Having chosen a class, Jay automatically closed the rewards box. Instead, he just saw the ground below him and a minimap in the top right corner. Right under it was a countdown timer that said 23:46:15. It seemed to be counting down by the second, so he had just under a day until…something? In the center of the screen, it just said "good luck", which didn't bode well.
He could see some sort of marking on the map near him, presumably somewhere in a nearby terminal. It didn't look threatening, though. It was a blue exclamation point, but no extra info popped up when he tried to click on it. It wasn't far, so Jay decided to visit it on his way to baggage.
Looking up from his phone, he was surprised to see that there were a couple people in fantasy outfits. One girl had what looked like leather armor on, another guy had a wizard's robe on, and the last was a little kid with a chest plate on. How he could walk with that weight on was beyond Jay. They didn't seem to be together, but they did all seem to be looking down at their phones.
Jay was already something of an outcast at his old school. He was here to start things off right at Barnard and he'd literally just arrived from LA. He was NOT going to blow this chance. He'd just walk by them and everything would be fine.
"Hey mate, any chance you're playing Seventh Sun Online? I couldn't help but notice what you're wearing" called over the wizard guy. Ugh. Just ignore him, Jay. Maybe he was talking to someone else. Except he was looking straight at Jay with his phone in front of his face.
"Come on man. You're clearly playing. I mean, check out those battle robes!" he shouted. Yikes, he was loud.
"Listen, I am playing, but we don't know each other and this is weird. I need to go get my bags." With that, Jay set off for the marker on his map.
"I see you're going for the waypoint. Good choice. I'll come with you! Let's ask that girl over there to join us too. Maybe we can form a party. What level are you? I just reached level two. I'm from New Jersey so I could have driven here, but it's easier to fly since I'm heading back to school. Are you a student too?"
The man's questions were coming nonstop. It was like he didn't know how to stop talking. Jay was surprised to hear that he was a student at one of the nearby schools since he looked older, but he still hadn't introduced himself. With a sigh, Jay resigned himself to an uncomfortable walk in the airport.
"Alright, you can come. I'm Jay Michaelson, by the way. What's your name? And since you play, what class did you choose?" Jay might not like the guy, but at least he could be polite to him. No sense in getting off on the wrong foot. Besides, this guy looked like he could rip Jay in half.
"I'm Andrew. Last name's a secret. Just kidding! It's James. Andrew James. I didn't have many options, but there was this cool one called beast king. I think it might have been the one in the video, but I'm not really sure. I don't have a pet yet to serve me, but I was just looking at the pre-release rewards. The integrated pet must be the best thing on there. What did you choose? Are you a baron? Or maybe you didn't choose yet? You clearly didn't take a weapon because I'd know if you had a staff. Although you could probably hide a wand. So, what'd you choose?" Yikes. Andrew could talk for days, apparently. He didn't even need a response—he just kept going.
As they walked, Jay felt a buzz and looked at his phone. [Waypoint detected. Would you like to access the menu?] As he pressed yes, another box came up. [Congratulations on your first waypoint! 100 XP given. You may also choose: One (1) weapon for your class, One (1) Class Spell, or One (1) Mystery Gift.] This one didn't need much thought. What kind of Archmage needs a physical weapon. "First class spell, here I come!"
[First class spell book rewarded. Mana manipulation learned. 100 XP given. Please go to Status for more information.]
"Hey Jay, what did you choose? I just got this cool staff! I don't have any spells yet, but how hard can it be to learn? Besides, I just need 300 more XP to reach level 2!" Clearly Andrew didn't put a whole lot of thought into his choices. Who's ever heard of a mage with no spells? And seeing as he was holding it, there was no way he'd get past security. Ridiculous.
Ignoring Andrew's talking, Jay called out "Status" and suddenly a box appeared in front of his face. He skidded to a halt. He almost ran into this thing! Whose idea was that?" Then he noticed that it had a bunch of writing on it.
