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Day 1: Brianna

Brianna didn’t have a single problem with the teams. While Jimin wasn’t her type at all, Jin was total eye candy. Tall, broad shoulders, not to mention he’s handsome.  Plus he seemed to know what he was doing. BryAnna certainly didn’t like it, but it would make the game a little easier for Brianna.

People (Ok so Jin and BryAnna) were discussing the map and who would go where. Brianna pulled up her own map, still amazed by how far technology has come. Who would have thought that she’d be inside of a game with her friends as if they were right next to her? She felt like a suped up android with the way she could just think about something and it will pop up on her ‘screen’ in front of her.

The part of the map her team was in charge of was relatively large. It covered a lot of small rooms and passages. She started to calculate how far she could walk in an hour. This was probably doable, as long as they didn’t run into any problems. It was pretty fun to kill the skeleton monsters, but time management was key.

FINALLY it was time to go. Brianna’s team broke off from the group early on. She walked in between the two idols she was paired with. “Sorry we have to walk so far.” Jin apologized.

“It’s okay. I like walking.” Brianna replied. She not so secretly liked the way their arms touched just a little bit while they were moving. The conversation between the three of them was smooth and easy. Brianna was always really good at talking to people and making friends, so it was no surprise that the boys naturally warmed up to her quickly.

She didn’t even think twice about the fact that she was getting attached to people who aren’t real.

While the party filled in their map by opening doors and exploring rooms, Brianna learned quite a bit about her members. Things she didn’t bother to learn before. Jin was a good cook and loved to tell lame jokes (Seriously - ‘What island am I from?’ ‘HANDsome.’ - - He had to explain that one to her. Apparently ‘som’ is korean for island….she laughed out of politeness). Jimin was trained in modern dance and had a complex about his small fingers. The atmosphere was relaxed and nice, unlike the way it was when everyone was cooped up in the recording room.

Thanks to Brianna’s quick walking pace, they made it through much of their assigned map in very little time. Before they knew it, their time limit was down to 40 minutes and they were almost done! Time flies when you get to talking with nice people. There was only one room left,

Jin clapped his hands together once and then shook his arms and shoulders out. Jimin laughed at him, covering his mouth. “Okay now. This is the last room. I bet there’s something really good in here!” Jin was super enthusiastic.

Brianna smiled with them and equipped her killer chopsticks. Obviously there has to be something behind the door. It’s been way to easy.

The only thing inside the room was a tacky photo booth. Like the ones you see at the mall or at fancy wedding events. Brianna being Brianna said, “Hey, let’s take a picture together.” Anything to satisfy her addiction to selfies with friends. She climbed into the booth.

“But what if it’s a….” she didn’t hear the rest of Jimin’s sentence. Because the inside of the photo booth was obviously not a photo booth. There were mirrors on all sides of her, close enough that she could reach out and touch them. She turned around, but all she saw was a narrow path. That was also lined with mirrors. Great. She landed herself right into a carnival mirror maze.

Brianna groaned. She was so eager to have some fun, she didn’t even think that it could have been a trap. She pulled up her messenger. No Signal.

The map didn’t change, though. It looked like she was still in the same room as before. But that could be part of the trick. She took a few steps forward, arms out. Brianna looked for the turn in the maze. Already she was starting to get dizzy from looking at so many copies of herself.

Even though she was dumb enough to fall for such an obvious trap, she wasn’t so stupid to not figure out what it was trying to do. There were still no enemies on the map. The trap was meant to waste whatever time they had left. It’s already been five minutes since she entered the maze. After 10 minutes she looked up and tried not to cry.

Then she had an idea. Maybe if she logged out, her time will be paused and then she can ask BryAnna for help on how to get through this puzzle.

“Logout” she said.

The logout menu appeared.

LOG OUT?

YES

NO

“Yes.”

LOG OUT FAILED. TRY AGAIN?

Now that is weird. Is it because of the service problem? She didn’t bother to try again, instead just moved as quickly as she could.

“Brianna?!” Jimin’s voice. She was looking down at the ground and her head popped up. His reflection was in the mirror next to hers, but he wasn’t actually there.

“Jimin? Are you stuck in here too?”

“We couldn’t just leave you in here..” This time it was Jin’s voice. She couldn’t see him, but he must be pretty close. His voice was closer than Jimin’s. Down to 25 minutes left.

“You sound really close.” her voice held some hope. She was so distracted by the fact that the boys came to get her that she ran face first into a wall. Jimin’s laughter resounded nearby. Brianna turned in the correct direction and kept walking.

“I think you should just stay where you are. I’ve already found 2 trap doors.” Jin’s warning was light hearted, but he had a point. It would be just like her to fall through a trap door and make even more work for them.

She stopped moving and just waited, her anxiety rising with each passing minute. “Hey! I found the exit!” Jimin’s voice, but it sounded farther away this time. But she could still see his reflection? This place is so confusing.

20 minutes left. Finally, Jin turned the corner so quickly that he almost ran right into Brianna. She took a step back to avoid getting smacked in the face by his chest.

“Let’s go fast, okay?” Jin said. He looked relieved to have found her. He grabbed her wrist (not her hand, was that a korean thing??) and pulled her along. She tried to keep up with his long ass legs. He helped her jump across the trap doors on the floor when they came along. Even though they were following Jimin’s direction to the exit, they got lost two different times. Brianna couldn't stop being distracted by how warm his hand felt on her skin.

And here she thought she was going to take  break from thinking about boys. Her hormones are out. Of. control. By the time they made it out of the stupid maze, they had only 10 minutes remaining.

The moment they were out of the maze, service returned to her monitor.

Ping. Ping. Messages came in. They were sent within the last few seconds, thankfully. Brianna pulled them open. It was from BryAnna.

BryAnna: Everyone. Logout now. Devon: ???? Liz: busy right now Brianna: it won’t let me.

Brianna responded without thinking about it too hard. She did try earlier, but they had no time to waste if they wanted to get to the checkpoint before time ran out. 0:09:12.

“Let’s go let’s gooooo.” Jimin led the way, moving faster than the other two.

Jin groaned. “Jimin! We don’t have any speed modsssss.’’ He complained, but was practically running to keep up. Brianna was surprised that she didn’t feel as tired as she thought she would at this point.

The boys stopped so suddenly, that Brianna ran right into Jin’s back. Yep it was solid. She rubbed her forehead and walked around him.

The door to the checkpoint room was being guarded by a single guy. He seemed to be using the same mechanical path each time he passed them.

Without hesitating, Jin voiced his idea for the plan. They had just 4 minutes left. “Jimin has the speed plug in. That makes him the fastest of anyone in our group. The guard pauses for 10 seconds before turning around. Jimin- As soon as he passes the door with his back to us, you run over there and unlock the door. Enter and leave it open. We’ll come right after once the coast is clear.”

No one objected the plan. It seemed pretty solid. Jimin did as he was told and made it across the hall so fast she barely saw him move. Just as quickly he started to work on solving the lock’s puzzle. Brianna waited next to Jin, feeling nervous. Jimin slipped into the door just as the guard turned. The door didn’t shut all the way, just enough not to draw attention to it. When the guard made his way past the door again Jin took off across the hall. Brianna followed.

The door shut behind her and the cheer in her throat quickly died when she heard the door lock behind them, and there was just darkness.

Day 1.5

[pressstart5atbh-blog]

D-1 Devon

Devon was pleased with the partner choices. She was with her favorite ship: Sope. Although she was a bit confused about why BryAnna wouldn’t choose Suga to be on her own team. Wouldn’t it be better use of the game to put everyone with their Bias?

Jin seemed to agree with the teams. Apparently it was good strategy. Devon watched, amused. BryAnna was obviously getting frustrated with Jin.

