"What the hell was that!" screamed Dave as he frantically stood up. "I'm reporting this shit! That kind of pain feedback must be illegal! If it's not, then by damned I'll make sure it is!"

"Player Nathaniel has died and been placed in the closest graveyard resurrection point."

"No I mean the... er... you know the other thing?" Dave floundered for a moment. There was something a moment ago that seemed really important but he couldn't quite remember what it was. "Oh well, it'll come to me. How did I die? I was on top of everything. Literally. The next thing I know I can't do squat."

"Player Nathaniel ran out of psionic point and had no significant abilities in the mana trees. It is suggested that you monitor your resources better and make plans for times you do not have points to activate your abilities."

"Oh. Right. I guess that makes sense. The hand to hand skills didn't cost anything. Couldn't I have used that plus my dex to get out of the way?"

"In theory, however, the system doesn't make a roll and move your body. The player must either have a plan or train his reflexes to guide his hand to hand skills."

"While that makes sense how is being guided by my clairvoyance into moving into the correct direction different than having the system use my hand to hand skills that Bolyn trained into me to move to a safe position?"

"One is a special skill you pay energy for. As long as you listen to its guidance and react to it, it will direct you in your actions for a point cost. The other gives you basic knowledge and flexibility as a passive base. The system will not direct you to move. You must, either using training or your own reflexes."

"Arbitrarily whimsical," Dave spat out. He was extremely displeased by this. Kicking the dirt in disgust he activated his map. "Can you put up a meter for my psionic points?"

"Yes. This option is only available during the tutorial stage 1." A red percentage appeared at the corner of his vision. At present, it was at 10%.

"Seriously. I died and you don't bring me back at 100%?"

"Correct."

"How can I get my points back faster?"

"Meditation is the skill used to get back mana points and psionic points back at an accelerated pace. If your Meditation skill is under ten then you can only sit to meditate. The system will demonstrate the proper mindset."

"You want us to meditate," Dave asked slowly. "In real time. To get our points back? What kind of stupid system is that? The last MMO that had that was Everquest where the caster had the stupid book cover their screen when they rested. No one liked it then and no one likes it now!"

"Feedback noted. Once the Meditation skill reaches ten, the player can use this recovery skill while active and in motion, although it will only have half the effectiveness."

"I hate grinding. Oh well, I guess I found the grinding part... though the other skill training was kinda grindy too. At least it was fun grinding though."

"One way that a player can log in with full points is to sleep with the sensory helmet on," the system whispered to him. "As long as the player logs off while meditating and sleeps with the helmet on the game will consider the meditation skill active even if the game is not on. We have this noted in our published bug report."

"We have to sleep with the helmet on?"

"M&M Games apologizes for the inconvenience but wishes to point out that you are not being forced to use this unfortunate bug workaround."

"Its either this or wait around doing nothing in game. Without my psionic blast, all I have the option to do is punch a husk. Even with the increased stats I don't think that’s going to cut it. Fine. Meditation on. Logging out."

Opening his eyes to the darkness of the helmet he called out, "Camera on. Set alarm for 7 AM. Cancel 12 AM alarm."

Immediately he could see his room. It was actually light corrected so he could see in the dark. That was a nice feature, though it made him feel like he was a loser, playing a game in his room with the lights off. Because, he was.

Sighing he scrabbled around his chin. The features list said there was a button that retracted the mouth covering... and there it was. Changing to his night clothes he noted the camera view was a lot like the remote viewing in the game. For a new game, they sure stole a lot of features. Trudging out of the room he made his way to the kitchen.

"Son, I think you're getting a little too involved in the game," a voice came from the living room. Looking over he saw his father sitting in his comfy chair reading a tablet.

"Yeah, there's a bug in the game. It only registers your presence and lets your character recover resource points with the helmet on."

There was a camera clicking noise and his tablet flashed. "Nice. You look cool son! Very motorcyclist meets pajama man." His father gave him a thumbs up in approval.

"Yeah, laugh it up, dad," Dave snorted. Parents. "You know you get hooked on my games a few months after I finish them. You better hope they fix the bug or I'll be the one with the pictures."

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants," his father nodded gravely, lowering his head to the tablets. "Now go report those bugs like the elite beta pajama man bug smasher you are!"

"You’re a riot," Dave muttered with a half smirk as he helped himself to more food. If he didn't know it was impossible he would have thought he was coming down with something, he seemed to be really hungry today.

He was woken from a pleasant slumber at seven in the morning. The camera was still transmitting so he avoided the normal confusion a person would have waking up with a helmet on. Stretching his neck to check for pain, he was surprised that he felt pretty good. Better than usual.

He made his way to the kitchen again to eat. Fortunately both his parents were occupied and he avoided further snark. Piling his plate extra high with leftovers he was determined not to be interrupted in mere hours with food issues. However, just in case he grabbed a box of meal replacements. This psychosomatic cold or whatever he had was going to make him into a fat slob.

