A Reality of a Different Color

[X] [Coffee] Accept the free coffee.
[X] [Seat] Sit by the window

"…Thanks, I appreciate it." You feel awkward letting a virtual stranger pay for your drink when no one is, as far as you can tell, trying to pick anyone up, but you do want a coffee. "An iced mocha?"

"Tea," Kaius adds. "Earl grey, hot."

You nearly have a coughing fit.

The Boulder snorts, then nods at you both. "Got it. You two go sit, I'll join you."

"Thanks," you repeat, Kaius actually echoing you this time, and then look around at the available tables. It's pretty quiet, being evening and only an hour or so before the shop is probably going to close, so you have your pick of the room. It only takes you a moment to decide, however, and you head straight for the four-person table near the window.

If there are things like world bosses, you want to see what you'd be getting into before the thing tries to eat you.

"World boss, you were saying?" you ask Kaius as you both sit down.

"I only ran into this area's once, but yeah." There's another roar and you both look out the window in time to see a blue-green dragon land on the street.

Not a little dragon-ish lizard. A full-fledged dragon, the size of a garbage truck with wings extending up above the buildings on both sides. It sniffs around the street, pacing past the cafe and down the road, its scales glimmering in blue and green lights as its eyes dart from building to building.

You feel uneasily like it's looking for you.

"They don't follow the RL rules," Kaius continues as you both watch the dragon go past. "Um, relative level, I mean. It'll attack anyone in range, even newbies, but you can usually see it coming."

"Or hear it," you murmur. "It has two colors?"

"Yeah. Look over there." He gestures at the air near your left hand. After a moment, you realize he's attempting to indicate the enemy EP section of your HUD - and there's a big circle there. A big circle. How did you not notice it show up?! You have got to get the hang of this interface thing. The circle is green in the center, and around it is a blue ring.


"I still haven't seen anyone beat it, but I think it goes through the outer color first, then the inner color," Kaius explains. "I don't know if it only uses blue attacks while it's in the blue phase or if it can use both."

"Level thirty five is really high. Is anyone even level ten yet?"

"Thirty…" Kaius glances down and frowns. "It was only level twenty eight, last time."

"It gets stronger?!" You turn and stare at the dragon's tail as it turns down another street. "What the hell."

"Maybe it scales up with the number of active players?" he guesses. "I doubt it progresses like a player. For one thing, how would it even get experience?"

"I'm going to worry about getting my own experience first." The dragon's circle vanishes and you stretch with a sigh before gingerly prodding at your nose. It still hurts and it's definitely swollen. People are probably staring. You're not going to check.

"Here you go!" The Boulder puts three cups down on the table and sits down herself with a brief hand gesture. A moment later, her Martialist outfit and name tag disappear, leaving you looking at a woman about your age in comfy-looking athletic gear and a ponytail. "Thanks for the info, Kaius, I didn't know about this one. You been playing long?"

"A few days," he answers.

"I just started today." You're not sure if you already said that earlier or not, but it's fine. You take a sip of your coffee, then hold it gently against your mistreated face. "It's, uh. Been an exciting start."

The Boulder - or, well, the woman who was playing The Boulder in the game, whose name you realize you don't know at all - chuckles. "Doesn't get any less exciting, if you ask me. Maybe less running into things. I'm still learning new mechanics and everything."

"Speaking of," Kaius interrupts, putting down his Jean-Luc Picard, "you should really fix your graphics settings."

[] Take his advice, before you forget. Then, while you're on your phone…
- [] Check out your inventory.
- [] Check out your friend list.
- [] Check the shop, even though you're pretty sure you can't afford anything.
[] There's plenty of time to do that later. Compare notes about how the three classes play.
- [] Find out if they have any friends playing a Spiritualist you can ask for advice.
- [] Also compare notes about what the Colors do. They each have one secondary, so that's half the spectrum between the three of you.
- [] Suggest forming a party with them later, after you catch up a little.
[] Multi-task! Try to carry on a conversation while you check stuff on your phone.
- [] [Phone] Choose one of the sub-options from Vote 1
- [] [Chat] Choose one of the sub-options from Vote 2

[X] Multi-task! Try to carry on a conversation while you check stuff on your phone.
- [X] [Phone] Check out your inventory.
- [X] [Chat] Also compare notes about what the Colors do. They each have one secondary, so that's half the spectrum between the three of you.

He's right; with Mirage as one of your limited strategic options, you expect you'll be using it pretty often. You need to be able to use it and not run into things.

On the other hand, you have hardly any health and Nebula is out of AP—

There's a quiet ping in your ear. A glance over your HUD shows that your total AP is 3 again. You also notice that Nebula's EP is at 1, and yours is at 4. And that having your HUD up while you're having a conversation is very distracting, so you tap your earpiece MRD and turn it off before taking out your phone.

"You two are both over level five; that means you have a secondary color too, right?" You glance at the Boulder. (You really need to find a moment to ask what her real name is or something).

"Yep. White. I'm going for a tank build."

"You have builds already?" Kaius sounds indignant. "How?"

"Polling other players when I can find them, obviously. I picked Green thinking it'd be earth, which is usually solid defense, and it sort of is?" She makes a so-so gesture with a hand. "It's more anti-conditions. But White looked like it got the best defensive skills."

You don't really want to mess with your settings while trying to follow a conversation, so you tap into your Inventory instead. You still have the two items you saw in your notifications earlier; a Small Vial of Smoke, and an Ember Stone. A quick tap on the Vial of Smoke brings up an item info screen, as you'd expect.

Well what do you know, this game has a crafting system. It can't be that complex, though, it is still an ARG. …Right? Maybe it's more like an MMORPG than you first thought…

"I don't think any of the colors really work best with each other," Kaius was saying, and you realize you missed part of the conversation. Oops. "I could even see how Orange and Green could work well together, and they're opposites."

"Do you think Violet has an opposite?" you add in. "It kind of sounds like it doesn't, so far."

"What's your specialty?" The Boulder asks.

"Transformation and illusions, I think. I had options for having my companion transform into different modes in character creation, and it's got that illusion ability."

"I saw a Violet Astralist once," she muses. "He did a similar illusion AoE to your pet's, but it did damage."

"Probably cost him EP," Kaius put in. "Most Astralist attacks do. It's an annoying way to replicate mages being the squishiest class, but it does let me plan for it better."

"I have an AoE that does damage and costs EP," you add, helpfully, tapping back on your phone to look at the Ember Stone. "It works with my companion as a focus or channel or something."

"Oh! Flare, right?"

You look up in surprise at the Boulder as she takes a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, that's the one."

"My friend is a Blue Spiritualist," she explains. "He picked that one, too. He was stuck between Sprit and Astral and wound up taking it as a kind of style compromise. When he got to level five, I mean."

Ironically, Astralist was the one class you weren't considering. Well, it sounds like you can change one of your Abilities when you get to level five, based on what Kaius said earlier. You can reevaluate your choices then.

[] [Ask] more about the Spiritualist friend's experience.
[] [Ask] about crafting.
[] [Ask] for more info about what happens at level five.
[] [Ask] for advice on levelling.
[] [Ask] write-in topic

[] [Game] Look through your game settings before you forget.
[] [Game] Look at the shop, even though you probably can't afford anything.
[] [Game] Put your phone back for now.
[] [Game] Turn your HUD back on to check on Nebula's status.