(tentative) Play It

Hurrying to the island for fear of falling back into the water, i favor my leg all of the way to the clay shore where i stop to get my bearings and take a loot around. The islet was not exceptionally tall, but it rose to heights somewhere over my head with a sprawling forest of tall canes growing every few feet of space broken up mostly by scattered citrus trees but also containing a couple of different adult hardwood trees. Making my way inland up the gentle incline of the islet where the canes grew bigger and bigger, i pick a cane tree with lower segments big enough around to fit my fist in and start to saw into is bottom segment when water starts leaking out over my blade.

Dropping down on all fours and reflexively clamping my mouth around the cut in the cane after tasting my blade to find it free of salt, i drink slowly and deeply from the tree that never seemed to empty as i engorged myself and reached for my canteen at the front of my belt. Breaking away from the cane and sitting upright after holding the mouth of my canteen under the cut to catch most of the flow of water, i gargle and rinse my mouth thoroughly in the hopes of losing the taste of coconut on my b reath even if only for a little while. My canteen was almost half full by the time the cane tree emptied to a thin trickle of water, which was more than good enough for me as i quickly sawed the cane down into its neighbors and moved on to the next to finish filling my canteen.

One hesitant step onto the water told me that the professor's blessing was still in affect, which i made good use of by limping across the stream and flipping my cane trees over to lean against and over the wall enough to fall over the other side with its greater weight. Climbing up to the top using my iron knife the same way i had used a javeling earlier in the day to assist with maneuvering my weight up the rope, i end up measuring the rope and myself against the edge of the bowl before trying myself off about my waist and good leg. Cutting roughly five feet of the bottoms of each of my cane trees, i take my poles and kneel at the edge to lean slowly out over the bowl while testing the strength of my anchors before finally taking up one of the three poles and driving it deep into the wall of the bowl almost half of my arm's reach below the edge i hung from.

Pulling myself back up by the rope after several minutes of working the canes as deep into the wall as i could while moving as little as possible, i untire myself from the partial harness before dragging what remained over my cane trees back to camp. On the way along the rim i spied Emma and Doc out on the beach, Emma was shuttle running large lime rocks back and forth across a distance of maybe forty feet as her minigame for the day with God only knew what rewards on the line for what requirements. Dumping my cane trees off at camp where one five-by-five-foot square pallet made of tied and pegged canes, with several inches of border in the form of a perimeter of short stakes tied around the outside of the pallet with two poles stacked on top of one another and tied in place inside the stakes on all sides, next to a mostly complete pallet, i briefly consider completing the platform before i decide against it and go examine my winnings by the fire.

The one-liter segments were foot-long lengths of cane maybe a finger across in diameter, each capped by a slightly larger piece of segment that fit snugly over their openings, all standing upright in the bottom of a brand new cane crate just like the one containing my jewelry with smaller but similarly lidded lengths of cane securely fitted in loops of simply braided cordage to the underside of the lid. On top of the water canes was a small burlap sack that i could only assume contained the herbs prescribed to me by Professor Harlen, so it was this bag and a single cane of water that i withdrew from the chest and carry over to the fire that was ringed in a variety of rocks both large and small. Carefully retrieving dried plant parts from the bag after removing the cap from the water cane and taking several large gulps, i pinch several twigs worth of shrunked yellow-brown berries and crunchy leaves over the top of the open water cane.

The thin, noodle-like purple roots spreading out from under a thistle-like purple stalk were still wet, so i had to gather all the roots tightly together in one hand and carefully trimm small pieces from the ends into the water. Moving on the the next herb after most of several thin layers of red-staining roots had made it into the cane, i pull out a couple of small sprigs what what really looked like tiny burnt orange daisies and pinch the heads off to drop into the water. There were only a few of the weird tube plants, so i only scraped a few inches of slime from around the inside of the bulb with my knife to dip into and scrape off inside the cane before stirring the cool concoction with a small stick.

Adding some wood to the growing pile of coals among the tight circle of rocks and rubble, i use two sticks to pick out a rock the size my my thumbnail and about as thick as the appendage itself to drop into the cane with a loud hiss. Stirring the contents of the cane that vaguely bubbles and steams to keep the rock from sitting in any one spot for too long to burn a leak in the cane, i keep going until the steam stops rising before adding the next rock of similar size that brings out a greater reaction from the water with even more steam rising after the rock sinks to the bottom and i start stirring again. The water simmered for several minutes between the third and fourth rocks that clunked loudly about the bottom of the cane that exuded a sleamy cloud of some surprisingly sweet arome, but by the time i added the fifth rock that actually brought the water to the point of boiling for a full minutes even while stirring the tea was more than ready to let sit and cool before it was ready to drink.

Emma returned from her work on the beach a few minutes later while i was sprawling back against a mound of sand, breathing heavily and carrying what looked like two small spades made of slate heads tied onto short cane poles, a burlap sack not unlike my own, and a large net of braided belts containing over a dozen large lime rocks. "I managed to dig a little pit about four feet around and as deep," Emma reports happily despite her exhaustion, arranging her rocks around the tops of those already surrounding the fire, "I just need to dig it out around a little more and deepen one side into some steps for feet and rocks, then i can dig a trench out to the water to let it fill up. You want any meat, beach bum?" She asks with a quiet laugh.

"Please and thank you," i reply gratefully. "The tea is almost done as well."

