FSE

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Wow, it has been a struggle to write lately. Incredibly, work has gotten even busier since the stay home orders have eased, but, all the same, i have made a little progress here and there. Anyway...I am proud to present the second chapter of this series, and I hope you enjoy it. It was rather fun to write.

If you liked my writings, let me know with Faves, votes and comments, so I can keep providing the things you enjoy. If you see where I can improve, please point it out, so the next one will be even better. In any case, have fun.

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Continued from 'Welcome to Final T"

Eric sat in the cafeteria once more, disinterestedly picking at the pasta salad he had chosen as his side dish. It wasn’t that it didn’t taste good, because it did, the school’s kitchen staff being very talented. Rather, it was that he was tired; exhausted was actually closer to the mark, and he was really feeling it today. The last couple of days had been about the same, but his exhaustion had been easier to handle because he had had his friends to engage him while they all ate, but his schedule was off on Fridays because of his staff duties in the Cadets. Eric really wished that he could figure out why he wasn’t sleeping well, but every night, his dreams got all twisted and muddled, becoming more and more unsettled and bizarre until he woke up feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. He had tried everything he could think of to get better sleep. He had gone to bed early, slept with soft music or white noise playing, curled up cuddling a pillow, worked out before bed until his muscles ached, even staying up very late to tire his mind out. Nothing worked, and he was paying for his lack of rest.

Caffeine helped take the edge off, of course, as did the vitamin and chemical packed stimshots that the on-campus vending machines offered that were meant to sharpen concentration and mental acuity. But caffeine could only do so much, and you weren’t supposed to use stimshots day after day, and they were both starting to lose their effects. Giving a jaw stretching yawn, Eric put his fork down on his tray and sat back, rubbing his face with both hands. Thank goodness it was Friday, and, thanks to the way his schedule had worked out, he only had his math class that afternoon, after a staff meeting for the Warden Cadets. If his math class ended early, as it had on Wednesday, he could go home and maybe catch a nap before dinner.

As he lowered his hands though, he saw something that made him forget his exhaustion for a while. The vid screen on the wall of the cafeteria, which was usually quartered with a sports channel, a news channel and two alternating entertainment channels, had suddenly become a single image, with ‘Breaking News’ displayed in bright letters over a chaotic background. Reaching up, he tapped the ear piece he wore with one finger, the device piping the audio feed into his ears, the built in sensor detecting what he was looking at to find the right source.

“We interrupt our usual broadcast to bring you this special bulletin.” The news program’s star anchor intoned as the video image went to an overhead shot of a block of buildings in the modern style, the dry xeroscape with flowering cactus indicating that it wasn’t anywhere in the temperate capital city. But the thing that had caught his attention, was that a row of three buildings appeared to be on fire, with the middle one completely missing its roof. “There has been an explosion in the city of Eden’s Reach, and as you can see from the feed of our on-site drone, the damage appears to be substantial. There has been no word on a cause for the explosion as of yet, but there are unconfirmed reports of injuries.” Leaning forward, Eric studied the image the news drone was showing, everything he had learned as a Cadet cataloging what he was seeing faster than the news could speculate. From the way the pieces of debris had scattered out, the explosion hadn’t been only in the central building, which seemed off to him. It looked like all three structures had had their windows blown out from what was clearly an over-pressure wave, but the middle structure looked to have had a much more substantial blast. “Available records indicate that the building most heavily damaged was the New Choice Genemodding clinic, with the other two buildings being a marketing distributorship and... One moment... We are going live to our reporter, Stephanie Radke who is contact with the on scene Warden commander.” The screen paused in place for a moment as the new feed cut in and Eric sat back in surprise.

The spokesman wore the typical black and red working uniform of the Wardens, the beret and tactical clothing marking him as a Elite Enforcement officer, the two silver bars of a captain winking in the light of the news cameras. That was pretty standard, after all, with something like this happening, the Elites were bound to take charge. What surprised him was that the spokesman was Josh, his oldest brother, and the title that was displayed under his image. The title caption stated that he was the Commander of the Eden’s Reach Emergency Incident Response Taskforce, which was news to Eric. The Warden Corps’ EIR department was the high profile part of the corps, which only went into action when there was a natural disaster, or worse. Made up of Elite Enforcement teams coupled with highly trained medical personnel and engineers, they were reputed to be able to handle any incident, no matter how serious. While it made sense that they would be called in for something like this, it struck Eric as odd that they would be so quick to respond to something that had just happened.

