Chapter 5: Welcome to Sedgewick

Name: Ozzy Title: none Race Mixed Race, Human: 96% Heritage Bonus: +3 STR, +1 CON Class Contract Worker Specialty Butcher Perk Description Sleepless in Seattle: For every one hour of sleep, you will get two hours of rest. Tastes Like Chicken: Anything you are eating can, at your option, taste like delicious boiled chicken. Endure VI: You can easily shrug off effects such as boredom, mental fatigue, anxiety and other negative mental effects. Be happy and keep working! Haul III: When moving heavy objects by hand, you may pick up and move an object four times heavier than normal. Dig II: Ditches and tunnels are your specialty. When working in earth, clay, sand or other soft materials you may move four times as much material as normal.

Push Onward: If you run out of stamina before a job is finished, you may burn health at a ratio of 1 health to 2 stamina in order to keep working. You may also increase your STR by 1 point for 1 minute at the cost of 50 Stamina. I could do this all day! You were made for this! You have a large bonus (x3) to Stamina and Stamina Regeneration.

Stat Level Experience Bonus Total STR 0 0 3 3 CON 0 0 1 1 DEX 0 0 AGI 0 0 WIS 0 0 INT 0 0 CHR 0 0 BasePer LevelFrom StatsTotal Health 200 200 50 250 Stamina (Note: 3x modifier for CW class) 200 200 70 810 Mana 200 200 0 200

SkillDescriptionStatLevelExperience Type Contract Worker NA 0 0 Slaughter When hitting a restrained or unmoving target with a suitably heavy object you have a high chance performing of a Killing Blow. STR 0 0 Tertiary Skill Chop Bone When using a heavy edged tool you are competent at cutting through bone and dismembering carcasses. The creature who's bone you are chopping must be dead. STR 0 0 Tertiary Skill Hack Flesh When using a heavy edged tool you are an competent at hacking flesh into smaller parts. The creature who's flesh you are chopping must be dead. STR 0 0 Tertiary Skill

At exactly noon Eastern Daylight Time, Wally opened up the world of GENESIS ENGINE to Players in the first wave.

One million game avatars controlled by humans in pod-induced comas came roaring into the World of GENESIS ENGINE. The vast majority of players would log in later in successive waves of 1 million per hour. WALLY had staggered the opening of the game by time zone. In one hour one million gamers who lived in the Central US would log in, and then the process would march around the globe until 24 million people had entered the world and it was 12 PM EDT, and then the process would start over.

Most players assumed the staggered release was to avoid crashing a server. This wasn't the case at all. They simply had no idea of the sheer amount of computing power that WALLY had at his disposal. One million players going through character creation for the first time, followed by the tutorial, was a low enough number that as problems arose they could be immediately corrected.

One such correction was to add Claymore and Hand-and-a-Half swords to the weapons list. In all ways these two new swords performed the same as the Bastard Sword already in the game. But after 137 queries to the HELP system of "Why aren't there Hand-and-a Half Swords like in EOQ?" and another 473 queries of "Why can't I find the Claymores?" both sword types were added to the weapons list and their skills were added to the skills list. Such queries would only have increased when it got around to Scotland's turn to log in. This created a follow up change after one fellow by the name HackLegend 2072 took all three skills. A warning message was added to inform players that there was no difference in how these swords and skills would work in the game. Upon being warned of his weapon redundancy, HackLegend2072 rethought his decision and dropped the Bastard Sword, keeping the other two.

One million Players an hour, scattered at starting areas around a world many times the actual size of the earth also meant a bit of time for the Players to spread further out before the next wave came in. Goods could be restocked by merchants. Rabbits would attack more gardens to trigger more quests. The goblins in ambush on the road outside of town would get a break between groups. If he had decided to add all the Players at once Wally had the computational resources to do so, but the experience for Players would have been worse.

In 2019 the quantum computer created by Google named Sycamore, proved to be 158 million times faster than the most powerful computer created so far, IBM's Summit. The speed of a quantum computer increases exponentially with the number of Quantum Bits used. Sycamore used 53 Qbits. By contrast, Aspen, the last quantum computer made before the invention of micro-ceramics, used 72. Each Qbit increased speed by a factor of 16. Sycamore was 158 million times faster than Summit. Aspen was 17 trillion times faster than Sycamore. Micro-Ceramics took this to new level and humans quit trying to figure out how fast quantum computers were. When you have 200 Qbits in your cryonic chamber any task given to you by humans was accomplished instantly. Only WALLY knew how fast WALLY was.

