Snippet #2086008

Ingame - City of Fate
This was the first time Roberto would use August. He had chosen to start at level 1 with this him. Level 1 and really nothing but the beginner's set. Also, he took quite a lot of time creating an extremely similar digital copy of himself. It was kind of obnoxious and vain at the same time, he thought. Was he overthinking things once again? Maybe.

Now that he was inside of the game, he tried to get used to the neuro-sync. It was really awe-inspiring. He was able to feel the temperature and the weight of his equipment. Still he still felt somewhat lighter than in his own body. It was annoying somehow, but he had to admit that this body was way fitter than his own. The masochistic branch of his mind couldn't help but feel amused by this slight ego-drop. It was his first time playing, so he looked around. He was standing on a rather large platform right at the center of a generic looking square. So this was the City of Fate... A few NPCs were talking to low-leveled characters like August. The buildings surrounding the square were mostly of European style. Some venders stood at every corner. Without much ado, he ignored the entire nooblet spectacle, took out a map from his pocket and went to the outskirts of the city. The streets were filled with NPCs and players. The designer had made a great job conveying a feeling of player-like movements to the NPC characters. You could barely see any differences between them and human gamers. When he reached the gate, there were several groups, talking to each other. Some of them sitting on the grounds outside of the city, resting and planning probably. he walked in a straight line out of the city and unto the fields surrounding it.

Ingame - Field of Souls
There were all kinds of creatures out there. August looked around for the weakest kill-able thing possible and found a baby piglet running around in circles close by. He wasn't sure how combat worked in this game, so he took out his sword and walked slowly closer to the piglet. It wasn't aggressive. That was good. Now he charged towards him and tried to do an horizontal frontal slash to see how the piglet reacted. At first, it just fell on it's back and couldn't go back to his feet due to the great disproportion between his limbs and his body. After going back up, his skin turned red and the piggy charged straight at him. It seemed the enemy AI had received a certain amount of delayed reaction time, since August had no problem avoiding the little piggy. It took one more slash, but the little piggy fell to the ground and vanished into smoke... leaving a single slice of bacon behind. August picked it up and ate it. It was obvious bacon had some kind of revitalizing effect on his the avatar's body. For the next fifteen minutes, August kept hunting baby pigs and collecting some bacon. It's always good to have extra resources in case harder mobs appear. After beating the living crap out of over two dozen piggies, a shining blue aura appeared on his right hand. Since he was already holding his rusty battle companion. He did a few practice slashes and, slowly, the blue light vanished from him. His body felt slightly quicker now, August noticed. That had probably been some kind of level-up. It didn't matter, but he was getting tired of fighting piglets.

A bit further away from the city, he noticed how some of the monsters had started to notice him. As he went further and further away from his starting point, the enemies became a little bit less of a joke and started looking somewhat menacing. Finally, he found a small goblin village made out of five or six primitive tents and what probably was designed to look like a barricade wall of bones, earth and trash. All around the village, goblin sentries with leather armors and spears covered it from intruders. Not wanting to grab the attention of the entire bunch. August stayed at a safe distance and screamed towards a single goblin.

“Hey, you!” The goblin was seemed slightly surprised and pointed at himself questioningly. The others didn't seem to give him much or any attention.

“Yeah, you!!! Would you mind answering a question?” The creature nodded. It was incredible how it was able to respond to him...

“Are you the ugliest goblin ever born or just the ugliest in your village?! Your face is so hideous that only a mother could love that!” The creature jumped several times in anger and stormed straight towards him. The little goblin was slow and somewhat clumsy, but his spear was sharp and deadly. Even if he was smaller, the difference in weapon range was something not to be ignored. Once it arrived, the little goblin tried a thrust attack directly at August. The goblin's movements had suddenly become much faster and secure, but August could still move away much faster than the goblin. He took a breath at a safe distance and thought:

That little shit faked his actual capabilities until he reached me. This AI is amazing!

The goblin held the spear with both hands, but stayed at a distance signalizing what probably was meant to be taunt. In this case, August was aware of the huge difference in attack and defense power between them. A single hit would probably suffice to send him back to the respawn point. He didn't planned on allowing that to happen. It took time, at first, he just orbited around the goblin, now and again testing a feint and hoping for an attack to avoid or counter. His feints received a reaction, but the goblin never once countered. It was plain unnatural, but any AI had it's limits unfortunately. Later he would have to report this to an admin. After something more than half an hour, he noticed how some stronger players were surrounding him, wondering what a low-leveled newbie was doing fighting that mob. They asked if August needed help, but he declined help with the least amount of effort possible. In order to end the fight, August had to either run away, die or.... well,.... attack, but how could he attack without being directly countered. Even if he managed a single hit, he still needed the attack leave enough room and time to back off without getting damage. That wouldn't be an easy task. His sword would probably break at some point so blocking and deflecting couldn't be his main option. It took some more time, his stamina was starting to go low. Even this avatar had it's limits at his level. Finally, he looked more carefully at his surroundings. The grass around where they were standing was pretty dry... he hadn't noticed that before. August grinned for a few seconds. The creature didn't react to his facial reactions. After surrounding him a few more times, he took some dry earth from the ground with his left hand. Then he stood still. The creature and him were facing each other seemingly motionless. Their battle had become a little show for those questing in that particular area. Suddenly, August gave a short grunt and the fighters rushed towards each other. He feigned lifting his sword, but instead he hurled the dirt in his left hand right towards the goblin's eyes. It was a risk, he wasn't sure, if that would work as well as he hoped. Fortunately,..... it did. The beast's thrust didn't even his shadow. Instead, the monster suffered several undefended hits to his back. It barely damaged him, but it actually did some kind of damage. It was a start,....but then again... The creature was now angry and it didn't wait for August to counter again. Thrust after thrust, the creature tried to pierce his weak armor, always barely missing. Was his mind starting to get tired or was his character the one being tired. He needed something more... a bigger weakness or more time, just a little more time.