"You Randy?"

The half-orc glared at me.  He stood a good couple of heads taller.  Orcs in Pleiadia looked more like a World of Warcraft kind of orc than the Tolkien movie kind, what with green skin, pointed ears and tusks coming out of their lower jaws.  Half-orc characteristics were a bit muted from this, looking more like huge, well-built humans.  Imagine the biggest, beefiest bouncer you've ever seen and that would be the wimpiest half-orc.  These gals and guys were more like the comic book superheroes of a dentist's wildest dreams. 

"Name?"

I took a step back.  His voice made my rib cage rumble.  Must've been a hit with the ladies.  "Uh...Akaun."  

Randy sighed, unfolded his massive arms and made a gesture with his hand.  A video window sprang up in front of him.  He scrolled down it, looking half bored, half annoyed.

I ignored the anachronism of technology and tried to peer through the canvas flaps instead.  At first, they looked to be the only exit from the bazaar grounds.  But upon closer examination, I realized that there were multiple doors, which blended in with the wooden palisades surrounding the bazaar grounds.  I took a step closer to the flaps, but Randy paused to glare at me again.  I took a step back and ducked my head while he resumed his scrolling.

I looked instead back at the bazaar.  New players were haggling over their stats, throwing coins onto mats and gems into cups.  A woman in silk robes with a basket balanced on her head was followed by three boys carrying smaller baskets on their heads.  Conversations wove with the music of flutes, small brass horns, and exotic stringed instruments. 

"Not here," rumbled Randy.

"What do you mean, 'not here'?"  I put my hands on my hips.  "I just finished padding my stats, Dude."

A quiver of his upper lip told me I shouldn't call him 'Dude' again.  I was beginning to get the hint that wasn't a well-liked term around here.

"Who did you buy from?"

"Drokli, the Tiefling.  Why?"

Randy rolled his eyes.  "Demonkin," he snorted.

"Not a fan, eh?"

He shook his head and opened a pouch on his belt.  He rifled through it.

"He didn't swindle me, did he?"

"Not likely.  But he's not above pulling pranks."  The half-orc pulled out a very polished orb that looked like it was made out of tigereye gemstone.  "Drok, get to the gate.  Got a discrepancy with one of yours."

"We are being with some elf fancy magic guy," came a reply.  I smiled to myself.  It was the Fanstasy RPG version of a walkie-talkie.  "We can be waiting few minutes, yes?" 

Randy groaned and put the orb back into his pouch.  He folded his arms in the typical bouncer frog-off (dammit) stance.

"So...you picked half-orc, eh?"

Randy kept his eyes on the bazaar.  "Around here, we're called Orckind.  We try to take a step away from Humans being the center of the RPG.  No offense.  Dude."  I swore, I saw the corner of his mouth twitch upwards at that, although I couldn't be completely sure since—you know—tusks. 

"Well, it suits you.  But I'd think you'd be out there adventuring rather than beta-testing."

He looked at me.  "Who told you that?"

I shrugged.  "'Randy' just seems so..."  I waved my arms in search of a good word that wouldn't mean those arms would get ripped from their sockets.  But I wanted to be earnest with him, too.  "...Earth.  You know?  A generated program would probably have more of an in-world kind of sound to it.  No offense."

This time, he did smile.  "Yeah.  Was never good at making up names.  I just wanted to play.  So I used my real name.  I answered to it before.  I figured I'd answer to it the same here.  And being huge, I didn't think I'd get any flak for it."

I nodded.  "I completely understand.  I've been there."

"Beta testing is what I did in college to make some extra cash.  I was good enough at it, too."

No sooner did Randy start to relax, though, that he stiffened up and stood a bit taller.  I followed his gaze over my head and saw another player coming our way.  He was a taller, muscular guy as well—a Human, already sporting a metal chestplate and some fine looking clothing.  I recognized the getup as one of those exclusive start-up packages EAO sold for some pretty serious dough.  His gait was deliberate, determined, and swift.