"Tea?" She asks excitedly, looking over at me and then around until she spots my water cane planted in the sand nearby me. "Professor Harlen told me we would all be needing some medicines, but i didn't think he already gave you a bag of herbs. Is that what i have been smelling? Thought it was coming from the food but it's not so tropical as the citrus and coconuts."

Picking up my cane of tea and one of several segments i had cut for cups, i pour some of the darg reddish-brown fluid floating with bits of plants into the cup as Emma comes over with two large cuts of pork shoulder and trades ones for the cup. "Wow, it's actually pretty good," she says in surprise after taking her first sips while i was pouring my own cup. "It's really sweet, but it's got this kind of sour aftertaste like old candy. I don't mind it. At all."

"Agreed," i concur after taking a long drink of my own herbal tea, followed by a large bite of meat. "Doc says I'm not allowed to do anything but heal anymore, so i am kind of just stuck here until Harold shows up. Got my bones put back in place, though, should shorten the healing process by an entire in-game day- so the equivalent of several days irl. But, if all goes well, i should be healed up by almost a week if not more than by the time i log back in and another day or two of this high speed healing should have me back in action in no time."

"I hope so," Emma agrees as she finishes her tea and sits down beside me. "You're too useful to leave sitting on the bench. From the looks of the beta team, there are only three people with real muscles and that would be Harold, then you, then Sasha. I'm not weak... but I'm nowhere near the level that you three must be on if it took one drag of the croc to put me down and it took an injured you two drags before tapping."

"Yeah, but you're honestly not that far behind," i inform her honestly, looking out away from camp at the deep tears in the silty ground that lead for several hundred yards around the bowl. "We dragged that thing every bit of a football field before trading. I have done special endurace training on a treadmill while wearing a weight suit. I have never gotten even remotely close to my body weight, but that croc was the closest and let's not forget one leg has been at about half capacity all day. You're not at one hundred percent, yourself, yet, so stop selling yourself short."

"Once again, nothing compared to you," she points out, also finishing her food. "My injury took place at the shipwreck, and has been healing for most of this time, yours is now going on two days old. It's fresh and you did... whatever it took to get here and then whatever it took with the crocodile and Professor Harlen legit told me i did not want to ask about your minigame so whatever you did then as well. Nerve damage or not, that's... next level."

Inside i was ablaze with pride and joy at our conversation, enjoying the strangest sense of satisfaction that said everything i had done up til now had finally been worth it. That every minute of breathless agony and the long hours spent incapable of moving from my bed had finally begun to pay off. "If you keep saying nice things like that... I'm going to cry," i tell her honestly, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. "You have to remember, i spent a lot of my life as a fat guy, so having a cute girl say all of this to me is like... life goals. Now get back to digging and stop distracting me from my healing."

"Oh well fine then," Emma says with an actual giggle before taking the last bite of her meat and climbing to her feet after reaching for one of the nearby shovels. "You stay here and heal, I'm going to go finish my hot tub."

The tea was still hot enough to warm the cane cup when i refilled it after finishing my food, straining the interestingly flavored bits through my teeth to chew on after draining the entire cup and lying back on my sandy hill near the fire. Swallowing the herbal bits little by little as time ticks by, i soon find myself falling reflexively into zen breathing exercises and lose myself in the number of breaths i take both in and out behind half-lidded eyes. There was something different about the emptiness of my mind here, something moving and perpetual beyond the rising count of breaths that act as the only marks for the passage of time as i find the rest of the world slowly fading away.

I expected to suddenly open my eyes to find the bright lights of the operating room buzzing overhead, but i remained logged in and almost trapped within my zen state if not for the exercised control of flexing my fingers and toes. I moved my legs to be sure that i was not just coincidentally twitching, which was a success, but also a mistake as the jostling of my thigh and hip seemed to set my entire body ablaze in my currently hyper-sensitive state. Somehow the pain seemed to exist in my mind and in my leg at the same time, like the ghost of sensory data being echoed in my meditative introspection, and it was to this sensory data that i turned my attention away from counting breaths.

For the first time since injuring myself, i got a good feel of the extent of my hip and leg in the ghost of myself, the way the muscle tissue was herneated outward from my muscle tissue in ways that would have required surgery to heal from in reality, the regenerative slowness of accumulating fluids in my leg that needed to be released soon, and even the distancing of the bones in my hip itself toward the front and back. I wanted to break away from my trance then and there to boil my knife and dip it in gelpie venom before sticking myself in my outer quads, but even as i felt my way through the data i came across areas of the injury where fibrous tissues were knitting theemselves back together as they came in contact over the gaps between them as well as pits of bone growing slowly back in place. Even though i now had a basic procedure, with only mild risks considering the topical and digested treatments i had access to, that would help shorten my healing time, i wanted to remain in this introspective trance and change my focus from the sensory data i was recieving from the injury to the injury itself.

Overwhelming heat and pressure with every pulse of blood through my leg was the only thing i was aware of for the longest time, like a brick wall separating me from mentally reaching the injury itself, but with unwavering determination i slowly but surely immersed myself in my own agony until it was desensitized enough that i could feel my way into my leg around my hip. It was ugly and just as dark inside as the bruised skin on the outside was. The bones seemed to be healing the most, their bruising faded to a dark yellow as if my body were prioritizing their mending over the muscles of my thigh, which was not necessarily wrong but in my current circumstances i needed to focus on the muscles that were leaking blood and fluids to build up underneath the skin. Everything seemed to real and there that it almost felt like i could reah out and touch the torn muscles, so i did, hesitantly stretching my awareness to the underside of my quards to inspect the largest of the tears in my outer quads to simply make contact.

