I looked up with a big grin on my face, to see a confusing look on Sam’s face.

  “Please tell me you’re an electrician in real life.” he asked, eyes blinking in shock.

  “More Computer Science, but I do stuff like that for fun.” I replied.

  “Seriously, that was impressive.” He looked over at the other whirring machines. “And now we have more things to look at.”

  The screen I was at just showed:

  ‘Warning!’

  ‘SHIFTE Primary Generator, Offline.’

  ‘SHIFTE Emergency Generator, Offline.’

  ‘SHIFTE Harbour Master MHK power source at 75% capacity’

  Checking out the computer terminals they all pretty much showed a similar interface, so we took one each and started exploring the different tabs being shown.

  There was a login button in the top right, it seemed we presently had emergency access to the system.

  The first tab was entitled Weather. It displayed a region map, but no data on it. There was an error message at the bottom indicating that it was failing to connect to the Global Meteorology Service.

  The tab entitled arrivals/departures, was two columns, empty of data.

  The Docking Assignments, had a list of locations, A through H, and 1 up to 10. A2 had a ‘Unknown boat’ next to it, but the others were all empty. Sam’s boat? It was able to tell a small wooden sail boat was tied up?

  Current data, displayed the area around the island, with numbers in a few places, which I assumed to be speeds in knots, but most of the points were greyed out. Which I assume meant no connection.

  The final tab was entitled Access Services, it displayed a map of the town, in six seemingly random locations there were buttons, all red.

  The border was flashing red, and had ‘Hostile Lockdown in effect’ repeating around it. Could that explain all those locked up doors?

  A banner at the top of the screen declared ‘Automatic Hostile Entity Scanner calibration failed, please manually calibrate’

  This might help us out in telling us where we need to fight, so I turned to have a look at calibrating.

  I started by mentally labeling the buttons 1 to 6, moving from left to right.

  I touched button 1, it blinked a few times and then went green, a couple of the others joined it, and button 6 went blue.

  I pushed button 3 next, all six buttons changed.

  Ahh, so this was going to be one of those puzzles. I experimented with the different buttons, trying to see if I could see the pattern in it. Mentally cataloging what worked and how. Seems each light has three states, red, blue and green, and each button changed different lights in different ways. Assuming the note downstairs was a clue, I needed them all to be green. I just needed to figure out the right combination.

  About five minutes later, “Are you working on the entity scanner?” Sam asked.

  “I’m hoping it will tell us where the threats are… I think I might have the pattern figured out…” I replied. I replied, resetting it to give my latest idea a go.

  “Oh. that worked.” My screen changed, the banner now said ‘Hostile Entity Scanner calibrated. Scanning…’ and there were waves coming from each point the buttons were at…I blinked and looked up at Sam. He was sporting a huge grin and holding up his right hand. “I started from the right…hit the first two and they all went green.” He said. There was smugness in that grin. I could feel it.

  I blinked a couple of times, then felt a laugh building and so went with it and held out a fist. Credit where credit is due, I didn’t even think to try that combination, I always start with the left.

  The waves seemed to focus in and then a red blip started flashing on the building that was the Sail Loft. The thing which was making those rats fight smart maybe?

  “Well…that confirms our destination, and it might mean we don’t have any other buildings to explore..” I state.

  “Yep, looks like we will need to finish off the rats and then come back to deactivate the lockdown.” He agreed.

  We had just got downstairs and were about to head on out when Sam stopped.

  “Just realised the time.” He said. “Mind if we break for dinner? I have a family call in about five minutes.”

  “Sure.” I agree, we had done so much together that to finish off now would be rude, and also potentially dangerous, to push on. Besides it was after six, and it wouldn't hurt for me to cook a proper meal. “How long do you need?”

  “Err, these calls normally take forty to forty-five minutes depending upon my sister. That OK?”

  “Want to call it ninety? Give you time to cook and eat your dinner without rushing. I should probably eat something decent myself. Too many lazy meals recently. I can always use the extra time on Ball Lightning if I get finished early.”

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  “If you don’t mind? Won’t need all of that time, but would be appreciated. Thanks. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Sam took a seat in one of the chairs, closed his eyes and then seemed to dissipate into blue sparks.

  I hopped up onto one of the tables and followed suit.

  Down in my kitchen, I looked in my fridge for the ingredients for a meal…there was chicken defrosted at the bottom. I had pulled it out for yesterday's dinner before getting distracted. I should probably set up the slow cooker tomorrow morning and make a casserole, then I can have a decent meal at any point. I looked in the freezer and pulled out a portion of diced beef and put it on the bottom shelf of the fridge, replacing the chicken.Then started pulling out the rest of the things I would need for fajitas.

  “Ava, find me a stream on Velkaria.” I called out

  “Searching for Velkaria streams, where the player has yet to reach Landing.” came the response, ahh my spoiler request was still in place.

  “Is there anyone in group chat?” I asked as six preview streams appeared on the display. “Display HappyDash” I commanded.

  The third preview expanded to full screen showing a bearded guy about my own age in a decked out gaming room and his voice came through mid sentence.

