Once her family left her room and went back to what they had been doing, Natalie went downstairs. She was hungry and an early lunch wouldn't hurt her, looking in the fridge, she found leftovers from breakfast, she took them out to reheat and ate until she was full.

Later, feeling a little lost, Natalie decided to go for a walk in the park, she spent an enjoyable afternoon walking around. When she grew tired she went back home and after a quick shower, Natalie climbed into her pod.

"Sam? I don't know what to do with myself now" she said.

"Then go over to the range and start practicing your bow." Sam said. "You have five days to work on learning how to use that weapon."

Natalie had slumped into the chair behind the desk, at Sam's suggestion she jumped up pleased. She was glad she had brought the beautiful bow and Sam was right she still had a lot to do. She would practice this, then she had to research how to harness up horses to a plow and how to use the plow.

As she thought about that, she realised there was more to learn on that too, how did you look after large animals? She had never seen a live horse or cow, not even a pig, except in movies and farming documentaries.

Yes she was going to be very busy. Natalie turned her mind to the bow and started to practice. Losing herself in the routine of keeping her breathing steady, arms and legs in the stance she had been taught and pulling the bow in a quick controlled manner. Until the cord was by her cheek, then loosing it and starting the process over again. Natalie lost her sense of time while doing this, she kept going until once again her arms felt like wet noodles and her muscles burned from the effort.

"Ok that was a good warm up," Sam said. "Rest for 10 minutes, then you can try again, only this time you will put an arrow to the bow, draw but not release."

Natalie stared at the desk, which was the closest she had to a definite spot of where Sam was in this room.

"I'm tired Sam." She said. " I want to stop now."

"You can, if that's your wish," replied Sam." But I thought you said you wanted to be able to use that bow by the time the game opens?"

"Yes I did say that.." Natalie wasn't sure where this was leading too.

"Then you need to put in the practice, you only have five days Natalie," answered Sam. "It takes years to be good at this, you will just have to settle for knowing how to shoot an arrow and maybe if your lucky, hitting what you aimed at, but that won't happen if you don't practice..a lot !"

"Ok I see your point," she grumbled. "I'll practise, I do want to be able to use it after all."

Natalie dragged herself up and picked up the bow. A load of arrows sticking up from a bin appeared near her. She chose one and then held it helplessly, what was she suppose to do with it?

Fortunately, Sam had recognised this would happen and was prepared. He played an old movie he had found, showing how to hold a bow and how to put an arrow to the string. Natalie watched it, then tryed to copy it, until she thought she had it right. Then she dropped into the stance, but found that wasn't all she dropped, as the arrow landed at her feet.

Sighing, she picked it up and tryed again, after watching the show and trying it a grand total of 12 times, she finally managed to get the trick of it. Then she began to draw the bow evenly and smoothly, until the feathers of the arrow brushed her cheek. A few more times of doing this, then Sam called a halt.

"Good work Natalie." Sam said. "It's time to log out for dinner."

"Ok thanks Sam." Natalie was pleased with her progress, she climbed out of the pod, but was surprised when she found her muscles felt just as sore out of the pod as they had in it.

She went to the bathroom for a nice hot shower which helped. Coming downstairs she could see her mother sitting at the kitchen table reading. While her brothers were seeing to dinner.

"Hi Mum," Natalie said then winced, her arms hurt as she tryed to give her mother a hug.

"What's wrong with your arms Natalie?" Her mother asked.

"I don't know Mum, I was practicing my bow in the pod," she said. "My arms were sore after that, but it didn't go away after I left the pod, a hot shower helped, but they are still very sore."

"That is because anything physical, that you learn in the pod, uses the muscle you will really use, if you were learning outside of it," Mum said. "The pod builds muscle memory, if you are learning the bow that way, you will eventually learn how to really use one."

"Oh so I'm learning a real skill, not a game skill?" She asked.

"That's right," was the placid answer from her parent.

Natalie wasn't sure how she felt about that, on the one hand, to actually know how to use a bow sounded kind of cool, but on the other hand, how much use would it be for her outside of the game? Oh well not to worry about it now, she did need it for her game, so it was all good.

After dinner she searched up the information of how to care for a large animal. That didn't seem to hard, feed it, keep it clean and exercise it, looked like the main things to do with them.

Natalie went back to her pod, reading a bit more and enlisting Sam's help with the research. Until it was time for the night shifts. Then they both got stuck in and did the usual routines. Ending as usual at 6am and Natalie's sleep time until 9am.

This time though, she woke up in the Virtual Room, which had changed yet again, as Sam had created a barn with animals in it. Natalie spent the morning till lunch, cleaning stalls and feeding animals. She was bruised, bitten and stomped on, but had managed to get it done.

"Is that really what animals are like Sam?" She asked, before she logged out of the pod.

"Yes, that simulation is very close to actual animals." Sam replied. "It is used to train colonists, that are going to fresh worlds."

"Well, at least I would be useful as a colonist." She laughed. "If I ever get the rights to be one, that is."

Natalie dragged herself out of the pod and into the shower. Her body was one huge ache, and joy, after lunch Sam would be having her practice her bow again, she was so sore she could cry.