[Status sheet
Name: Jay Michaelson Race: Human Class: Elemental Archmage Level: 1 (200/500)
Strength: 9
Agility: 9
Endurance: 10
Intelligence: 12
Will: 14
Luck: 4
]
As Jay clicked on strength, a description came up. [Strength: Your strength determines how hard you hit and how much you can lift. Want to lift a building? That's going to take some strength!] As he went through the rest of his stats, Jay was reasonably pleased. Strength and Agility seemed to be mostly for the melee classes. Where Strength told you how hard you hit, Agility was how fast you are and how much you can dodge. It also seemed to help with ranged weapons, somehow.
Endurance was a bit different. It seemed to determine how many hits his character could take before they started to really hurt. It was kind of like a defense stat, but it gave it to him as a health bar. It also seemed to indirectly help will. And that was good because Intelligence and Will were his main stats. Intelligence determined his mana pool and how many spells he could have and Will was how he regenerated mana. Will also seemed to give him some resistances to elemental damage, which could be really helpful if any of those monsters fought back. Speaking of monsters, where were they?
Jay had been through most of the airport now, gotten his bags and still hadn't seen a single monster. Heck, he'd almost run into a block of video game text too, but that was probably just a hallucination anyway. It went away as soon as he finished reading it and he WAS pretty tired, after all.
Still, no monsters? Is the game broken? Or maybe that was what the timer was for. "That's it! The timer tells us when the monsters will spawn! We have 24 hours to level up first!" Jay yelled at Andrew.
"Oh. That makes sense. After all, who's ever heard of a monster fighting game with no monsters? How am I going to be a beast king without any beasts to rule? Well, I guess I'll get the integrated pet for now. Come on! Daddy needs a baby dragon!" Andrew was seriously into this.
As Jay watched, a golden egg appeared in front of Andrew, as if by magic. Andrew pointed his phone at it, then clicked his screen. Suddenly, fragments flew everywhere. Surprisingly, everyone just walked right through it as if it wasn't there. In its place stood a baby horse…eagle…thing. It was small, maybe a foot tall. It had the body of a horse, with the head, legs, and wings of an eagle. All in all, it was bizarre.
Andrew seemed ecstatic, though. "A special pet! I really got a special pet! This hippogriff may just be a baby, but one day I will soar to majestic heights! I think I'll call his sky. What do you think Jay?" The name wasn't particularly original, but it was pretty, even if it was weird.
"Congrats man. You can keep all the flying to yourself. I hate flying!" There was no way Jay was ever going near that thing once it was grown up. A plane is bad enough, but you wouldn't even have walls to keep you safe on the back of this thing! Also, it wasn't going away, like the status screen did. Was Jay actually going crazy or was something different going on?
Andrew clearly couldn't see it as it waddled after him. And nobody even stopped to look at the fat little thing. That was, until the girl from before came over. "Oh my gosh, he's so cute! What's his name?" she gushed. "I'm Sarah. Can I pet him?"
"Umm sure? Not sure what you're petting though?" Andrew answered. For once he seemed to be caught off guard and even a bit shy.
"What do you mean, this cute little guy here! He's a hippogriff, right? There's one in this series I really like to read." She'd nailed it on the head. She must be able to see it too!
"You can see him? I can too! I thought I was going crazy. Do you have any idea why you can see him?" Jay was curious. This was the first person who could actually see the same stuff he could. If he could figure out her secret, he'd know he wasn't crazy.
"I took the integrated lenses from the pre-release rewards. Didn't you bother to read what they do?" Read what they do? They just said…you can see a monster without your phone. That was it! Somehow the game had really made him able to see the game without his phone. In that case, he could probably change those annoying boxes so they'd stop bothering him.
"I didn't think they'd work. Hang on one sec. I want to see if I can change my settings." Even as he said settings, a box appeared in front of his face. This one had a couple different options. There was a sound option, although that probably wouldn't work for real life. There was a battery saver mode, too. But most importantly, there was an opacity option for textboxes. With a sigh of relief, Jay made his boxes way more transparent. Where before he couldn't see anything, now he could see almost right through it.
The only problem was that the game had actually changed his body. If it could do that, this game just got a whole lot scarier.