“First, I would like to assure the public that the situation is under control, and there is no danger of another explosion at this time.” Josh began, a pair of medics in the armored jumpsuits of disaster crews helping an injured canine covered in soot in the background. “Though there were several people injured in the blast, there are no fatalities and our emergency medical staff are on scene and tending to the injured.” Josh paused, his face serious, as if giving his words time to sink in. “Although the cause of the blast is unknown as of now, the preliminary indications are that this was an isolated accident, and NOT, I will repeat, NOT any sort of intentional or malicious action. A live link on the Emergency Services net portal has been activated, and all information on the identities of the injured, as well as where they are being taken will be made available to friends and family as soon as it comes in.” Holding up one finger in a ‘wait’ gesture, Josh pressed the fingers of his other hand to the ear piece he wore, obviously listening to a report. Nodding to himself, he spoke into the mike that had extended down his jaw line to in front of his mouth. “I will be right there.” Looking back up at the cameras, he continued. “Excuse me, I need to get back to coordinating rescue efforts. We will provide additional information at a briefing every hour, on the hour, as the situation develops.”

As Josh hurried away in the company of two other Elites, Eric cocked his head, tapping the ear piece again as the anchor came back on to reiterate what had already been said. That there had been an explosion of any kind was quite an event as it was, but one that was so extensive was truly out of the ordinary. Even so, he would normally have chalked it up to being nothing more than a freak accident. Except... Except that the EIR taskforce had deployed immediately after the explosion, almost as if they had already been prepared. Except for the call that he had overheard on Monday between his father and his brother. Could it have been nothing more than a coincidence? There could have been any number of reasons why the EIR was prepped to respond before an incident like this one. They probably had been gearing up for a training exercise and so were ready for this. Josh couldn’t have meant that he had expected this to happen, and that is why he had stood up two additional teams of Elites.

Shaking his head, Eric looked back down at his tray and decided that he wasn’t going to be able to eat any more. He was just too tired. Pushing his tray away from himself, he reached for his tablet instead and opened the screen, intending to play one of the simple games he played when he was trying to kill time. He had just started on a timed 3D logic puzzle when the messenger app flashed up an indicator for a chat request from Cayler and he smiled, quitting the puzzle so he wouldn’t run out time and opened the messenger instead.

CaylerSablestripe: Hey

Me: Hey

CaylerSablestripe: What are you having for lunch today?

Me: Are you that bored in art class?

CaylerSablestripe: Hey, give me a break. The teacher is lecturing us about the impressionists again, like every art teacher since the movement actually existed. I would like to actually pick up some tips about drawing or something, but apparently that isn’t until next week.

Me: Well to answer your question, I am having pasta salad, a chicken sandwich and a hand pie, but I am about done. Isn’t the teacher going to know that you are chatting instead of taking notes?

CaylerSablestripe: I doubt it. I think my neighbor is watching a movie.

Me: And she hasn’t noticed? Is she just not paying attention?

CaylerSablestripe: No, I’m wrong, he is browsing porn.

Me: ...

Me: Seriously?

CaylerSablestripe: Yeah...looks like it. Oh, no, he got locked out by the network. I wondered when the system monitor was going to kick in.

Me: I didn’t think you could even log into something like that on the school network.

CaylerSablestripe: I have heard that you can get around it for a while by node-hopping. Must be how he did it. I wonder if he is going to get in trouble for it though. Setting aside the porn, you aren’t supposed to rapidly switch access nodes because it monopolizes the handshake system and slows down logging in for everybody.

Me: Its probably a warning. If he does it over and over though...

CaylerSablestripe: Yeah. Hey, you still planning on gaming with us tonight?

Me: Of course. Been looking forward to it all week.

CaylerSablestripe: Great. Raina finally heard back from her friend and he says he can make it. That will fill out the last slot in the party. We were planning on around 8.

Me: Have you checked out the details of the new content?

CaylerSablestripe: Not yet. The new patch wasn’t finalized until last night anyway.