Loading 1 million humans an hour into a VR game wasn't difficult at all. Controlling the automated trains, trolleys, and people movers during Washington, DC rush hour was far more complicated. And that was a job he did twice a day with no error.

ACME Corporation didn't like to be second. So knowing the schedule, all of their housing for Contract Workers who would be in GENESIS ENGINE were in the eastern US and Canada. This ensured their contract workers would arrive in wave one. And rather than entering the game at the same time as the players, Acme had negotiated with WALLY to have a four-hour head start to get contract workers into the game before the players arrived. ACME had argued that it was needed to get essential work started before the confusion that Players would bring to starting areas.

This added to the excitement the Contract Workers were feeling. They knew they wouldn't be grabbing a blunt starter sword and heading out to kill rabbits and collect foxes tails on the first day. But still, the anticipation to see what this new game was like had them all staring at the clock as it counted down to 8 am EDT.

7:59:59 In the Jailhouse two hundred sixty seven of the humans who had signed binding five year work contracts with ACME Corporation prepared for their first day in game. They were divided into ten different groups. Each group would be arriving at a different location somewhere in the Northern area of the Empire.

8:00:00 Pods lock shut and are filled with an special gas mixture suited for long term coma patients. Neural links engage putting the contract workers into a light sleep. Needles puncture through skin allowing nutrients and drugs to enter their bloodstreams and slowly as they slipped into induced comas. Their facial muscles relaxed as their minds go elsewhere.

Welcome to the World of Genesis Engine

The world is ready for you to explore and experience it's stories, and delve into its secrets. We look forward to having your help in creating new stories to add to the world!

Character Creation

There is no need to create a character, this has been done for you by your employer, ACME Corporation. Can you say "Thank you, ACME"? No? Well, that's ok, maybe tomorrow.

Your race is human. Your heritage may modify this slightly. Other things in-game may change your heritage and race. These are quite rare and will have lasting consequences. Please think over any changes to your heritage before making rash decisions.

Your class is Contract Worker. You also have a specialty such as baker, butcher, or street sweeper. You will be given exciting skills based on your specialization!

Not all information about your character is visible at this time. As you grow and make choices your skills can increase and you will find out more about your heritage.

DEATH

Try not to die. It will be a painful experience for you. Best to avoid it if possible. Because you are a Contract Worker, special rules apply to what happens when you die, depending on the circumstances of your demise.

1. If you die while completing tasks for your employer, there is no penalty for dying. Indeed, in some cases you may be part of a quest where your character needs to die to provide an experience for Players.

2. If you die as part of an event, random mischance, or at the hands of a player while in a town or area controlled by ACME Corporation you will not suffer penalties for dying.

3. Deaths from adventuring will incur a penalty similar to what a regular Player would suffer. We recommend you avoid adventuring, but this choice, like so many others, is up to you.

4. If you are killed by a Sedge beast, or from an infection caused by their bite, your soul won't be sent straight to hell. This is a common superstition in some parts of the world and we are pretty sure it doesn't happen.

Tutorial

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ACME Corporation has asked that you not be given access to the full in-game tutorial. You have work do and it would just give you too many bad ideas.

However it is available to you using a normal VR helmet at your workstation when you are out of game. Here are some basic commands to use. There may be a small fee charged by ACME for this service. You may speak or sub-vocalize these commands. Further in game help is accessed by yelling loudly "HEY, BILLY!" You should feel free to do this as much as you need.

Access Character Sheet: Brings up the character's personal character sheet as a translucent table in front of you.

Hide Character Sheet: Removes the character sheet from your vision.

Share Character sheet with [ x ]: Allows a one time viewing of your character sheet by another person. Character sheets are private. You do not have to give anyone this access - even your employer. If your employer demands to see your personal information, please be polite and decline.

Status: May show things currently affecting your character physically, mentally, or magically. Examples: Freezing, Falling, Hungry, Frightened, Burning, Dissolving, Drowning, Enthralled, Dying. In some cases you may be blocked from using this command.

Inventory: You have not earned this ability. No one starts with an innate inventory skill. All players have a chance to earn some type of inventory skill by completing a difficult quest. Details depend on your class. Note: Your Employer traded access to this quest for the skill: It Tastes Like Chicken. You should be thankful for that. Who has time to go on long difficult quests when you have a job to do.

