The Devil In White: An AA Online Novel

Amelia twirled in her chair for a moment, thinking about how the day had ended and how she had left the others to retire to an inn for the evening. She had to sleep, so she retired from the game shortly afterward, but not before promising that she would show Raven, Aidan, and Forsythe around a little bit when she came back on. She had been reluctant to do so, but then again the Super Level 1 Quest hadn't appeared yet, and she didn't think she could escape it simply by leaving the area. She sat forward in her seat and scrolled down into the thread to see the responses.

"I want that. Does anyone know who she is?"

"I think they said she was from Sleipnir, anyone from there?"

"Was there really anyone like that in Sleipnir when I was there last week? I don't know…"

"Did you see Hunter's face? I wanna go look at her stream and see what she's doing! She's so great, but it really felt like that conversation was outrageous. That guy Aidan, talking to the King was a total jerk right? Was he really a Resident?"

"Enemies over level 200? You're kidding me. Welp let me just get some vids ready for my time away from the game while you're all getting killed..."

"Yay! Can't wait to level up with some buddies and get ready, sounds like we have some time. I wonder what the contribution reward will be? EXP EXP EXP!"

"How do you even get in to talk to the King????"

"I'm an Intermediate Chronicler and I have no idea how those skills were used to create long-distance shareable in-game videos. Higher-level needed? I've been pretty diligent but it's a really hard skill to increase. You can't just write about iBook and iStream topics like what you ate and expect to level it up. Most of my gains came from following around some of the Hall of Famers and writing down their adventures. I'm totally stoked though. I could start chronicling plays or bards and then broadcasting them to different towns in-game! Do you think the players that I Cstreamed(Chronicle Stream) would get EXP after other people saw their post-events?"

"Whoa wall of text. That would be cool though. It would boost Chronicler popularity maybe? It's kind of a dumb job…"

"Willing to pay in-game currency for information on the Chronicler of the Heavens, click me if you have anything."

It just went on and on, with people speculating, complaining, trying to weasel other people for information about her. She thought about replying, but the thread was already locked. Besides, now that her job was out other people would surely be getting it soon so it wasn't necessary to share the information...right?

Whatever. Amelia decided to shut down her terminal and slipped toward her bedroom. It was about the time she was supposed to meet the others and she wanted to know a few more things. At the very least she could keep her cowl up and get some of their stories down and use them for leveling her Chronicler of the Heaven's job while she waited to see if that Super Level 1 Quest appeared or resolved itself.

That rationale firmly in place, she laid down on the bed and reached over to turn her fan on to keep her body cooled while she was in-game. She stretched out, found a comfortable position, and then slowly placed the Neuradive visor over her head and flipped the switch.

A moment of disorientation and no vision or audio passed, as it was always a little uncomfortable to transition and orient from the real world to AA. Her vision turned black, and then slowly dissolved to brighter colors until the inn room slowly coalesced around her. It was frustrating because it didn't take any time to load the graphics or setting, it was just a default to make the transition smoother. When you were impatient it was frustrating.

She sighed, and Amelia sat up on the bed in the inn and looked across the small room into a mirror, staring into her reflection and appraising her avatar. Brown hair, and a rather grim face met her. This was going to give her wrinkles in the real world for sure. At least here they wouldn't show. She started to fuss at the settings on her blue robe, trying to get the wrinkles and smooth folds to look appropriate before she left.

A knock at the door, and before she had finished saying, "come in," it opened and Raven bounced across the room and sat on her bed. She had started rocking on the bed seconds later as if her stationary pose had been too at ease. Amelia sat down next to her and the bed bouncing stopped briefly. Amelia was still waiting for the brief wave of dizzy to vanish and made an articulate 'ugh' by way of greeting.

"You slept too long. Come on. The world is huge and we have a few days before we have to go listen to grouchy people talk." Raven exclaimed. She bounced up and down on the bed a few times as she sat, causing Amelia to rise and fall in rapid response.

"Ah." Was all Amelia thought to say. She wondered how they had known she was already online.

"Sorry," Aidan said slipping in silently and standing at the doorway. "Your activity bar lit up and she was up the stairs before I could tell her to slow down."

"Ah," Amelia said again. They had known she was online because she'd forgotten to unparty with them. "Where's the third stooge?"

"He's having a confrontation with a Chef down the street." Aidan said, smiling that very cheshire stretchy smile.

"You can't fight in cities." Amelia said groggily. She felt just like she did earlier this morning, totally unprepared right out of the gate for the amount of energy that was passing around her.

"Not fighting…" Aidan started, "...is what I want to say?"

Raven bound up and thrust a finger toward the mirror, admiring her pose as she shouted, "if you're a man, then there are challenges you must face! Or something."

Amelia felt like it had been a mistake to think that she could leech anything from these people while she waited for the SL1 quest and it would ever be worth the aggravation. She should have chartered a carriage and ridden to the Southern Continent.

"Well. It will work out, somehow." Aidan said.

Sound more convincing at least! Amelia thought angrily.