“I’ve seen great games fail because they tuned their compulsion loop to two minutes when it should have been an hour. Sometimes, you wouldn’t even notice the product difference between a massive success and tremendous fail, but for this tuning and what it does to the attrition rate. There isn’t a developer on the planet that wouldn’t want that knowledge.” - EA Games CEO

It rained less frequently these days than when I was a child. Not that it mattered much. We all knew why, global warming, and there wasn’t much any of us could do about it as long as the billionaires cared about other things. 

 

I put my headphones in and made my way down the dark streets to catch a bus home. The weight of the overtime shift slid slowly off my back, shitty memories of asshole customers and annoying coworkers evaporating as I replaced them with a day’s worth of stuff on my phone that actually mattered to me.

AverieEntertainment had a frankly embarrassing presentation while I was busy at work, and apparently they barely even mentioned new content for Reverie even though it was the fifth anniversary. Most of their presentation was focused on new and improved formulations for VRsimilitude. And it wasn’t like we didn’t care about that stuff, without a cartridge the experience was significantly inferior. But it was obvious investor pandering, since that was where the perpetual revenue came from. The margins on an experience-enhancing drug were just so much higher than a subscription for an online video game. I supposed it could’ve been worse - the usual suspects had accused Reverie of being a satanic woke mind virus last month - so perhaps no news was good news. 

My friends were swapping memes and chatting about the game, defending their favorite kingdoms and complaining about bad generic cart formulations. I dove into a chat that was theorizing about cut content and listened to music for a while as the bus made its way back to my shitty place in OakRidge. Thankfully it was practically dead on the 29 Route this late at night so I was able to get a seat near the back where the rain hit the window. 

Thirty minutes later and I was off the bus, stepping back into the darkness of night. The fluorescent glow of an all-nighter gas station shimmered in the puddles, and I followed the promotional posters until I was inside. 

 

Meanwhile on my phone, Bardicmouse was making a very passionate argument for why the Demonkin city and Wolfblade kingdom expansion zone was the best place for longform character experiences. I stood in the snack aisle and fired off a reply defending Demini County for its more pastoral energy, then scanned the shelves for something edible.

 

Overpriced protein bar and soda in hand, I made my way up to the counter. The cashier with dark hair and glasses looked up from the register with a tired smile and I met it, best I could. “Hey, the usual?”

 

“Yeah, three this time. Thanks.”

 

She picked out three VRsimilitude cartridges for me and placed them on the table. I felt the corners of my lips turn up when I saw the little white boxes with the AverieEntertainment logo. 

 

“Still raining out there?”

 

“Yeah, but I think it’s starting to dry out.”

 

Some of my friends preferred third party or even generic VRsimilitude. One girl I knew down south swore by Nightshade carts even though they were designed for horror games. Claimed it made things feel more dark fantasy somehow. But I was a basic girl who liked to go with the one on the recommended specs sheet.

 

I thanked the cashier and made my way back home, just a short walk from the station. There might not be a big exciting update, but I was still excited to dive back in and pick things back up where I had left them last night. The adventurer’s guild my online friends had formed were following a lead to an emergent aquatic questline, but I was more interested in returning to an old stomping ground, so it was going to be a single player kind of evening. 

 

My hoodie was drenched so I left it to drip on the table next to the front door of my tiny apartment. My shoes were slid off without a care, and I downed half the soda along with my meds. I’d eat later, if I remembered. There wasn’t much left in the house except the protein bar until my next paycheck anyway. It was a long day, and the rain was pattering into a drizzle. 

 

A smoggy twilight had thoroughly settled in, absolutely perfect. I cracked the window slightly to let some of the cold fresh air in. VRsimilitude and hypnotic pattern overlays overrode all external perception at the strength I used, but regardless. Some called me superstitious, but I always felt like it enhanced the experience if my physical body could smell the outdoors, and it could get pretty hot in the headset during long sessions, even if I wouldn’t notice the sweat while in the game.

I walked over to the sling that was suspended in the center of my living room, and picked up my headset. It was just an outdated 237-RealityS model, but it did the trick. 

 

I tossed down my phone and tore open the paper box containing the cartridge that would make it all feel real. Filled with a liquid suspension of pure patented immersion, licensed and refined just for this kind of game, it clicked into the side of the visor with a satisfying snap.

 

I pulled my 237 down over my eyes and felt that ever-so-slight prick. Swirling lights hit my irises and my vision began to cloud over. My body fell back into the stretchy fabric and soon darkness as the game began to load. The anticipation tickled in my belly as I felt the drug start to work. Then even the darkness gave way to Alia and Arani, the twin suns of Reverie, the fantasy world that meant so much to me.

 

Faster than my eyes could track, the memory pattern for my character flashed into my eyes, and I became the beautiful, magical elven girl who took up so much of my brainspace, if just for a little while.

