Jinxer

Questing for Reality

@Vocab 'Twas good! I liked it, a bit of nice world building going on there.

I've posted, moving us on a lil' bit. See if anyone gets the next part of the clue!

Questing for Reality

Artorigios

Virtual Reality World: Homeworld

Independence Hall towered before him, in all its mildly decayed glory. As with most buildings on Homeworld, it was based upon the state it had been in the early 21st Century where frequent renovations had taken their toll. Curiously, whoever had designed the building for VR had chosen to construct it when it had been some time between repainting and looked slightly dilapidated, although there was a small section of scaffolding up against one side of the building with a NPC who arrived every morning to start repainting it. At midnight his progress was reset, the AI forever trapped into repeating the same task forever.

That, in itself, was curious to Artorigios. There were very few NPCs on Homeworld, since it was more of a nexus for players to visit other worlds. Those few which were present often served a very particular purpose, such as tour guides around cities or as user information. Most were found in instanced environments, such as in replica museums where different protocols were in place to control player activity. The fact that this man seemed to be doing a completely inane task, day in an day out, had been a mystery for Questers for some time. If someone tried to interact with the man he apologised and tried to go back to work. Even when players had grouped together to obstruct him, to see what would happen, he merely clocked off work and went on a prolonged lunch break, yielding no appreciable results.

Artorigios crossed the road, a few players roaming about but none appearing to be in much of a hurry. Questers had suspected for a long time that this was where the first clue led but after two years no one felt the need to rush about looking; it would only attract unwanted attention after all. Independence Hall itself wasn't an instanced environment although there was a NPC tour group that started on the hour, every hour, and multiple players were roaming around inside, trying to discretely search the place for the thousandth time.

As he entered he could hear the female tour guide, leading a gaggle of NPC children along, give the same information she did every time.

"It gained a place in history on July when the Liberty Bell tolled for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence."

The purpose of the tour guide had been discussed to death on Quester message boards, of course. Nowhere else on Homeworld was there such a regular and persistent group of NPCs but there was nothing linking the tour guides' words and the clue beside the mention of the Liberty Bell. Both the Liberty Bell and the Centennial Bell, the one housed in the tower above the Hall, had been searched with no great revelations regarding the Quest. Artorigios, however, felt like there was something he was close to remembering as he listened to the guide.

He followed them from room to room but nothing else jumped out at him. Some of the scripted speech was familiar to him but it wasn't until he returned to the main room and saw a set of stairs with a rope barrier in the corner of the room that things began to click into place for him.

"Cage... With a capital 'C'." He mused, wandering over to the barrier and hopping over it. The staircase led up to the Centennial Bell, although that was nothing new and plenty of others had visited the site previously with nothing to show for it. But it wasn't the bell that he was interested in, looking to a series of brick arches, across the roof. When he tried to climb from the bell tower he was stopped with a system warning, telling him that there was an invisible wall due to the fall. Thinking for a moment, he descended one floor and then entered an old storage room. At the far end was a window that was open, with a walkway extending to the flat rooftop. This time he was allowed to climb out through the window and onto the roof where he crossed to the centre brick arch.

After a bit of searching he found what he was looking for, a brick with a small symbol on it which all the others lacked. After tapping it, he found that he was able to move it out of the way and loot the small 'chest' inside. He didn't wait to look at his inventory, keen to get away from the roof before anyone spotted him; as far as he knew no other players had made it onto the roof or made the connection between 'Cage' and the Hall. A connection he was disappointed in, although now the part about 'Hell' made sense as well.

After all, Helen Grey had hated National Treasure. 'Cage' was apparently a reference to Nicolas Cage and 'Hell' seemed to just signal her distaste for the film. This was where things differed, though. Returning through to the main part of the Hall, he descended the stairs and climbed over the barrier while trying to look perturbed. A few other Questers threw sideways glances at him but, seeing his fake dejected expression, took no more notice and continued their furtive searching.

Once again across the road from the Hall, Atorigios was now looking at the Liberty Bell. A couple of other Questers were doing all but climbing over the artefact in an attempt to find some reference to the clue. He himself had done something similar, a year ago, but to no avail. This time, though, he thought he had an answer. Drawing up his inventory he picked out the new item he had discovered, a simple pair of glasses with no description, and put them on.

The result was underwhelming, but also immensely satisfying. He had thought that, upon solving the first clue, he might receive a Key or some other item, as Gunters from Ready Player One did when they passed the first test. It seemed that, here at least, Grey was deviating from her inspiration.

