It's been years since Alisha walked on a beach. Then again, it's been years since she ever left the cities. She just didn't have the time back then. [Star's Empyrium] is a massive game, and it demands her and her team's utmost attention.
Now though, she wishes she did. The breezy oceanic winds, the crunching sands beneath her feet, the starlit glow of the cosmos above—it's a scene she could've only dreamed of.
That aside,
[Unnamed Coconut-like Fruit]
[A fruit that hangs from [Unnamed Tree] found on the beaches of [Planet J11397271]. Encased in a shell of fibrous material, the mesocarp is sweet and tangy in taste.]
[Consumption: Very Safe]
She rolls the fruit across her palm, cringing yet somewhat mystified at the odd sensations she feels as the thing rolls around. As her -Identify- describes, it's similar to a coconut in shape and form, just colored an off-putting purple instead of brown.
Except the fibrous shell was almost feather-like in feel, and it feels somewhat ticklish as she continues to roll it across her palms.
Eventually though, she decides to stop playing around with it and find a way to crack it open. She's already found a somewhat sharp pebble she'd picked up just a small distance away from the tree she plucked the fruit from. All she needs to do is to crack the thing open.
She walks back to the sands, and she digs the fruit into the sands until it's stuck right in. She raises the sharp pebble, and with a breath, she smashes it down onto the fruit.
Naturally, it doesn't crack open. A tremor runs up her bones at the failed attempt, and she winces. She tries again, and again she fails. She tries a third time, and she yelps as the pebble goes flying out of her hand after she smashes it onto the shell.
She laughs wryly. She isn't surprised—she's no survivalist. She picks up the pebble and returns to smashing it against the shell.
But after a dozen failed attempts, she begins noticing the straight grains of the fibers. Something pricks at her mind—an old memory about a survival show she watched on a whim years ago surfaces in her mind.
She goes back to the trees, and after a quick survey, she finds a much larger rock, its surface smooth. She grits her teeth as she slowly lifts it into the air, and with aching arms she waddles back to the fruit that's half-submerged in the sand. She lifts the rock high above the fruit, and with a breath she pries her fingers away.
Bang!
The rock crashes onto the shell's top, right at the point where all the grains converge. And suddenly a clear pink liquid gushes out of the fruit as the fibrous shell tears open, revealing the purplish meat hiding beneath. She grins then, and quickly plucks the opened fruit from the sands and begins to drink.
It's the best thing she's ever tasted in her life. It's not overly sweet, and there's that soft fruity aftertaste in the back of her tongue as she drinks as much as she can. Much of the liquid falls to the sands, but she doesn't really care.
Minutes later, she licks her lips clean as she drinks the last drops. She didn't realize just how thirsty she was. She feels awesome now, though she can also feel her stomach aching as she stares at the purplish meat of the fruit she just cracked open.
She tears the fibers apart, and with no hesitation she pulls apart the fruit clinging onto the fibers and eats them. She hums happily, tasting the sweet fruity tang. She's never really had a coconut before, but she really wishes she did. If it tastes even remotely close to this, she would've bought as many as she could.
Or not. Her city doesn't grow any. And she doubts the import cost will be small-
[A [Unnamed Fruit] has been consumed. Understanding has risen to: 20%]
She blinks, and then she smiles wryly. Right—she's completely forgotten that this is a thing.
When a new player comes into [Star's Empyrium], their Understanding of the universe will be limited. Foods, people, even entire factions will have their names and information hidden if they attempt to -Identify- them. They'll only see surface-level descriptions of them and nothing more.
She hums. From what it seems, she'll need to eat 4 more of those fruits to gain a full Understanding of it.
And as benign as that system is, something inside her is telling her otherwise. That she must do all she can to fill out her Understanding, that it is her duty, her calling, her law-
She frowns, wincing as she nurses her forehead. The pull disappears quickly, but the feeling remains.
She takes a breath and shoves the feeling to the back of her mind. There's no reason to consume all those coconut-like fruits hanging from the trees so quickly.
Instead, she walks further, parsing through the small patch of trees to scour for anything interesting. She doesn't find anything of the sort—though she does find twigs, rocks, and vines she could potentially use.
She considers walking further, but her eyes trail to the mountains that circle around her, and she curbs her growing desire. For as fit as she feels, she's still woefully unprepared for such a journey. She'll need to gather more supplies, and she'll need to increase her overall stats.
On that note, how is she supposed to do that, exactly?
She hums. In [Star's Empyrium], there are a few ways of increasing the player's power. Doing Quests, buying Upgrade Chips from merchants, finding Lost Relics across the cosmos, completing Achievements, gaining specific Psionic Skills-
Achievements! She nearly forgot about them!
She grins. [Star's Empyrium] has hundreds-, no, thousands of Achievements. She and her team kept adding more and more Achievements as they continued developing the game. They even held a little party when they reached the 1000th Achievement.
Of course, not all Achievements were equal. Some were certainly easier than others—though the harder it is to obtain, the larger the given rewards.
One of the easiest Achievements a player can get is to [Survive their first night without dying once]. Or-, well, it's supposed to be one of the easiest. It depends on what kind of planet the player first spawns into. If they just so happened to spawn on a heavily-irradiated planet, then it's essentially impossible.
