting in the cabin. The walls were lined with large windows showing the rich world outside as it passed by in a blur. Each window had a table with a velvet covered booth on either side.

As he walked towards the back, he nodded to a woman who was sitting about midway in the cabin. She read a newspaper. She was wearing a trench coat that obscured whatever else she could have been wearing. Her long silver hand was slicked back, and her amber eyes glanced up for just a moment while he passed. Alex got the feeling from looking at her that she was not a new player.

He took a seat and settled in for a long trip. Most players would arrive on the train and get off in Axiscore, which was one of the most player populated cities in the world, or one of the other cities that were known as Hub cities that had large populations of players. From these places it was easy to get started, but it was hard to make rapid progression. Alex knew exactly where he wanted to go. He knew of a city that was a hot spot for villainous activity, which meant as a hero he might have some trouble at first, but if he could get a foot hold, he could make some extensive progress.

Winter’s Garden was a city to the north of the northern continent Nolirada. It was one of three channel cities that allowed passage to the smaller towns and cities to the mountains to the north. Winter’s Haven and Winter’s Gate were the other two, but these were both heavily controlled by heroes already, which would make it difficult for him to make progress, and he was still a little stilted from taking the blame during the incident.

Alex removed his phone from his pocket and opened the app that let him examine his inventory. There wasn’t a whole lot there for him to examine. He was already wearing the generic clothes that the system game gave him. There was an identity concealment mask that would cover his eyes or could be used to skin another eye or head item. His pitiful five hundred Thread showed in the corner of the screen. The remaining item was a serum that could be used to regenerate his health points in a pinch, but those items didn’t help much with pain. The phone he was using was listed in the inventory and lastly, he had a ticket for the train that allowed for him to disembark from any destination that he wished free of charge.

The inventory window closed, and Alex turned to gaze out of the window as they traveled. The train had already passed by Axiscore. He thought about what exactly his plan was going to be once he had arrived in Winter’s Garden. There were two things that he was going to need. Firstly, he was going to need a place to live and where he could make his base of operations. Secondly, he was going to need to establish some contacts. Missions would be essential for rapid progress and those had to come from someone.

He knew from his time as an admin that Winter’s Garden was under control by two rival gangs that governed the crime activity within the city limits. The Venomous Strikers and the Gold Tooth Rats were constantly at war with each other, but both groups together didn’t even come near to ranking on any of the charts. That was about the extent of his knowledge of Winter’s Garden, in the past as there were few players that made it up there often.

Several hours and seventeen stops passed before the train came to a halt at the Winter’s Garden station. Alex climbed out of his seat thankful for a reason to stretch his legs and got into the short line of people disembarking. He gave his ticket over so that he wouldn’t be charged for the trip and made for the exit of the platform.

The platform was the highest building on the south side of the city. From where he stood when he exited the train, he could see the whole place. The buildings got larger until the center where they were the tallest. Moving towards the north side of the city where the buildings shrank again turning into industrial facilities that were used to store a process all of the items that came down from the mountains. At the east of the city there were docks in a channel that ran north out towards the ocean. A branch of railway broke off and swooped down into the docks.

Alex took in a deep breath of the outside air and climbed down the stairs with a slight bounce in his step. He had been playing My Supers for nearly a decade and for the most recent couple of years he had been an admin. After having so much power for so long it was almost like stepping into an all new game. He felt like he was going to have a hell of a challenge.

Stopping to lean against the railing outside of the station on the street Alex took a moment. He watched the people on the streets. Most of them were just your average people going to work, or going shopping, nothing out of the ordinary life besides visible tension. Almost hitting himself he remembered that he needed to message his friend.

Aether: Hey, this is your old pal. You told me to message you. I’m in game and this is my new avatar.

He attempted to keep the message vague but enough so that she would know it was him. She was very smart so he didn’t think that she would have any trouble figuring it out.

Mad Mind Melana: Dig the name. I’m sending you something. I don’t have a good feeling about what happened to you. Something just doesn’t feel right.

Aether: You’re telling me, and you don’t have to do that.

Mad Mind Melana: You remember March 3rd? Consider us even. I never thought that I was going to pay you back for that.

Aether: Consider your debt paid!

Alex closed the messaging app on his phone. He put the phone into his pocket and went out in search of a mailbox. Whatever she sent him he knew that it would be something useful.

He continued to keep his eyes open and his head on a swivel as he walked down the sidewalk. There were plenty of shady characters. He noticed a woman at a shop being shook down, but he stayed to himself and waited for the right moment. There were skill points that still had to be spent before he would be worth anything in a confrontation.

A public mailbox poked out of the side of a building. He stopped, pressed his hand to the side, and watched as light spilled out from the seams. This process synced the mailbox to his character so that he could get mail from anywhere in the world.

The package that he pulled out was a few inches long and no more than an inch wide. He dropped it in his pocket and closed the mailbox. His hands stayed tucked in his pockets as he walked down the street in search for a diner or café.

Winter’s Harvest Diner came into view a few more blocks down the street. He thought it would be the perfect spot to take a moment to himself. He needed to find a place to bunker down when night fell until he was able to formulate a plan.