"Marcus Anniduius Coliso.  Let me through, half-orc.  I've got a world to conquer."  The guy held up a fairly large golden medallion hanging around his neck, like it was a VIP pass.  Actually, I guess it kind of was a VIP pass.  Randy stood at attention and grabbed an iron door handle.  He yanked it open and saluted.  

The VIP strode past, not even acknowledging that I was even there.  He went through the door.  I peered after him, but all I saw way a dark hallway ending in an outline of light indicating a door at the far end.  

"No name check for Sir Bling-Bling?" I smirked.

Randy eyed me.  "I hate doing that."  He grimaced and shut the door.  "You can't fake that medallion.  Either that guy was one of the key investors, or he knew one pretty intimately.  You'd best steer clear of people in the game like that.  I'd bet my pretty orc ass he's playing to win, and I don't mean points."  He pulled up the video screen to hover in front of him again.  It glowed as he flicked his finger over a square.  He snorted.  "One of the heirs to the Bortareian Empire.  Only Golecia has a bigger population, and they've got their hands full with the Elves.  That guy chose conquest, and that gets complicated.  Fast."

I waved my hand dismissively.  "Meh.  I doubt I'll ever see him again.  It's a big world and a million players, plus all the NPCs, right?"

Randy shrugged and skimmed through his screen.  "Wait, do you spell the start of your name 'U-h-a-k-' or 'A-h-a-k-'?"

I blinked for a while, and then I slapped my forehead.  "It's just 'Akaun'.  Not Uh-Akaun."

Randy looked back at me and we both laughed.  With a flick of his finger, I could see a row light up.  "Here you are.  Akaun."  He chuckled again a few times and scanned the screen.  "See you bought the expanded edition.  Smart.  Means you'll get a couple of items on spawning."  He nodded.  "Hey, you got a star by your name."

"What does that mean?"

"Mr. Alger has you marked for something."

"He's mentioned a few times about that.  What's he marked me for?"

The Orckind shrugged.  "I don't know.  But he's already got his own religion as Azil.  It's still a small offshoot of the Dwarf folk beliefs, but he's already got sixty-six thousand followers.  That's some good power right there."

"Oh, that Faith attribute thing."

Randy stood up a little straighter.  "I've said too much already.  Look, you're a descent guy.  I wish you luck.  Says here you're going to start out in a village just under two thousand named 'Drynramath'.  It's not far from a major copper-mining city-state, Zinarg.  There's a lot going on in the region.  You won't be bored."

I nodded and smiled.  "Sounds good to me.  Through that door?"  I gestured at the heavy wooden door that Marcus, the VIP, went through.

Randy smiled and shook his head.  He walked over to the tent flap and pulled it open.  He gestured for me to go through.

"You'd be a great guy to have on my side...or, me on your side."  I shook my head.  "Either way, someone I'd rather meet in a bar than a dark alleyway.  Is there, like, some kind of 'friend request' thing I can send you?  You know, maybe meet up somewhere, sometime?"

He chuckled.  "I'm honored, but I have to follow the rules.  I've got another avatar for gaming.  Special perks of being a tester.  And he's a few thousand miles from your starting village."

I took a step towards the tend flap, but turned before I went through.  "So...since I don't have a player's manual thing, is there any advice I can get from you?"  I raised my palm up at him like I was taking an oath of office.  "Not asking for cheats or spoilers or nothing."

Randy took a deep breath, then looked briefly towards the bazaar.  He looked back and leaned a little closer.  "It's 'M for Mature' once you pass through.  There are moderators, and I think they all have sticks up their butts.  Gods are more important than you think in this game.  And whatever you do, don't die."

I scratched the back of my neck.  "Yeah, re-spawning sucks.  You always lose the coolest stuff.  Probably knocks down some skills or attributes too."