On the Bell, now glowing for only his eyes to see, was a symbol. He took several screenshots, trying not to rush in his excitement, and sent several images to the printer in his father's old study, ready for analysis. Turning away, he removed the glasses and headed for a transporter. Idly, he opened the leaderboard website and saw that nothing had changed. The top scorers were still all listed as 'HEG'.

Which meant that he still hadn't fully solved the first clue.

Heroes of Yore, Reborn

Excellent.

Any questions on your parts or is what I've written above enough explanation?

Heroes of Yore, Reborn

Heroes of Yore, Reborn

It is in times of need that heroes are born. What need have we of them when there is no danger, no threat, no evil; to confront? And so we revere the heroes of the past, having none among us who fit that same romantic image of one figure standing against an encroaching darkness. No revolutionary, fighting to uplift their people out from a demon's shadow. No Arthurs, no Joan of Arks, no Hercules.

But now is a time when such heroes must return, for we have need of them. Dark and shadowy creatures, numerous and various in their shape and size, roam the land having poured out of the little wilderness still left on the Earth. With no opposition they overran most of our towns and cities, flinching little when faced with modern weaponry. Organised armies, trained to fight against their fellow humans, scattered to the wind in fear as their weapons did nothing to slow the onslaught; tanks ripped apart or crushed by the largest of the creatures while the small feral ones hunted down the skirmishing infantry. Aircraft strafed the enemy horde to no avail until they were forced to return home, having accomplished nothing, or else were plucked from the sky when straying too close to a giant.

Humanity has retreated to its final bastions, its greatest cities, and there built walls that put all former defences to shame in both scale and complexity. There, they have explored their final hope, a return of heroes to our land. Not the heroes of today but the heroes of yore, reborn in avatars possessing their power and their tenacity, who will lead humanity in their struggle against complete annihilation.

---

Do I still have your interest? Excellent! Then read on.

I believe the above sets the scene fairly well - capital cities are pretty much the only places left that humanity resides in, at least in any great number, with small fortified towns elsewhere but these are very few in number and have largely been occupied for their strategic worth more than anything else.

Little is still known about the creatures which have, more or less, made humanity extinct and now roam in giant hordes freely across most of the world's landmass. They vary little from continent to continent in general although there is great variation within the hordes themselves. From horse sized, feral and agile beasts to giants that tower over even four or five storey buildings, the creatures have different 'personalities' but act as one army, intent on crushing any enemies that appear before them.

Modern weaponry has shown little to no effect, at best slowing the creatures down but never successfully killing them. Only with handheld weaponry, from lucky wielders of kitchen knives, to hardy men and women improvising with large poles or pieces of timber, to purpose made bayonets, swords and spears; can these creatures be successfully killed. Armies have adapted, shunning modern weaponry (except in the case of policing) to adopting older and more conventional arms but they are inexperienced and lack the lifelong training that warriors from the past would have possessed.

This is where our heroes step in. Born as normal humans, and living as normal humans, they will be faced with a life or death scenario (the creatures, in other words) and become an avatar for a long dead hero. Their powers may not be the exact same as the hero by whom they now have an affinity to but they will wield a similar weapon (if one is available) and their individual ability and specialities will come from that hero's legend.

When I use the term 'power' I don't mean that these characters will be performing laser shows, causing earthquakes or creating spontaneous tsunamis. These abilities will be weapon focused and based - for example legends around the Gáe Bulg wielded by Cúchulainn could bring about different abilities, from a spear which is simply forever sharp and causes more damage than would normally be expected to spreading barbs throughout an enemy and literally shredding them from the inside.

Your character will have a 'life flashes before their eyes' moment into which this past hero will step in and awaken their abilities, including the granting of a weapon where applicable (almost always applicable, or else your character would still die).

Despite this awakening of heroes, they are still not numerous enough to form an army on their own as there is never more than one avatar of a particular hero at any one time, and so humanity is stuck in maintaining the current status quo. Beats total extinction though.

I hope this gives y'all an idea of what's going on and some ideas. Any questions then please throw them my way and show your interest, should you still have any after reading this.

The Secret World

As others said, it happens to the best of us.

If you were going to reboot/start another project then count me as interested.

Questing for Reality

@Vocab

*Poke*

Questing for Reality

Artorigios

Virtual Reality World: Homeworld

Julius had temporarily logged out of VR, taking a quick toilet break while the kettle boiled. It was pitch black outside the kitchen window and the street lights were all off, meaning no one had passed recently. With the energy crisis at its current stage, new sensors and kinetic pads had been installed in most pavements which detected when someone was walking and used the pressure their weight exerted on the pavement to produce energy to activate the streetlights. Some places didn't have this kind of technology installed and ended up with deactivated streetlamps, the residents forced to spend whatever little funds they had on torches or otherwise move about at night in pitch black.