Thankfully, this beach is relatively safe. The only way she could ever off herself is if she somehow drowns in the ocean. And considering she's actually living in this universe, she'd rather not squander her new chance so quickly.
She nods to herself, tacking the new objective into her mental checklist. Don't die—it's as simple of a mission as it gets.
She can't really tell how long it'd take until the sun—or suns, who knows—rises from the horizon. Which she is more than fine with. That just means she has more time to spend.
More time to spend to find something to cover her right eye.
Because as interesting as it is to see her right eye literally act as a projector, the floating screen that follows her around is rather annoying. It's also covering up half of her sight with that bright translucent glow, and it's beginning to hurt her other eye.
And she won't be missing out on much. She'll still know if a notification suddenly appears. Her right eye pricks slightly whenever that happens.
She begins walking back to her downed ship. She takes her time, and as she walks she looks out to the seas, watching the oceans glitter with lights reflected from the universe above. It's a truly otherworldly sight, and it serves as another reminder that she's no longer in her world.
A sense of loss fills her for a moment. She ignores it as best as she can.
She makes it to her downed spaceship, and she can't help but smile slightly. Damaged as it is, she can't help but feel somewhat giddy that she's standing next to a spaceship. Like, a literal spaceship. People from Earth would've gone insane if they saw this!
The [Sistra] is a sleek scout ship, its hull looking almost like a missile with four metallic wings attached to it. Though the one in front of her is damaged, with the two wings on its left torn in half, and the white paint job filled with scratches and burn marks from the time it crashed down onto the sands.
She takes a peek into the cockpit she broke out of several minutes ago, and she doesn't find much. There's the broken screens of course, and the leather chair, but not much else.
…leather chair, is it?
She glances at the sharp pebble she's been holding onto, and an idea pops into her head. She climbs back into the cockpit, and carefully, she begins cutting into the leather chair. Her work is sloppy at best—the sharp pebble has dulled terribly from her previous efforts—but she continues pushing the sharper edge through the hardened leather.
And eventually, she pulls free a long strip of leather. It's by no means smooth, but it's definitely long enough for her to fashion it over her right eye-
She feels a prick in her recently covered eye, and she quickly pulls the leather strip up to see what happened.
[[Alisha] has completed the Achievement: [First Creation]! Producing rewards…]
Just as she reads that, the space before her literally contorts, and she watches as an object is created from nothing. It makes a dull thud as it falls onto the leather chair, and she blinks as she stares down at it.
It's nothing more than a seemingly inert black cube, made from some sort of metal and dimly glowing with lines of white. She reaches forward to grab it, and then flinches back when she feels the electricity that bounces against her skin.
[Portable Kitchen Set (Tier I)]
[A small Portable Kitchen Set, made by the Ancient Magravs. The kitchen is contained in a tiny simulated universe, and at [Alisha]'s command, the Set can be opened to bring out the tools into reality. The Set can be returned by [Alisha]'s command.]
[Contained Tools: Stove, Saucepan, Frying Pan, 2 Kitchen Knives, Chopping Board]
…Right. She'd completely forgotten about this.
When she and her team first added Crafting into [Star's Empyrium], not many players were overly keen on actually using it. It's unsurprising, really. The game mainly revolves around the player's adventure through the galaxy, not about hunkering down in one location and creating.
But she and her team had worked quite hard on the game's Crafting, and so they devised a plan. They'd make an Achievement to push players to Craft their first item, and then reward them with an item that pushed them to Cook. Then after that create an Achievement to Cook their first meal, which gives players a Laser Drill to mine.
It's an easy, if somewhat lazy, way of getting the players to try out the many different Crafting systems [Star's Empyrium] has to offer.
But at least it worked! Which meant that the months she spent slaving away at her office wasn't a waste!
She smiles for a moment, drawn to memories of late nights strapped to her chair, keeping herself awake by guzzling down cups of coffee as she listens to the pained groans of her fellow developers.
…She wonders what they're doing now.
Her smile falls, but she quickly shakes those glum thoughts away. She grabs the black cube that'd just formed from thin air, and she winces as electricity runs up her arm. The black cube flickers a bright white, and suddenly it disappears into specks of sparks that vanishes into her palm.
Suddenly, information floods into her brain. Knowledge about the Personal Kitchen Set settles into her mind—instructions on how to open and close the simulated universe neatly slotting into her memories.
And honestly? She's conflicted. On one hand, she doesn't need to fear going hungry or thirsty. Those coconut-like fruits are dense with nutrients, and she can always use her new Personal Kitchen to purify the ocean waters.
On the other hand, she is somewhat bummed out that she won't experience the harsh wilderness survival that she's been thinking of. After all, nothing makes things more fun than the threat of dying!
Bah, whatever. At least she knows she'll be fine on that front.
For now though, she has a few things she wants to do. Her Personal Kitchen Set has given her 2 knives to play with. They're nothing more than simple kitchen knives, but they're still leagues sharper than the sharp pebble she used to fashion the long leather strip that's covering her right eye.
And her first victim will be the tree she'd taken that coconut-like fruit from.
She smiles, and with ideas brewing in her mind, she climbs out of the cockpit and begins walking across the sandy beach once more.