8 8. Welcome to the Metaworld
Piercing screams, music from multiple loudspeakers, blinking lights, limelights, and holograms assaulted Flora's senses.
The welcome square was in chaos. The difference between the monotonous environment of the character creation and the lively plaza couldn't be more pronounced. Flora needed dozens of seconds before she could distinguish the sources, or better the perpetrators, of all that noise.
She stood on a diamond-shaped plaza gaping at the spectacle. Vehicles sped around and over the site. Cars and motorcycles, a chariot towed by flaming flamingos, a rhino with a tent on top, and a tricycle with jet propulsion were racing each other. The trike seemed to be winning.
On the plaza, mimes, fire-breathers, and acrobats competed for the attention of the crowd. Vendors hawked their wares, and announcers attempted to outscream each other.
Flora's vision zeroed in on a hot-dog stall. She was still starving, which puzzled her. 'Should the hunger have gone away when switching to the avatar? Maybe it wasn't a switch but more a merge?'
Those thoughts went away when she reached the stand.
"Hello! I'm new, and I don't know if I have money, but I would love to have something to eat." Flora said, smiling at the vendor.
The sales lady was used to newbies and guided Flora to her inventory, which was empty except for a blow torch, a hair clip, and the fusion box. Only then she remembered she had this function in the CAD-System as well. Although Flora had received VirDias from the Administrator, she couldn't pay with them. The shop only accepted VirDos, which was a different currency.
"That's unusual; normally, everybody gets 100 VirDos as a welcoming gift. I'm sorry, dear, no money, no hot-dog."
'I guess my inventory didn't get changed. I have to ask Robby what else I haven't received.'
Flora sighed and walked to a bench to wait for her son.
It took Flora a while to realize the furiously blinking circle in her lower vision was the notification icon and not caused by an external source.
In the CAD system, she had customized the notifications. Only those with the highest priority were immediately displayed, such as error messages. It seemed her old settings were still active. She hadn't noticed it at the time when the Admin threw blue windows at her, but they had been in the transparency setting she preferred. Who liked a blue wall in front of their face? If she remembered right, setting the transparency to 33% had been one of her first actions in the CAD System.
'Long time no see, button. What's up?'
First notifications for the achievements, which the Administrator had promised her, appeared: Supreme Magic, Frontrunner, Founding Mother of Psychokinesis, Founding Mother of Transformation.
But the icon was still blinking, so there had to be more.
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You gained an Achievement: Body Modification - Bones: Your skeleton was improved.
- + 1 OV to Physical Resistance
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You gained an Achievement: Magical Body Modification - Bones: Your skeleton was improved.
- + 1 OV to Magical Resistance
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You gained a Trait: Thorough digestion: The satiation meter will drop 50% slower.
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You gained an Achievement: Blood Cleaning: Your blood was cleaned.
- + 1 OV to affinity/resistance blood magic
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You gained an Achievement: Body Modification - Eye: Your eye was improved.
- + 1 OV to Physical Perception regarding sight
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You gained an Achievement: Body Modification - Ear: Your ear was improved.
- + 1 OV to Physical Perception regarding hearing
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You gained an Achievement: Body modification - Skin: Your skin was improved.
- + 1 OV to Physical Resistance
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You gained an Achievement: Magical Body Modification - Skin: Your skin was improved.
- + 1 OV to Magical Resistance
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You gained an Achievement: Superb Body: Your body is made exceptionally well.
- the highest talent factor in the training efficiency modifier for all physical stats
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You gained an Achievement: Magical Body: Your body is reinforced by magic.
- unarmed combat attacks count as spiritual attacks
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You gained an Achievement: Born into a new world doesn't mean it should take Nine Months: You spent an ungodly amount of time in character creation.
- Training gains of your avatars are added to your stats
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Flora laughed at the last one. 'Alrighty, what do my attributes look like now?'
Physical Attributes
Power: LV 36; OV 19
Macro-Control: LV 56; OV 24
Micro-Control: LV 49 ; OV 22
Vigor: LV 11; OV 11
Regeneration: LV 78; OV 28
Defense: LV 11; OV 12
Perception: LV 31; OV 18
Magical Attributes
Power: LV 18; OV 13
Macro-Control: LV 21; OV 14
Micro-Control: LV 25; OV 16
Vigor: LV 28; OV 17
Regeneration: LV 28; OV 17
Defense: LV 12; OV 12
Perception: LV 12; OV 10
Pools
Health: 110
Stamina: 470
Mana-Pool: 170
Concentration: 300
'Wow, physical reg exploded to a level value of 78! No wonder with all the avatars jumping.
Both defenses are still low, but I did not lose health often, so no wonder. Physical Power rose slower than the controls, maybe because I did no heavy lifting?
The notification icon was still blinking, so Flora continued viewing the messages.
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You gained the affinity/resistance: Psychokinesis + 27 Levels
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You gained the affinity/resistance: Transformation + 27 Levels
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You gained the affinity/resistance: Blood + 1 Levels
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You gained the Skill: Telekinesis + 52 Levels
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You gained the Skill: Magical Push + 28 Levels
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You gained the Skill: Magical Pull + 27 Levels
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You gained the Skill: Transform Organics + 53 Levels
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You gained the Skill: Transform Inorganics + 13 Levels
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You gained the Ability: Mechanics + 20 Levels
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You gained the Ability: Athletics + 47 Levels
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You gained the Ability: Modelling and Design + 39 Levels
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You gained the Ability: Medical Science + 31 Levels
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You gained the Ability: Negotiation + 2 Levels
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Finally, Flora's HUD was free of icons.
