Arriving, the testers found themselves in a gorge well hidden by its walls rising at least thirty meters into the air and arching overhead providing a limited view of the clear sky above. The area gradually filling as more ported in, the gorge was around 3,000 square meters and covered in scree from the imposing cliffs. Behind the portals the flow of the gorge continued, however, it kicked out to the left before vanishing along an apparent path.

People did as instructed and moved away as new arrivals continued to stream. With just ten portals used, arrivals continued flowing in for a couple more minutes before everyone was accounted. The portals vanished after the last person walked out.

A pink diamond popped into existence doing a did a mid-air flip and hover landed just in front of the gorges dogleg path out.

Five meters in the air so everyone could see it easily, the diamond angled its top pointed towards the gorges path and said in a deep incredibly loud voice. “That waaaay.... be DRAGONS!” A bright flash of light then blinded everyone as a much more normal voice started cackling uncontrollably.

“Heeeewwh,” the voice sighed after a minute of laughing. “You should see all your faces,” said the pink diamond. “Actually,” it said then went silent for a minute.

One of the people just near this diamond then shouted at it, “I just took damage from that asshole!” Several others in the crowd yelled their agreed sentiments to the statement.

“Meeh, no biggie,” exclaimed the diamond in a nonchalant voice.

“Okay, so I'm Dan, I and the other digital developers will be enjoying this little schware with you all. By the way, there is a new thread called 'That way, be DRAGONS!' in general, which is a group picture that has some absolutely priceless facial expressions. Go on, check it out, while the others devs are still on their way.

Also, by the power vested in me from time immemorial,” the pink diamond was spinning and swaying wildly. “I now pronounce all testers through the divinity of my pinnnkness.”

Making everyone wait several seconds, “HEALED!”, he said again in that deep and overbearingly loud voice.

Again, several people, especially those close took damage, a moment later, however, all were back to full health.

“Anyways, chat among yourselves, until the development team arrives.”

There was a jovial atmosphere, stories were swapped and bragging rights were being one-upped. Hyun Ki and Mal-Chin went over to talk with a small group of people, Sasha Skorokhodov, Nesta Cascanatova, Peter Marks and Cao Mai were a heated discussion on weapons, skills and what combinations were better.

Peter noticed the two South Korean's approaching first and called out “What's up guys, what combat strategies do you two think are better.”

“They are city builders and crafters Peter, they have probably done less combat in these two years than we did in the first month after spawning here,” stated Nesta.

Both Hyun Ki and Mal-Chin waved to the group and said their hello's to everyone. Then turning to Nesta, Mal-Chin said, “we killed plenty of mobs, had to boost those mana levels.”

Hyun Ki nodded, “converting MGs to MCs, very mana intensive process with low skill levels, we really had no choice except to grind out lots of DP for those final milestones.”

“Was this around Cheon Chilbaeg you guys were grinding?” asked Sasha.

“Once the martial and magic training ground at Spawn Point was built we picked up some skills and spells to try stuff out,” Hyun Ki said.

“It took a while but we found our combo, once we were both happy we started to encourage the other gatherers, builders, and crafters to join us and travel to a good spot for the second town.”

Travelling 1700km, provided us ample time and opportunity, to kill lots of mobs, gaining experience as we were shepherded across the plains to where we established the town.”

“Ha! See, Nesta, these guys are also adventurers just like us then,” commented Sasha.

“No, we probably did several orders of magnitude less killing than you guys,” remarked Mal-Chin. “For us though, it seemed a lot, we did not have the kill everything freedom of the rest of the test team, we were all, harvest this, dig up that, shape this, craft that, build this, level that... Don't get me started with the tedium of crafting ECCs, while I can see it being ridiculously amazing eventually. It is an incredibly painful process at the start. You all had better be nice, giving us lots of MGs and willing to exchange large quantities of experience for crafted products after the launch.”

Holding up his hands, “we will, we will,” Peter quickly agreed. “We know how much you all struggled with the crafting skill upgrades and the tiny increments of improvement.”

“We read all those posts about the pains of MC crafting, between us, maybe, well, the first couple anyway. The point is we know and we have all agreed to provide you all with a major assist. So don't worry about all the rice in the chicken feed,” Mai joked.

“It will be interesting to see how the rest of the shard performs, PURG staff better be grateful to have us get things going for them. Fast infrastructure development thanks to we beta testers, the rest get an easy start, so spoiled,” mused Sasha.

“Some lucky people, our, unknown colleagues sure must be,” said Mai.

“I doubt they will be able to keep pace with us pro-gamers, we all got this offer because of our skills,” Nesta responded. “With the building and crafting experience you guys now have, our combat groups will be charging into the unknown leaving the rest to sort their shit out.”

“Let's not be too hasty, we have no idea what rest of staff will be like until we meet them and experience this world with them. They might be a good bunch of people who are willing to get on board with our plans and work with us,” Sasha replied with a nod of agreement to his own thoughts.

“It sure will be interesting to see what the live world will look like,” Hyun Ki shifted subjects. “From cryptic comments, it sounds like things could be quite a bit different to our experience on launch.”

We both believe that, still, no matter what the world looks like, we should be well ahead. The core mechanics of the environment probably won't change much and that will enable us to pull well ahead of the other shards in short order. Plus, we know the melee and magic systems along with how vital NPC co-operation in our towns can be,” Mal-Chin stated.