Finishing up and performing his morning ablutions he laid down and logged into the game again. The lights dimmed and when they came back on he was in the middle of the cemetery again. It creeped him out. Like a horror film where you knew the monster was about to pounce.

Dave moved out of the graveyard as soon as he could, looking uneasily over his shoulder. Turning back he saw the plains around him. It didn't look that different than where he was. With a slight mental effort, he called up his map. He frowned as his psionic points dipped to 99% then smiled as it went back to 100%.

"Status." Looking at his meditation skill he was surprised it was already at level 20. Supposedly, that meant that he could meditate while moving and doing things. Concentrating for a moment he vaguely confirmed that it was cycling in the background. "If it's going to be on all the time and it was just the first night you needed to leave the helmet on, why did you even bother... never mind. It'll be worth it to get pictures of dad in the helmet. I'm not reporting anything."

The map showed the supply depot a few minutes away. He practiced his stealth skill as he approached. The tired feeling showed he was getting skill ups but the psi pool percentage remained above 95% so he kept it up. Gradually the movements from cover to cover and moving silently began to feel more natural and the percentage ticked up to 97%. Apparently being better at a skill made it more efficient too.

He was a few hundred feet out by the time he saw the silhouette of a husk. Only one though. Going through his options he thought about a long-range attack, frontal assault or attempted stealth. Feeling for the little sensation of clairvoyance he felt mildly more positive about the stealth option.

Deciding on that course, he circled around the husk and crept up. At about ten feet away he paused. The neck was probably the weakest point.

"You have gained a skill in the Clairvoyance skill tree, Find Weakness Level 0."

Captain Obvious strikes again, Dave muttered to himself. Silently.

Using his telekinetic movement he jerked forward, striking the husk on the side of the neck with a hammering fist strike. Hoping to get extra damage he also triggered his Psionic blast.

"You have gained a skill in the Telekinetic skill tree, TK Strike Level 2."

"You have gained a skill in the Psionic Bolt skill tree, Psionic Strike level 5."

"By using multiple talents simultaneously you have multiplied their damage potential significantly," the system's voice almost purred.

The husk lit up as an explosion seemed to be centered on the neck of the creature where his fist was connected. When his vision cleared a headless corpse wavered for an instant, as if not realizing it was truly dead, then slumped to the ground with an audible thump.

"Huh, I thought that would be harder," Dave stood up, frowning down at the bloated corpse. Glancing at his psi counter he hissed. 40%?!?!

A sensation of danger came over him and he danced to the side, grimacing again as his counter went down 39%. Another husk flew down from the sky and landed, oversized sword first into the place he had just been in.

"Okay, let's see if I can meter this out. Passive physical skills first. Paying attention to his hand to hand training he moved around to the side of the creature. Using its physical movements as his ques he attempted to dodge the strikes only needing his Clairvoyance to be trigger twice as he kicked and punched the monster.

"95% health," Dave spat in disgust. Even his greater physical stats hardly did any damage. He was sure how they were metered out but assuming that ten strength was the average man, his strength was thirty. Was that the strength of three men? And hand to hand had to be a multiplier. There is no way to take monsters down without a psi skill?

His psi pool had been creeping up despite a few uses of Clairvoyance and was now at 60%. Nodding to himself he checked the enemy for any obvious weaknesses and targeted a bloodless chest wound.

Activating his movement ability he combined it with TK Strike and Psionic strike, catapulting the creature over twenty feet away.

The surprise strike on the first creature must have counted for a lot. The second husk stood up, ignoring the huge crater in its chest and tottered over. It had dropped its sword which made it easier to dodge. His psi pool was down to 20%. Ironically so was the creatures HP.

As it approached him Dave peppered it with psionic bolts. When it finally reached him it was at 10% HP, and he was down to 15%. At that point, he went back to dodging and striking. Although he was struck a few glancing blows, without its massive weapon it didn't hurt much and didn't make his Fortify drain his psi points much.

Ten minutes later his psi points had reached 40% and he felt confident enough to use his newly favorite physical combo again. In another flash of psionic energy it flew back fifteen feet. This time it did not get up.

"So where's the loot?" Dave said while glancing from the body to the area around him, nervously checking for more husks.

"Although you are welcome to see if the creature swallowed a chest, you will find such disemboweling activities messy and unlikely to unearth loot," the system's voice chimed in. "Enemies with obvious physical objects such as pants, pockets, pouches and of course, swords, may have loot."

"Troll," Dave muttered to himself. "Am I going to have to frisk every corpse? That would be pretty creepy in a full immersion VR game..."

"The player's Remote Viewing should be sufficient for searching for loot if the player is unwilling to touch virtual corpses."

