Kal lay in the pod, waiting for the darkness to lift.

“Fuck,” he cursed. It had been barely a day and he'd almost forgotten his condition. Some part of him expected to come out of the pod fixed. Stupid thought. Nothing could fix him.

Kal emerged from the bunk thankful he’d not removed his proximity gloves. They buzzed as he passed through a doorway, and again before he would have bumped into a wall. The slim additions allowed him to reach out and receive an audible alert if approaching a crash with a stray object or a trip over his table.

He'd committed the layout of his one-floor apartment to memory, but wearing the gloves gave Kal an extra sense of security. The furniture fitting company had taken time to tag all the appliances and most items with proximity features. In theory, he could 'feel' any of his belongings' closeness.

“House,” he verbalised the trigger word for the assistance unit. He could have named it anything, but Kal didn't want to humanise his living space. “Pour a cup of Colombian coffee. Also, order the usual from The Golden Moon Chinese.”

He sighed and made his way to the kitchen, gloves outstretched. The familiar emptiness inside welled up as he got back into the routine of a sightless life. Kal knew it wasn't real, but he felt alive when playing Alter Online. He could pretend a box wasn't his prison.

“House. Browse the Alter Online forums.”

“Browsing categories: Tech Support, Accounts, Bugs, Game Discussion, Guides.” The voice replied with a cheery robotic tone.

"Open Game Discussion. Search for threads with information on game mechanics. Prioritise posts with moderator or developer interaction."

Kal collected the coffee while House processed the results. Its toasted, nutty aroma filled the void. Its heat pushed away at the nothingness for a brief moment.

“Posted by Moderator Dave. Our alpha testing and working with 3rd party healthcare professionals, has shown you can stay in the game for about a week with the most modern pods. We advise you not to incubate for more than nine days. We also recommend leaving the game world for at least an hour a day to prevent reality conflicts.”

At that point, Kal didn't care about reality conflicts. His reality was relying on a house to read for him and gloves to prevent him from walking into walls. He would have spent a month at a time in-game if possible. The pod would keep him sustained, and there were settings to sync his in-game sleep also to make his real body sleep. He’d need to make sure he replaced the nutrient modules periodically, and he’d be healthy.

While waiting for his food to arrive, Kal jumped into his home gym. Feeling at his peak self in the game had made him miss his old fitter form. He knew where each machine and equipment set was and used the proximity gloves to aid him with anything that needed gripping. He had a quick thirty-minute workout. He didn’t push himself too far knowing his neglected muscles wouldn’t favour going too hard. The neglected gym was a rare source of endorphins. He finished up with ten minutes to spare on the delivery and jumped in his voice-activated shower.

All the while, he ‘conversed’ with House to browse the forums. Many of the comments were complimenting the game and how real it felt. It seemed that there were varied tutorial experiences, each taking place in the vast history of the game world. Given a bit of time, someone would probably piece it all together, but Kal wasn’t going to be the one to do it. Not from outside the game at least.

Another common topic of conversation between the players was of the realism displayed by the NPCs. Hundreds of comments between the players prompted one of the developers to issue a clarifying statement.

"Hello, adventurers! We understand your excitement and interest in the advanced system of the game. While this is something we were going to leave to your discovery, you have made your wishes clear.

Think of the game engine as the world's god. In Alterion each NPC has a segmental AI which is semi-autonomous from the game engine. These NPCs learn and adapt from their experiences and interactions, even without player involvement. Both the world and the characters are alive in this sense.

After a certain point in our creation of the world, we relinquished controls the game engine and the segments.

Seeing the world's progression from here was both a fascinating and terrifying process. But we're happier and more proud than we could have ever imagined.

Your response so far has shown us that we made the right decision, and all the countless hours of hard work will pay off.

We cannot wait to see what stories YOU begin to unravel and tell within Alterion."

Kal sped through his takeaway. It was tasty, but he was mostly eating it for sustenance. He’d eaten this same meal combination countless times, barely registering the tastes at this point.

“House,” he finally took a break from his deep thoughts. “Search the Alter Online forums for posts regarding blind users.” He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d find but wanted to know how others like him were receiving the game.

“There are no comments so far on blind players.” The voice came back. “There are, however, two posts from deaf players. Would you like me to read them aloud?”

“Yes”

“Posted 53 minutes ago by DeafDragon99. I haven’t had full hearing since a child. This game is truly amazing. I spent hours just listening to bird song and the rushing of a river. I gained an enhanced perception skill too!” Kal was unsurprised to hear others had obtained his advanced perception skill. The sheer number of people that would be playing significantly lowered the odds of attaining a unique ability.

He then moved on to searching about any mentions of the relics. There were several accounts of other players from the battle with the Overlord. One even mentioned Kal standing up to help the king, but the player thought he was an NPC. Kal nearly had House reply for him but thought better of it. He didn’t want the attention, and besides, he would soon be tracking down one of the relics himself. Best to keep himself incognito for now.

Aside from the idea of the relics in the lore, there weren’t any players talking interactions with them. Only speculative comments guessed at their locations. There was a thread of players speculating as to their powers.

“Anyone remember the gems in Marvel’s comics? I think each relic will have a distinct power like those.”

“You’re all speculating over something that’s just part of the lore. I doubt us players will be getting hands-on the relics any time soon, if ever.”

“There’s no way the developers would leave the idea of these relics just dangling in front of us with no chance of obtaining them. I’m thinking its to keep the top guilds in competition. Imagine guilds forming alliances to capture the relics and fight with their power. That would be the start of endless player-driven conflict.”

Kal agreed with this last comment. He had evidence to believe they were in fact items players could get their hands on. That was what he planned to achieve. He wasn’t sure about taking part in large scale guild warfare though. Kal had been a fan of PVP back in his old gaming days but had never led a guild personally. Kal felt slightly sick just thinking of it; he hadn't managed more than one person in years. The character creation screen had been a stark reminder of how poorly that had gone.

Still, Kal's real life could be a trainwreck. But he finally had a goal. He'd see its completion; no other outcome was a possibility.