Just like when i was approaching the injury, the only thing i was aware of was the god awful agony that all of the nerves in that area were experiencing, but this time i was ready to desensitize myself to the pain until i could actually feel the muscle tissue like a worn out sponge that had been ripped apart by angry hands dripping the contents that it could no longer contain. Where i made contact, though, was a new sensation as well, one like a stimulating static charge that seemed to be my more or less metaphysical contact with the injury. I could touch little strands of muscle tissue from either side of the tear together and they would start to fuse together, but the pain of making contact time and again threatened to break my meditative trance with every fresh wave of fire.

Finally, after making over a dozen connecting points of multiple fibers all along the biggest tear in my muscles, i stretch my awareness slowly along the tear and around the top and bottom of the muscle like fingers over the course of entire minutes until i finally had enough grip on the source of my searing pains. Just the thought of what i was about to do was driving my sense wild with fear and anticipation of the pain to follow, but i fought long and hard to steel myself against the idea of pain while building up all of my awareness and metaphysical contact in those few fingers whose static stimulation gre and grew until i could swear i could actually hear the crackle of energy. Shoving both sides of the tear together was not as eloquent a solution as i could have come up with if i allowed myself more time to speculate, but it was the best i could do quickly and when i finally did squeeze my quad together with my mind the explosion of pain was so great that i sat upright straight from my trance in time to watch the fading glow of dark amber and amethyst electricity crackling in and out of my pant leg.

"Did he actually heal himself?" An only vaguely familiar voice asks from somewhere nearby on the other side of the brightly burning fire, turning out to be Harold's figure sitting on a large stack of cane trees drinking cups of tea with Emma and the professor.

"Not quite," Professor Harlen answers with a small shake of his head, holding a cut of boar shoulder over the fire on the end of a length of cane. "The method he was using was overwhelming both for someone of his skill level and for someone to do on themselves. Imagine performing surgery on yourself with full awareness, that's what we just witnessed. It was not a complete surgery, though, but he has made at least twenty-percent recovery in the last three hours. Congratulations, Zai, you are the first beta player to consciously use magic."

I was only half aware of the professor speaking as i surveyed my dark surroundings in confusion, the sun had sank below the volcanoe to cast our island in early twilight and there were new stacks of food and materials crowding the opposite side of the fire where the others were gathered. Around me were my scavenged hides in a light nest, within reach of this nest were not only my two gift chests but also the platforms made for elevating materials from the bowl laden with a combination of cooking firewood, small crates containing coconuts and citrus fruits, and varying lengths of cane fit for all sorts of shafts and and handles on one platform. The other, however, bore twice as much palm and citrus firewood covering most of its surface with stacks of different types of stones ranging from one stack of just oval shaped quartz and obsidian flats to other round or block misshapen pieces of knapping stones, with all of these supplies and materials arrayed around the head of my nest with loose canes scattered about the foot on either side of a large cane trunk dripping excess water from the clay within..

It all clicked into place even before Harold stood up from his seat beside the professor as if he had something important to say. "You're not... leaving me... here," i growl as i start to rise to my feet but find my lower half somehow pinned to the large hides.

"Doc's order's," Doc himself says as he and Emma get up as well.

"It's not like it's permanent or you're in trouble or anything..." Emma starts hesitantly, not looking directly at me. "It's your leg."

"Your leg makes you a liability," Harold says bluntly, hefting one end of the tied together canes onto his shoulder. "Doc said you were cutting time off of your recovery, which is great, but i know you don't take the injury seriously because this is a game. Not only would moving you unsettle whatever experimental crazy the professor was talking about earlier and set you back, but i can almost without a doubt say that if you come back with us you will end up setting yourself back again and again just walking to take a leak. Here, you have no reason not to keep yourself busy in bed and just wizz off to the side in private so your leg can heal as much as possible.

"Doc says after your next cup of tea and a smear of that topical cream in the coconut with the water we left you on your leg and then around your nose and mouth for an extra aromatic buff, you will heal as much as nine days once you log out," Harold goes on as Emma takes up the other end and they make their way around the fire on their way to the beach. "Tomorrow, you can move around enough to walk around the camp and busy yourself, but you can't go into the bowl and the heaviest lifting you're allowed is dragging Emma's log sled for hot rocks to the bath on the beach. Professor Harlen is willing to take away your mini-game if you disobey a direct order from both team leader and the actual project developer."

With that, they just walked away with the canes toward the beach where Harold's incredibly long thirty-foot barge of three alternating layers of giant tane trees that amounted to only six feet wide. Coming over to stand beside me as the others set to work hauling off their gathered supplies, Doc waits until the others were out of earshot before saying, "I'm well aware that you have no intention of stressing your injury any long, so i don't intend to take away your minigame at all unless you go into the bowl, but after hearing about you from Emma it would seem that Harold believes you to be an impractical wildcard who needs strict rules for guidance and i cannot entirely disagree. However, considering the leaps and bounds you have made with accessing your character's magic on your own, none of this will really matter.