  “...this straight, to get the best outcomes in the tutorial, I need to interact with the NPCs as if they are real people?” the streamer said.

  “Yeah. The guys arriving in Landing are finding out that the Merit tokens you earn in the tutorial give you access to the trainers for the advanced skills. If you want to learn magic for example, you need at least 10 merit tokens, or a silver token. So if you skipped the tutorial, not only did you have a much harder time against the Kraken, you most likely will die before getting to the undersea city.” The person he was talking to responded

  .

  On the left, a window opened revealing group chat with only BenchPress in the channel. The others must be in the game.

  “Ava, connect me to the group chat.” I started dicing the chicken. There was a beep confirming I joined and my name joined BenchPress’ on the left hand side of my screen. “Evening Bench, good day at work?” I asked.

  “Evening Vax. twas fair, can’t complain, I’m off tomorrow! I’m patching as we speak!”

  “Awesome news. How did you score that one?”

  “Not needed, I’d booked in for overtime, but we exceeded targets.”

  “Sucks for the old pay check, but gets you in the game!”

  “That it does.” he confirmed. “Should have set the patching while I was at work…the waiting is killing me!”

  “Ha. Just remember to ignore Fisty, try your best and get as much as you can from the NPCs.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got HappyDs stream on. His pod is arriving tomorrow so he is trying to learn as much as possible to be as efficient as he can to catch up. Talking about getting as many tokens as possible for gear and skills when you get out of the tutorial.”

  “Small world, his is the one I have on.”

  “Wait, is that your clip?” I looked up from slicing onions to see the stream showing the Indefatigable cresting a wave, only the angle was slightly different to the one I experienced, the player was assisting the helmsman.

  “Similar, player is on the helm.”

  “So, if I’m able to get the right skills, get in with the officers, and impress the captain, I could be controlling the ship in a huge storm?” HappyDash asked incredulously.

  “So this clip implies and some players claim…but none of the streamers I’m aware of have done it live. This was found when someone misentered a share link they’d seen on a screenshot. So we don’t even know if it’s a player or something from marketing.”

  “Well…let’s hope it’s real. That looks proper dope.”

  “Any clues on how you got it Vax?”

  “Sorry Bud. Only things I can think of are that I was polite to the npcs and interacted with them like they were real people. Tried my best on all the tasks, followed their advice when given, I was honest, I saw through the trap in the navigators test. Can’t think of anything else…”

  “Navigator’s test? No wait, don’t tell me, I like figuring those out myself.” BenchPress responded.

  “Good choice. Apparently one of the NPCs get’s upset if you look up his riddle and not try and figure it out yourself, rewarded my honesty when I outed myself as having been told after another player trolled me with the answer…”

  “Damn…I’d seen it in clips. It was big on players growing…people getting rewarded for legitimate personal growth. To think they’d insert some sort of morality system to reward good behaviour…”

  “Aye, honestly the game is so immersive…”

  “How is the magic? Still cool?”

  “Pretty cool. Really complex, I'm loving it. I’ve just unlocked a third spell, Ball lightning. Its pattern is… it’s interesting. I can see the similarities it has with my other spells. It’s like its own language that I feel If I can just get my head around, I’ll be able to do anything…”

  “Really? Matlock spent all his tokens on learning Fireball, spent an hour trying to cast it and gave up. It took him nearly ten seconds to cast the spell and it did less damage than hitting it with a stick would do…”

  “I’m guessing he didn’t listen to his trainer. It’s all about getting the right mental patterns. I’m consistently casting my sparks at a second or two at most. Slightly longer if I’m, say, running or dodging. Shocking Grasp is at most two seconds, but that one I don’t have as much practice with.”

  “That really doesn’t match up to any of the streams…but then I know you aren’t lying you shared that clip…You should share the link on HappyDash’s stream alongside your Kraken run…It’d blow their minds, might even get you on stream.”

  “Nah, not my bandwagon. I put them on for background noise and because I prefer getting news from people whose fakeness I can see, I’d rather avoid the spotlight and not have everyone know my name…besides you forget I accidentally went female?”

  “Oh yeah.” he laughed.

  “It’s not like I can really add anything concrete…I should ask Sam what his tutorial experience was like, compare notes.”

  “Sam?”

  “Another player, washed up on the neighbouring island, came over to mine for parts to fix a ship on his. We’ve been fighting our way through the town all afternoon. Guy’s some kind of re-enactment survivalist swordsmaster. Taught me how to butcher and skin the creatures we’ve killed. When you get to the Wayfarer, he lasted more than ten minutes against the weaponmaster, and wasn't even using his preferred weapon. I lasted two…seconds ”

  “Really? I’ve seen clips of people lasting a minute, but ten? Really? Damn.” I sat down at the counter and started eating.

  BenchPress disappeared shortly after that, his download complete he wanted in as soon as he could. After finishing my dinner, I cleaned up after myself including washing up the dishes I’d left in the sink and then headed back to the game. As I got back, I checked the clock, assuming he didn’t rush, I should have at least half an hour.

  I pulled my legs up into a cross legged position and resumed my study of Ball Lightning.