Then Randy did something that scared me more than anything else he did up until then, and that included the rather bladder-lurching glares he'd initially given me.  "No.  Don't die.  Because what happens after that?  Even I don't know, and I'm a beta tester."

I stepped through the tent flap that Randy the Orckind had opened for me. Immediately, every sense of my body assailed me with the contrast.  The dusty arid heat of the bazaar turned into the piercing brilliance of a crisp, snowy taiga.  The scent of the desert was replaced with the pungency of pines and firs.  Instead of the smoke from the burning of spicy incense, there was now the smoke of conifers used as fuel for a dozen nearby cooking fires.  Music from reeded instruments turned into the shush of wind through their boughs.  A low sun shot its light through the cloudless sky to shatter against untouched snow.  The sweat that had lined my brow now stung with the bite of frost. 

The shock made me stop short.  I quickly turned back to the tent flap and brushed it aside.  "Holy shit, Randy.  It's cold as a hobgoblin's ass out there.  Got anything like a jacket or blanket so...I can...uh..."

I was looking into an empty circular room.  Randy and the bazaar were nowhere to be seen.  I also realized that the language filters had lifted, and I felt my cheeks flush a bit.  I touched a few fingers to my lips while my eyes adjusted to the interior light.  Soon, they had adjusted enough to look around.

The roof of the structure was conical.  The walls were a wooden mesh woven in a kind of pattern that reminded me of a chain-link fence.  Stretched over that was a thick woolen tarp.  I had seen one of these things before.  Not exactly a tent.  I snapped my fingers.  "Yurt," I said to nobody, but I still smirked at my own perceived brilliance. 

It was a modest dwelling.  Very modest.  And small.  There were a few sleeping blankets and a central fire pit, which looked like it had been cold for a while.  Various items were hung from the roof supports and along the walls, mostly pelts.  I saw a wooden slab that looked to be some kind of preparation surface.  And over to one side was a rather crude chest with leather hinges. 

I blinked a few times when I looked at it because there was a glowing arrow hovering over it, rotating and bobbing up and down.  "Must be some kind of a game tutorial," I said aloud to no one in particular.  I don't know why I said it out loud except that maybe I'd seen a lot of live-streaming play-throughs.  So it felt kind of natural making a running commentary despite not really having an audience.  I took a step closer to the chest and realized that the arrow had my name on it.  Well, at least I wouldn't be stealing somebody's stuff.

When I reached for the lid, the arrow burst into a virtual shower of sparks, accompanied by a kind of popping noise and a flourish of musical notes.  I had to chuckle at it.  A message replaced it, also floating in midair.  And then the voice of someone familiar accompanied it, reading the note's words aloud.

Yes, he actually wrote and narrated his own emotes in his message.  I still had more questions than answers with Mr. Alger.  Him telling me that "Everything is fine" gave me the opposite of assurance.  Plus, the questions I'd been repressing were still nagging at the back of my skull.  Eventually, they would burst out on their own and no amount of gameplay would be able to keep them down forever.

I took one more step forward, and the floating message zoomed at my face, but dissolving as it did so.  I flinched and blinked out of reflex, but when I opened my eyes, all I saw was the chest.

I knelt at the chest and was actually able to open the lid without further distraction.  I took the opportunity to concentrate.  I envisioned the capitol letter "I" in my mind's eye.  For good measure, I even visualized my finger pressing it on some mental keyboard. I then felt something almost like a kind of pop.  Something like a transparent box appeared in the lower right hand corner of my vision.  The font was pretty small.  I could still make out the words, but wished the letters were larger.  And then, I found the letters getting bigger.  There was this kind of ebb and flow about it—enough that I wasn't afraid that random thoughts would suddenly do things I didn't want, but easy enough that I didn't have to strain my neck veins to work the commands.