"Since you have been so busy meditating, you never thought to look out at the water like i said," he goes on as i just stare at him wryly. "It's thickened up a bit, so even without the sunlight shining into it you can see that the canals and the waters outside the beaches are steaming. It's an affect of the islands, they move by the dominant being's will using thermal venting to propel the archipelago and the build up of the magical residue in that steam causes what is known as etherfall in this world. Pure magical energy in fluid form, it will trigger anything and anybody with latent magical abilities to experience an awakening affect known as Overcharge during these storms, a variety of passive and active magical abilities within the player's basic grasp are turned on and they give the player some things to aim for in future magical development.

"For somebody as intuitive and smart as your are, i don't doubt you will heal yourself within the first hour of the storm and rejoin the others at iron island," he says at last, actually smiling down at me. "I lied and you unknowingly called me on it, everybody in an applicable situation was forced to undergo a magical moment or two like Emma's final shots and your literal leap of faith. You, however, are my highest achiever and the player i have the highest hopes for in this beta because of that surgery."

"Even if i was logged out for the journey?" I ask with a defeated sigh, reaching for my cane of tea planted in the sand where i had left it. "None of that makes me feel any better, just makes me angry with myself for slipping off that damned cliff face in the first place. That surgery sucked ass, not just in its affects but in actually doing it. Even with a giant magic boost, i don't want to do that again- especially with a giant magic boost. But, i will accept that i need to recover... after i drink this tea and do the cream stuff, will you log me out so i can get as much time in as possible?"

"Drink a second cup after the creams," he says after i chug my current cup bits and all. "But, what you experienced in your surgery, those moments where the entire world was nothing but pain, that is the game's death program. First death is ten seconds of the pain of death before logging out so that you log back in with all of your belongings- armor and clothes affected by combat wounds or only the parts of your gear that were affected to actually die will remain from deaths outside of combats or suicides. Same with scars. Second death is twenty seconds and so on until your penalty for death is a full minute, after this limit penalty every reality day that passes without you dying in the game takes ten seconds off of your death penalty. On the positive side of things, enduring your own surgery for so long has given you special, permanent passive buffs that are ten percent tolerances to pain while alive and the death penalty itself. The most anybody can minimize their death penalty is fifty-percent, but those buffs are very rare and usually in single digit amount rewards.

"I didn't give you those buffs, by the way," he goes on as i set about pulling my pants down enough to rub the new multi-colored concoction on my hip and upper thigh areas. "That was the agreed upon effort of the AI who administrate the individual servers, in other words, the in-game gods. Who bestowed that blessing to you for the achievement of setting the record at second day of three-day grace period for conscious discovery and use of magic. Even though many of my employees have fundemental and proprietary knowledge of the game, the record up until know was day five of the first week, which i was considering rewarding myself with a healing buff until i found these passive buffs already in place. Instead, i simply informed the others about the respiratory buff from breathing in the vapors of the berry acids breaking down the cream on your face all night. Are you ready?" He asks, now, as i finished rubbing cream about my nose and mouth to start pouring a second cup of tea.

Swiftly chugging the second cup of tea, i lie back on my nest of hides and sigh contentedly, wondering at how much of a wait i would have before the others were logging out and say, "Log me out, Doc."

*

My sushi and smoothie snack and everybody else's snacks arrived not long after i woke up and at least ten minutes before the first of the others finally awoke from their sessions, Emma being the first and then shortle followed by the others one by one within a few minutes of each or even within a minute of one another in several cases. Opening the door and gesturing for everyone to make their way out of the operating room, Doc says, "Tomorrow will be a very important and interesting day for you all, your first session will be the official magic day in which all of you will experience the passive affects of your magical abilities in similar and various ways. I want everyone to get a good night's sleep a develop a functional sleeping schedule of at least eight hours, to this end over-the-counter melatonin in different doses have been provided in the commons of your dorms."

Following us out of the dorms and shutting the doors, he continues with the most mortifying thing possible by saying, "Sadly, as you all know, Zai remained at clay island to spend the night healing from his leg injury, but it would seem that it will take several days of his current treatment before he is fully healed and can rejoin you at iron island. I allowed him to progress from his wetland island to clay island despite his injury to collect combat data on wounded individuals and now that i have it the logical following priority is the healing of said individuals. Fear not, though, he has passed on many of his stone working skills to Emma to continue supplying you with tools and weapons at base camp and further spread the knowledge herself as well as suitable supplies and materials have been left with him to craft many more weapons and supplies for the group until iron is crafted.

"It is nine-twenty-PM and you will all be waking up at six in the morning, so i advise you all to get to sleep by twelve," is his continued lecture he had probably been preparing during the session to eat up our walk time to the elevator. "I probably mentioned our scheduling earlier and all that earlier, so after tomorrow we will be able to allow for more personal time and so on, but i feel the need to remind you all that we are trying to squeeze in as many days in a day as we can while allowing our members time to take care of their reality bodies. I will give you all a brief tour of the gym and then send you off to your dorm buildings. I would take this time to discuss your strategies for magic day and simply do push-ups or something in your rooms."

Emma made her way to where i lead the group down the familiar hallway turns as everybody started zoning in on Harold and Doc for information and advise by presenting ideas, playfully nudging me with her elbow while asking, "You're not still sore, are you?"