Devon thought this was a pretty good start to the game. Just sit back, relax, and explore the map. Maybe even discover some other cool stuff you could do in game. She listened halfheartedly to the strategy talk, but made a mental note of what part of the map they were in charge of. South East. Their part of the map swung back the way they came a bit and then looped north, to take care of the whole Mid Eastern part of the map before landing them right at the checkpoint room. 2 hours was plenty of time to do that. Well…. 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Devon tried to think back about who in BTS was good at games. That should reflect how they act during the missions right? She knew that Jin was pretty good. Jungkook plays. Suga maybe?  

They left the group right when they exited the room, going back towards where the girls had started.

“Sooooo which one of your friends dragged you into the game?” Suga asked, once they were out of earshot of the other groups.

“Huh?” Devon looked at him.

“Yoongi-hyung…….” Jhope’s voice was full of embarrassment. What a way to introduce yourself to your partner.

“Yeah..well No...it’s true, BryAnna wanted to play. I don’t play games. So sorry in advance if you do all the work.” Devon thought it might be best to just put it out there. This game did a really good job portraying these characters, though. Their movements and speaking habits were on point.

Devon tried to ignore the nervousness. It was almost like talking to real people. She reminded herself that these boys were a part of a program and to talk naturally to them.

“Tasks like these are always the most annoying. Couldn’t we have gotten it out of the way during the tutorial?” J-hope teased, when it was obvious that no one was going to say anything to each other.

“I don’t mind. It’s kind of nice to just walk around and check things out.” Devon replied. She stole a glance at him. Man he really did just radiate good vibes. Even though he was clearly upset about something when they were trapped in the sound room, all of that tension seemed to have disappeared. She smiled a little.

They walked for a while, filling in the map with no problems at all. Devon was content just listening to the boys banter back and forth. It was obvious that they were close, and she was grateful that Hoseok was there to include her in the conversation every once in a while. In fact he had to make an effort to include Suga in the conversation too. The poor kid had to ask direct questions to get his hyung to say anything to him at all.

“Man, sorry Suga is in such a bad mood. He’s a little cranky from being stuck in here.” J-hope apologised. Devon just shrugged. She’d get upset if she was stuck in that tiny room with a bunch of rowdy boys for who knows how long too.

Ping.

A message popped up from BryAnna.

BryAnna created the chat.

Devon joined the chat.

BryAnna: Yo ur NPCs acting funny?

The question seemed a little weird. Devon responded quickly.

Devon: Idk what the difference is, sooo.

BryAnna: Did they mention being real people?

Devon started to type a reply. Of course they acted real, because the program was that top notch, but they never exactly said that they were real people. Before she could hit send, she was distracted by J-hope.

“Hey, what’s that?” he asked, pointing ahead. There was a crate in the middle of the hall. Devon minimized the chat, forgetting that she was in the middle of a conversation. It looked exactly like the ones from before.

Devon walked up to it and tapped it with her foot. “Should we open it?”

“Of course we should open it!” Hoseok sounded pretty excited that we finally found something. He reached down and tapped the top. The lid popped open. Immediately, he scrambled back and let out a shrill scream. Devon fell back onto her butt, shocked. Like a jack in the box, a giant clown head swung back and forth on spring. It’s smiling face had sharp teeth and it let out a terrifying cackle. Not only that, but it kept growing. When it first came out, it was the size of a toy. But in a matter of seconds it was almost large enough to block the path.

Devon couldn’t even see Suga any more on the other side. But she could hear his scared cursing. The clown head thing swung back and forth and then slammed down, narrowly missing Devon’s leg. She scooted back and got to her feet.

Parts of the wall slid back to reveal massive speakers. The speakers started to play music. Boss Battle Music. “What the hell?” she helped J-hope up. He was trying to put on brave face, but it was obvious he probably wasn’t going to be much help at all.  A health bar appeared on top of the monster. It was starting to spawn arms.

“We gotta kill it!” Suga called from the other side of the monster. It seemed that it didn’t want anything to do with him. It swung back and forth and used it’s momentum to fall forward. It used it’s growing arms to pull itself forward towards Devon and Hoseok.

“Do you have any weapons?” Devon asked Jhope without looking at him. She equipped her scythe, and hoped that it would work out.

“No. Just the stealth plug in.”

“Okay just stay behind me.” she stepped in front of him. Man she wished that the music would shut off. How to gamers concentrate with that noise in the background? All it did was make her feel uneasy and nervous.

Here’s to in - game combat muscle memory. When the thing got within range, she sidestepped and swung. The scythe’s blade made solid contact and slid right through it’s arm. It flopped off, making the whole thing unbalanced. It fell face first and Devon took the opportunity. She singled to J-hope to go over to the otherside by Suga now that there was room. Even though the hit was solid, she noticed that the HP bar barely went down.

While she was distracted by the health, the monster’s limb regenerated and swung at her. She put up her scythe to block the attack’s damage, but she still lost her footing. It easily tossed her to the side and she landed on her back. The wind was knocked out of her lungs, but she forced herself to get up as quickly as she could. That hit brought down her health by 30%. Her defense was shit.

Suddenly Suga was standing next to her. “What are you doing?” she asked, breathless from the hit. The monster swung at them again, but this time they saw it coming and moved out of the way. The monster was slow, if you payed attention.

“I have a defense plugin. If I get hit, I’ll take half damage.” Suga explained, keeping close by Devon’s side. That makes sense, but it felt totally wrong to hide behind someone who can’t even defend themselves.

While dodging the attacks and trying to get a hit in, Devon looked for a point of weakness. She thanked her concentration thing for that. It took a lot of focus to look at each part of the monster as it was moving around like a possessed doll. Finally, she saw it. The back of it’s head. But no way was she going to be able to climb up there to reach that spot. The monster’s health was down just below 50%. If she could get a good hit in there, it’ll be done for.

Devon screenshotted her vision. The image showed the monster, along with the green area of weakness on its back. She attached it to a message to Jhope along with the text :Just get here!: Seriously it was so worth clicking around the menus earlier.

She sent it, but during that moment of distraction, the monster took aim for another hit. Suga jumped in front of it and he was slammed into the nearby wall. His body slumped down to the ground. Devon felt a moment of panic but it subsided when he moved to get up, holding his head.

Devon swung around, looking for J-hope. She could see him hanging on to the clown’s red hair for dear life. Devon locked her vision onto her teammate and threw her scythe at him, praying he wouldn’t duck. Everything moved in slow motion while the weapon was airborne. A notification popped up, letting her know that her scythe was now equipped.

Just like in a cool action cutscene, J-hope slow motion caught the weapon perfectly and then everything moved so fast as if to catch up with real time. He swung it down, hitting the exact spot and then dragging it through its body as he jumped down. The monster disappeared once it’s HP reached zero.

Jhope was so excited, it was cute. “Did you see that? That was so cool! I can’t believe i did that!!” he was so happy. Devon didn’t say anything, but transferred a healing pack to Suga. She restored the HP she lost and then accepted her Scythe back from Jhope.

“Yeah that was pretty awesome...but our time limit..” Suga said.

Devon took a look. Wow. Okay. They spent a lot of time on this stupid monster. They were down to only 50 minutes. At least most of their part of the map was done. There was just a little bit more to go.

“What’s this?” Devon looked down and pointed at the shiny object. It looked like one of her bouncy balls, but it was shining a blue color. She picked it up.

“It’s an item drop.” Suga responded.

“It says it’s a fire mod. I have to equip it to a weapon.” Devon read the info about the item drop.

Suga nodded. “Feel free to equip it. Your the only one with something to put it on right now.” Devon hesitated for a moment. Mostly because she’s not sure how to do it. She looked at her scythe in one hand and the mod in the other. Then she slowly put them together, feeling a bit dumb. All she could think of was that stupid Pineapple Pen song as she did it. It worked though.