"Thanks," Dave responded sourly. Concentrating he saw that he could indeed sense the corpse. It had some sort of cybernetics in it. But he didn't understand what it did. The swords were obvious though. They were crudely forged, incredibly long and obviously used as more of a bludgeon than a blade.

"Are the swords worth anything? Er... Appraise? No. Remote view? No. Sense aura?"

"You have gained a skill in the Clairvoyance skill tree, See Aura level 0."

"You have gained a skill in the Clairvoyance skill tree, Psychometry level 0."

Visions of blood and death filled his head and he saw the husks slaughter defenseless humanoids. "Ah! Ugh. Turn on the violence filter! That was disgusting!"

"Feedback noted."

"Your programmer sucks," Dave said sourly as he dropped the swords. Bringing up his map he walked towards the supply depot. This close he could see it was several gazebos with crates under them. There was only a single structure with actual walls and a door. He assumed his captured noble was in it.

Leisurely exploring the crates he opened them one by one. Most of them seemed to be technology of some sort. Some were bottles of grey slime, while others at first appears to be blocks of metal until you examined it closely. This it was obvious it was incredibly fine circuitry. Dave grunted in disgust. Useless garbage made to look fancy.

One crate looked a bit different. It had unidentified writing on the side that he couldn't make heads or tails of. Inside he smiled a bit. A clear translucent globe. Glowing of course. He wondered if t was a quest item.

"You have encountered a psionic database. Would you like to absorb it?"

Dave thought for a moment. It still might be a quest item but it looked like a skill book of some kind. "Yes."

Moments later images and information flooded his head.

"You have gained a skill in the Technology skill tree, Empire Technology Level 5."

"Skill book, that's... neat," he said as his jaw went slack. He eyes strayed to the pile of crates he had just ransacked. Suddenly he understood exactly what those blocks did and how they fit together. The system had told him that it incorporated a system of dream logic, where an imaginary technology system would make sense. He hadn't thought much of it at the time.

"Oh my god. This is the ultimate faux engineer game." Running back to the other crated he started sifting through the contents. "You could make a flying platform with these crates, a few bombs with those, and robots? No not enough modules for that. You'd end up with non-combat... oh. Robot pets, of course. But if I had about five times as many I could get a combat version and in the meantime, it can be a pet that follows me around. Or a mount!"

Brainstorming, he started to stack the modules together. Running from crate to crate. "Darn! This is taking too long. Let's see. Um, Remote Viewing and Telekinesis."

Concentrating and trying to combine the two skills he felt exhaustion creep over his.

"You have gained a skill in the Clairvoyance skill tree, Telemechanics Level 2."

"Sweet!" Dave yelled tiredly as the blocks floated in the air. Somehow he knew roughly what each did and how they fit together. Rotating and swirling they rapidly clicked together with sparks and bottles of grey goo flowed over the surface. Within moments a winged unicorn stood proudly before him its vacant gaze staring at him.

"Awesome! Okay, screw game balance!" Dave pumped his fist in the air in victory. "I love this game. Second day and I have a flying mount! Screw you Warcraft!"

"Is anyone out there? Help!" The voice of a frightened young girl echoed from the closed shack. "Please?"

"Oh. The quest," Dave said in a surprised voice. "Right here your noble... whatever you are..." Staggering over to the shack he only then realized how tired his new skills had made him. A glance showed him his reserves were back down to 8%.

The shack had a seamless lock on it. Frowning Dave activated his new Telemechanic skill and interfaced with the door. A simple command later and the lock melted away.

"You have completed the quest 'Knight Errant'. You have reached level 2. You have earned the Vanity title 'Knight'."

"Oh thank you, brave knight!" A young woman sprang from the small building. She wore a long gown and a veil as well as a scarf over her head.

"That looks like Arabian nights style," Dave said. He craned his head to look behind the girl and noted that the room was empty except for a chair. "System, I want to point out the lady probably would have died in an empty room like that. If you wanted realism you should include some high technology heat and air exchangers. Likely controlled by an AI and a decent power source."

"Feedback noted."

Dave looked in the room in disappointment. He had been hoping to loot some more tech modules. So far the entire game was fun but dream tech totally rocked!

"Um, you could retroactively patch that and I wouldn't have to make a note as a beta player," Dave prompted.

"Feedback noted."

"Damn." He turned back to the girl. "Sorry did you say something?"

"I was just thanking you and asking if you could provide some sort of method of reaching home. My family would be ever so grateful and we would reward you well."

Dave's face fell. Ah, so he wasn't meant to keep the mount. "I could let you borrow my mount but... could you return it to me later?" He looked sadly at the majestic noncombat mount that he had gleefully created and had owned for almost five minutes. "I really love that mount..."

"On my word as a princess," Dave perked up. "I will get your beloved mount back. Or something of equivalent worth." Dave's face fell.

