Chapter 2 - Update Required
“Thank god” I mumbled as the required system update started quickly. The number grew exponentially from zero to twenty-five percent. It had been a week since I was last in this capsule thanks to all the household challenges.
First Elaine was homesick, but she got her classwork done and, thanks to the capsule, visited her friends.
Then it was Tristan’s turn to get sick. We had to clean his poor hook-up system earlier and make sure it still worked. I trusted Tristan to get rid of the crud, and he tried stuffing it down the pipes in the bathroom. He proceeded to create a puddle with the running water and played in it, splashing about until I caught him. The carpet in the hallway survived the outcome.
[99% completed. Please leave your system on.]
I took a breath and tried to do a miniature meditation to calm my nerves down, the same ones my therapist gave me years ago. It was only a game. It was not my job or life. There was no point in getting riled up about a calm and relaxing event with Elaine and Tristan. Life held countless possibilities beyond this single game. We would find something else.
Elaine was not big into gaming, but she showed some interest in Seconds-Over after Triangle talked to her. This could be my last chance to hang out with both kids at once. By gaming together, the children could build a stronger relationship than I ever got with my older brothers.
I swore they would get a better relationship with a parent than I had with my mom.
Any time my anxiety grew, my stupid brain constantly reminded me about the past.
“Take a deep breath.” I reminded myself. “It was done and over.”
The future I had now with my children was only beginning.
Through blinking eyes, the update in front of me still hung out at the same percentage. Why was the last percentage always the longest one? Did the developers intentionally code this false bit of hope to keep the user on edge by making the bar fill up? My sitting here wanting to force a system shutdown and retry again gained the developers nothing.
The system clock stated it was five minutes until the top of the hour.
Crud.
We needed a good two minutes to get to the terminal, plus whatever time was required to get on the ship. It was not enough time to restart the capsule over again.
Being strapped in, I had to use the capsule system to send Elaine a message.
[Family Chat]
[Blaine: You didn’t tell me there was an update.]
[Elaine: You should’ve hopped on.]
[Blaine: Get Triangle off the ship]
[Elaine: Don’t you want to play it safe and have all of us on the ship?]
[Blaine: Try it. But be ready to hop off if I can’t get on.]
[Update complete]
About time the update finished. If mentally glaring at the Seconds-Over icon did anything to load it faster, I would’ve forced my eyes wide open. Instead, it simply took my command. I leisurely loaded up all the loading menus for Seconds-Over as I tried to skip through them faster.
Then it hit me, the jarring conversion of my senses adjusting to the augmented world.
Seconds-Over advertised speed, how each second mattered in real life and in their game. They did not want slow hook-ups; it was honestly their worst-selling pitch.
I was still warm from running around and chasing the kids into their capsules. When the chill sea air stuck to my skin suddenly, it brought on a minor wave of nausea. Switching from the dark lit gaming room to the sudden bright lights of augmentation. It would’ve created spots in my vision if it wasn’t for how the technology projected it into my mind.
The whole height adjustment to my character, Boulder, always made my stomach lurch like a turn on the spinning teacups. Tristan never complained about the character change too much. Elaine kept her character the same build and height as her real self.
I should’ve done the same.
I took a deep gulp of the air and knew the feeling would pass in seconds. There were other matters that required my attention. First was knowing who in our guild was online and messaging them.
The Shrimp Guild listed four out of the nine players in the guild were online. Only three, counting me, were on the same continent.
For now.
I messaged Elaine in the game.
[Team Chat]
[Boulder: Naiad, I’m in the game. Where are you?]
[Naiad: I’m stuck at the terminal.]
[Boulder: I’m on my way.]
I spawned in only a couple hundred meters away from the port and the main trading hub of the city of Fanamel. Right under the sign of Family Favorite Falafel of Fanamel: A 4F Class restaurant, I found myself at the same place where I had gotten sick during our last game before logging off.
The 4F simply meant that there was a strong possibility of being poisoned if you ate there. It was also the cheapest place to get a permanent stat increase to fortitude. Players crowded around the non-player character, a NPC, buying their weekly chance to get the quarter stat boost from the brick building that had white painted wood trim all around it, but it was now stained yellow on the bottom. A sign that a lot of players get sick.
The broad and tall build of my avatar Boulder was one of my proud moments of character design, as it perfectly put forth the idea of ‘tank’. The crowd of players was thick, a wall of elbows and shoulders, but my broad build let me force a path through. My heart was racing with anxiety, like I was back in a raid fight, not trying to get on a boat.
Jeez, I’m out of video game practice.
Dancing around players, I hopped over the smaller ones, and avoided hip checking those who were looking for a duel fight in this busy area. Avoiding a duel request required the same skill, if not more, than avoiding traps in a dungeon.
Less than two minutes until my family got divided.