Equip Mod?

Yes

No

After she altered the weapon, Devon didn’t bother putting it back into her inventory. It would just make her feel better it was in her hand just in case there were any more surprise attacks.

Not gonna lie though, as much as it hurt to get knocked around, it felt pretty epic to defeat a monster.

“We should hurry up a bit. Taehyung just messaged me. Their team followed an unmarked path and now they’re cut off from their part of the map. I agreed that we’d cover for them since it’s on our way to the check point anyway.”  Suga was blinking at something on his monitor.

Devon’s team moved quickly after that. Even cautiously splitting up a few times to cover more ground. The time limit made things a little more exciting, almost like a race. Still buzzing on the adrenaline from the earlier fight, Devon was really enjoying this kind of game. It was like completing a maze.

As they were finishing up the last section of Liz’s team’s map, Devon got a message notification.

BryAnna: Everyone. Logout now.

That’s weird. Why would she need everyone to log out? It’s not like there was anything going on. She replied:

Devon: ????

Liz: busy right now

Brianna: it won’t let me.

“Hold on guys, I need to log out for a sec.” Devon commented. Suga and Jhope stopped and looked at her before looking at each other. They frowned. “Logout.” Devon said, and the logout screen popped up.

LOGOUT?

YES

NO

“Yes”

LOGOUT FAILED. TRY AGAIN?

Devon glanced at their time. 10 minutes left. “It won’t let you log out….” Jhope whispered, sounding a little sorry that he didn’t say anything sooner.

“What?”

“We’ve tried a hundred times. It won’t let us out of the game. We have to win in order to leave.” Suga’s voice was matter - of- fact.

Was this part of the game’s plot? She didn’t seem to recall this part in the game description. It DID say that they had to survive a hostage situation. But Devon assumed that there would be a person keeping them hostage. Not a computer program.

“Okay…..” Devon decided to play along until they made it to the checkpoint. She was sure that BryAnna would know more about it. Maybe they couldn’t log out until they complete the mission or something.

They made up a plan to get into the room. The guard was moving in the same path every time it passed the door. It didn’t give them a lot of time.

“How do you feel about doing a gamble. There’s a 50% chance that J-hope won’t be noticed by the guard if he doesn’t move while in his line of vision. Let’s have Hoseok sneak past, crack the code, and then we can follow when the guard’s back is turned.” Suga laid out a solid plan. Hoseok didn’t even look nervous about it.

When the guard passed, Jhope hurried across the hall and crouched down in front of the door. He woke up the keypad and started to do the thing that Liz does. Devon thought that maybe she should try unlocking a door sometime just to see what it looks like. When the guard turned around and started to come back, Jhope froze. Devon didn’t think she ever saw him sit so still for so long. The guard paused, but continued without even a nod in Jhope’s direction. The idol finished unlocking the door. It swung open to reveal a dark room. Jhope went inside and Devon followed Suga across the hall and into whatever came next.

1.5

[pressstart5atbh-blog]

D-1: LIZ

Lizzy couldn’t wait until it was time to log on again. When it was finally time, she didn’t hesitate to plop down on the living room couch and loudly declare that no one should bother her because she’s about to play her game. Then Mama Barb reminded her that no, she can’t lay there for hours, because that is where Rosemary is going to fold the laundry.

With a groan, she moved herself down to her bedroom in the basement.

As soon as she logged on, a message popped up in her vision.

Day 1 START

Along with the message, there was also a timer set for 2 hours and Lizzy noticed she even got the quest stuff.

“Did everyone get that?” BryAnna asked. Lizzy nodded. “Looks like we have a time limit to finish Day 1’s quest.”

Lizzy wasn’t the only one to get the quest info, then. Devon was the first to mention it, but everyone had notification. Great! Lizzy checked over the objectives. She needed to unlock the door again. She made her way over to the number pad and touched it to wake the thing up.

Just like last time, a puzzle popped up on her screen. They looked like turning gears. She had to turn them this way and that too successfully unlocked. She turned one gear to the left until she heard a click. Easy. She turned the next one to the right, but missed the mark. The lock made a pop sound and she pulled her hand away. “Ow!”

The damn thing shocked her! “If I failed, it shocks me….” Liz whined, shaking her hand out. “It feels like I touched an electric fence.” She didn’t want to put her hand back on the lock, but knew that she had to in order to get to her baes on the other side.

This time, she was more careful and took her time. Ping. ping. Ping. ping. She kept getting notifications, but ignored them. It was hard enough to focus on the task without all the distractions.

Liz heard BryAnna complain about how long it was taking her. “If people wouldn’t be so damn noisy…” she muttered.

Finally she got the correct combination. “Got it!” She yelled. Liz watched as the checkmark appeared to show that the first objective had been completed. She smiled smugly. The next objective briefly flashed on her screen. Reach the checkpoint undetected.

Liz rolled her eyes when her friend scolded her for yelling. Yeah yeah there’s not a lot of time, but she was sure that it would be okay.

When the boys filed out of the room and Jin started to give orders, Lizy had to stop herself from oogling him. She loved a man who would take charge. And he was so damn tall she had to really look up at him. She didn’t pay much attention to what was being said until she heard her name.

“Liz - you take V and Jungkook.”

She smiled. Yessssssss. V will keep things interesting and Jungkook is so strong that of course if they come across any bad guys he’d take them out. Right?

Liz tried to work out what she’d say to them while the rest of the group talked about things like Stealth and Maps and blah blah blah. Switching Parties seemed a little important, so she listened closely to how to do that.

Finally it was time to get going.

It wasn’t until the group started to split up that Lizzy figured she probably should have been listening a little bit better. Where were they going again? When they were out of earshot of the others, Lizzy worked up the courage to ask..

“What part of the map are we doing?” she tried to sound formal, but her voice raised a bit towards the end of the sentence. It betrayed her nervousness.

She got doubly nervous when they looked at her. “The North Eastern part of the map.” Jungkook said, a little confused about why she didn’t know. They spent a good amount of time working out the plan before they left the recording room.

“Oh...yeah..sorry I’m not good at this.”

V smiled. “Not good at playing games or not good at talking?”

Liz’s face started to get red. “No no I’m really good at both of those things.” she sputtered and shrugged. “I mean I don’t really care, it doesn’t bother me that you might know more than me.”

“Don’t worry. Jungkookie is good at this kind of stuff. He can lead the way.” V half shoved Jungkook ahead, while he continued to walk next to Liz.

They wandered around, the boys quietly talking amongst themselves. Every once in a while they would direct a question or statement towards Liz and she tried her best to respond without dying. Mostly she just enjoyed staring at Jungkook’s back.

Even if it was just a game, it felt like a literal dream come true that she was even this close. So it was okay that she couldn't get words out in the correct order. Really it was. She really didn’t care if she made a fool of herself. BUT she knew that BryAnna would be making fun of her so hard right now if she were here. Her thoughts flashed back to Kcon Flower Boy Cafe and how embarrassing that was.

While they explored the map, Lizzy kept an eye on the time. It’s already been a half hour since they split up from the group. And they haven’t even covered a quarter of the ground they were supposed to. They have been opening doors and finding random passages like crazy, but there was never anything at the end.

Jungkook stopped walking ahead. Lizzy looked up at him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

He cocked his head to the side the way he does when he’s thinking hard about something. “The map says there should be a passage here…” He pointed at the wall to his right. “But there isn’t.” he turned around to face the other two.

V crossed his arms. “Secret passage?”

Liz stared at the wall. It looked like all the other ones so she had no idea what the difference was. There wasn’t a switch or anything. She had always envisioned hidden passages to be tucked behind elaborate book shelves.

While they were contemplating their problem, the floor shook. It felt like what liz would imagine an earthquake would be. The lights went out and they were stuck in total darkness for a moment. Then the small red emergency lights turned on. They were positioned on near the ground 15 feet apart, and didn’t give much light.