Me: Yeah. What class are you planning on playing?

CaylerSablestripe: Unless there is something really awesome in the patch that they didn’t mention, I’m probably going to do magic support. Sorcerer, or maybe Alchemist? Matt likes to tank, so he said he is going to try the new Knight class. I think Raina is going to do striker, so probably a Ranger. How about you? We need a healer or some sort of dps class.

Me: I hate playing as a rogue, I always get my ass kicked. I’ll probably do a combat healer, like a Cleric probably.

CaylerSablestripe: That will work. I hate playing without a healer.

Me: Me too. Is Raina’s friend going to be ok with dps?

CaylerSablestripe: I think so. If not, I’ll take alchemist and we can work around it that way.

Me: Alright. Should be fun. Anyway, I think I am going to head to the coffee shop to get a pick me up before class. I am dragging today.

CaylerSablestripe: Alright, well, have fun. I’ll see you tonight.

Me: See you.

Suiting actions to words, Eric closed the messenger app and slid his tablet back into his bag before bussing his tray and walking out of the cafeteria. The on-campus coffee shop was actually on the way to the Warden building and hopefully it would give him enough of a boost to get through the calculus course after that. The teacher was an older female golden eagle who was about as forbidding as anyone he had ever met, and the very last thing he wanted was to be the idiot kid who fell asleep in her class. And maybe he would get lucky and the staff meeting wouldn’t last the whole period...

***

“Alright Cadets, last item on the agenda.” Eric breathed an internal sigh of relief at that announcement by the head instructor. The staff meeting had already dragged on for longer than he had expected, most of it related to the specific duties of each staff member. As the ranking enlisted cadet, his duties were actually much simpler than most. He just had to supervise the sergeants and corporals of the battalion, and help deal with any disciplinary problems. More to the point, he was to act as another instructor during most classes, and do things like approve commendations and disciplinary actions for the enlisted, much as the battalion commandant did for the officers. “This is the general training outline for the year. Now, as usual, the actual time that we can allocate for each module is variable, as it depends on what progress is being made by the battalion at large. Any questions?”

Scanning the file that appeared on his tablet screen, Eric found his wandering attention suddenly caught by the first few line items. As was usual, the officers would spend the first couple of weeks being recertified in everything that they had learned in the past, followed by the same process for the NCOs, the idea being that that would allow them to act as teachers while the new cadets were learning the basics. But right after the recertifications and basic instruction for the rest of the cadets, the schedule called for firearms familiarization, followed by tactical training and field medicine. After that, he noted that the rest of the year was peppered by more tactical sims than he had ever seen, something like one every two weeks, which was more than twice as many as his previous program had had. That couldn’t be right...

“Sir?” He said after a moment, the instructor nodding to him.

“Cadet O’Bannon?” He asked, gesturing for him to speak.

“Sir, is this training regimen correct?” Eric asked, trying to ignore the sharp looks that the Q level cadets were giving him. He was the only T level cadet in the meeting, and to say he felt intimidated was an understatement. He could feel the hot prickling of sweat under his black patrol cap, and he resisted the urge to adjust it. “Isn’t firearms and tactical training usually something that is saved until second term?”

“In other battalions, you would be right.” The instructor stated, nodding equitably. “Command has decided to test a new format with this battalion, since it is already something of an experiment. It has been observed in the past that candidates that enter the Wardens after attending the Academy tend to have a higher tactical acumen than those that come through a Cadet program, and while that doesn’t make much of a difference in most cases, it is an unfortunate fact that in life and death situations, in depth, and prolonged tactical training can make a significant difference. This year’s program is a test to see if a heavier emphasis during the cadet programs can improve the average.”

“Understood, sir.” Eric replied, nodding in turn. It was a reasonable explanation, though he had always understood that the vast, overwhelming majority of Warden duty was not even close to being a tactical situation. Most Wardens never even needed to draw their weapons during an entire year’s worth of duty. But, he could understand the principle behind an approach like this. Sort of a ‘better to have the training and not need it, than need it and not have it’ sort of a deal. Still though, wouldn’t such a heavy emphasis on combat training affect how cadets reacted to normal situations? Shrugging inwardly, he put the thought out of his mind. It wasn’t his place to determine what was taught to the cadets.

