Rules-Free VRMMO Life: Book 1 - Tutorial Page 2

  Or not. No, Mike Green was, in reality, your average University graduate, 26 years of age. Well, not entirely average. His deceased parents had been fairly wealthy, enough that, if he managed his money well, he wouldn’t have to work a day in his life. Of course, he still worked, but his ‘work’ was really only taking in the advertising money when he posted streams of his gaming experiences. As a paid streamer, he was always under pressure to provide the latest and greatest, but since it was something he’d be doing anyways, there wasn’t any problem.

  So Mike Green was easily able to afford the monthly rent on his two bed, two bath apartment, food, utilities, gym membership, and a couple nights out a week. It wasn’t the lap of luxury, but he had enough that he was comfortable, and that was enough for him, especially since he had spent most of his time the last four years in the virtual world of WoD. Due to the time dilation of the game world, at 26 he had the mental age of someone closer to forty.

  Right now, Mike had just come back from the gym he worked out at daily. It wasn’t a complicated or particularly intense regimen, but something he did to keep the disconnect between his mind and his real world body from being too large. If you’re able to leap twenty feet into the air to tackle a dragon in a game, but in the real world you’re a total slob whose waist is quickly trying to equal your height, then you’ve got real problems. People always bitch and moan about ‘body shaming’, but you don’t see them volunteering to be the people in Walmart that look like Jabba’s twin sister. Mike worked out, but only to the point where he was ‘gym fit’, having some muscle tone, without going to the extremes like body builders.

  In ‘Real Life’, Mike was 26, single, unemployed, and basically coasting from day to day. In the game, however, he was Torgan, a beacon of light and truth and all that bull. At least, that’s the role he played in game, as leader of the top light-side guild. Honestly, it wasn’t all bad. The Lords of Light had great people, and he enjoyed playing with them all. But having to pretend to be a goody-two-shoes all the time was really annoying. It is the same reason why most people relate more to Batman than Superman. So, even if he didn’t need to [Reincarnate] Torgan into AAO for the bonuses, he probably wouldn’t have stayed with WoD too much longer. He’d lived that life for almost sixteen years, in game, and he felt a change was definitely in order.

  Walking into the master bedroom of the apartment, Mike got things set up for gaming. Of course, when dealing with VR, that meant different things to different people. For Mike, it meant turning on the specially designed bed so that the gel-filled mattress of his ‘gaming couch’ would warm up while he took a shower, and setting the air conditioner to a comfortable level. The Chip allowed for AR feeds, which is what most people used in their daily lives, but going full VR meant that you were rag dolling in the real world.

  Six years ago, a certain furniture company decided to capitalize on this market, and started selling what they called ‘gaming couches’. The size of a couch, they sported a gel-filled mattress that was warm, and supported the body perfectly, allowing users to relax in comfort. Using advances in nanotech, they even included a massaging function, reducing the risk of cramps, blood clots, muscle atrophy, and other hazards of a sedentary lifestyle. It could even function as a normal couch, if you turned the various functions off, and tossed the cushions back on.

  Mike’s room was fairly bare. He had a couple pictures on the wall, a double bed for when he actually slept in the real world, a dresser for clothes, a mirror, and a writing desk. There really wasn’t a need for anything else, in his opinion. Stripping off his clothes, Mike went for a quick shower before he got ready for his new adventure. While in the shower, he did what any healthy, single man would do if they could access the internet in the shower: he looked up some of his favorite porn, and relieved some tension.

  His ’cleansing ritual’ done, Mike dried off, used the toilet, and changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and a t-shirt. While the full VR experience largely cut off the mind from the body, that didn’t mean they were unconnected, or that the body’s functions didn’t go on as normal. This is one of the reasons Mike was diligent in making sure he took care of his body. If, say, one drank a bunch of water, and then didn’t go to the bathroom before gaming, you could expect one of two things. Either your game would get cut short, sometimes at the worst possible moment, or you would wake up to an embarrassing situation, and a lengthy cleanup.

  Laying down on the couch, Mike took a breath, and slipped into the full virtual experience. There was a moment’s blackness, as there always was, and then he found himself in his ‘virtual room’. The rough equivalent of someone’s ‘home page’ on the internet browsers of yesteryear, users each had their own virtual rooms, which could be customized to fit their needs and personality. Mike’s virtual room was a shrine to gaming, and to the various places he enjoyed visiting on the net. There were digital posters on the walls, showcasing some of Torgan’s ‘greatest hits’. If one concentrated on them, the images would start moving to show the streams they captured. There were also bookshelves, holding all his important files. For now, though, he simply sat on the throne he’d made himself, based off something from an old book series where a lot of people died while trying to become king of a country and fighting off snow-zombies, or some such, and brought up his console.

  “Start Age of Anarchy Online.”