“Aish..” Taehyung complained. He stepped closer to the wall in question. It seems like everyone’s nerves was heightened now that they couldn’t see very well.

Lizzy followed suit. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but nonetheless she went forward and stood next to V.   It wasn’t until she looked down that she noticed that there wasn’t something quite right with the tiles. Most of the tiles were white with straight sides. Perfect squares. But two of them had a curvy side.

Curious, she stepped on one. Nothing happened. “V step right there, please.” She poked his arm to get his attention and then pointed where she wanted his foot to go. He followed the direction without question. The tiles sunk down an inch and the wall in front of us slid up. It only came up 3 feet, but it was enough for them to be able to crawl through.

“Asah! Good job, Lizzie.” Jungkook praised her thinking and she started to turn red again. No one noticed though, because their eyes were on the plumes of smoke that were coming towards them down the hall. A quick look was all it took to realize that the smoke was coming from every direction, and fast.

Jungkook dropped down to his knees and crawled in first. Then Lizzy followed, with V at the back. It was so dark in the little passage. Liz moved slowly with one hand out a bit in front to make sure she doesn’t run right into her idol’s backside.

She thought that it would lead right into the room, but no. The passage was longer than she thought it would and she was starting to feel claustrophobic. It didn’t help that the smoke followed them in. Her eyes started to sting and it was getting hard to breath. Her heart monitor beeped a warning at her increased heart rate.

She heard Jungkook’s yelp ahead and a moment later, she realized why. When she put her hand down, it was met with nothing but air and she tumbled forward, head first into the ground. It was a short fall, only 4 feet. And luckily Jungkook was down there to cushion her fall a bit. She landed on him, but still got an elbow in the gut when V crashed down on top of them both.

“You okay?” Jungkook’s voice sounded concerned, but also annoyed by their current state.

Liz groaned. “I’m okay.” she sat up.

“Hyung?”

“I’m fine.” Taehyung responded.

Liz looked around. She still couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were watering so bad from the smoke, and there were no lights. Luckily it didn’t seem like the smoke was going to follow them this far.

“We need to be able to see.” V said. Liz got to her feet unsteadily and reached out around her. She hoped the boys didn’t mind, but she was definitely going to grab on for dear life and they can just lead the way. She didn’t trust herself not walk right into a wall. Latching her one hand onto the closest shirt, her free hand stretched out, looking for a wall or something.

“There’s gotta be a switch somewhere.” Jungkook declaired, confidently.

“Jungkook~ I think I found a button. Should I press it?” V’s deep voice came from the other side of the room. So she must be hanging onto the maknae then.

Jungkook hesitated for a moment, seemingly weighing the risks of pushing an unmarked button in an empty room. “Yes.”

The lights turned on and Liz let go of JK’s shirt to shield her eyes. “Owow that’s bright.” There was a crate in the center of the room. It looked exactly like the ones the girls got their equipment from yesterday. V opened it up and read off the contents. A Tracking Mod (whatever that was) and a Flash Bomb.

Liz looked at the time. 40 minutes left. It didn’t seem like they have been wandering around for that long...but maybe time flies when you’re distracted by hot men?

“Uh...guys?” Liz spoke up for the first time in a while.

They looked at her. “The map is weird. The place we were in before has completely disappeared and I haven’t seen this new part before.”

“You’re right….” Jungkook crossed his arms, looking at his own map. “But we can see a path that leads to the Checkpoint.”

But they needed to fill in their part of the map or the objective won’t be met, right?

“We can message another group to fill in our part for now. We were almost done, anyway.” V said, pulling up his messenger. “Yoongi-hyung said that they can cover, they’re going that way anyway.”

So it was settled, they’d use their last half hour to make their way to the checkpoint and somehow get through the guards undetected.  

They had to pick up the pace a bit. Even if they were let off the hook for filling up the other part of the map, it looked like the checkpoint was a long ways away. They finally reached a T intersection. Jungkook slowed them and motioned for them to get up against the wall. The door to the safety room was only one right turn away. Jungkook went ahead and equipped the Tracking Mod. He peaked around the corner for only a second.

“I can see where he’s been walking. Just back and forth. He pauses about 5 meters away from the door with his back turned before turning to face us again.” He paused, thinking about it. “But the pause is only 10 seconds. Even if we sneak behind him right as he turns…..we will have less than 50 seconds before he’ll turn and see us.”

“That’s not enough time to unlock the door, even with my Thief Plugin.” Lizzy responded, suddenly feeling the pressure. What if they get caught and then they have to start all over or something??

V put his hand out, palm up. A small ball materialized on his palm. “We do have this Flash Bomb. It’ll stun him for 30 seconds. We can set it off right before he turns to face our way.” He looked at Liz. “Will that be enough time?”

Liz wasn’t sure, but she nodded anyway. She equipped the knife she had in her inventory, just in case. Then followed close behind Jungkook when he signaled it was time. She didn’t look at the guard or anything, just focused on the lock. She tapped it to wake it up. As soon as she was about to start, a message popped up from BryAnna.

BryAnna: Everyone. Logout now.

Devon: ????

Liz: busy right now

Brianna: it won’t let me

Annoyed by the distraction, Liz minimized the chat and focused. Her vision was blocked for a second because JK had put his hand over her eyes. Tick Tick CRACK. The Flash Bomb detonated and Liz blinked when he removed his hand. Good thinking. Honestly, she didn’t know what a Flash Bomb was supposed to be but it makes total sense that it uh flashed light.

With 5 seconds to spare, the keypad flashes green and they all piled through the open door.

1.5

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Come Back Later.......

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Day 1: NPCs

The next day, I met up with Devon in her room and we logged in together. We appeared in the same spot where we logged out yesterday. I watched the members of BTS watch us through the glass. It was a little uncomfortable. A few of them looked like they were arguing with amongst one another. None of them looked happy.

I know that the premise of the game was to save them from a dire situation, BUT something told me they weren’t supposed to be acting like that. Was it a glitch?

Liz and Brianna logged on. Almost immediately, big block letters flashed on my monitor.

DAY 1: START

Under the announcement there was a countdown timer. It was set to 2 hours. I watched for a few seconds as it counted down. 1:59:58 ; 1:59:57…

The timer minimized itself to the bottom right corner of my monitor.

“Did everyone get that?” I asked. I watched as the girls nodded. “Looks like we have a time limit to finish Day 1’s quest.“

A quest notification popped up. “Hey, I have the quest stuff this time.” Devon said. Brianna and Liz confirmed that they also could see the quest objectives as well as the navigator. Everyone’s indicated that they need to unlock the door. Which we assumed was the locked door keeping the BTS members inside the recording room. I took a quick glance at the quest objectives. There were 5, but only the first and third was visible. The Rest were blurred out. Unlocking the door and filling out the map. I brought up the map. Part A was large. There was very little chance that we’d be able to complete that part if we stuck together as a group.

Lizzy was busy trying to get the door unlocked. “Ow!” she pulled her hand back. “If I fail, it shocks me…” she shook her hand out and frowned. “It feels like I touched an electric fence.” She whined a little before putting her hand back on the code pad, hesitant.

I ignored the ping of a notification. Instead of looking at the message, I tried to work out how to split us up. Ping. ping. Ping. ping. Notifications keep popping up.

“I got a friend request from all of them.” Brianna said, her voice a little excited. “Oh! I was invited to a group chat.”

I looked at her and then opened the notifications. I accepted the friend requests. “NPCs can’t send friend requests….” I muttered, confused.

“What’s NPC?” Devon asked.

“Non-Player Characters. Basically characters actual players aren’t playing. This is either a glitch or real people are playing.” I joined the group chat. “Liz are you almost done? Times ticking…”

Lizzy muttered something that I didn’t pay attention to. I was busy reading the messages that were popping up.