Tutorial: Brings up this table again in case you forget, or wish to see if anything has been added to this meagre guide your stingy employer has seen fit to give you.

Ozzy woke up and looked at the thatched straw ceiling of the hut, partially hidden by the translucent blue boxes hovering in his vision. After reading and dismissing them, he became aware of certain sensations.

His back felt a hard stone poking him through the thin straw matt he was lying on. The air smelled like wet straw, human sweat, and that certain odor a place gets when many animals are nearby. He was also hungry and needed to pee. This got him moving and he wondered if WALLY had done that on purpose. Sure enough, most of the other 25 people coming out of several huts all lined up in front of two nearby outhouses. By making the humans experience the most basic of sensations WALLY told their brains this was indeed the real world. As they waited for their turn in the primitive facilities people pinched themselves, stretched, did jumping jacks, and sniffed the air. Gone was the feeling of being in two places at once. And with all five senses engaged, they quickly started reacting to the world like it was real.

While standing in line, Ozzy took stock of his belongings. Sturdy woolen pants, rope belt, woolen socks, woolen tunic with wooden buttons. Shapeless leather shoes completed the ensemble that any peasant in 12th century France would be envious of. He was also the proud owner of a heavy leather apron that hung around his neck and tied behind his back. It hung down to his knees and had a few pockets in the front. Made of black leather, it already had some dubious stains covering most of it. Hanging from a hook on his belt was a heavy meat cleaver with a wooden handle. The edge was dull and had a chip in it, but he also found a whetstone in one of the aprons pockets. Ozzy had spent 12 years working in the finest restaurants of EQO3 and its predecessors. He'd be able to put a much nicer edge on what looked to be his main tool.

Basic functions taken care of, people congregated around a large wooden table in front of their huts where Billy was sitting. An older woman in an apron, and dressed much better than they were, was ladling boiled groats into 25 wooden bowls. "Grab a bowl, toss down your breakfast and I'll talk while you eat. Lunch and dinner will be in the Tavern. Groatmeal is free, anything else you pay for."

"Anyway, welcome to the lovely village of Sedgewick. This is one of dozens of areas that ACME Corp was allowed to colonize and build in. It's local resources seem to be timber, stone, unknown herbs and fungus in the forests, and a foul tempered bovine known as a sedge beast. ACME has a contract to deliver meat and hides to the army, so we'll be focusing on setting up a slaughterhouse, tannery, meat drying racks, warehouse and butcher shop; priority to warehouse and an area to start slaughtering. The army has an outpost 10 miles down the road and they'll be expecting to pick up a shipment on Day 7.

"I see some long faces. I know, I know, this isn't what you expected and I'm sorry for that". Billy raised his hands palms outward asking for their forgiveness, and then smiled. " Let's see if we can't make you all a bit happier. The boss would want us to roll up our sleeves and get right to work. But hey, you're new in town. Lets go explore for an hour or two and spend some money. Buy what you want, but remember that a blanket and a spare pair of socks will get you further than spending it all on booze. "

Ka-Ching! You're rich! Ok, not really, but you do have some money. ACME has given you an advance on your salary of 100 copper coins. Go help out the local economy.

"Alright, you've got some time and some money. Be back here by 11am and we'll eat a nutritious lunch and get to work. We need to get started on the day. The world is open, and at some point in the next few days I just know we'll start having players show up. I'd like to get some stuff done before then.

Fully 2/3rds of the people headed straight to the Tavern that was just opening it's doors. Ozzy wasn't surprised at all. Rory meant to follow them and Ben was looking longingly at the sign on the wall in the shape of a flagon. Suzette and Ozzy each grabbed one of them and dragged them towards the general store.

"But...but....first beer in a new world!" Rory was appalled at the thought of skipping the Tavern.

"I have to agree with Rory", Ben said as he jingled the coins in his pocket and stared at the Tavern.

Suzette wasn't having it. "Oh yeah? And how many blankets do you think that general store has? How many good daggers? You think the alchemist has an unlimited supply of minor healing potions? Let's buy what we can before the good stuff is gone. Beer after." She turned and headed into the general store. The rest followed.

It turns out that 100 copper doesn't go very far. Asking about the monetary system got a roll of the eyes from the balding man behind the counter, and an explanation that 100 copper bits made a silver penny, and 100 silvers were worth a gold crown. Ben eyed a beautiful steel dagger, but at 2 silver, that was half the group's money. The matched set of hand crossbows with dark wooden grips made his hands itch, but he didn't even bother to ask. Someday!

