“Did you have a good evening?” Bob’s coworker, Charles asked.

“I did, actually,” Bob smiled. “Just relaxed by myself.” Charles nodded in response and drifted back to his desk. Work had been progressing quickly for Bob, and he was excited to get back into Hero City and learn more about what he’d be doing as a Hero. He had to admit to himself that he was excited to be able to walk again some of the time, adjusting back to his wheelchair the night before had taken a moment.

Bob decided to take advantage of his fairly light workload and do some research into the Hero City game itself. He didn’t want to stick out as a super rookie all the time. He found some very informative articles that helped him to understand the game’s main mechanics. He found that players can progress through the game and level up in numerous ways. The most frequent way people leveled up was through quests, which ranged from simple quests like the one Bob had completed, to a more complex web of missions.

Bob also did research on the results of progression, skills and classes. Bob found that there was an unknown number of abilities, as some were common, some were rarer like his, and some were unique. What class you played was determined heavily by which power you had. In Bob’s case he noted that his Strength power limited him to ‘Tank’ or ‘Fighter’ class. He did find that, while there were ranged skills he could use, the strength ability was best used in close combat.

Skills were learned as rewards for completing quests, or by leveling up. It did seem there may be other ways to learn skills, but Bob was unable to find anything specific. Bob found some other information on ‘augments,’ and ‘perks,’ but the information he found was fairly confusing. He decided that evening he’d try and see if Starshift was available to explain it to him. The idea of hopping back into the game brought a smile to his face. This would be a fun adventure.

---------

Materializing where he had logged off the night before, Titan took in his surroundings, excitement rising. Now that he’d donned his new suit, he really felt less like Bob and more like a hero.

The world felt immensely alive, and he wanted to jump right in. He looked down at his legs and knew this game would be addicting. Tapping his Smart Band he looked for Starshift‘s name. He was Online. Success! Titan, excitedly tapped the ‘Call’ button.

“Hello?” came a hushed whisper on the other side.

“This is Starshift, right?” Titan asked, perplexed.

“Yeah, is this the newbie from yesterday?” Starshift inquired, still hushed.

“Yes,” Titan started, “Is this a bad time?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he stated. “Do you need some help?”

“Yes, actually. I was wondering if we could meet to go over some things.”

“I could do that. Let me finish this mission first.”

“Oh, of course.” Titan felt bad about interrupting him.

“Meet me at the cafe near the park. It’s called ‘POWbucks,’ Starshift stated. Titan could hear a variety of strange noises in the background.

“Sure thing! Thank you.”

“No problem,” Starshift said and the line clicked as it disconnected. Now how would he find this cafe?

----------

“So, I see you successfully registered!” Starshift exclaimed, as he took a sip of coffee. “I like your suit.” It had only taken Titan a few minutes to figure out how to open his map via his Smart Band and find the location of the cafe. It was a quaint little establishment mostly filled by non-player characters, which he’d found out were referred to as NPCs in gaming lingo.

“Uh, yes. I did indeed,” Titan eyed the coffee perplexed. “Thanks, about the suit.”

“You can eat and drink here,” Starshift advised noticing his expression. “If you’re using the new full immersion tech, the signals sent to your brain can emulate food and drink consumption.” He continued, “Though it won’t affect your body in real life.”

“Oh, I see. That’s impressive.” At this moment Titan really considered how much his son had spent on the equipment he’d gotten him. He took a sip of his latte, and found that he could actually taste it.

“So, how can I help?” Starshift looked at him seriously.

“Well, I did some research online today about this game, abilities, levels and the like.” Starshift nodded in response. “I saw some things that confused me, like augments.”

“Ah, good question.” Starshift dusted the muffin crumbs off his hand. “So unlike other MMOs that take place in a medieval world where the players have different equipment they can find and purchase, we don’t really have that. So augments are items that we can find or create that help buff our stats and abilities.”

“That makes sense, since we have these suits,” Titan nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, augments are accessible from your Smart Band,” as he tapped his band. “As much as this is a game about being a superhero, some folks actually focus on finding and developing new augments to sell on the market.”

“Oh, that is actually really cool,” Titan admitted.