Naiad couldn't enter the port because she had an unfinished class quest in this country. Tristan’s character, Triangle, finished his class quest last week. I did not have any sort of quests like that and I was two levels behind Naiad. My goal was to stay up late after they went to bed and I would grind out some quests to catch up to them. But thanks to my current nemesis, a household plague and parenting problems, I’ve been choosing sleep over gaming.
[Team Chat]
[Triangle: Dad! There are narwhals on the other continent!]
[Boulder: Get off the ship.]
[Naiad: I can’t join you.]
[Triangle: But I can gather new bones from other monsters!]
[Naiad: Then do it.]
[Boulder: No, get off the ship now. I won’t be able to help you if you go over there.]
Triangle didn’t reply. His blue circle icon on the map showed him moving even further on the port toward a known good fishing spot on the boat. A six-year-old with all the free will to ignore his parents.
“Ugh!” I roared, drawing zero attention from any of the players.
They were used to players acting and dancing randomly for the fun of it. Two people showed up wearing a single giant purple witch hat together. A clash of pure fantasy with the silliness of humanity’s escapism.
The silliness wasn’t why I played.
Finally free of dancing, singing, and witch hats from the crowd, I could see that the line onto the port was almost nonexistent. The last few stragglers yelled at the NPC guards, trying to get through the menus in time to board the ship. There were other people trying to get out of the terminal and into the city of Fanamel.
The terminal was not only menus but also part of the port where incoming and outgoing ships flew. This was where the hunters, wizards, spies, dragon knights, and shamans ran in and out, waiting for a connection. They were all loiterers getting in my way. Especially the summoner and beast master classes with their darn pets everywhere. To finally reach the boat's entrance, I pushed aside a donkey's body with an ostrich's head.
[Team Chat]
[Naiad: I’m going to force my way onto the ship.]
[Boulder: Wait!]
[Boulder: Tristan, get off the ship!]
[Triangle: :P]
In an augmented reality game or reality, it did not matter; I had no control or authority over my kids.
A minute remained, and I stared at the guards blocking the entrance to the port. The guards granted permission to the last few people, but I did not recognize the pink-hair half-elf and half-human rogue among any of them. The moment I came near one of the boat entrances, guards instantly blocked me.
Last week, I could have walked up onto this ship and fished off it or the docks nearby without issues. This level of security appeared within the last few hours of a ship’s departure. Seconds mattered right now, and I debated about gaining a wanted status and diving on the ship to nab the gnome character wearing a brilliant red hat.
Triangle slowly spun his reel on his fishing pole, waiting for a bite, ignoring his family’s requests.
[Warning: The ship is about to depart. You can only enter if you have no unfinished business.
&
If you accept, know you cannot come back for a month.
Cost to board: 500 gold coins.]
“I just want to grab my kid and go! Just let me on,” I yelled.
I felt like an idiot saying it to an NPC guard. My speed wasn’t the best, and already the guard pulled a weapon out. A warning sign appeared in my vision about the dangers of attacking an NPC and breaking the law.
[Warning: Provoking the guards and breaking the law will give you a WANTED status.
WANTED: A Bounty will be on your head, all security NPC and even players can capture you for a reward.]
More information popped up and got in my way of getting to Triangle. I didn’t have time to read every term in this game. In the bottom corner was a “Don’t show me this again,” option to turn off all the tutorials and explanations. A month in the game and I still was learning new things.
Turning off the explanations allowed me to see the gold transaction menu to buy a ticket for the ship without the guards stabbing me. A family vacation in this game would be out of the question. I only had five hundred twenty-three gold coins. With Tristan lingering on the ship, that meant he also paid that hefty fee. What a waste of gold.
Just as I prepared to hit “Accept”, the guard in front of me took off running.
[Guild notification: Player Naiad status has changed to WANTED]
[Guild Chat]
[Naiad: Crap.]
[Boulder: What did you do!?]
Naiad remained silent. She was too busy running from the entire city of guards and hungry players. She was going to be in deep trouble when caught - and that included when they all logged out later.
Rules existed for a reason.
Right now, I wanted to hug and kiss her for this opportunity. She saved me five hundred gold. I seized the opportunity and sprinted forward onto the ship freely. No NPC witnessed my crime, allowing me to keep my player status as peaceful.
The ship’s anchor creaked as it was being pulled up out of the waters, the sails magically filling with air. I had only seconds left before being teleported out of Fanamel and into Temitsu. I lunged down to pick up Triangle, mimicking the form I had back in my high school football days.
A football was easier to control.
I yanked Triangle and his giant fish away. The wet, scaly thing was larger than Triangle’s character.
“I caught it!” cheered Triangle.
I pivoted around and sprinted to the blue line that blinked on the ship’s edge, counting down until departure. After this, I really needed to focus more on agility training.
No other foolish player stood near the blinking line–beside a rose-haired rogue who tried diving onto the boat. As the timer hit two seconds, four guards pinned her down as I crossed the finish line back into Fanamel’s port.
I got knocked down to the ground.