"No," i admit at last after having avoided talking to anyone as i usually did while waiting for everybody to come to. "Just have a lot on my mind, trying to work out all the ways and things i can do to speed up my healing time, probably by making as many different treatments as possible from the herbs you guys left me with. I could do herbal baths for multiple treatments in one if i play my cards right, just piling on all the buffs i can pray for while doing as little as possible with all of the time that i suddenly find myself with. Since i figured out a way to do... that... i can make another healing jump when all the magic stuff goes on, but i can't say for certain how much i can do at once again- especially since the amount of time that i had thought was minutes was a couple of hours."

"Yeah... the way you were just laying there breathing and kinda twitching..." she murmurs quietly as conversation around us ever so slightly lessens in volume. "Professor Harlen showed up in camp while i was helping Harold with his barge, when we got there he made us be real quiet and and not bother you. Away from camp he told us he was collecting real-time information while monitoring for bugs and lag, but it wasn't until you were getting close to waking up that he explained to use what was going on and how to make use of it."

"It wasn't a bad idea and I promise I'm not mad or anything," i reassure her just as quietly. "It's actually a valuable opportunity to play with magic withound boundaries in privacy, if i can successfully speed up my recovery. With magic, the way i am thinking about it right now, we could get most of our smelting done in a few hours. All i can say quickly is its an energy as well as an awareness, an extension of your existence witth flows and sensory information all its own you have to find on your own. When its awake and you experience what i mean, focus on fire. If you can find a way to start and sustain a fire and make it hotter, go crazy on an oxide boulder."

"If this wasn't a video game, i would tell you that you're insane, but apparently you know something that we don't," Emma snickers quietly under her hand. "I'm going to go back and talk to Harold about my work duties again since my leg will be mostly healed by tomorrow. I don't have any real experience with it so just grinding rocks until magic time is going to kill my shoulders."

"Excessive use of your arms could be used as an excuse, something that won't heal in just a few days IRL like worn cuffs and collars," i whisper with a quick pat on her shoulder before she nods with a grin and makes her way around the jumbled line of people to the back where Harold and Doc both were talking to the others. I marveled at the oddity of having made contact with Emma as a farewell, not just in the friendzone style of contact but also that i was reflexively nurturing a relationship with the girl both in and out of the game, while the professor deflects most of the questions focused around prospecting and mining and processing iron with basic geology and chemistry lessons about iron itself and its weathering as well as refining processes without actually telling them to achieve the necessary temperatures or what metal combinations did what in what amounts to add to one another as well as the necessary tools to make them in. What Doc left out, however, Harold was sure to cover in doling out work duties to the groups of two's and three's around or off of the island on how to build what or which of this to look out for.

With so few duties of my own until the etherfall event, all i could do was speculate on what little i had experienced about my magic from my hours of meditating. I knew the way in which my energy moved, whirling forward and about like currents of all different kind of energy from kinetic to thermal in their potential forms and a little bit about how to move my awareness among them as well as how to consciously move them. If i could further manipulate those energies, i already had access not only to the generatation and manipulation of fire and electricity but also the capacity for increasing the strength of my body for just the beginning of my practice runs.

My ride up in the elevator was spent using my limited cynaptic abilities to study up on all sorts of physics and technologies for processes that might help me with the practical applications of my theories while the others had moved on to discussing how to work the clay that Harold had brought once it had set and watered down into solide bodies after draining in their chests overnight. They were all still stuck on gathering and processing iron ore without making anymore trips to clay island that would otherwise disturb my healing, but i was already preparing on how to magically craft my own molds by analyzing my surrounding sediments and manipulating them through different energies. I did not want to feel superior to them, i could tell how several of them as usual kept their thoughts to themselves and rarely asked questions that had to do with the current topics when they asked at all, but it was hard not to already feel like i was several steps ahead of the others after having accessed magic through meditation.

The massive roof of the circular building which sported four helipads from its original designs now bore the additions of three giant steel warehouse structures across the helipads from the elevator that opened out onto a raised greeting platform beside the helipads. Two of the buildings roughly seventy feet in cylindrical length were angled outward from the much larger warehouse between them, this one i could only assume was the gym that we would be introduced to before being sent off to bed from the way that Doc immediately began leading the group down the platform's frontal rampway toward the giant double doors at the end of the central building some ten or so yards from the helipad's outer border of raised reflector strips and brightly glowing red lamps. Conversation had come to a stop since the opening of the elevator doors, mostly due to the loud winds at our current height more than any importance of being on the roof, but the trip to the gymnasium was a brisk one so it did not matter.

"As you will see once you get inside," Doc was saying as everybody who had found their way to the front of the ground after exiting the elevator filed passed him inside. "We are equipped with enough exercise stations and treadmills for each of you, a full-size basketball court, a small boxing ring and surrounding practice gear, and along the back wall is a water tank eleven meters in length that is designed to accommodate six of you at a time for swimming and underwater exercise purposes. The dorms are equipped with communal bathrooms that include three toilets and three shower stalls apiece, so the gym was not given a locker room of any sort. If any of you do decide to use the gym before bed, i suggest taking the melatonin beforehand," he adds as i walk through the door. "Boys' dorm is on the left and girls'to the right, your rooms were picked for you and all your luggage is waiting inside, have a good night everyone.