“Alright, well, if there are no other questions, I think we can adjourn for the day.” The instructor stated, and the cadets stood, picking up their tablets to head out. “Oh, before I forget. Commandant, I’m forwarding the cadet records of the company commanders and executive officers. I want an initial evaluation of each of them by Monday. Master Warden, same thing for you for the First Wardens. The records should be in your inboxes.”

“Yes sir.” Eric replied, pausing to set a reminder for tomorrow on his tablet. He had been expecting such an assignment for the weekend, actually. Initial evaluations always carried very little weight, since he didn’t know the six First Wardens at all besides their names from the first day, but that wasn’t the point, and he knew it. This assignment was a test of his own leadership abilities more than anything, which was fine.

Joining the end of the line of cadets filing out of the meeting room, Eric headed for the locker room to pick up his backpack again. Most of the cadets always changed back out of their working uniforms when they were done in the Warden building, and most of the time, he did too, but today he was going to wear his uniform for the rest of the day, mostly to finish breaking it in. Since the cadet uniforms were made from the same tough material as those of the real wardens, he had learned that freshly issued uniforms tended to remain as stiff and uncomfortable as they were when they were given out, unless you wore them enough to work the stiffness out of them. It was one of the little things that made wearing uniforms bearable, and something that he usually taught to younger cadets. Entering the locker room and heading for the O-P section, Eric allowed his mind to drift once more to the game session tonight.

The game, Legends of Serandell, was a full immersion swords and sorcery game set in a world loosely based on the venerable Dungeons and Dragons table top game that was still popular, despite its antiquity. He had played some of LOS when it first came out, but the game had been a little limited at the time. However, the game was constantly being updated, and he had recently come back to it. It hadn’t been much of a surprise that Cayler and Matt played as well, and since they were already closer friends of his than most of those he had considered friends in the past, the release of a new content patch had been a perfect excuse to start playing together. Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, he shut his locker and started to head out towards math class, then stopped.

At the end of the row of lockers was standing a very young otter dressed in street clothes, clearly a First-T cadet, looking at someone standing out of his line of sight. That wasn’t too strange, since the last class of the day was in the lockers at about this time, changing into their uniforms for class. But what caught his attention was the posture of the nonhuman. He was standing straight, almost too straight, as if trying to resist the urge to cringe, his small ears twitching, the distinctive thick tail of his kind curled around his ankles. His face held a look of uncertainty, and Eric felt sure that if he were human, he would be paling. After a few moments, the otter gave a very small nod and turned down the row of lockers, his head down, almost scurrying to a locker near Eric’s. Obviously, the kid was bothered about something; he would almost have said that he was scared.

“Hey.” Eric began and the otter’s head snapped up to look at him, a look of fear that was very quickly stifled in his eyes. “You ok?”

“I’m...” The nonhuman cadet said, faltering as his eyes flicked between the name tape on Eric’s uniform jacket, and the rank insignia he wore on his collar. “I’m fine sir.”

“Relax cadet, I’m not a sir.” He said, smiling in what he hoped was an encouraging manner. The cadet managed a tentative smile in return, taking his uniform out of the locker marked ‘Olson, N.’ “You don’t look ‘fine’.”

“Its nothing, Master Warden.” The otter replied, remembering the correct decorum this time. “I’ll be alright.”

“Listen Olson,” Eric pressed, “If there is something you need help with, tell me. Its part of why I am here.”

“Thank you.” The cadet replied, slipping his shirt off and hanging it in the locker, as if trying not to look in his direction. “But it really is nothing.”

“Alright, if you are sure.” Eric stated, walking past the cadet as he reached back with webbed paws to unbutton the catch around his tail so he could take off his shorts. He couldn’t force the kid to talk to him, but at least he had made the offer. As he was walking out of the lockers, he gave a reluctant nod to Jace on his way past the row marked K-L, the other human cadet giving him a broad grin, but the look in his eyes wasn’t quite friendly. It was more...triumphant? Self-satisfied, certainly. As he stepped out the front door of the Warden building, he pondered the cold, uncomfortable sensation that that look gave him.