I looked at the list.  There were my basic clothing items, but not much else.  I looked back into the chest.  On top was another bundle of clothing, this one much furrier.  I lifted out the bundle and examined it.  Warm clothing.  The inner lining was treated animal skin, soft and supple to the touch.  The outer layer was a layer of thick, soft fur.  I put on the clothing and could immediately feel the warmth accumulate.  Meanwhile, my inventory was still up, so I examined it.  The items that I'd just taken each appeared in my inventory list as I put them on: a pair of fur trousers, a fur tunic, a fur cloak, and some fur-lined boots. 

I looked at the item in the list called the fur cloak and sort of pushed on it.  It highlighted, and then a little pop-up appeared in my vision. 

Yeah, it wasn't terribly descriptive, especially in the "variety of animals" department.  Rats are animals, I cringed a little at the thought.  And then I also found myself hoping that there was no virtual wing of PETA lurking about in-game either.  I mean, were 1's and 0's still murder, or was it a concept thing?  I shook the reality away from my head and let it sink back into the blissful, compartmentalized ignorance.  I also cringed a little that the weight was metric, so I attempted a little conversion in my mind.  A kilo was a tad over 2.2 pounds, so maybe six and a half pounds of fur cloak meant it would be a very warm garment indeed.

After I slipped on the heavy, warm clothing, I looked at what else might be in the chest.  To my delight, there were more goodies.  There was a small sheath with a modest utility hunting knife in it, a waterskin, and a leather belt with and a leather pouch attached to it.  Sadly the pouch was empty.  I giggled in delight when I saw what was at the bottom.  There was a rather handsome looking scabbard and an unstrung bow. 

I carefully lifted the bow out first.  It looked almost brand new.  There was a quiver, too, holding about a dozen or so hunting arrows.  A little pocket stitched to the side proved to have a couple of bowstrings.  And then, my eyes returned to the dark scabbard—more importantly, to what was inside the scabbard.  I may have dabbled the corner of my mouth because of the slight drooling. 

Just lifting it out of the chest, it felt like history and significance imbued it with its weight.  It was a thing of beauty.  I held it horizontally in front of me for a while, and then realized that I could examine its information entry.  So I made the mental push.

Also anticlimactic.  I sighed and dismissed the transparent notification.  Clearly the entry didn't capture the awesomeness and history of this object.  I needed to find that Halfling guy.  What was his name?  Toby or something?  I strapped the scabbard on.  Then I realized I had put it on backwards and then strapped it on again.  Maybe it was right. 

I attached everything that I could to my person and rolled the rest of my clothing up into a bundle around the bow.  I took the leather belt and used it as an over-the-shoulder strap instead.  There was no real need to hold my pants up as they did a rather nice job of doing that on their own accord.  I attached the bundle to that, then looked around.  Seeing no more bouncy red arrows with my name on it, I decided to walk around this town that was apparently my home.

I stepped outside of the yurt's front door again, this time decked out in the furry warm clothing that I had been gifted.  I inhaled the crisp air and felt the sting as it iced my lungs.  A quick reactive cough issued forth my steamy breath.  While my eyes watered, it didn't erase the smile I had.  It was so wonderfully real.

I looked down the hill into the town.  A gate in the wooden palisade was about an American football field away and I guessed maybe fifty feet lower.  From the sun's position, I figured I was looking south.  A vigorous river made a curve around the town's southern edge while a small stone castle overlooked farms to the southwest.

I mentally nudged my head's up display again and found the message Mr. Alger left.  "...seek out The Thirsty Woodcutter Tavern" was one task.  I started walking towards the town with the transparent display still up.  It was an elegant design, easy to see through with a very thin font so that it didn't obstruct much vision. 

I noticed a little pale yellow dot in one corner.  I looked at it more closely.  "Tasks and Quests" it said.  Sure enough, there were a number of items listed.  Nested under the task of finding the tavern was another to ask for the owner.  There were two other tasks as well: opening up my stats and activating the map.  There was nothing yet under "Quests" so I decided I would bring up whatever map function the game had.  I was a sucker for maps.  While most of my peers in high school had posters of half-naked swimsuit models hanging in their bedrooms, my walls were covered with maps.  It was enough to make my conservative mother question me one day about my sexual preferences.  I kid you not.