*RM created the chat* *J joined the chat* *JK joined the chat* *JH joined the chat* *V joined the chat* *JK joined the chat* *S joined the chat* *Brianna joined the chat* *Devon joined the chat*

Brianna: Hello!

RM: Are you players?

Brianna: We sure are! We are excited to play

RM: …….

RM: Be careful with the lock. It drains your HP. 

Brianna: Don’t worry, Liz is good at this stuff. We will have you out of there in no time.

*BryAnna joined the chat*

*Devon joined the chat*

I minimized the chat without adding to it. “Got it!” Lizzy shouted. The lock beeped and the keypad flashed green. A notification informed me that the first objective has been completed. The next one flashed briefly on my screen. Reach the checkpoint undetected.

“You don’t have to yell about it.” I looked at our time remaining. 1:50:14. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

The boys had filed out of the room, looking only a little more at ease. “Time is running out. We need to split up in order to fill the map on time.” Jin said, rubbing his hands together. Even though he was clearly speaking Korean, I could still understand what he was saying. Must be some sort of amazing translation technology. I took a moment to admire his beauty before realizing what was going on. NPCs aren’t supposed to take charge. But it would be Jin who would say the rational thing in this situation. He is BTSs resident gamer.

This game isn't following any of the typical RPG dynamics, though. Usually at this point the NPCs would idk introduce themselves and gee maybe idk act like NPCs.

“Uh...yeah. We want to get everyone through the objectives safely. If we split into 4 teams we can clear the map in a short time and move on.” I continued, eyeing him up. Man those shoulders of his were just so sexy. “Liz - you take V and Jungkook. Brianna - Jin and Jimin. Devon - Jhope and Suga. I’ll bring Namjoon.”

“That sounds good. Two of the teams will have someone with good Stealth Stats.” Jin said, stepping closer to Brianna.

I decided to drop it. I’ll look into their odd behavior when we get to the checkpoint. Maybe look up the FAQs when we log off.

It took a minute for everyone to adjust their party info. I removed my friends from my party and added Rap Mon. I couldn’t see any stats of the other girls, but I could still see them on the map when I brought it up. Allies showed up as green dots, enemies showed up as red.  Easy.

We talked briefly about how to split the map for exploration. We also agreed to split any loot we found along the way.  

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Day 1: Try Again?

For a while we walked together as a big group until the paths started to split. Within 5 minutes I was exploring the map alone with Namjoon.

I looked over at him and some of his stats popped up over his head. Heartbeat a bit higher than normal.  Missing 10% of his health. No Shield activated. I couldn’t see anything equipped.

“So..you downloaded this game for fun?” He asked, out of the blue. I didn’t answer right away, but opened up the random door that appeared to the left. The room was empty, but it filled out another section of the map.

There weren’t any dialogue choices for me to choose from. “Yeah. But if the rest of the game is going to be as glitchy as the NPCs, i’ll have to call customer service.” I commented, half to myself.

“We didn’t see any NPCs. And we’ve been stuck in here for two days. Where did you see the NPCs?”

I didn’t see how this conversation related to what we were doing at all, so I chose to ignore it. The map A progress bar was slowly increasing. 5% ...7%.....10%....

“I’m not an NPC.” Rapmon said. “We need to work together to get out of here alive.”

Yeah duh, that’s the point of the game. To work together. I opened up my inbox and wrote a new message to Devon.

BryAnna created the chat.

Devon joined the chat.

BryAnna: Yo ur NPCs acting funny?

Devon: Idk what the difference is, sooo.

BryAnna: Did they mention being real people?

Devon: ………..

The icon that she was writing a response wouldn’t disappear. I minimized chat. Our path had ended and we had to go through a door. It was unlocked so I just went ahead and went through. It opened to a dark room. I felt for a light switch but there was nothing. The door shut behind us, leaving us in utter darkness. Not even emergency lights to help out.

I reached out my arms and took baby steps until I felt the wall. I heard a thump and a groan. He must have just walked straight, without thinking about anything. “What did you run into?” I asked.

“It’s dark. How am I supposed to know what it was?” Yikes. The NPC is a little grumpy. I moved away from the wall in the direction that his voice came from. I took small steps. My foot caught on what could only have been NamJoon’s outstretched arm as he sat on the ground. I fell forward, putting my hands out to catch my fall. My knee slammed against the crate that he tripped on.

“Ow….” That hurt. A lot. More than it probably should for a game. I rubbed my knee and silently cursed when I noticed that my health bar fell a few points. “Damnit.” When I tapped the top of the crate with my palm it sprung open. A dim menu popped up above it. A Night Vision mod.

I sent it Namjoon’s way. He was so fricking clumsy it would help if he could see things. “Here you go. Feel free to lead the way.” The light from the crate disappeared as soon as we accepted the loot. I was back in utter darkness. Namjoon’s hand settled under my elbow and he helped me up. I let him guide me to the other side of the room. I heard him open a door and I squinted at the brightness of the next area of the map.

Exploring the map was becoming tedious. “Where are we now?” I asked myself as I pulled up the map. The progress was at nearly 80%. The others must have moved quickly because it felt like we didn’t move very far at all. The time was at just under 40 minutes left. That wasn’t much time at all. Seriously hoping if we miss the time limit we won’t have to start over.

We moved through our remaining rooms, not finding anything useful. The room we wanted to get to eventually was the safe room. It was in the middle of the map with 4 doors leading inside. We thought it was perfect to split the map into quarters and sneak past the guard at each of the doors with our team, knocking out the objective all at the same time.

Rapmon and I finished filling our part of the map with 15 minutes to spare. That should be plenty of time. We backtracked towards the Safe Room’s checkpoint. At the last turn we stopped to make our plan. There was only one enemy in front of the door. Rapmon leaned over to peak past the wall. It made me a lot nervous to let him be the one to tell us when to move. I tapped my foot, impatient.

“We have to get past him AND crack the code before he notices us.” Rapmon whispered. “And his back is only turned for 10 seconds…”

10 seconds? That’s not enough time, even if we had Liz’s hacking mod. I thought about it for a moment. “Do you think we can kill him?”

“Kill him?” He sounded a bit shocked.

“Uh..yeah. The objective it to get by undetected. If we can kill him when his back is turned, like a sneak attack, he won’t see us and we’ll have enough time to unlock the door.”

“You want to Kill a guy.”

“Jesus, that’s the point of the game.” I equip my staff, making sure the blade was out.   He looked back at me. “Maybe because you’re a…”

“For the last time. I am not an NPC. This is not a regular game. I know that’s hard to believe.” His voice was hushed, but full of urgency. I huffed disbelief. Yeah okay. He shook his head. “Jeez, you're more thick headed than Yoongi-hyung.”

I ignored the statement. “You’re smarter than I am, so how about you take care of the lock. While you do that, I’ll take out the guard. I’m almost positive it’s possible. If not, well I guess we try again.” I didn’t wait for him to answer, just trusted that he’d follow my lead.

The guard paced back and forth. When he turned around, I ran across the hall. I touched the lock to wake it up and then focused my attention on the guard. Crouching, I snuck up close behind him. When there was only a yard between me and his back, a pop up choice appeared on my monitor:

Preemptive Strike?

Yes

No

Knew it. I clicked yes and my body moved with the in - game combat muscle memory. I swung my leg out from my crouch and tripped the guard. He landed on his stomach. Within a second I was on his back and the blade on my staff came down right between in shoulder blades. Already i felt that this was different than when we took out the skeleton monsters. Before there was a fantasy feel to it. No resistance, the bodies didn’t even seem real. This was different. I could feel the resistance of bone and flesh as I stabbed him. It was difficult to pull it out.