“Here, show me your character screen,” Starshift motioned excitedly. He quickly showed Titan how to pull up the information. “Oh, ho, ho,” he said looking at the information. “Strength ability…nice! That’s fairly rare. It comes with a passive invulnerability skill.” He made a few nodding motions as he continued to scan the information. “You’ve got some good perks. That courage perk will fit really well with your strength ability.”

“There was one perk I wasn’t sure about; form one.” Titan noted.

“Oh a unique perk! I haven’t seen one of these yet,” as he analyzed the perk closely. “Late game, huh? Intriguing.” Starshift rubbed his chin.

“How long have you been playing this game?” Titan asked.

“Oh wow. Since the beta! I’ve always been a fan of superheroes and stuff, so I was one of the first in line to jump in. So with the beta, and the official launch a few months ago, like a month?” He asked in statement form. “Feels like it’s been quite a bit longer though.”

“Oh, wow. That’s really impressive.” Titan admitted. “I guess I’m a latecomer.”

“Not at all! The game is still in its infancy, people haven’t gotten too crazy high in levels either,” Starshift said as he finished his muffin. “There is always a war between the heroes and villains, and more players always make it more exciting.”

“A war, huh?”

“Yeah, to put it simply.” He asserted. “There’s constantly a power struggle between the sides that can actually have a greater effect on the environment. Though currently, it’s like we’re at a stalemate.” He got more serious. “No one has figured out how to tip the scales though. It’s speculated that there are some more dubious things that the villains could do to topple things over, or vice versa for the heroes, but no one has figured those out yet.”

“Wow, it sounds like an impressive system,” Titan replied with growing excitement.

“It really is,” Starshift exclaimed. “But hey, we should get you a mission to do, get your feet wet!”

“Oh right!” Excitement began to fill Titan’s veins. All this time in the game and he’d barely scratched the surface of actually playing. “How do I start one of those?” Titan felt bad he had to depend so much on Starshift.

“I like the excitement!” Starshift chortled in response. “First, let’s form a party. “Send me a party invite through your Smart Band, the details button next to my name in your friends list.” Titan compiled, and sent the request. He noticed Starshift’s band light up in notification and once Starshift accepted a new prompt appeared.

“So what are all these achievements?” Titan inquired, closing the prompt in front of him.

“Another good question,” Starshift said. “You can get them for any number of things and just the achievements in general don’t do much.” Starshift continued sipping his coffee. “What achievements lead to are what we call ‘medals.’ These medals are awarded after you unlock specific achievements. Medals can produce benefits to your stats if you get good ones, but the database for these is fairly small because the AI likes to generate and award them seemingly at random.”

“Good to know.” Titan stood up from the small table then asked, “Where do we go to get a mission?”

“Well since you registered as a hero, we can head to City Hall to see what beginner missions are available,” said Starshift.

“Isn’t your level higher than mine? Will that cause a problem?”

“Not at all,” responded Starshift. “Once we enter the mission, since you’re the party leader, my stats and ability will weaken to match your level.”

“Well, that is very handy.” Titan looked in the direction of the City Hall. “Shall we go?”

“We shall!” a large sinister grin sprouted on Starshift’s face as Titan felt himself becoming enveloped by a dark blue and black vapor. As soon as it completely surrounded him, it started to dissipate, and Titan now found himself inside City Hall. Starshift appeared next to him within the next moment in a flash of blue and black light.

“What was that?!” Titan demanded, exasperated. Starshift belly laughed in response.

“Sorry, I had to!” he said between laughs. “Teleportation is one of my skills, and I can teleport party members as well. The first time they get teleported is always hilarious.” He began wiping laughter tears from his eyes.

“Right, hilarious,” Titan said sternly, as his heart rate slowed to normal. Looking at his surroundings it appeared he was in a wing of City Hall he hadn’t been to yet. This wing was filled to the brim with suited heroes of all shapes and sizes, chatting, sitting around tables, and flexing their skills. Some heroes stood towering over others, some were tiny, others had different color skin, and a few even looked like they were made of stone. Bob even noticed one that was engulfed in flames.

“This is the main Hero Wing in City Hall,” Starshift said motioning to the large group. “This is where most missions are handed out, so a lot of players hang out here in their downtime.”