A bell rang when he walked in the front door. He gave a friendly nod to the man standing behind the counter who returned a nice smile. Alex found a booth where there weren’t too many people close and slid into the seat.

A waitress approached him from the kitchen in the back almost instantly. She smiled and handed him a menu while placing a napkin and silver where down on the table in front of him.

“Thank you.” Alex said with a nod and laced his fingers.

“No problem babe. Can I get you a drink?” She asked with a practiced smiled. She leaned on the booth across from him chewing gum and tapped her pen on the pad in her hand.

“Can I get a coffee?” He asked, “Oh and a glass of water?” He held up his hand as she started to turn.

“No problem.” She said leaving to get his drinks.

There were several things on the menu that he thought would be delicious, but he wasn’t really that hungry. The menu fell back down to the table and he leaned back in the seat. When the waitress returned with his drinks he smiled and thanked her.

When she was out of earshot he reached into his pocket and pulled out the package from his friend. He placed it down on the table in front of him. Even as familiar with so many items in the game that he had been there were a hundred times more that he had no clue about. The item in the package could be anything and could do anything. The wrapping fell away when he pulled the tab and he was left with a small plastic case. The lid opened like it were on a spring. Inside there was a pair of glasses.

His phone chirped with a notification. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the item’s stats.

-Item

-Name: Broken Admin Glasses

-(+1 Perception)

-Durability: Q$(#dD / @#@$#

-Weight: [email protected]#C kg

-Description: CD*^D29374#@$*&asdf9#@@1!*

As Alex looked down at the glasses there was a bright white light. He had to blink, but it didn’t seem to be visible to anyone else in the room. A notification appeared on his phone laying on the table next to his hand.

­-New Item Bound

He huffed in frustration. An item that was obviously corrupted was now bound to him. Alex knew that Melena would not do something malicious on purpose, but why would she send him the glasses?

The inventory window closed, and he opened his skills window next. There were three unallocated points and there were three abilities. He thought about it on his trip on the train and even though three points in super strength would be fairly awesome start, he decided that it would be best to do even Stephen split to get started. There was a small chirp audible to only him while he applied his three point.

-Super Strength +1 (1)

-Flight +1 (1)

-Regeneration +1 (1)

Instantly he felt the strength rush through his body. He knew that if he pushed off of the ground he could hover, even fly for a few moments. There was an internal store of energy that he could feel that he needed to figure out. It had been years since he had to worry about trivial things like energy levels. It seemed like the temperature in the room became almost perfect, but he noticed that he was getting a small cold and heat resistance.

Alex’s energy was based on his Will score. It seemed that his new avatar along with his base ten that everyone got was gifted by the RNG gods to have gotten an additional ten in skill giving him a twenty. Everyone had one hundred energy to start and each level gave that person another ten, then the base was given a bonus based on their Will score. He had a twenty percent bonus. This gave him a total starting energy score of one hundred and thirty-two for using his powers.

Alex hadn’t unlocked any abilities in his powers yet, so the energy use would be focus based for the time, but once he started to spend power points on the powers and unlocked abilities there would be harder numbers that he would have to account for.

He took a few moments to finish his drinks. The activity outside the window of the diner kept his attention for a while. The Gold Teeth Rats, or Goldys, were the easiest to spot owing thanks to their gold teeth. If they didn’t have their teeth actually replaced with gold, then they wore covers over them to give the illusion.

Alex witnessed as a group of four corner a man and stole his briefcase. They left the man in a heap on the concrete with a bloodied face. Alex sighed and shifted in the booth. The people in the world, the NPCs, felt so real that it was hard for Alex to sit by and do nothing.

As a hero the more that a player helped people of all kinds in however way resolving issues was how they made money. Each action resulted in a net gain if a player was a hero. Inside the world of My Supers it was easy for a hero to make quick money, but being a villain was where players could really make some large income.

Alex opened his character’s balance data panel. On this screen there were several sets of information that he could use to know more about his income based on his actions. In the center there was a circle that pulsed with his heartbeat. In the center of that circle it would normally list if he were a villain or a hero, but it only listed that he was a civilian.

To the top left and right of the center there were two meters. The one on the left was the Heroism meter and the one on the left was the villainous meter. Each would change based on how the game system perceived the intent of his actions. Whichever was higher is how a character’s alignment was decided and the pay was distributed. Both of Alex’s meters were at zero.

There were another two meters on either side of these. The one on the left was the Heroic Tier level. Actions of a heroic manner would move this meter up. Each heroic action would move this meter up and at midnight on Sunday the hero would be paid based on the final tier. If a hero is killed the meter is reset to zero and they were charged a respawn fee. Alex had seen many starting heroes fall into debt by being careless.

The meter on the right was the Infamy meter. This was a multiplier that would build with each villainous action. A villain also had a base payout that coincided with their empire. Property, henchmen, and nefarious acts would increase the base pay. If a villain was killed or defeated, then the multiplier would reduce or reset.

The last meter on the bottom of the screen was his XP meter. This would show him his progression until he unlocked his next power point. Every action awarded XP to the players.

Alex closed the screen and looked out of the window for another few moments. It was time for him to get started. He took a deep breath and stood up from the table. Next step knock in some gold teeth.