Jace was usually self satisfied, which was one of the reasons he was so insufferable to be around. But, a few steps later, he slowed down to a stop and looked back at the building, something occurring to him. He knew Jace’s attitudes towards nonhumans, and he knew how bitter he was to be passed over for promotion again. Could he have been the reason that the young otter was disturbed? Could Jace have threatened the other cadet? He knew Jace was ham-handed and arrogant, but that was a whole other level. Shaking his head, Eric turned back towards the math building and started off again. Jace might not have been a good leader, but there was no way he would go that far. It had to have been something else. It might even have been an inter-species thing. As long as nonhumans had been around, there were still instinctive problems between certain species that people just had to get over. Regardless, if Olson didn’t want to talk about it, he couldn’t do anything about it. Still, he was going to keep an eye out, just in case...

***

Eric sat at his desk in his room once more, killing time on his tablet before the game would start. He actually felt pretty good tonight, considering. He had made it through calculus without falling asleep, and when he had gotten home, his busy brain had finally relented and he had been able to grab a whole four hours of sleep before dinner. And now, he had a chance to play with his friends at last. With any other kind of game, he could have logged in and played with the settings, or done character creation, or even done a practice game to get back into the groove, but the nature of full immersion gaming meant he couldn’t take the time to do that. Since full immersion tech temporarily redirected sensory inputs to the brain to make you actually feel what you were doing in the game, the system had a built-in limiter to the amount of time you could spend uplinked to prevent damage. For recreational use, the limits were set at four hours, and he didn’t want to waste any of it. Instead, he was looking through the news feeds for more information on the explosion in Eden’s Reach. After a moment, he was surprised to find a press conference link pop up in the feed and he tapped it, curious. After a brief hesitation, the video of Josh standing at a lectern popped up and he watched with interest.

“The EIR civil engineering team has finished its initial investigation into the explosion, and, though unusual, it appears that this incident was indeed an unfortunate, freak accident.” Josh was saying, and Eric cocked his head, intrigued. “As everyone is aware, the city of Eden’s Reach is built on the site of an old city that was destroyed during the Ultra Crisis. While the majority of the above ground city has been rebuilt, our engineers have discovered that at least some of the antecedent infrastructure is still in place underground. While most of that infrastructure is benign and has no impact on the modern city, it appears that a natural gas line under the three buildings that were damaged corroded to the point where the stored gas could escape. Cracks in the foundation of all three buildings allowed the escaping gas to build up to the point where it could become explosive.” Josh paused at that point, gesturing to a three dimensional graphic behind him displaying the utility line in question beneath the buildings that had been damaged, alongside a live feed of engineers examining the corroded pipeline. “Fortunately, the buildings were lightly inhabited at the time of the explosion, with the gene clinic having been closed for the day, and the other two businesses being lightly staffed. We believe that this is an isolated incident, but to insure that there is no further risk to the public, our engineering teams are conducting a full sweep for more of these unexpected dangers using records of the old utility lines to guide our search. In the meantime, the final count of the injured is thirty four, all of whom are in stable condition at area hospitals.”

The briefing paused for a moment as a recap of the events of the day popped up on the screen and Eric checked the time, tapping the close command with a shrug. Sometimes, freak accidents did happen. Most of the modern cities, with the exception of the capitol, where he lived, were built, or maybe rebuilt was a better term, on the locations where previous cities had existed, and the chaos of that time had made it impossible to be sure of everything that lay beneath them. The wardens’ engineering corps seemed to spend half of its time dealing with issues resulting from the old cities decaying. Getting up from the desk, Eric pushed the button on the storage case on the corner and plucked the flexible immersion collar from the nanite filled gel pillow that maintained it, heading for his bed. Technically speaking, you could use an immersion rig anywhere, even standing up, but it was far less stressful on your body to use it while lying down since there was less for it to redirect. Businesses that used full immersion tech actually had specialized pods to make their occupants perfectly comfortable while using it, which allowed for longer safe uplink time, but that sort of set up wasn’t practical for home use.

Settling the collar carefully around his neck, Eric lay back on his bed, taking a deep breath. No matter how many times he used this thing, the startup was never exactly comfortable. Reaching up with his right hand, he caught the activation switch between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed, counting to three before letting go. Quickly settling into a comfortable position with his arms at his side while the device hummed softly, growing warm, he finally closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he felt the familiar pinch at the base of his skull, followed by the almost electric snap, like a static shock, but somehow inside his skull.