The blood pooling from the wound was hot to the touch. The body didn’t dissipate as soon as the health bar reached zero. My heart rate skyrocketed.

Ok this was to real. This VR was nuts. It was time to quit. “Logout.” I said, standing up. I wiped the blood off of my hand, smearing it on my pants. I took a step back. The logout screen popped up.

Log out?

Yes

No

“Yes. Logout.”

LOGOUT FAILED. TRY AGAIN?

“Logout.”

LOGOUT FAILED. TRY AGAIN?

Beeps from the lock disengaging resounded in the otherwise quiet hall.

I pulled up my messenger and opened the group chat.

BryAnna: Everyone. Logout now.

Devon: ????

Liz: busy right now

Brianna: it won’t let me.

Rapmon grabbed my arm, and I pulled it free. “Come on, We gotta go in. More are coming.”

I checked the map. Green dots indicated that the rest of my friends are almost done with their objective. They were working on getting past the guards. More red dots were coming at us at a surprising speed.

“Wait, I should go get them.” I started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm again and opened the door. “Stop!” I tried to shake my arm out of his grasp but he was stronger than I was. He pushed me through the door and it locked behind us. I couldn’t see anything in the dark room. “Logout!”

LOGOUT FAILED. TRY AGAIN?

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Continue?

Devon

Liz

Brianna

[pressstart5atbh-blog]

Tutorial: Continued

How do we play? That was a good question. Everyone was looking at me, expecting me to know how to play the game. Even though it’s brand new and just came out. I wanted to tell them that it’s not like I read a walkthrough before login on . -_- But instead I put on my confident face and said, “I have a quest icon. I can see where to go.”

It was true. I yellow dot on the floor moved when I did. It acted like a compass, showing me the general direction to go in order to reach the destination for the quest. “It’s labeled Game Tutorial. The first objective is to fill our inventory.” I paused. “Don’t you have a map Icon or something? Mine is at the top.” I pointed in the general direction on my screen. “It looks like a square.”

“Oh yeah.” Lizzy said. “It’s all dark when I clicked on it. Just a general outline, nothing specific.”

I nodded. “That’s because we’ve only been in this room. The rest of the map will become detailed as we move through it.” Just like the classic RPGs. “I guess just follow me.” It was a little surprising that I was the only one who could see the quest. But maybe that’s because I was currently the party leader?

I led the way out of the room and into a well lit hallway, following the quest icon. I split my attention between the map icon and where I was walking. I opened the map and moved it to the right of my vision so that I could focus on where I was going, while still keeping an eye on how the details of the map were filling in. Suddenly a number popped up above the yellow dot that was guiding the way. 100. Was that 100 feet? Yards? I watched the number decrease. 99. 98. 95. .. It must be approx steps.

We took a left and continued. It was quite a maze, and I wondered if this was even accurate for the real building. Eventually the step marker neared 10 and the yellow dot abruptly changed direction. I paused, making Devon nearly walk right into me. I took a step backward. Then another, looking from left to right. The icon had moved to my right. Sure enough there was a door.

I opened it. It led to a room that was empty except for 4 metal crates. One for each of us. I walked up to the closest one and tapped the top of it with my palm. The lid sprung open and a menu appeared with a list of things that were inside. The items were virtual, so there wasn’t anything actually in the box.

I took a closer look at the item list.

*Health pack x4

*Revive x 1

*Pearl Bracelet (+100 Shield)

*Blade Staff

*Healer Plugin (+30% Health Transfer Success Rate)

Not bad. I added all items to my inventory and I got a pop up message.

EQUIP ITEMS?

I went ahead and equipped the bracelet, weapon, and plugin. The bracelet appeared on my wrist, and the weapon in my hand. The Plug in appeared as a green badge by my health bar. I quickly read through what it does.

Donate your health to other players in their time of need.

Well that seemed pretty useful. I looked around. The rest of the girls had followed my example and were busy looking through the items in their own Item Crate. “What did you get?”

Liz was the first to answer. “Health packs, revive, Onyx Bracelet, Thief Plugin. It says that I have a +50% success rate for disabling or disengaging locks. Cool. Oh and also a knife”

That was definitely useful.

“Same. Pearl Bracelet. Concentration Plugin (+40 Problem Solving).  A cool looking scythe.” Devon said.

“Pretty much the same. Health, Revive, a bracelet, a Compassion Plugin (+30% Persuasion Success Rate) and War Needles.” Brianna’s voice sounded confused. She equipped her weapon. It looked like a chopstick. A very sharp metal chopstick. “It says I have 50.”

“Well. You could stab with it. Or throw it?” Liz suggested. It was an odd weapon and I’ve never used on in any game.

A check mark appeared on my screen, signaling that we had completed the first objective of the Tutorial Quest. I clicked on the blinking quest Icon to look at the next one. “Looks like we need to complete a weapon training. ‘Kill 3 skeletons guarding a red door.’ “ I activated the quest and led the way out.

*_*_*_*_*_**_*_**_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*__*

We were led to a fire escape stair well. I was feeling a little nervous because while I had plenty of experience in killing things (especially skeleton like things) in video games, this felt a little different. We’d have to use our own strength to win, and not just push buttons in the correct order.

The lights flickered for a second before shutting off completely. A moment later the red emergency lights switched on. “We need to go up.” I whispered. I’m not sure why, but it just felt like we should be quiet. The light hearted atmosphere had left us and was replaced by an anxious anticipation. I squeezed my staff and a sharp blade slid out of the top to make it great for stabbing and slicing potential enemies. The whole thing was just taller than I was and had to be careful not to hit anyone behind me with it. I glanced back, slightly worried about Devon with that big scythe. It looked heavy, but she was carrying it with an unbelievable grace.

Ok this is no big deal, we got this. We went up 4 floors before being signaled to leave the stairwell. I quietly pushed open the heavy door, and peaked out. The lights were still out, but I could see pretty well in the red glow of the few emergency lights.

We got  close enough to our objective to get a step count. 50 steps. The hallway ended up ahead, and we had to choose between left or right. We came up to the intersection and I paused. “It’s right around the corner. In order to complete the objective, we each need to kill 3. That’s 12 total.” I put my back against the wall and motioned the others to do the same, lining up next to me. Peaking my head around the corner, I held my breath. At the end of the hall was a red door. “There’s only 4. They must respawn.” I watched for a moment. “Their path’s are the same. They keep walking the same route back and forth.” I looked over at Brianna and thought about it. Just jumping right in there MIGHT work. But it would be better if we can take one or two of them out before even getting close. The skeletons looked almost cartoonish. Nothing like real skeletons. They didn’t even have weapons.

To easy.

“Brianna. I’m going to have you throw your pointy chopstick at it. Don’t look at me like that.” she was giving me the ‘you’re fucking crazy look’. “Using game logic, it’ll go down with a head shot. Just aim for it’s skull.”

While i hadn’t had a chance to test out how the combat works, I’m sure that most of it is automated. Game makers can’t expect normal everyday people to be skilled at things killing and fighting. Duh.

Brianna steadied herself, positioning her body so that most of it was still hidden behind the wall, but making sure she could get a clear shot. The way she held her weapon looked comfortable, even if she was clearly not. Her form reminded me stunt performers who would throw knives at apples positioned on people’s heads.

I could tell that she was following instructions on her screen. Her body relaxed and she cocked her arm back, taking aim. Then she tossed it, not holding any strength back. As soon as the weapon left her hand, her back was against the wall again and another War Needle was in her palm.

“Did you get it?” I asked. Brianna nodded, smiling.

“That was so cool. It was like I just KNEW how to do it. And then I did it. And it worked.”

“Sweet. Try to get one more.”

Brianna nodded and tried again. “Missed.”