  As the game loaded for the first time, Mike was treated to a brief history of the world. Most players would be bored, and ignore this as the normal time-wasting as a game loaded. Most players were idiots. In a virtual world like AAO, this could be vital lore that would give him a boost when it came to dealing with NPCs, or at least keep him from making a fool of himself.

  The world of AAO was, apparently, one of cycles. Magic rose and fell in fairly regular intervals (though those intervals were measured in thousands of years). When magic ebbed, creatures like elves and dragons disappeared from the world, leaving only Humans. But when magic rose to a certain point, it became a rich fantasy setting, with elves, dwarves, dragons, and more. But there was a danger that came with the rising Mana levels. When there was enough mana in the world, gateways would open between this world, and the world of terrible creatures. These ‘Terrors’ were far worse than any mere monster. They apparently killed for sport, and fed on the fear and negative emotions of thinking beings.

  AAO was set on the tail end of the ‘Scourge’ as it was called, the time of peak mana, where the gateways were open. People had only survived, it seemed by living in protected enclaves, usually underground, that could be warded against the Terrors. Not all the protections held, unfortunately, and more than one enclave had been breached, and overrun. Now, a mere one hundred years after the end of the Scourge, civilization, such as it was, had come some ways towards rebuilding itself. But while gateways couldn’t be opened to the world of the Terrors, that didn’t stop the ones that were already here from causing trouble.

  When the loredump was over, Mike found himself in a white room, a fairly standard character creation setup. A window popped up in front of him:

  Welcome to Age of Anarchy Online!

  Attention: A World of Destiny character has been detected on your account. You can

  Reincarnate the character ‘Torgan’ into the world of AAO. Doing so will give you

  Increased benefits at character creation, but will permanently delete ‘Torgan’ from

  World of Destiny. Benefits scale with the level, achievements, titles, and equipment

  possessed by the Reincarnated character.

  Do you wish to Reincarnate ‘Torgan’?

  Y/N

  “Yes.”

  Calculating…

  You have 25,000 bonus points to spend at character creation.

  Please choose your gender:

  Male

  Female

  Hermaphrodite

  Other

  Note: Some Race and Class choices may be unavailable based on gender chosen.

 
“Huh.”

  Chapter 3 – Character Creation, Part 2

  (Mike POV)

  If I were being honest, the gender question was a fairly tough one. Sure, I don’t have identity issues, but there was something to be said for taking a change of pace and being something completely different from your real world self. When you’re living in a fantasy world with levels and stats, gender is just one more difference, right? For a long moment, I considered choosing the Herm option. I’d never played a futa character before, after all. But in the end, I decided that, for this character, I’d at least go with what I knew. At least then, there wouldn’t be any awkward surprises if the ‘realism’ included trips to the bathroom.

  “Male.”

  Chosen Gender: Male

  Confirm: Yes/No

  “Yes.”

  Please choose your race.

  Now we were getting down to the fun stuff! Even in these days, developers like to hand out goodies to people who pre-order the game. Usually, this is something like exclusive gear, or unique skins, or so on. Sometimes, those things are just timed exclusives. With AAO, however, the pre-order bonus was unlocking all playable races at start. Other users would have the ‘basic’ races, like Humans and Elves, to choose from, but people like me that pre-ordered had the whole range, even some monsters were available as races!

  From what little I’d heard, the ‘extra’ races could be unlocked if players finished certain quests or explored certain areas. That kind of thing, while not common, was certainly not unheard of in MMOs. It was an incentive to the players to go out and explore the world, instead of mindlessly smiting goblins. Especially since goblins were one of the potentially playable races.

  The one thing I noticed off the bat was that the mysterious ‘Terrors’ were definitely NOT on the playable races list. In fact, it went so far as to say, in nice bold words, NO WAY, NO HOW. NOT HAPPENING. AND IF YOU ASK ABOUT IT, YOU’LL GET TO SPEND A WEEK AS A SLIME IN THE BEGINNER TRAINING GROUNDS! I’m almost certain they were joking, but I really didn’t want to press my luck.

  There were literally almost two hundred playable races, though most were variants of a ‘base’ race, including things like Snow Goblins, an arctic variant of goblins, but also things like Elementals. I noticed that some of the possibilities had already been removed, due to being a male. Guess there was no such thing as a male Nymph in this world.

  Looking through the options took a lot of time, but I was eventually able to narrow things down to four choices: Dark Elf, Incubus, Half-Celestial Elf, and, of course, Human. I decided to look through their info in detail, starting with the Humans.

  Race: Human

  One of the most common races in the world. While they have no real strengths as far as magic or weaponry is concerned, they also have no real weaknesses. They are the most adaptable of the free races, but lack the racial magics or specialized classes that some races gain.

  Racial Traits:

  +10% Speed in learning new skills (skills level at normal rate)

  +10% Fame/Infamy gains

  Pure vanilla. The bonus to learning new skills was decent, since skills were far more important than levels in most cases. The Fame/Infamy thing was a double-edged sword. Your positive rep grew faster, but your negative rep did as well. Really, the main point of Humans was that they had no weaknesses.