Wincing, he tried not to focus on the disconnected, floating sensation that replaced his sense of his limbs. This part always made him feel queasy. Technically speaking, since the collar was intercepting his nervous system’s signals, he couldn’t actually feel nauseous, but that didn’t make the sensation any more pleasant. At the moment, he felt almost like he was just a brain, floating in empty space, and how one was supposed to feel like that, and not feel sick was beyond him. Then, he could feel his body again. Or at least, feel something like it. It sort of felt like a similar sensation to when your foot fell asleep, but all over. Then, the darkness of the inside of his eyelids brightened, words appearing floating before him in the formless white.

Welcome Eric. Run calibration?

Giving a barely felt nod, he watched as a status bar appeared in his vision, the numb sensation getting less and less noticeable as the bar filled from left to right. When the bar was at about thirty percent, it paused, hand prints appearing in the air before him. Raising his hands from his side and lifting them to press against the floating prints like they were glass, he took the opportunity to inspect them for imperfections. As usual, there were none, his hands appearing the same way they usually did. Looking down his body, he made the usual check while the uplink was booting fully. He was standing on nothing, in the middle of an endless, soft white space, his body dressed in simple clothing that felt like plain cotton. And then, he felt the familiar pins and needles sensation all over that made goosebumps rise all over him, followed by a warm flash, then a cold chill, then back to nothing while the system measured his nervous response. Finally shiny black words appeared before him once more.

Calibration complete. Go to lobby?

“Yes.” He said, his voice echoing in the empty space. Then, with the usual disorienting suddenness, he was standing in what seemed to be a hotel lobby, complete with receptionist desk, all furnished in cheery colors, though the ‘person’ seated behind the desk was transparent, like a hologram, and currently dressed in a costume like a roman legionnaire. Every time he logged in, the help assistant was dressed in a random costume, which certainly kept things interesting. Walking up to the desk, he reached out for the mailbox hovering over the right side. The usual newsletters and event invites were there in the form of physical letters, most of which he tossed back into the mailbox for later, looking for one in particular. And there, as he had hoped, was one with Cayler’s grinning, tiger-striped face on the cover. Opening the envelope, he slid the note out, the page suddenly floating out of his hands to form a box with two hovering buttons under ‘ Allow link? ’ Pressing ‘Yes’ made a door suddenly appear in the wall next to the desk and he walked over to it, the door sliding to the side before him. Hesitating for a moment on the threshold, he stepped into the apparent white void inside...and into another hotel lobby.

This one was subtly different, a plant in a different place here, a different pattern in the carpet there, but the basic shape was the same. However, the biggest difference was the presence of two familiar people leaning casually against the desk. Seeing him come in, Cayler grinned and waved at him.

“Hey Eric, right on time.” The tiger said, motioning him over. He was clad in a similar white set of clothes, but his shirt was sleeveless, showing off the intricate stripes of his upper arms. “Raina should be here soon.”

“Hey guys.” Eric replied, waving to the tan fox beside Cayler. “How was your first friday?”

“Great actually,” Matt replied, giving a very smug vulpine grin. “No homework this weekend.”

“What?!” Eric asked, shocked. He had homework from calculus, chemistry, and history, not to mention his assignment for the Warden cadets. “How did you pull that off?”

“Luck, I guess.” Matt replied, his grin broadening. “I don’t expect that to last of course, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.” They were interrupted a moment later by the appearance of another door in the wall, this time with a pretty gene-modded female snow leopard coming through it.

“Hey guys, sorry I am late.” Raina said, her violet eyes twinkling as she smiled in greeting. Her clothes were also white, the color almost blending seamlessly with her light colored fur, though they were cut almost in an Asian style, like a hung-fu uniform, more than normal clothing. “My mom wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Hey Raina.” Eric greeted, waving to her as the door she had come through vanished behind her. “Is your friend coming?”

“He is going to meet us in the game.” The leopard girl replied, looking up at the hovering clock above the desk. “Speaking of which, we should get going. We are burning uplink time and I have a hankering for medieval fun.”