A quick glance at his watch told him that there had been sufficient time for the tea to brew. After adding a splash of milk and a stir, he took the mug, a large monstrosity of a mug depicting the human muscular and skeletal structures with every part labelled, up to his father's study. It had been some time since his parents had both passed away and, after a time, he had found ways to make the house his own while keeping little mementos about. For a while he had not entered his father's study, feeling like he was trespassing. Once he found his way in, however, he found it to be a perfect place to conduct his research; surrounded by books on every topic possible with an old style laptop for online research on the large oak desk set against the wall by the window. During the day, Julius could look out over the out of control garden (he couldn't afford the energy costs to power a lawn mower or even a strimmer so he would go out a few times a season with some hedge clippers and just hack the vegetation back a little), and appreciate some real nature for a change; it helped him concentrate while keeping an open mind.

It was in one of those moments, taking a small break from his research, that he had answered the first clue. Of course, seasoned Adventurers had been all over the most likely location, but Julius started afresh with his research to ensure he was going to the right place. He had been listening to his father's music collection, decades old albums by the likes of Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Status Quo and Rolling Stones; giants of the early music industry. He'd listened to them all before, of course, but with the lines of the Quatrain fresh in his mind some of the lyrics had jumped out at him.

Bruised and battered was definitely a reference to Bruce Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia, while I sailed there came from Mark Knopfler's folk style song telling the tale Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon's journey to the same place, Sailing to Philadelphia. When he'd realised that he cross-referenced his discovery with the second line and the evidence just mounted up further.

To draw a line tied into the Sailing to Philadelphia lyrics again, Mason and Dixon famous for drawing the Mason-Dixon line although it changed many times over the years afterwards. Julius had long since suspected that the Bell, with its capital letter suggesting it was both a famous item and also had its own name, was a nod to the Liberty Bell and it only cemented his confidence in his decoding so far. Of course, every famous bell in history had been scoured by Adventurers, especially the Liberty Bell, but nothing had been found so there must have been more to the clue.

For weeks, Julius had troubled over the final two lines. He assumed that the stately house referred to Independence Hall but it certainly wasn't lying bare in either the real world or on Homeworld, where he assumed the first clue led as any avatar could access it for free as in Ready Player One. The final line truly stumped him, he had several theories but had decided that the only way to find out was to go to that location and look himself. After a final look over his own, hand-written notes, he returned to his former bedroom now converted into his VR room. While he couldn't afford top of the line equipment he had a haptic chair which could transform into a treadmill as well, a reasonable quality haptic suit and even an odour tower although he rarely used it.

He slipped back into the suit, careful not to damage the fine electrodes running through it, downed the last of his tea and then sat down on the chair and slid on his visor. "If honour were profitable, everyone would be honourable." He intoned his log on password phrase and appeared in his Homeworld abode, a spacious flat that was a private space where he could set rules and only those he had invited could enter. It was modernly furnished but sparsely, an in-game study was locked to all but himself permanently and inside he had his safe containing items he used only on specific worlds and some notes for the Quest he didn't trust to keep saved to his profile. No one had successfully hacked into a user's data, to anyone's knowledge, but he wasn't prepare to take the risk of being the first victim.

He changed his avatar's appearance, looking in a full length mirror as he 'disguised' his character. Walking around in his very stylised full plate armour would only draw attention and he wanted to stay as incognito as possible when 'Questing'. Opting instead for a standard jeans and black t-shirt style, with large Ray-Ban sunglasses to hide some of his face and a cap denoting a false allegiance to a long-gone football team. After selecting the option to hide his avatar's name, he left his abode and headed to the nearest teleporter. He could drive one of his several vehicles but the teleporter would save time and he wasn't short for cash at that moment.

Seconds later he was stepping out onto a street in Philadelphia, pulling up an on-screen map and setting course to Independence Hall. He wasn't sure what he was looking for but today was a research today; there was little to no chance of accidentally stumbling upon the answer to the first clue after two years of the world searching.

Questing for Reality

At some point this evening I'll be posting again and moving us on a little but I have no intention to rush things.

Questing for Reality

@Vocab

Ta, I changed my mind halfway through and figured I'd missed a few changes along the way.

Questing for Reality

I should mention that in your first posts you don't need to worry about the clues. Just do a character introduction for now, I'll give direction on the clue resolving when I next post in the IC.