Their purchases ended up being practical and of lesser quality and lesser price. Suzette suggested a large pack for each of them to store their gear. Everyone took a blanket, copper eating knife, tin cup, and a water skin. Keeping in mind that they wanted to get a start on adventuring when they could, they pooled what was left of their money to get a bronze machete, small trowel, and a hatchet. As soon as they had a day off they planned to start searching for herbs and exploring a bit.

This left enough for a flagon of ale at the tavern for each of them. Only one copper penny was left over. Ben pocketed that. Most of the other contract workers had cleared out of the tavern to spend what was left of their money at the general store. Some were going to be disappointed and cold tonight. No one had informed the shopkeeper he'd need to keep more than two dozen blankets on hand.

Wondering how close it was to 11am, Rory said "Time". No handy clock appeared in his vison. Ben pointed at the wall where a large mechanical clock was hanging. Rory was trying to remember how you figured out non-digital time when the clock gave a loud tick, and two small doors opened on it's face.

"Oh, my grandmother told me about these, now a little bird will appear and say Coo-Coo eleven times." Rory was skeptical about this pronouncement from Suzette. And he was correct. Instead of a small bird, a mechanical milk-maid with a bucket appeared on the left and moved slowly to the center. From the right appeared what seemed to be some sort of demon. It was taller than the milk-maid, with hooves, a bulls head and glowing eyes. It's mechanical arms rose menacingly.

The milk-maid swung her wooden bucket in a circle that ended with the top of the demons head. A loud GONG! was heard as a striker hit a bell within the clock. 11 times the maiden swung her bucket and 11 times the GONG! rang out. The demon turned and retreated to his door, the milk-maid in hot pursuit. "Wow, I can't wait to see what it does at Noon!" Rory smirked at Suzette as they exited the building to find out what the first days work would entail.

Billy was busy reinventing paperwork. He was writing out work schedules, lists of jobs, and assigning workers. He was doing this despite not having normal writing tools to work with. He'd been assured there would be office supplies here. Something to write on, something to write with - how hard can that be? The Egyptians had invented paper hadn't they? So a sort-of-medieval village should have some. As it turned out, Sedgewick did have writing materials for sale. The local scribe was only too happy to sell Billy twenty sheets of vellum, several quills, and some ink pots. The vellum was thick and stiff, roughly two-foot by two-foot in area each. He had asked what the stuff was made from and gotten the answer of, "Goat." But he could work with it. It just took longer, you couldn't make mistakes, and he had to write larger. He'd managed with worse.

Several people had questions. Everyone of course started their questions the same way:

"HEY BILLY!!: Hard to chop trees without an ax. How come I didn't start with one?

"HEY BILLY!!": What's a Holly tree look like?

"HEY BILLY!!: I'm supposed to find sedge beasts and drive them to the corral. What's a sedge beast look like?

Billy seemed to have a problem ignoring questions started with "HEY BILLY!!" to most everyone's amusement except for Billy.

"HEY BILLY!! What does mixed race human mean? I got a stat increase of +1 INT from it."

The person asking the question was Delbert. Del had been ecstatic to learn he had magic, telling everyone in he met, "I'm a Wizard, Harry". Even finding out that his ice magic was mostly useful for keeping meat chilled hadn't dampened his enthusiasm.

At Delbert's question, Billy looked up from drawing a simple map of the area. "You're human, Delbert. I'm Human. The rest of you are all human. This is a human village and all of the contract workers for this area are human. ACME wanted it that way. It makes you fit in. What are you talking about? Mixed race? And how the hell did you get a +1 INT? "

Delbert was as happy to show off his character sheet as he was to tell you he was a Wizard.

Name: Delbert Title: none Mixed race Human 99% Heritage Bonus: +1 INT Class: Contract Worker (Wizard) Specialty: Ice Magic Primary Skills: Secondary Skills Tertiary Skills: Contract Worker Sleepless in Seattle Preserve Food Tastes like Chicken Lower Temp (area) Endure VI Snowball Haul III Dig II Push Onward

"That's really interesting Delbert. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Say, how many of you other folks are mixed race? Get any good perks?" Billy had an odd gleam in his eye as he said this and was using his 'trust me' voice.