Everyone knew she missed. A blinking red dot on our monitors warned us that the enemy has noticed us and is coming our way. “Let’s go for it. Just do your best.” I managed to get out before passing Brianna. At this point, it’s would be silly to run or anything. This was just the tutorial so we can’t be killed off or lose. The skeleton that Brianna had killed first had already respawned. The one she missed was coming straight for us. Well. Straight for Brianna.

I sidestepped and let it pass. She can take care of it, I’m sure. I locked onto the next closest target. When I decided that it was the one I wanted to take out, it’s health bar appeared. It was weak, even for a tutorial monster. At the top of my monitor, the word combat appeared. My muscles just knew what to do, and I easily took out the skeleton with one hard hit with the blunt part of my staff. No blades necessary. The fuck? The rest of the game better not be this lame.

It took less than 3 minutes for all of us to get our kill count in. While the other girls seemed pleased with this progress, I was disappointed. I mean, it was cool how real it felt. Like i was actually fighting fake skeletons. But there wasn’t much challenge. It was the equivalent of beating up an inanimate scarecrow in a corn field.

The quest updated itself. One last objective: to get through the red door.

“There’s a lock on it.” Liz observed. It looked exactly like the common key pads on all the doors in Korea.

“Liz has the locksmith thing right?” Devon asked. Wow I’m surprised she remembered that. I looked at Liz and she shrugged.

“Just take a look at it and see what happens.” Brianna pushed.

Lizzy did as she was told. She tapped it to make the lights come on. After a minute of scrutinizing whatever was on her monitor, she punched in some numbers. The lock beeped and turned green, successfully opening the door. Liz opened it and we followed her through. “This isn’t so hard.” she commented, pleased with her hacking skills.

The inside of this room looked familiar. I recognized it from the Bangtan Bombs. It was a recording studio. We came in on the producer side. There was a counter with a bunch of sound equipment and a sound proof window that looked inside the recording room. My mouth dropped.

Inside the recording room were 7 boys. They didn’t look too pleased, either. They looked just like a bunch of boys trapped in a horror game. Which was the point. We had to get them out safely to win, right? I smiled.

“Ohmigod it’s BTS!” Lizzy squealed.

On all of our monitors a message popped up:

Tutorial Completed: Night 1 Will Begin in 20 Hours.  Logout?

We each gained 100xp and the option to log out. “Looks like we can’t continue. Maybe it’s to stop people from playing for days straight?” I looked at the girls. “This was fun! Let’s log in at the same time tomorrow, ok?”

We all agreed on a time. “Logout” I said, and the scenario in front of me disappeared.

Continue to: Day 1

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Tutorial: Brianna <3

Brianna blinked at her phone screen. She couldn’t believe that BryAnna would just hang up like that. But then again, she seemed super excited about the game. Brianna doesn’t play games, but she did watch her brother Jimmy play sometimes.

Brianna eyed the contents of the box. Most of it was sprawled on her dining room table. Honestly, she could use a little escape from reality. Things just weren’t working out the way she wanted with her current boyfriend. In fact, after their last fight Brianna had declared a break and she had been ignoring his messages now for a few days. She needed some time to get away, and since she can’t hop on a plane and fly to South Korea to visit BryAnna…..some Virtual Reality Gaming might be the next best thing.

With a worried sigh, Brianna picked up the Bio Stamp and placed it on her upper arm. If it looked like a tattoo, she didn’t think that her administration would enjoy it being visible. Even if it IS just a tool for games. She pressed it into her skin and moved on to setting up the Focus. It didn’t take long before she was comfortably laying down on her couch and figuring out how to customize her character.

It was surprisingly relaxing. And totally cool. Who would have thought that technology would come this far to be able to do this? It took her a good 30 minutes to fix her avatar the way she wanted it. She was a little shocked that it took an exact replica of what she looked like right now and put it in front of her. Brianna adjusted the skin tone a bit and fixed her hair style and of course she couldn’t have her avatar wear the old lazy clothes she had on now.

She took a look at her calm heart rate and under the heart icon, there was a message icon flashing. She blinked at it to get it to open and read it. A friend request from BryAnna. She accepted.

Brianna took a deep breath and clicked Login.

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*__*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Her vision started to return, almost like her eyes were becoming adjusted to the darkness that had taken over. Brianna blinked and shook her head. Amazingly, she was no longer in her living room. She heard a quiet beep in her ear. A warning about her heart rate increasing. Deep breath. This is bizarre. She took a step forward, not knowing what to expect. There was nothing around her. Almost like she was in a large room with white walls or something.

A message pinged in front of her eyes. BryAnna wants to add you to her party. Accept?

Brianna accepted the invitation and the room around her fizzed like a broken TV before settling and becoming the inside of what looked like a dance practice room. There were walled mirrors on two sides of the room. BryAnna and Devon were waiting for her.

“Geez, a little overkill on your Avatar, huh?” BryAnna teased. Brianna glanced at her reflection. It wasn’t THAT bad. So what if Brianna wanted to look nice. “You do know this game is like, a survival game. That dress….” Her friend motioned at the outfit, smiling.

“Oh yeah….” Brianna’s voice shook a little. “Well, i’ll look smoking hot while taking out the bad guys, then!” She laughed a little and gave BryAnna a hug. “Wow this is amazing.” BryAnna felt so real, like she was actually right here.

BryAnna pulled away. “Oh. Lizzy is online. I’ll invite her over.” She flicked her wrist and started poking at the air. A few moments later, Lizzy appeared in the room. She looked rightly confused, but excited. The girls took a minute to make sure everyone was connected and synced.

“Okay. So how do we play this thing??” Brianna asked. Despite herself, she was getting excited.

Continue to Tutorial 

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Tutorial: Liz

Lizzy was really good at reading directions, and this new VR gaming system was so easy to set up that even her little cousins could do it without a hitch. She spent minimal time customizing the thing, and jumped right in.  It was so exciting, being able to play a game about BTS.

Now, Lizy wasn’t good at survival games, but she IS good at mario kart and guitar hero. But even systematic strategy games like LOL was a little difficult for her. What she really wanted out of this game was a chance to see her faves up close and personal. Of course, she’ll try her best to win, but hey….if she could look right into Jungkook’s dreamy eyes as she does so...it’s a win win. And not the one from NCT...she didn’t like his chin job.

The sudden darkness gave her a start, but her eyes quickly adjusted to a white room. Almost immediately, a message popped up in front of her. A party request from BryAnna. She accepted and the room morphed itself into a practice room. The girls were all waiting for her.  

Brianna looked quite stoked to get started. “How do we play this thing?” She asked, even before Lizzy could comment on Brianna's odd outfit choice. A black party dress? It’s a survival game!

Continue to Tutorial

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Tutorial: Devon

“This. Is. Weird.” Devon looked around the room. She was literally just laying in her bed and now here she is. She almost logged out immediately, but restrained herself. The room was white for just a few seconds after her eyes had completely adjusted. But then it changed to look like a practice room. She came up looking at herself in the mirror that lined the wall and it was very disorienting. Slowly, she turned around to look at the blank wooden wall on the other side.

“This is awesooome.” BryAnna’s voice echoed in the room. BryAnna was taking a good look at herself as she patted her body down. “It feels so real!” her hands reached over and she squeezed Devon’s arm. “You feel real to. This is great.”

Devon pause. “Yeah but like, if that feels normal. What happens of we get hurt in the game?”

“Probably nothing, I guess. It’s safe, remember. Wanna hit me?” her voice rose in a teasing manner.

“Don’t tempt me…”

“Brianna’s online. I will invite her to our party.” she waved her hand a little and poked at the air. A few moments later, Brianna materialized in the room. She looked pretty shook, but not as shook as our reflections did after looking at her.

Brianna looked really good. If she was going out to the club. The black party dress was fitted on top and fluffed out at her hips. It was flattering, but….