“So missions are handed out, not found?” Bob asked perplexed.

“Good question,” Starshift admitted. “The developers had promised a more procedural quest system, but I don’t think people have figured it out yet.” He motioned to one of the terminals that filled the room. “People usually find mission postings here on these terminals.” Titan noticed how much the terminal resembled the one he’d use in the lobby of his system. “Let’s search for a simple mission.”

“Right.” Titan walked up to the terminal and entered his information. Apparently the system would automatically filter out results if a player hadn’t reached a high enough level, which made it easier to find a good mission. Starshift looked through the options with him.

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Starshift tapped one of the missions on the screen and the details popped up.

“So we just go here, and arrest them?” Titan asked, still ignorant of the main facets of the game.

“No, not really,” Starshift rubbed his chin, looking for what to say next. “In this game all enemies are hostile towards heroes and unlike real life, these guys have powers like we do, so the police can’t just go it and take them down.” Titan nodded in understanding. “So basically, we go in and beat them into submission. We don’t kill them, but once they’re down it allows the police to come and arrest them.”

“That makes sense,” Titan said as he snapped his fingers. “Let’s do it.” He selected the accept button and noticed an arrow appear above his compass, with the distance labeled next to it as ‘3 Miles.’ “So we follow this arrow?”

“We do! Wanna race?”

“Can’t you teleport there?”

“It’ll be more fun this way!” Starshift laughed and he started to run outside the building. Titan quickly followed suit, reaching the entrance in a flash. Once he was outside he noticed the arrow was pointing west, so he started to charge that direction, noticing Starshift had a decent head start.

Titan was enjoying the feeling of running again. He’d never been a fan of exercising in real life, but now that he’d lost the use of his legs, he couldn’t get enough of it. As he raced down the sidewalk next to a series of buildings with the various trees, streetlights and NPCs passing him in a blur, a thought occurred to him. With his main ability being strength, could he strengthen his stride? He figured it was worth a try, and started to focus on how he was pumping his legs, and began to put a little more oomph into each step.

As soon as he started pumping his legs, he noticed that the distance he went with each step began to grow, and the gap between him and Starshift quickly began to close. He looked at his power bar and noticed that it began to drain, but very slowly.

His excitement became anxiety when he noticed his opponent quickly turn a corner that he himself had not been prepared for. His speed was too much and when his foot stamped on the ground in an attempt to turn, his inertia became a driving force that plunged him across the street into a parked car.

Starshift immediately stopped and turned at the sound of crunching and wrenching metal, only to find his companion wedged into the side of a small car. As Titan opened his eyes, Starshift was laughing, literally rolling on the floor.

“What gives?” Starshift managed to get in breaths between fits of laughter.

“I was going too fast to turn,” Titan said when a new prompt appeared in front of him.

“You okay?” Starshift asked noticing Titan’s dull expression.

“Yeah, I think so.” Titan gazed at his health bar, and noticed he’d taken a miniscule amount of damage, but also realized that it hadn’t really hurt. With the initial impact, he felt a small amount of discomfort, but not really any pain. “How do I deal with these prompts popping up all the time?” Titan asked as he extricated himself from the disheveled vehicle.

“You got a prompt from that?”

“Yeah, it says I learned a passive skill.” He noticed Starshift’s confused stare. “From the running, I assume. It’s called ‘leg strength.’”

“You learned a skill from running?!” His face was wrought with shock.

“Yeah…” Titan rubbed his chin for a moment. “I wonder if this game is a bit more intuitive than previous games?” He offered, brushing the non-existent dust off his body, noticing that his health had gone back to normal.

“It’s possible, I guess. That would mess with the idea of how the game is played. Phew, that would really change things.” Starshift said, still in shock.

“Should we tell people?” Titan inquired.

“No, not yet,” Starshift advised. “Let’s run some more tests, and keep this under wraps for now.”

“Sure thing,” Titan agreed. “I guess you won the race. Are we there?”

“Just about, it’s just a few buildings over.” He grinned sinisterly again. “Are you ready?”

“Definitely,” Titan smiled. “Let’s do this thing.”