Flora opened a browser window. 'Time to research! What is an affinity/resistance?'
An affinity is an indicator of how much the player is in tune with the magical subject. The OV affects the strength of secondary effects and the minimum damage. The resistance has the same value as the affinity and represents how much the player is protected from this force.
'Got half of it, if someone wants to throw me out of a window using telekinesis, they will have a harder time. Let's ignore the secondary stuff.
What is a skill?'
A skill is an ability that costs mana. Skills are classified by their category (example: magic skills are called spells) or by their type of mana cost (example: whirlwind is a channeled skill).
'So the faster learning achievement I got, counts for all skills? Or are mana skills special skills?'
She skimmed through the information and concluded it counted for all skills.
'What are abilities?'
An ability is a skill that costs no mana.
Flora continued clicking through the linked information, but already she felt more confident.
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"Hey, you look like a classy lady." A green-skinned guy wearing a trenchcoat approached Flora. "C'mere."
"Who, me?" Flora looked around.
"Right."
Flora grinned. She loved classic scams, and this guy's appearance screamed, "Swindler!".
"What do you sell?" she asked curiously.
"Shh!" He checked their surroundings. "There are ways to get something, you know what, into VR. And I know them all."
"I can't conceive what you are telling me. Is this about money?"
"Shh!" He whispered. "Right. You want it?"
"Sure, but I prefer some food at the moment," Flora smirked. "What about that: you'll buy me a hot-dog, and we can talk business afterward."
"With my method, you can buy all the hot-dogs in the world, lady."
They argued back and forth, but Flora insisted she was too hungry to make business decisions. The salesman gave in and bought her falafels at a nearby food stall.
When Flora happily started munching, Robby found her.
"Ma! What are you doing with a sleazy gold seller?" he exclaimed.
"I was hungry. I know, don't take food from strangers. But it was an emergency."
"Hey, bud! I'm doing business with this lady."
Robby pointed his finger at the guy and said: "Ignore player Lefty Salesman4591! Ma, do the same!"
Flora was amused but repeated the sentence dutifully. Lefty vanished!
"Burned toast and stale marmalade! That's amazing! Is he now invisible? What if he robs me of my falafels? He paid for them, you know."
"He isn't able to interact with you in blue zones. Please don't speak with hoodlums anymore! We talked about this when you fell for the Nigerian Prince scam!"
A month ago she gave a Nigerian prince 600 Euros. He desperately needed to fly to Switzerland to access his massive inheritance. Flora rewarded him for using that old fraud in 2051. 'Know your history, and you may surpass it.'
Of course, Robby wasn't a fan of her giving money to swindlers.
Flora nodded like the well-behaved senior citizen she aspired to be, but she made a deal with the trenchcoat guy, and she always upheld her part of them. Therefore she insisted Robby pay him off.
While Robby settled the grifter, she was distracted by his attire.
"Why are you wearing harem pants? Are you role-playing?"
Apart from the pants, he wore only a cape and gold trim. Admittedly, the gold looked cute on his bare brown chest.
"I'm a Monk."
"That explains so much. Like my lack of grandchildren!" She would have guessed eunuch and was quite happy with a monk. At least the profession was reversible!
"So, did you get the imba 400 stats?" Robby changed the subject.
"No, I went for the growth option."
"Nooooo! Ma! How could you?" Robby groaned. "Did you invest your ten free points into physical reg or perception?"
"Yes, into regeneration!" Flora perked up. "So that was a good choice, right?"
"No! Ma! I listed the worst stats!" Robby shook his head, and Flora futilely hoped he had used irony again.
"You could have warned me..."
"Alright, let me warn you about a few things. There are a lot of scammers in Cetviwos. VirDos and Credits are incredibly sought after commodities." Robby started to explain but was interrupted by Flora's laughter.
"Really, weirdos are valuable? I'm going to be rich!" she exclaimed.
"VirDos, Ma! Virtual Dollars!" He sighed. "German ears..."
"Oh, now the comment of the hot-dog vendor makes more sense! So, where do I get those?"
"At the bank. Do you know how to beam?"
"Like 'Beam me up, Scotty'?"
"Yes. It's a fast way of traveling in the Metaworld." Robby made his 'this is serious' face. "It's easy to *bleep* this up. So I will explain it slowly. First, you say a start phrase, then tell the destination, then you finish the command with an end phrase. Like GOTO Central Bank TOGO, then you will be whisked away."
Flora nodded, and Robby wrote down on a paper: "BLEAMTO Central Bank TOBLEAM."
Flora repeated it a few times in her head. 'I got this. BLEAMTO Central Bank TOBLEAM. BLEAMTO Central Bank TOBLEAM. BLEAMTO Central Bank TOBLEAM.'
"I'm going for it now! BLEAMTO Central Bank... " just at this instant, a piano fell from the sky on Robby. "Robby!" The piano vanished, and Flora knew she botched it up, but her mouth finished on auto-pilot: "TOBLEAM."
Robby turned to the hysterically laughing paladin, who activated the visual effect. "Are you proud of what you have done, Hub? I'll quarter you if anything happens to my mother!"
"Relax, Bro! Just a little prank, what's the worst that can happen?" Hub answered.
"And now you jinxed it! Let's go after her!"