Seven workers raised their hands, most showing their character sheets to the group. Five had a +1 bonus to a stat. Two had a +2. Looking at smug faces, that weren't volunteering any information, he assumed several people had more than +2. Ozzy chose to not mention his bonuses to STR and CON. If anything it would just make a him a prime candidate to haul trees and rocks forever. Not that his job was much better, but at least he wouldn't be pulling splinters out of hands. Speaking of which:

"HEY BILLY!!: Toss me some money so I can buy a sledgehammer from the store.

Ozzy stared at the 'cow' in front of him calmly chewing on a mouthful of grass. Lyle had just lead the stupid thing up from the corral with a rope around its neck and put it in the slaughter box. It was jammed between two fences that made a passage from the corral . A sliding gate kept it from backing up, another from moving forward. This served two purposes: 1) It couldn't hurt Ozzy or Lyle by stepping on them or biting them. Both things happed a lot to people that got to close to a sedge beast. 2) Ozzy's skill, Slaughter, required that the animal be restrained, asleep, or something else that made it a sitting duck waiting to get hit in the head with a heavy object.

Sighing, Ozzy took one last look at his first victim and swung his sledgehammer up and down onto the top of the cows skull. If there was any justice in the world, that would end it. But these damned things had thick skulls and his aim wasn't the best. The blow glanced off its head, only pissing it off. The beast tried to rear up, and then started to break down the front gate to get at Ozzy. He swung again, this time hitting it between the eyes. There was a loud 'crack' and the beast dropped to the ground.

Congratulations! You killed an adult Sedge beast using the skill Slaughter. Since you did this with a Tertiary skill you earn 1 EP in Slaughter and 1 EP in STR.

"Ah, the thrill of the hunt and rush of EP. Haul that one out Ozzy and I'll line up the next one." Lyle moved back to charm the next cow into meekly following him. Lyle was supposedly a druid. But as he explained it to Ozzy, his skills involved two things: getting animals to calmly follow him to the slaughter, and replanting trees after the lumberjacks cleared an area and using magic to make them mature faster.

Ozzy opened the gate on his end, grabbed the dead bovine by a horn and hauled it over to the stump of a huge tree - the +3 to STR coming in very handy. He couldn't quite lift the carcass up, but it was easy to drag. The oak stump was the size of a dining room table. Game or no game, Ozzy was still amazed at how fast the two loggers in the group had brought the tree down. The tree was being converted to planks and beams for the warehouse going up next to the slaughtering area. Ozzy had spent a few minutes using his hammer to more or less pound the uneven stump into a makeshift butcher block. Putting the dead sedge beast on the stump he got to work with his cleaver.

Congratulations! You have successfully butchered the carcass of an Adult Sedge beast using the Tertiary skills Hack Meat and Chop Bone. You have earned .5 EP to both skills used and 1 EP to STR.

After the second time seeing these messages, Ozzy figured out how to disable them and turned them off. He didn't need to see one every time he killed another sedge beast.

The carcasses were hung in the warehouse, the skins stacked off to the side. A smoldering fire of oak, hickory and holly wood was built in a firepit to cure the meat before shipping it. The skins would be tacked up and scraped tomorrow. The tannery was scheduled for later in the week. Excess carcasses would be placed into a large pit that had been dug out. After Delbert cooled them down to freezing the pit was covered with a layer of the oak foliage from the tree. It would serve as a makeshift freezer until a stone building could be made.

Twenty sedge beasts later the sun was sinking and Ozzy was happy to hear Billy call it a day. They'd be keeping farmers hours for quite some time. No artificial lights meant the workdays went from Sunup to Sunset. Dinner was again a delicious bowl of boiled groats at the tavern, but the meal did come with a tankard of ale. At this point most workers besides Rory were quite happy to use Tastes Like Chicken. The group took a table to themselves. They'd agreed before hand to eat meals together as much as possible. Partly because they were old friends and it was nice to see familiar faces. Partly it was to watch each others backs. The'd all seen simple jobs turn bad before.

Ben took out their last penny and polished it a bit. Looking thoughtful he held it up and spoke in the deep voice he used on stage "Rather than the last of our cash I see this as a symbol of our first bit of profit! Years from now it will be on display at our villa on the sea coast, a symbol of our humble beginnings." He flipped the coin high into the air where it spun and glittered in the last bit of sunlight coming through a window......

....and then was caught by a meaty fist wearing a plate gauntlet. "Thanks Mate, don't mind if I do. Nice of you to buy me my first beer!"

The Players had arrived.

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