Devon busied herself by looking at the menu options while BryAnna teased Brianna. She could now see just a little bit of Brianna’s stats, since she joined the party. Devon didn’t ask, but she assumed by ‘in the party’ they meant that they could play on the same team.  Despite everything, she had to admit that it was pretty cool. It felt like they were actually here.

True to her nature, curious Devon just started to try clicking everything she could see on her ‘screen’. She found that if she blinked at her avatar icon, she could see all of her stats in detail. Apparently she got +5 Stamina but -5 stealth. Probably because she’s clumsy in real life too. There were other things, but she got bored of looking so she closed out of the profile.

Devon half heartedly wondered what the stats of the other girls were. When she glanced at BryAnna, a few things popped up around her. Health bar (full), Heart rate, (just over 100bpm), and above her head were the letters GM.

Off. Devon thought. And the stats disappeared. Turns out there are some features you could control with just your thoughts. Weird, but cool. Convenient.

“So how do we play this game??” Brianna asked. Devon looked at BryAnna. Her friend dragged them all into this, so it was understandable that she’d be the one to take the lead and get the game going.

Continue to : Tutorial

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Prologue: The Game

I looked at the small box on the floor of my door room. It’s been sitting there, unopened, for days. I’ve been waiting for Brianna and Lizzy to get theirs before I took a look at what was inside it. The box contained the newest VR gaming system to date. Less than 100 have been rolled out for the Beta Testing, and i was (through some sort of black magic luck) able to get all 4 I applied for. Apparently group gaming was favored over solo for the test rounds.

The concept was to play with your friends from across the world, so I thought that we’d make a perfect fit. At the moment, there was only three games to choose from. And I was only interested in one.

I had already told Brianna and Lizzy that their game systems were coming, and after a little bit of convincing they agreed to try the game with me. I thought it would be easier to convince Devon to play if it was a last minute kind of thing.

Finally, my phone buzzed. A video call from Brianna. I answered with a smile. “Aaandd???”

Brianna looked a little nervous. “I got it today and I read the directions…”

“Don’t worry. It’s completely safe. Think of it as a cool robotic tattoo. It’ll fade on its own after about 30 days. You need it for the Focus to work properly.” I reassured her, as I used my free hand to pick up my own box.

“You mean this?” Brianna held up a small triangle shaped piece of blue metal. It looked like something straight from a scyfi movie….or a high end fashion show, depending on how you view things.

“Yep. That’s the focus. It goes on your temple. Feel free to set it up. If you don’t like the game, then  you don’t have to log on after tonight, ok? I’ll send you the download link and I’ll be online within the hour!” I hung up without saying goodbye and checked Snapchat. I had a message from liz. She sent a picture of her Focus as well as her wrist where she placed the bionic stamp.

Everything was going perfectly! I grabbed my box and headed over to Devon’s room.

I didn’t bother knocking and just barged right in. I opened the sliding door and kicked off my shoes. “Devon, play this game with me. The girl’s are going to play too.” I watched as Devon glanced up from her phone from her place on the bed.

“I don’t play games.”

“Come on. It’s brand new VR. You just gotta put on the bionic stamp and log in. It’s a BTS game~~.” i tried to sell it to her.

“VR?”

“VR is Virtual Reality. It will seem like you are literally in the game.”

“No.”

“But…”

“No I’m not doing it. That kind of technology is dangerous.”

She’s been watching way to much Black Mirror. “It’s safe.” I tried not to sound as annoyed as I felt. “Do it for me. We’ve never played a game together. Plus the game is short. It only takes 6 days to get through, I think. Just think of it like Mystic Messenger. If you don’t like it, you can quit. The stamp fades on its own after a while.” I rambled on as I sat on the bed next to Devon and started to unpack the systems from the box. It came with two stamps that looked similar to something I’d use in the classroom to paste a generic ‘good job’ onto students’ work. There was also two Focuses. I picked one up. It was very light, no heavier than a marble. It measured about an inch across.  “Okay. At least check out the game before you decide.” I picked up my phone and linked the game info to the exclusive fangirl messenger. Within seconds, it showed that everyone in the chat has seen the message.

I waited in silence for Devon’s reply.

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A1: OPEN THE LINK?

YES

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A2: Read More Reviews?

Yes

No

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Prologue Continued

I handed Devon the stamp. Then without hesitation, I stamped mine on the inside of my left wrist. There was a quick pinch and then nothing. I removed the stamper and took a look. It was the size of a basic postage stamp. It looked just like a grey tattoo of a computer chip.

I waited for Devon to follow my lead before moving onto the Focus.

I placed it on my right temple. It stuck like a magnet. It weirded me out so I tugged it, just to make sure it came off easily.

It did.How the hell does that work?? “This is awesome.” I put it back on and long pressed the small circular button on the Focus.  A quiet beep and it was on. A menu popped up in front of my eyes. It was like I was looking at a transparent computer monitor or something. I moved my head back and forth and the menu moved with me. There was only two choices on the menu: Start or Cancel.

“This is so weird…” Devon’s voice caught my attention. I looked over at her. I could see her clearly through the transparent menu. “Can you hear that? It’s talking to me.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t hear anything coming from her system. “What’s it saying?”

“It’s telling me how to use it. Pretty cool I guess.” I watched her eyes focus on things here and there, seeing things that I couldn’t see.

After a moment, I heard the voice of a young lady as well as some text under my choices.

Welcome. Please choose either Start or Cancel. Choose an option by looking directly at your choice and blink.

I followed the direction to choose START and could barely contain my excitement when it worked. Next, there were some typical warnings. Don’t play for more than 3 hours, make sure you are seated or lying comfortably to avoid cramps while playing, etc etc I usually skip the warnings, but there wasn’t a skip option for this. I waited patiently for the next step.

“Should I sync?” Devon asked. I got the same pop up just seconds after her question.

Sync Focus with nearby Bio Stamp?

I clicked yes and two names popped up.

Please choose your Bio Stamp.

Devon

BryAnna

How does it know our names? I glanced down at my wrist. Probably had something to do with the fact that it is literally connected to my body. I clicked my own name and watched as the syncing notification pop up with a progress bar. As I waited, I was informed of the benefits of the sync. The game will be able to record vital signs such as heart rate and health. The game will auto shut down if your vitals become dangerously high or low. Pretty nifty. My mom would have a freak out about how the government is using it to control people. I rolled my eyes at the thought.

After only a few minutes, the sync was done. My heart rate appeared with a heart icon on the top left corner of my vision. It looked a little high due to my excitement, but it was low enough to continue to play.

The next step was to personalize my character. A holographic image of myself stood before me. I changed little things, such as my makeup (i had none on at the moment and didn’t want my avatar to be barefaced), glasses style, and outfit. I opted for something practical. Jeans and a black sweater, with the new BTS logo plastered on the back. There was a ridiculous amount of choices for customizing your character and we both took the better part of a half hour just playing with the settings.

“Hey, you ready to move on?” I asked Devon.

“Yeah I guess so.”

The next step was adding friends. “Just wait for my invite, okay?” I pulled up the keyboard with a flick of my wrist and typed in the email addresses of Devon, Liz, and Brianna. Devon accepted my request almost immediately, but the other two were probably still figuring out how to work the system. Or Were busy customizing their avatars.

Next, we chose the game we wanted to download. 5 Nights @ BigHit. The download was surprisingly fast.

Sync with nearby friends?

Yes

No

I chose yes, and on the right side of my screen, I saw the face of Devon’s avatar. Like me, Devon kept her avatar relatively true to her original appearance. “Alright, let’s get comfy!” I made myself at home, laying down in Devon’s bed next to her.

Start New Game

The prompt blinked in front of me. I took a breath. “On a count of three. One. Two. Three!” I chose to start a new game and my vision went black as if someone turned out the lights in a dark movie theater.

Continue to TUTORIAL

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