Because today was already a day of rest for my workout schedule, i barely viewed my surroundings and the others who were all wandering about the building to examine to equipment or leaving for bed like i was doing. The dorm building reminded me of a onesided hotel hallway with the bathrooms directly ahead of the entryance in the middle of the building with three rooms off to either side with roughly ten feet between either bedroom door. My room was the same untextured beige as the hallway and popcorn ceilings and plush carpeting, againt the left side wall was a long stretch of twin-width bed that for some unknown reason stretched along ten feet of the wall before coming to a tall endtable bearing a sleek universal system attached to the monitor that made up most of the back wall, opposite the bed and endtable being a long dresser and desk combination that sported the bags i had brought with me.

Grabbing my personal bag of toiletries and a towel, i hurry to the bathroom to be the first to claim one of the shower stalls and find myself wondering what the hot tub that Emma had made would feel like when i logged back in while managing the temperature of the water in my stall. Even though i had spent most of the day lying on a foam rubber table, i was mentally worn from experiencing several arduous and trying days in one and i was now ready for bed even without the assistance of the suggested melatonin. My long soak in the shower only lasted twenty minutes and i spent another five drying off and grooming before heading back to my room in clean briefs underneath a plush towel where i locked the door behind me and turn the light dial to dim the room before getting into bed under my sheets after hanging my towel on the door.

I slept long and hard until my early cynaptic alarm at five AM awoke me, telling me with a holoscreen message hovering just a foot or two away from my face that it was time to get up, wash my ass, and shred every muscle in my body. Blinking the holoscreen away as i stretch out in bed and yawn lazily, i get up and go through my baggage until i find a pair of gray digital camo cargo pants and a matching thermal sweater before grabbing my bag of toiletries to my my way to the bathroom. Somebody was already getting in an early morning shower as i walked into the bathroom applying deodorant under my sweat, telling me that i was not the only person here to get an early start on their second day of the beta project as i picked a sink and mirror at which to brush my teeth and do the rest of my grooming.

Returning my toiletry back to my room before heading to the gym, i find not only Harold and but Sash and Emma already hard at work in the gym either at treadmills or one of the large training stations that i was noe picking out for myself. One side of the kiosk boast a set of different height bars for people of varying heights each with dets of handles to do different types of pull-ups from, the next side sported a floor pad containing a pair of large rubber grips and an interface pad similar to the grips and pad on the wall of the kiosk that were resistance bands that could be set at any weight up to five hundred pounds, the third side displayed an intricate bench with hook-ups all around to weighted plates for different types of muscle isolations, and finally another simple side like the pull-up bars with but this wall of the kiosk was covered in sets of small bars and handles paired with illustrated stretching routines.

Setting the suspension for the resisitance bands on the wall of the kiosk to two hundred pounds even, i grip both handles firmly before planting one foot up on the wall between the protruding handles while using the greater weight of the resistance to suspend myself and raise my other foot up onto the wall in a crouch. Straightening out slowly to perform a horizontal squat and calf lift by extending up onto my toes as much as possible before just as slowly coiling back to the wall in a crouch, i continue squatting excess of my body weight while keeping my shoulders up and trying not to move my arms in any other way to isolate the muscles in my legs. After i had started doing my weighted running, i had kind of slacked off on actually working out my legs, but i still tried to perform at least one hundred squats and raises twice a week with my body weight around my running and now i was going to see if the additions of my weighted running had paid off any.

I was able to struggle through the seventies, eighties, and then clench my teeth and groan through the nineties, but stepping down from the kiosk wall was next to impossible after finally achieving my goal of one hundred squats. Leaving me with only the option of slowly relaxing my body so that my feet slid down the wall while the resistance cables were drawn back in, i simply let go at about half of the way and drop roughly to my hands and knees to catch my breath. Despite the scalding heat running through my stressed and tearing leg muscles, it felt good to be able to use either of my legs at will like this.

Counting breaths to bring my heartrate down before climbing up to my feet, i move on to the stretching wall of the kiosk and pick one foam padded bar sticking straight out of the wall to hold onto and raise my lower body until i could clasp the padded bar between my knees and ankles to experimentally perform my first upside down sit-up. At first they did not feel different from the usual daily thousand fifty-pound sit-ups, but the wider range of motion allowed by hanging upside down quickly played its part in tearing at both my abdominal rectus and hip flexor groups while i was still in the sixties. I actually feared being unable to complete one hundred reps while struggling through my eighties after abusing over one hundred degrees of mobility, but i was able measure myself with my breathing and complete the exercise before raggedly gripping the bar i hung from and carefully but sloppily letting my feet drop to the floor.

My legs were still recovering from my horizontal squats' combined reps and static endurance training, so i had to hang onto the bar for a moment until they grew accustomed to my weight again before moving on to my final, more familiar exercise. Deciding to do pull-ups to incorporate my biceps into the exercise because they would not be seeing much else for strain during the beta, i reach up overhead to grip one of the highest bars before pulling myself slowly up to it. One hundred pull-ups flew by faster than any of my other exercises and with little actual strain on either my back or my upper arms, but i was still satisfied with the completed trifecta that should make up for the parts of my body i had been lax on while keeping the parts of my body i had worked exceptionally hard on from stagnating.

It was only a little passed five-forty when i checked the time on my way back to the dorm, heading to the small commons of several recliners arrayed around a short but large table sporting several mini-fridges and small racks of all sorts of food from jerky to candy to granola bars in all sorts from gluten free to vitamin enriched. Some of the others were awake now and in the bathrooms or snacking in the commons as i walked through the building, though Harold had remained in the gym as more of the girls showed up and congregated him to their side of the building for help and advise in working out, but it seemed like everybody would be awake and ready in time for Doc to come and fetch us for breakfast even as i opened a bottle of water and a protein bar. Now we just had to wait on Doc.