“Right.” Cayler said, motioning them to follow. “This way guys.” Leading the way down the corridor that in a hotel would lead to the rooms on the first floor, the tiger continued. “So I did finally get a chance to look through the new patch. I think we are going to have a ton of fun with the new content. I was getting tired of sewer dungeons and catacombs.” While they walked, Eric looked around, smiling at the number of doors they passed, each one marked with the name of a different game. Most of these games were ones that he had too.

“You’re telling me. I thought I would never stop smelling rotting underground after that last quest line.” Raina agreed. “Wildlands looks like it should be way more fun.”

“Here we are,” The tiger stated, coming to a stop at the door bearing the words ‘Legends of Serandell’. Pushing open the door, the tiger led the way in and this time, the white void lingered for a few seconds, as it always did while linking into a game. After a few more moments, the white void was replaced with what looked like the audience hall of a castle, complete with torches and throne, though no one was ever sitting it in. Knowing the drill, Eric waited for a minute or so while Cayler manipulated settings in the air before him that the others couldn’t see, then the doors at the end of the hall opened and Raina led the way through them.

The second Eric stepped through the door, he found himself standing before a row of cubbyholes, each with its own scroll inside it. Each scroll had a tag hanging down from it and Eric browsed along the rows until he found the scrolls he was looking for. At first, he reached for the classic Cleric scroll, having played such a character before, but he hesitated, eyeing a scroll at the end of the row marked with the symbol of a large tree, which marked it as a new wildlands class. Reaching out, he read the tag with interest. ‘Wildshaper’ it said. Shrugging, he plucked the scroll off the shelf and unrolled its crisp parchment, getting a brief visceral feeling of pleasure from the scent and feel of the material under his fingers. The class description stated that Wildshaper was a new hybrid class utilizing shamanistic nature magic to heal and affect the world around them. High level powers included shapeshifting and elemental control. Shrugging, he decided it was worth a shot and stepped back from the shelves with the scroll in hand.

Suddenly, the shelves were gone and so were his nondescript white clothes. A mirror stood in front of him instead and he took in his appearance. He was wearing leather trousers and a hide vest open in the front, revealing well tanned skin tattooed in tribal designs. His hair was long and he could feel it trailing over his neck and shoulders, despite it being tied back with leather thongs. Turning around to get a full look at himself, he nodded, stepping forward through the mirror to find himself in what looked like an armory. Now, he could see the others. Matt was dressed in scale mail, and a full cloak bearing the sigil of Lysander, one of the nation states of the game. When Eric appeared, the swift fox was comparing two shields, one round and one kite shaped. Beside him, Cayler, now dressed in the flowing blue robes of a wizard, was filling pouches and pockets with spell components and focusing objects. Riana still wasn’t there yet, but she would be soon, and Eric found a rack on the wall beside him with various weapons and tools in a barbaric motif. Browsing the options, he selected an obsidian knife, a war club and a short bow with a quiver of arrows. He had already slung a hide backpack with various totems and spell components on his back and was considering whether to take a staff in addition to his other weapons when Raina appeared.

To say that her in-game appearance was distracting was to damn with faint praise. The blue spotted snow leopardess had already been very pretty, but now... At first, Eric couldn’t imagine what class she had picked. She was dressed in tight leather leggings beneath a fur lined leather skirt and a bra made of similar material and that was about it, unless you counted the leather headband that tied back her long locks of white hair and the short, furred cloak around her neck. Her physique was no longer the characteristic thin, lithe frame of a modern female feline, but was muscular and obviously toned instead. It wasn’t until her violet eyed gaze met his own that he realized he was staring and the bottom seemed to drop out of his guts.

Blushing so hard he felt like he might catch on fire, Eric coughed to cover his embarrassment and looked away, putting the staff he had been holding back and picking up a spear instead. Taking some practice jabs with it, he surreptitiously glanced back at the leopard girl to find her slipping a longbow and quiver across her back, followed by a brutal looking weapon sort of halfway between a sword and a club, like a wedge of barely sharpened metal that looked like it was more likely to batter than to cut. A few moments later, she tucked a knife not unlike his own into her belt, and cocked her hips noticeably, as if admiring the effect in the mirrored surface of a shield in the rack next to her, making the cloak sweep fetchingly back over her shoulders, showing off the delightfully supple curves of her hips and bare midriff.