“Yeah, let's hope the live NPC's will be as awesome next turn around. I mean it takes a lot of time and interaction to evolve from scripted,” Sasha mentioned. “That change though really was amazing, our exploration group could not have gone as far as it did without Rachel.”

“Awesome judge of character to,” said Mai, “kiss a mace recently Sasha?”

Mai, Nesta, and Peter all started puckering and making kissing sounds to Sasha.

“Shove it guys,” Sasha frowned with arms crossed.

Rachel, a young NPC left Spawn Point after being coaxed into becoming the third healer for Sasha's exploration group. Always interacting with people had changed her from a script emulation to something, more. Sasha, infatuated by this change, tried to cozy up to her but came across a little too needy. After politely fending him off for a while and some sage advice from other group members, she straightened him out with a mace to the face. Packing supplies, she walked 160km back to Cheon Chilbaeg on her own. Sasha finally got the message she wasn't into him.

“I learned from my mistake, and no matter what you all cannot deny she was a good group member,” Sasha acknowledged.

“I actually meant general NPC cooperation, the scripted kind more so than the simulacrum,” Mal-Chin shrugged to the group.

“Is that what we are calling them?” Sasha asked.

“Meh, good a name as any, for now at least,” Mal-Chin answered.

At this time, the other developers ported in, halfway up the cliff wall and gracefully descended. Appearing as geometric shapes, though unlike Pink Diamond Dan, they all had the name 'Dev', in other words, they were anonymous.

Once all the devs were together, they hovered near Pink Diamond Dan and greeted the testers with a choreographed thanks. “On behalf of the development team, we would like to thank all beta testers for their efforts. We are very grateful and extremely pleased with the great successes that were proven possible because of your skill and perseverance within Powered1. We believe there will be even more wonderful outcomes achieved with the live version of the game once re-calibrated based on experiences derived from your participation.” The geometric shapes tilted forward in a semblance of a bow and in a single loud chorus spoke, “thank you for your efforts.”

“Well,” sighed Sasha. “Looks like you two have it right, plan to work together but be a little loose with the implementation then.”

“Someone from the crowd called out, “How come you devs don't show your names while we have no choice and have to use our birth names.”

A black disc moved slightly forward. “Hey all, I am the head of the digital development team, I have some information to divulge within NDA limitation and I will answer that question right now.

You all use your organic birth name because we deemed it most appropriate for how we want this world to function. We don't want ten thousand archers named Legolas or magic users named Harry. This isn't a game per say, this is a digital world, an alternative life.

We developers here today are exactly the same as you testers, that is obviously we are all part of the digital development team and why we are here today celebrating your achievements and the last 3 days of beta.

As for us displaying 'dev,' not our names, we are under NDA since we will be joining the world as part of the second wave, currently scheduled two years after the launch.

It boils down to this, when we join the world as participants we will be like everyone else, living an alternative life. The strict regulations we developers are under ensures we have no significant advantages apart from our knowledge which can't really be circumvented. But you get the idea, no back door skill or item cheats allowed. Risk verse reward and the punishment if someone did attempt the like and was caught, let's just say that poor sap isn't going to make it. In the wonderful ruination of a world we live in, PURG might shrug something like that off, the punishment of the perpetrator would most likely far exceed the crime.

Basically, we have an oversight to ensure everything is transparent and quantifiable.

You will find out more during launch. It's something to look forward to, at least for us devs who can watch from the sidelines at that process. We think it will be pretty hilarious, we hope you realise what it means quickly and act for the benefit of PURG. Don't stuff up in a major way that affects the rest of us. I am not kidding around here, those decisions will influence us immensely.”

The testers began asking questions, probing for information, unfortunately, 'NDA' was constantly referenced for most questions.

* * *

The black disc sighed. “NDA and to be determined, sorry. Hopefully, it turns out well for us, but if not then we will just have to live with it. It was a compromise decided by the oversight committee from the world's governments scrutinising PURG since we are the only company with a shard.”

“No more questions like that please your just going to get NDA blocked and honestly its like I have stated before, transparent and quantifiable to ensure a level field for shard zero and the rest of the shards. No cheating allowed as it should be.

So, many of you joined in on the thread asking to see what lay deeper into the world and as a reward for the testing you all performed and a celebration of a successful beta here we all are. In just under two years the furthest any group explored was 3,622km from the Spawn Point as you all have aptly named the first town. A fine effort achieved by the group calling themselves Winter's Call lead by Sasha Skorokhodov.”

The devs and beta testers cheered or applauded.

“That means you almost made it out of the starter area. That boundary is 4,000km from the Spawn Point. Your team Sasha, almost made it past the safe area.

Where we are now, is very different to what you have experienced to date. At 12,428km out from the shard rim. This is a wholly different world, you're in the untamed lands now. So go out there and prepare to be... well... even we don't know what is out there, we didn't want to spoil our own surprise.

As stated in the event thread, portals are opened between here, Spawn Point and Cheon Chilbaeg. Further, there is no consequence for dying during the event.

The dev shapes floated crossing each other to the opposite side creating a funnel leading into the gorge entrance and said like they had practiced the moment to achieve perfect synchronicity. “Through this gorge is a minuscule glimpse of what potentially awaits in the wider world to be explored after launch.”