The man himself stepped out of the elevator at six on the dot, but i was the only person outside that i could see from where i was running several holoscreens running informations of all sorts from physics calculations to personal predictions of the resource make-up of neighboring islands from what i had seen at the top of my slate bluff and what the others spoke of from their own islands. Doc, looking at what i had thought were incognito screens instead of at me, makes a beeline across the helipad for my location where he says, "Some of these programs aren't supposed to be functional here... is that an actual browser window? How on earth did you sneak it passed security?"

"It's a bit-browser, all it can do is search and download," i reply simply. "I kept it in my protected archives and since it's a crippled program that can't upload or send out any informations except my location to you- the service provider- it was never detected. This is a private calculator with number generator functions, and this one is a basically a thought-to-script print out of everything i am putting together from these other download files. Nothing here is capable of leaking information, or in any way breaks any rules. I figured if your personally designed security scans did not disable their functions, they were safe."

"Bit-browser..." Doc remarks as he looks inside the gym at those still planning or using the equipment. "Everybody who works in the building has some version of it, but that's the first i have heard that term... i might just allow it. This thought processor of yours, though, i rarely see anyone who uses a script version, is it just a formula of relevant terms and shorthand or is it your actual thoughts."

"For this program," i say as i close the island prediction program, "I i think in relevant terms and break down components in a formula. I'm predicting the geology of the islands, everything so far seems to be focused around a few fundamental elements whose shared presence make up most of the rest of the planet. it's a little buggy because of that fact, but our clay and iron islands are helping a lot because now when i recall back to my scenery from the mountain i have picked out a total of three other iron and clay islands within our cap of the archipelago- the end portion of the chain that in my head runs five islands deep. Is the most detailed i can get from the height of the bluff and a memory buffered by the program it took place in."

"I'm surprised you're thinking about the islands when there is etherfall to plan for..." Doc seems to taunt as he steps into the doorway of the gym and bring his fingers to his mouth to let loose a loud, piercing whistle. "Do try to heal as fast as you can," he says quietly as the others take notice of his presense and start making their way over or heading to the dorms to call for the others like Harold, turning back to me so the others could not read his lips if they knew how. "As much as i know you want to enjoy this, the others are going to need you in full health back at iron island as soon as you can manage. You'll enjoy the etherfall there a lot more, trust me."

Those last words immediately put a stop to at least half of my plans for my newly deemed 'day off' in the game, filling my head with questions and even a few complaints about his cryptic nature, but by then Sasha and Emma were close enough to hear whatever i said from little over ten yards away so all i could think to say was, "Once again, you have my word, I'll do what i can about healing but i can't make any promises." All i could do was make a quick change in all of my plans in the hopes of finding out what it was he was talking about.

It took a few minutes, but by six-ten everyone was gathered and on there way to the elevator platform where Doc started in on his next lecture. Everybody had been pretty quiet since then, so it was a little absurd for him to ask, "Is everybody else as excited as i am for this morning's session? You all get free-roam rights with magic for half of a day, we'll finally get the feedback we need to keep the exterminators busy for weeks debugging the coding on all the different magic sources. Everybody who works for me only gets about enough time in a day to play a single session, so we can't get all the data we need at once, but with this cross-server project we will be absolutely flooded.

"As for magic itself, i suppose i need to give you some brief lessons," he goes on as he taps the hologram button for the cafeteria floor. "There are three basic sources of magic which are randomly doled out to players when they start the game as the magics they have a greater affinity for, they are mind for those mages who manipulate the energies of the world with their minds, body for those who find a physical approach to using magic more applicable, and soul for those who were made ambidextrous in magics. Since the spirit is the centerpiece of mind and body, it is the greater source of power for mages, but just because you were randomly assigned this or that affinity does not mean you cannot use all three.

"Not only does each affinity come with its own selective potentials and abilities, there are certain skills and talents shared by all affinities that everyone will experience and be able to process of eleminate their way to their magic type- consider it something of a quiz to see if you can progress in magic well enough to identify yourself. As well, each player is given a special power of sorts that matches their personality profiles that the in-game gods begin developing when you begin playing the game, this will also be active during the event and i do hope you can learn from them well enough to use them at will. Some powers are actually passive and always active but will be thrown into the next gear by the event, and others cannot actually be used at will but will still be triggered during the event to prepare you for their use in the future.

"Powers are not necessarily magic, but your strength and abilities in magic strengthen your power and will eventually allow you to adapt and evolve your powers in different ways. Someone with a passive enhanced hearing power could eventually develop an echo-location ability or somebody with a skin or body hardening ability could learn to change its shape or adapt their bodies to elements like fire or stone or even develop a camoflague reflex. Since none of you actually have an enhanced sensory power, i can freely say that just because your power starts out as being able to hear really well does not mean it is limited to simply hearing things- in order to develop the echo-location ability you would have to learn to produce a certain noise that reverberates off of the area well eough to pick up in enhansed sensory- through the production of that noise you could develop a sound-producing ability like a skill-tree branching out in new directions with a concussive clap of your hands and so forth. As well, through magic or your own abilitites, you could skill tree into an enhansed sensory ability like hearing which i have now spelled out how to turn into a new sensory and attack power.