For a moment, his blush got even hotter, though he had absolutely no desire to look away, berating himself for his weakness, then he saw the teasing smirk on her muzzle in her reflection and his mouth dropped open, suddenly understanding. She was doing that on purpose. A moment later, Raina started laughing, turning around to face him with a broad grin on her face, almost doubling over in mirth.

“Sorry Eric.” She said as he glared at her. “I couldn’t resist. The description for the ‘Huntress’ class actually warned about how revealing the clothes are. Personally, I kinda like it.”

“I uh...” Eric stammered, then saw Cayler and Matt grinning at him from where they were standing and he rolled his eyes. “I like it too. You look very pretty like that.”

“Thanks.” She replied, hefting a pack of supplies onto her back as well and coming over to where he was standing. Pitching her voice low, she continued. “Its actually rather nice to have somebody in the party that appreciates the effort. Normally, its not worth bothering with, with those two around.”

“I’ll try not to stare, I promise.” Eric said, feeling his embarrassment ease some at how comfortable she seemed with her skimpy dress. “And I do mean it. It suits you.”

“You don’t look half bad yourself, dressed like that.” She said, giving him an appraising look up and down while he stepped away from the weapon racks, deciding to keep the spear after all. “I really like the tattoos.”

“You two barbarians done flirting yet, or are we going to spend all night in here?” Matt called teasingly, and the leather clad pair glared at him in reply, Raina sticking her tongue out at him. Knowing the fox knight had a point, Eric motioned for Raina to go first and followed after her, the others joining them on their way out of the double doors at the end of the room. When the quartet had stepped through them, the fine, clean scents of the outdoors greeted them and Eric found himself in the familiar square of the starting town for the game, dozens of other players milling around in groups, all clearly looking for the rest of their parties. Raina raised a gloved hand to her eyes and looked around, then pointed towards the wall of an inn that housed the basic quest givers.

“There he is!” She said, indicating a tall figure dressed in a hooded cloak styled like desert wear, concealing the entire body, leaning against the wall. Leading the way over, she waved and the figure lifted his head, sweeping the hood back to reveal his features and Eric felt a flash of surprise. The fifth member of their party was a raptor, the crest of deep blue pseudo-feathers on his head and the back of his neck a dead giveaway. The reptilian species, who always preferred hot climates, were rare in the capital and raptors were even more so. The raptors were almost always desert dwellers, and Eric had never encountered one before, so he was interested to meet one. This one’s scales were crimson with black stripes, a color scheme that, paired with the royal blue crest, was as eye catching as Raina’s fur pattern, but his stripes were not styled that he could see, meaning that they were probably natural. His eyes were the most unusual shade of golden-green though, which was probably a gene-mod though. “Guys, this is Shane. Shane, this is Cayler, Matt and Eric.”

“Nice to finally meet you both. Raina has told me about you.” Shane said, shaking hands with the two furry males, his voice indicating that he was no older than they were. When he turned to Eric, he gave him an appraising look, his voice taking on a slightly challenging tone. “Raina didn’t tell me you were a human, though.”

“Well, she didn’t tell me you were a lizard, so I guess we are even.” Eric replied before he could stop himself, bristling slightly at his tone. For a moment, Eric thought he had gone too far, then the raptor chuckled, a broad grin crossing his face. The theropod offered his hand to Eric a moment later and Eric took it to shake.

“Oh, I think we are gonna get along just fine.” Shane stated, clapping Eric on the shoulder, careful to keep his claws from catching his bare skin. “Lets get rolling then.” Nodding assent, the group turned towards the new road leading out of town, out towards the open plains. While they walked, Eric took stock of the newcomer. From what he was wearing, he was playing as an assassin, which was a tough class to play well, but from the comfortable way he walked beneath the cloak, he probably knew what he was doing. Shrugging, Eric let the full tide of the world around him to flood into him. By the time they were at the edge of town, about to step into the new areas of the game, he wasn’t Eric, the human teenager playing a game. He was a barbarian wildshaper, about to start a new adventure.