  Race: Dark Elf (Drow)

  The Drow separated from other elves after a bitter war thousands of years ago. Living almost exclusively underground, they adapted to their magically charged environment. Drow society is a matriarchal one, and they are usually Evil in alignment.

  Racial Traits:

  +30% Magic Resistance

  +1 INT, DEX, and CHA per level

  Proficiency in Drow Weapons

  Shadow Magic learned

  Darkvision

  -5% STR and CON

  Sunlight Blindness (Heavy glare penalties in sunlight)

  Surface elves start as Hostile to you

  Drow seemed like a powerful choice, but there were some glaring weaknesses. First, who knew how powerful Shadow Magic really was? And having the surface elves start as hostiles could be a big problem unless you found a way to raise your rep. But the kicker was the Sunlight thing. Only being able to hunt at night or underground was definitely going to be a kick in the teeth. I was sure there was some way to suppress that weakness in game, but it would hurt for a while.

  Race: Incubus

  A race descended from demons, Incubi are natural charmers. However, they also have a tendency to be weak against others using those same charms. Known for their love of all things beautiful, as well as their incredible fertility, Incubi can be found almost anywhere.

  Racial Traits:

  +20 CHA

  +2 CHA per Level

  Pheromones

  Charming Gaze

  -50% resistance to Charm effects from Females

  Increased Fertility (May damage relationships with NPCs)

  -5 WIS

  I’ll admit, this was a vanity thing on my part. What guy didn’t dream of being a sex god (or demon, in this case)? It would also make for a very different play style than my rather up-tight Paladin Torgan in WoD. Don’t get me wrong, I loved playing him, but new world, new experiences, right? The Pheromones and Charming Gaze both seemed to be effects that helped make people friendly to you. The massive hit to charm resistance and the WIS penalty on top of that was a real pain, though. And (May damage relationships with NPCs) was clearly code for ‘getting someone’s wife pregnant will cause them to try and murder you’.

  Race: Half-Celestial Elf

  Born from the union of an elf and a celestial spirit. Possesses some abilities of both their parents. While not the most powerful pairing, they have some unique abilities.

  Racial Traits:

  Counts as Elf for all purposes (racial weapon proficiency, class restrictions, etc.)

  Counts as Celestial for all purposes (racial weapon proficiency, class restrictions, etc.)

  Natural Flight

  +30% to Light Magic

  +30% to Holy Magic

  +1 DEX and CHA per level

  -5% CON

  All Evil races start as Enemy

  Evil Players gain no Infamy for killing Celestials

  Honestly, the thing that attracted me to this was the wings. Three-dimensional movement was a real boon, especially in the early game, when most people (and monsters) were stuck on the ground. Enemy status meant you were kill on sight outside of certain events, unless you did something to raise your rep. The real kicker, though, was that last line, which was basically begging Evil PKers to go after you.

  Looking over my choices, I considered, and then picked…

  Chapter 4 – Character Creation, Part 3

  Damn, this was hard. So many good choices, but in the end, it really narrowed down to one of two. Humans were vanilla, but I was feeling like rocky road. Drow would cause major problems for me unless I could grind my rep somehow. So that left the half-celestial elf or the incubus. Both had their good points, but still, I was wanting a change from Torgan. An incubus would certainly be a change.

  Chosen Race: Incubus

  Confirm: Y/N

  “Yes.”

  Race Selected.

  Please adjust appearance.

  Ah, the fun of customizing your appearance. Other games sometimes do things differently, but at least in AAO, since the Chip was connected to our brains, players started with their mental self-image, adjusted for their chosen race. Mental self-image is how people see themselves, and doesn’t always line up with reality, like the skinny girls who keep worrying about being fat, or people that think their voice sounds like Clark Gable, but they really, really don’t.

  Anyways, so Incubus. Basically humanoid, about six feet tall. I used my own face, because that would cause less trouble when looking in virtual mirrors. Let’s see, skin color… I didn’t want to go too outlandish, so I chose a reddish hue that was within the average for the race,
but didn’t look like I copied a fire truck or anything. A pair of short black horns poked up through my hair on top of my head. Speaking of hair, I set it to black, and set the length to about my waist. Not the most practical, but it would look awesome in the right conditions. Hmm. Add 20% muscle, reduce fat to 15%. I see I’ve got hoof feet, that’ll take some getting used to. Eyes to gold. Yeah, that’ll do. Just one more thing…

  Appearance accepted.

  Yeah, I admit it. I ‘enhanced’ myself a bit, especially my friend. And any guy who says he wouldn’t consider doing the same is LYING! Sure, being 20” long and 3” wide is childish and immature of me. But what the hell? You’re going to go, go all the way, or don’t bother starting.