When she limped into the kitchen, her Mother took one look at her and rushed to the medical cabinet. She took out a spray bottle and came over to Natalie.

"Open your mouth," Mum said in a no nonsense tone of voice, and when Natalie complied, she sprayed the medication into her mouth. Within a few seconds, the pain, that racked Natalie, washed away and she sighed in relief.

"Thanks Mum," she said. " Sam has me learning how to care for animals, somehow, he found a teaching program. That's used to train colonists going to fresh worlds. I had no idea that cute little rabbits actually bite and draw blood or that they can cut you with their claws!"

"Well that sounds interesting, why are you learning those ?" Mum asked.

"I own a farming Sanctuary in the game. I need to know how to do this, because there is no game assist with most skills, some have a little auto skill, like harvesting a large field can be done with a simple yes or no, but planting and plowing has to be done the old fashioned way, with actually doing it."

"I had no idea that game was so complicated," her mother said. " It sounds interesting, maybe I will try it out when the game goes live next week."

Silently she handed Natalie the medication spray.

"Use it as needed, it's safe and will help ease your pain, take it upstairs to your room after lunch." Mum told her.

Natalie nodded and put the spray bottle in her pocket, then ate her lunch. After lunch she returned to her pod, and as expected Sam had her working with the bow. Again and again she drew the bow to her cheek, then released it gently back, without letting the arrow fly. Sam had her visualising the arrow flying, free from the bow and straight to the target.

He made her stand with her head and the bow looking down at the ground, then he would snap, "load! Aim! Hold!"

She became very smooth in drawing the bow, and no longer strained at it. By the end of that day, it was becoming a part of her. She didn't feel right with it not being in her hands, when she went to dinner. Natalie did her night shifts and slept. With morning it was back to the animal care simulator. Which she continued until it was time for bow practice.

This time, Sam had her shooting the arrow towards the target, which she missed, 9 times out of every ten. That 10th one however, gave her hope and kept her focused. It was Thursday, one more day, then the servers would be shutting down.

Natalie grit her teeth and kept shooting, arrow after arrow, trying not to think about anything other then her training. She was now hitting the target, 6 times out of 10 and sometimes one of those six, were actually close to the bulls eye.

Thursday and Friday passed quickly, then Saturday arrived, the servers had been taken down now, the forums were full of complaints, boasting, bickering and speculations. It was on that day the game company started to release small snippets of Natalie's avatar and her game play.

Nothing telling, just enough to get people worked up, a lot of the players began searching for the elusive Dogkins identity. All this reminded Natalie, that she would really have to make a different avatar when the game went live once more.

Sunday morning, Natalie took a break from the constant practice, she watched the TV. Went for long walks in the park, and sat at her computer, reading about all the different stories and accounts people had left about their own Beta experiences.

Tomorrow the servers would be back up, everyone will be patching in the new version of the game, the game developers had let it be known that Beta had only been a small section of the map, more of a instanced part of the map kept separate from the real one.

Then it had arrived it was just before lunch, everything was patched and waiting, Natalie had a quick bite to eat then climbed into her pod. She had an hour to remake her avatar, and enter the game.

Natalie enter the game, she was excited to see the difference between the Beta and the main game. But first her avatar, she found herself back in the white room it was different from last time as well, on the wall in front of her were pictures of various races, the one directly in front of her was her first avatar, the little white Dogkin.

She was a little sad she couldn't use that one anymore, it had been fun and it was cute. Well nothing for it, she didn't want to spend all her time dodging crowds. Natalie looked at the rest of the pictures, she could see human, dwarf, three different types of elf, a very large range of beastkin but so far nothing caught her attention.

Natalie turn towards the other wall on here were more of the fantasy types of dragon like creatures, lizard men, centaurs, fawns, Minotaurs, and mermaids, that one stopped her for a second, how did you use a Sanctuary if you were one of them?

Then she spotted it and this avatar called to her like none of the others did. It was just as tall as her Dogkin had been but that was were any other resemblance stopped.

It was humanoid in shape, but had a bird like cast to it's features, or more like a raptor. The body of it was slender, instead of hair on its head there were feathers that clung around a delicate face with big blue eyes, close to the face the feathers were a soft lilac colour that deepened to a bright purple as the feathers progressed down to the shoulders.

It had no wings but small feathers trailed down the arms along its back and on the lower part of the legs almost completely sheathing the calves. The purple from the head and shoulders continued to deepen as they went down until about the hips and down the arms and legs all the feathers were black, only when the light played on them could you see the glint of a dark rich purple shine out.

Natalie moved towards this picture, she really liked this one, she reached out to touch it and it suddenly expanded until it was standing before her at the height she guessed it would have in the game. About the same as her Dogkin then.

She looked it over and found nothing that she wanted to change other then making it a female since the current one was a male, as she thought that the avatar changed to a female, but was a little to well indulge on the front, Natalie thought those could be a little less conspicuous, and promptly as she thought that they changed to not standing out as much.

Really she snorted, having breasts that large on a bird like person? It had looked very out of place, comical in fact. Once that was done she walked towards it and though it just like the mirror of last time.