I rolled my eyes at the memory and immediately regretted it.  A little advice—rolling your eyes in virtual reality while you are walking and accidentally activating a map brings on tremendous vertigo.  Fortunately, there was a rather kind pile of snow by the semi-muddy path to catch my fall, thank you very much. 

Unlike the HUD, the map was mostly opaque, kind of like holding a real parchment in front of my face with a real map on it.  But it didn't yield much information at all.  It was just a black dot surrounded by a little fuzzy patch of dark green.  The word "Drynramath" hovered nearby in a script befitting the fantasy RPG genre.

"You know, most people wait until after they've been drinking in the tavern for a while, Akaun."

I blinked the map away along with my little "To Do" list to see a large, older man walking along the path and hefting a sheathed axe on his shoulder.  Again, the HUD came to my aid as a green world with a faint leader pointed to the man.  "Matau".  That must have been his name.  I didn't know if I was supposed to know it, but the familiar way he was considering me made me think that I was supposed to know him.  So, I played along.

"Oh, hello, Matau.  Um...just getting in some practice beforehand, right?"

He laughed, which I took to be a good sign.  "Don't worry.  Your secret is safe with me.  Nuna hates it when I go playing in the snow banks too, so it'll be a secret between us, eh?"

I smiled and waved, then tried to pull myself out of the snow. 

Matau continued walking past me and towards the town.  He just laughed and shook his head, apparently deciding that if I was clumsy enough to slip in the snow, I was capable of getting myself out of my own pile.  He looked over his shoulder.  "Just don't keep nimosôm waiting too long.  It's been ages."  He waved once more.  "I'll see you there, Akaun."

I paused in my struggle.  That was odd.  "nimosôm"—Grandfather—was a word from a different life.  I shrugged and pulled myself out, dusting the frozen powder from my new furry clothes.  I inspected them and marveled again, not only in how well they were keeping me warm but how authentic the sensations were.

Matau had already slipped past the singular guard at the palisade gate.  I sauntered up and pulled my HUD into action.  Curiously, this guy didn't have a name hovering over him like Matau did.  It just said "City Guard 4" in a kind of drab grayish green.  He just nodded me on, looking somewhere between attentive and bored as he leaned on his polearm. 

I maintained a casual gait and looked at the walls as I entered.  They consisted of huge tree trunks so thick, it would take three grown people holding hands to encircle each one.  And these were lined up in double, nestled against one another in an alternating pattern as if some giant had laid them out like two rows of pencils.  Hell, for all I knew, may a giant did arrange them like that.  The wall was maybe fifty or sixty feet tall, and then supported a walkway so a single person could walk the top perimeter.  Every so often, a thicker tower allowed more defensive options, particularly for archers.  As I looked up, I wondered why such a thick wall was needed.

I decided to try the map thing again, but this time I stepped off to the side of the road.  The map appeared again, but now I was able to look at it a little better.  It was still just a small patch of dark green surrounding a black dot.  I willed for a closer look.  The dot expanded as if I were zooming into it.  It wasn't exactly Google Maps, but not far off either.  The dot continued to expand until I found myself looking at a simple cartoonish view of Drynramath. 

There were only four basic sections to this tiny town, including the keep and its courtyard.  I figured I was in the neighborhood called "Northgate".   There wasn't really much detail beyond that.  Nothing on the map told me where The Thirsty Woodcutter tavern was.