"In all honesty, despite the depth of this game's processing and interactions, the magic and combat systems are all the same as my other games, so once you get the hang of this you should be well on your way. The hardest part will be making your own spells and skills, that was one of the harder parts in developing the game for me. How does somebody make their own spell? Despite my work in the gaming industry, i am a very grounded and logical person who had no idea how to approach the topic of giving players the ability to make their own magic except to literally create a system that uses their own thoughts and impressions and logic to develop a process an affect."

We were actually nearing the cafeteria as his speech went on, the elevator sinking into the top of the giant room flooding the otherwise dim shaft with light as it usually did. "So, after tinkering and experimenting with and on my employees, i have acquired several foolproof methods of teaching different mages the same player-created spell techniques. So, to help prepare you all for magic day, i have decided to teach you what the employees have all agreed is the perfect all purpose beginner spell for players and is called Ignition. I will tell you more about it over breakfast."

Not long after he finished talking even before the elevator came to a stop the group came alive with excited speculations and questions about magic and how today was going to go, even Harold who usually afforded the professor his space and handled his own discussions was trying to coax information regarding other areas out of Doc. I had my own questions i wanted to ask, but figured i probably was not as much of an education priority considering the experience i had accidentally gained in magic and with that little bit of experience i had all that i needed to meet everybody's demands and keep myself busy for a while afterward. Luckily, i was at the front of the elevator this time and the first person out of the doors to greet their hologram attendant.

Usually i was more excited for the large servings of sushi that the kitchens here gave out, but i was preoccupied with thoughts about the details of my injury in the game and the memories of all the different pains that i had encountered while just examining the wounds. So deeply involved in my thoughts, i almost missed Professpr Harlen clearing his throat to quiet the chatter of the others at the table. "Ignition, as the name implies," he begins casually after having washed down his small breakfast sandwhich with his entire cup of tea, "is a fire elemental spell, literally the creation of fire either in your hands or in some other way about your person. Range weakens magic, so for beginners it is best to teach them with hands.

"The Ignition spell is also a cheat sheet for determining your affinity and answering my pop quiz," he goes on as everything eats and drinks quietly in the silence created by his voice. "If you are a mind mage, often termed witches and wizards, you will experience magic with your mind in the flows of your in-game EMF. A body mage, termed sorcerers and sorceress', will literally feel their magics and even those around them in different ways when they achieve awareness, and a soul mage, termed as magi, will feel the energies as something like a ghost of themselves and their magic- this is because those with the magi affinity have dual auras. In reality that usually means ElectroMagnetic Field that is produced by the polarities and electricity of our bodies, in the game it is Ethereal Magic Field, the aura around your avatars produced by your magic.

"The magical energies you first encounter will be your own, but afterward you can learn how to interact with another person or creature or even object's magical energy. The common practice is that, after you have more or less made contact with your magic, you are to goad or push or will the flow of energy around your body into the palms of your hands. For a mind mage who started a fire by hand, you would have a better understanding of generating thermal energy and bringing it to flame, the same for a body mage who could physically start a fire in their hands, and anyone with a firm grasp of science and physics can conjure a flame. The basic premise is all energy creates heat, then you just have to fuel it with something- oxygen from the air around you- and the created flame is Ignition.

"Young players such as yourselves would use this to start campfires or heat a small meal, adapting it into an offensive weapon from its initial support tool status as your ability to control and use your magic grows," he goes on as everybody begins hurriedly eating the rest of their meals. "From the flame's position in your hand, you could find a way to store the your energy and enough oxygen fuel within or around it to sustain it long enough to throw or even project energy through it to project the flames and their heat forward. One of the reason Ignition was chosen over the other top spots for the game's introductory spell is that it does not stop drawing on your energy reserves, the others either stored x amount in infinite variations or were too complicated in their processes. Something to aim for, the rest of the top three were Freeze and Plasma Blast, Freeze is complicated in that you would strip yourself or the air of fluids and then strip them of their temperature until fluids froze- low levels of magic will force you to draw on your own body more than your surrounding area as your EMF shrinks from consumption and this will begin reddening the ice you make as a warning sign of your health. I would go into detail for the mostly offensive Plasma Blast spell in third place, but where's the fun in that?"

Waiting for everybody to finish their drinks before collecting his own trash, Doc says, "The most important part about any magic you use is reaching and understanding your own energy and then how to draw from its source. At first there will be steps you must take to reach your magic before the event and after, but just remember your magic in the game has been there ever since your avatar was made even if you could not use it or even be aware of it yet. That first time of reaching on your own should be sufficient enough of a connection to begin using magic at will, but to strengthen it you will have to make contact with your source many times learning everything you can about the magic itself before you can become a full-fledged mage."

One time... my magic is already activated... i realize as i mechanically rise from my seat with my trash like the others and dumped them in the nearby bot on our way to the elevator. Awareness... with my experience, i can probably call upon the memory and ability of meditating to access my magic faster and from there preform the next or, more hopefully, final step in my healing and be on my way to iron island by etherfall if i can keep track of time.A little gelpie venom on the end of a knife in my skin should help me breeze through the surgery as well.

"Also, a little side note," Doc says suddenly without really even trying to pretend it was something he had forgotten about as the elevator doors closed. "Because magic day was pushed back and will coincide when ninety-nine percent of you will be together, i have put together a little surprise both to make up for the wait and to reward the 'support staff'."

*