Faonari Windborne, though she typically went by Fao, was not as timid as she appeared at first glance. Brown scuffed leather armor atop a cotton undershirt and travelling gear in a haversack, she approached the town of Demini after a long day of travel through the Bitter Feld. 

 

Though most of the beasts in the forest were benevolent spirits and esoteric sprites that prickled the hairs on the back of your neck, there was something else in the forest that she was eager to shake off. A residual anxiety that things were not quite as they should be. 

The unease was a new discomfort that had settled in during the day of travel since leaving her adventuring party behind. A single drop of shimmering rainbow oilslick. A liquid smear that she noticed on the back of her hand near the outskirts of the forest. She had looked into the branches for the cause but found nothing, nothing but the faintest sense of soreness in her lower back that wasn’t there a moment ago. 

 

Demini would prove to be a fun reset, Faonari expected. She’d enjoyed herself there immensely a few moons ago when a job had brought her into town. 

 

The guards on the outskirts of the city were troublesome and corrupt, stopping the occasional traveler with questions, but when her turn approached it was nothing the elven girl couldn’t distract away with a few well placed orbs of arcane light off to the side of the trail.

 

The city itself was built into a steep valley, smattered in large flower gardens filled with nurseries for exotic herbs and curious floral spirits that protected them. They were important for spellcraft and the sage magics that local druids had used to heal the sick for generations, so the presence of the larger protectors was to be expected, as well as smaller ones.

 

She chuckled to herself, as she watched an odd grassy blob of a spirit shoo away a child that was trying to steal a bouquet of flowers off of a bush.

 

Casting a shadow over the entire city, the massive towering tree so grand it had a name, the Abby of Erathii, which translated into worship of knowledge in the common tongue. 

 

Inside the massive tree there was a tremendous library filled with thousands of books. It had thin pale leaves that touched the top of the valley, and a firm wooden foundation streaked with windows that allowed the candlelight inside its core to glow out onto the town below. It was no wonder that Demini was the old capital of the east before the empire was formed, and why it still held power now that the empire was gone.

 

The Russet Dove was nestled into the corner of the city hub, and Fao approached it eagerly. Entering through a modest crowd, set down her haversack at a table. A bowl of food and a glass of meliscotch later, she almost noticed a streak of pink out of the corner of her eye. 

 

Another glance back down, and she saw a letter on thick parchment paper with a blue and black wax seal waiting on the wooden table. She looked back up, and loudly laughed. 

 

“Screw off with the fancy bullshit Truey, I already apologized for skipping town last time.”

 

The punky moon elf who worked night shifts at the tavern stopped cleaning the bar with a scoff. “Eh, the fuck are you talking about?” 

 

“The letter, it wasn’t you?” Fao replied.

There was a moment as he took it all in, turning around the paper. The letter was unaddressed, and only weighted down by whatever message was contained within.

 

“Do I look like I spend my fuckin’ gold on calligraphy sets and spell grade parchment? Besides, I don’t even own the Russet Dove! Trust me babe, if I was bangin’ the door down for payment you would know.” He chuckled, and swept his plume of curly hair back behind his ears. With a tilt of his silvery blue hand he poured Fao another shot. “I wouldn’t be topping you up on meliscotch for a start.” 

Fao took a sip of the sweet herbal liquor and inspected the envelope. Just as Truey had implied, it was made of thick arcane quality parchment and a fanciful sigil wax seal. A smarter adventurer may have stopped for a moment to run a gauntlet of tests for traps or ailments. A wiser adventurer may have tossed it in the figure.

But Faonari was a curious adventurer, and so she slipped a finger into the seam and pried it open with a tear. 

A small spark of something magic crackled off, and a letter slid out. 

Your reality is not as it appears. In the place where amber grows, find the one with emerald eyes and probe her depths, for truth can be found where all things lie.

“Well?” Truey asked, nosily glancing in Fao’s direction.

She groaned, putting the letter away. “Probably just some patron with a hard-on for riddles looking for someone to swindle into cheap work.” 

 

No, she definitely wasn’t inquisitive as to the meaning of the letter or its sender, not even a little bit. She definitely wasn’t ruminating about why the sender had used such expensive parchment or such an exotic seal. No, nope, certainly not. The patron probably… wished for her to find his amber colored manor house, yes, and then look into his green eyes, not suspicious at all, and then agree to whatever work he needed done in exchange for nothing of value. It was a boring proposition.

 

A dashing old rouge entered the bar shortly after, and the room turned towards his regaling of some story where he fought a giant in the northern kingdoms and lived to tell the tale.

Later that evening, as she lay in her bunk, she finally felt the faint pull of something that might compel her deeper in the mystery that had landed on her table. The twin moons shone at such an angle that their light bounced into the upper branches of The Abby of Erathii and across the town square, leaving rays of golden orange in their path.

It was a library.