I dismissed the map and looked around.  The sun was on the lazy side of the sky, maybe a couple of hours before the foothills to the west would start casting shadows.  I dug into my memory about taverns.  The way I always thought about them, they were kind of like communal living rooms.  Most houses were barely a place to sleep, and most times that included the family cow.  No televisions or private bedrooms, the typical dwelling was little more than a cooking fire and a place everyone slept out of the rain and snow.  Folks would gather in the local tavern many evenings to gossip, drink a little, eat and enjoy entertainment.  But it was too early for that. 

However...  I rubbed my chin thoughtfully.  ...it's the right time to start preparing for the evening crowd.  I looked down the short stretch before it made a sharp left turn and saw it—a wagon loaded with barrels.  A few young boys were wrestling a keg towards a well-built establishment that had a fair amount of steam and smoking coming from a kind of chimney.  I walked towards it.  If it wasn't the tavern I was looking for, at least the lads with the kegs would know where they all were.

As I approached them, I changed my gait into something I felt was rather jaunty.  I thought that I would actually do the "role playing" part in this RPG.  After all, this was a game that was supposed to be entertaining.  Right?

"Good day, my young lads!  Pray tell, where might I find the tavern known as The Thirsty Woodcutter, that I might drink heartily upon its establishment?"  I think I threw in something of an English accent as I spoke—or something I might have seen in a Shakesperean play.  I flashed them a smile.

There were three of them, and they all stopped what they were doing to look at me.  One sneered from atop the wagon.  "Who you callin' 'young' laddie?"  He put his fists on his hips.

And that's when I saw the beards.  They were about as ruddy as their faces, so I guess nobody could blame me for making the mistake of not seeing them from afar.  My gait got less jaunty and certainly less self-assured.  I studied them.  They were the size of young boys, but upon closer inspection definitely had the proportions of older men.  And the beards were not the peach fuzz of teenagers.  In the back of my mind, a little poke reminded me that it was a fantasy RPG.

I held up my hands and shook my head.  "Forgive me, good sirs.  I misspoke.  I've been long about yonder countryside and did not realize that I was addressing Dwarves.  Pray thee forgive mine error of ways."

The three of them gave each other looks.  The sneering guy's eyebrow raised.  He wasn't smiling.  "What's the matter with you?  I think you've been out in the wilderness too long and don't know a Dwarf from a Dverger, let alone how to speak sensible Common anymore.  You been runnin' around with Goblinfolk or somethin'?"

The other two...uh... Dvergers (I guess) chuckled at their comrade's words, but thankfully all three of them looked more like there was a good joke being shared than any actual insult. 

I squinted, feeling a bit confused, but found their laughter infectious.  I nudged my overlay on and saw their green names hovering above each head.  The sneering guy's name, Thatelch, was accompanied by a little subtitle in a smaller font: Dverger.  My eyes hovered over the word and something like a wiki article fragment popped up.

Thatelch smiled and shook his head.  He waved a hand at the tavern.  "You always were a kidder, Akaun.  Go on, now.  You'd better get inside."  He gestured behind me.  "He's waiting for you."

"Who is waiting for me?"  I turned towards the building behind me.  A large sign, the building's shingle, displayed a pair of crossed axes over a frothy mug.  The words beneath confirmed it, this was indeed The Thirsty Woodcutter.  The predominance of the shingle made me wonder for a moment what literacy was like in this world.

If any of the Dverger answered me, I wasn't listening.  I stepped up the three wooden stairs in a semi-mesmerized state, curious but yet I had this feeling I knew who it was that awaited me.  I pushed open the door to the tavern and stepped inside. 

Despite a couple of unshuttered windows, it was dark.  A few oil lamps and candles added their meager light to the large open room.  My eyes were still adjusting from the brilliance of the bright snowy landscape outside, but I could make out the figure behind the bar, wiping it down.  He looked up from his work and slung a towel over his shoulder.  My eyes focused just as he spoke.

"We're not quite open for business yet.  Should be just another hour or so."

His familiar voice and image hit me all at once.  I felt a gasp escape my mouth.

"Grandfather?  You're alive!"