Watching the princess fly off into the sky on his first creation was one of the most bittersweet moments in his entire young life. As momentous as it was, he shrugged off the shock in a few minutes.

"It's just a game," he tried to cheer himself. There would be other fun stuff out there. "System show me the portal on the map. A projection of the land was visible. It was actually very close.

Looking over, he could barely make out lightning triggering in a regular pattern off in the distance. Occasionally dots would weave around and spark.

Willing his Remote Viewing to focus on it the area was massively magnified. Suddenly he could make out a swirling blue field of light, surrounded by a dome made of lightning. Flying around outside of this field were groups of knights, each flying on their own winged horse and tossing lances of energy at some flying humanoids.

They weren't husks. In fact, they looked beautiful. Streamlined silver armor, archaic yet seamless. They appeared like an artist's hybrid between a knight and a space traveler. These must be the Imperial troops that had been caught on this side of the barrier when the Rebellion cut off the portal access.

"System, are there players on the Imperial faction?"

"All players are in the Rebellion faction," chimed the female voice of the system. "PvP play may be implemented in future patches."

'That would be neat. I assume that area over there is for higher levels?"

"It is not recommended for the player Nathaniel to intervene in that scale of combat in this phase of his development."

"So. No."

Facing back to the village he drifted along. At level two he had slightly more reserve energy and since meditation regained a percentage of energy he was able to use his movement abilities more often. He estimated in a few levels he would be able to leave it on and simply speed across the land.

He finished another kill quest for mutated wolves before he saw another mutated buffalo. It was alone. Staring at it in thought Dave shrugged. He may as well try.

Stealthing up to it, he sidled along until he was within touching distance. With an assisted leap he was on the creatures back. Unlike before, this monster was not caught up in a herd frenzy and immediately reacted to the intruder on its back. Bucking and leaping it attempted to get the hated human off its back.

With his enhanced strength Dave only had to use his telekinesis a few times to help him keep his balance. Still, he was feeling a little queasy after ten minutes. Fortunately, after fifteen, the system must have decided that it had given up. With minimal nudging with his legs, he could now make it go where he wanted to.

"Whoot! I have a mount again! All I need is to figure out how to get you to manifest wings and we're back in business," he half-joked to his new companion. Curious he looked at his inventory. Sure enough 'Tamed Buffalo" was listed as a mount.

A short time later he saw the village coming into view. He passed a few fellow players and they looked at him with shock and envy. He nodded casually back. Life was good. Peasant taming skills for the win.

"Well, golly gee, a mutated buffalo," a teenager drawled at him. Looking over he saw a player looking at him with a smirk and holding out his hand. Drexor, Title: Recruit, HP: 60, Mana: 0, Psi: 50. "It just so happens that I need to kill one of those. Thanks for bringing one."

A psionic blast flashed out at the mutated beast under Dave and he found himself having to leap away from the dying creature as a hole was blasted through it.

"What the hell!" Dave shouted in rage. That was the second mount he lost in an hour. "Why the hell did you do that? That was mine!"

"I didn't see your name on it," smirked Drexor. He started to strut away. "Thanks for the kill."

Dave clenched his teeth in anger. Of all the damn things. Griefers ruined the game for everyone. Eventually, even for themselves. He had been hoping not to have to deal with this in a new game. He should have known better.

"Recruit Drexor," a trumpeting voice came from the sky. Looking up the surrounding players saw and angel type NPC. Obviously it wasn't Deridel, however, it seemed to be built on a similar template. "You are charged with slaying a knight's property. You will have to come with us."

The sound of rushing air signaled the arrival of two more angel type NPCs.

"What the ?" The recruit blustered nervously. "There are no rules about killing mutant buffalos!"

"Attacking a player, their property or harmful behavior is against the terms of service. You may log out or come with us to serve your sentence."

"What kind of game is this? Only a with game would have such a rule! I am going to complain!"

"Feedback noted," a disembodied voice chimed.

"Do you plan to log out permanently, resist or come peacefully?"

"I... I... fine. Let's go." Reluctantly allowing himself to be dragged away by the troop of four NPCs the player turned a corner and disappeared.

"That’s awesome!" shouted one player who had witnessed the events.

"Can they do that?" Another player asked. "I mean sure it's cool but no other games stop griefers like that..."

"Just for that alone this game rocks," complimented a player. "Hey did you guys see the dude that came in on the buffalo? That means you can tame animals!"

"Well, sure but they'll get one-shotted unless you can tame a dragon."

"Do they even have dragons in this game?"

"Of course they do. I saw them in the preview video."

Dave had already left by this point. He had just lost his second mount. Even though the perpetrator was arrested and was probably sitting, bored out of his mind, staring at a wall somewhere, it still rankled. So he was generally in a foul mood as he made his way back to the quest board.