Unfortunately, Jules’ grasp on the language only lasted while he was inside the game. It was a weird feeling, suddenly not understanding a language. Even knowing that the game system provided the information he wanted and “knew”, it was still weird to not know it outside of the game. Somewhere, on the inside, he still felt like he should know all the words by heart, but it was as if he had forgotten them. Really, though, he’d been learning the language for just a few days, so even his progress outside of the game was pretty good. Eventually, he had to stop thinking about alien languages in games, and get back to focusing on work.
——-
Before he could get back to Many Worlds, Jules had some real life things to take care of. While he didn’t seem to need sleep after being in Many Worlds (or he was going crazy), he did still need to eat. He didn’t have the spare funds to get groceries delivered, and he usually didn’t know what he was going to buy beforehand anyway. Well, he did currently have the money, but if he let himself get complacent, he’d never leave the library building, since he lived and worked there. So, he took himself out onto the polluted, sunless streets, to the nearest supermarket.
Normally it wouldn’t have been an event worth thinking about. He’d buy milk, cheese, and some kind of actual food to put cheese on. Indeed, the shopping itself went exactly like that. During the process, though, he saw Mary, and she saw him.
“Hi Jules!” she waved at him.
“Hello. You must live near here, since we’ve run into each other twice now.”
“That’s right, I do. Along with thousands of other people.”
“And that’s just within a few blocks. I haven’t seen you around before, though.” Jules didn’t remember seeing anybody else more than once around here, although if he didn’t know them he might have just ignored them.
“That’s because I just moved here. What about you?”
“I’ve been here for… a while. Not that going anywhere else is any different.”
“That’s pretty skeptical, the pattern of the sky is different in different places after all.”
“What sky? There’s only solar panels.”
“That’s true, but you can see patterns where they don’t cover, and it’s unique to every city.”
Jules frowned. “Well, I’d rather see a real sky, like in Many Worlds. Well, ‘real’ as that can get, anyway. Speaking of which, have you been inside Fesmoilia yet?”
“Fesmoilia is?”
“The city.”
“The one with the lightning gates and trigger happy guards?”
“Umm, yeah, that one. You can enter the city now though.”
“What? I didn’t see that on the forums or hear it from anyone, where’d you learn that?”
Jules muttered, “Well, I guess since you’re the first person I told…” Jules hadn’t thought about the fact that players wouldn’t automatically know that the city was open. “Anyway, players can enter now. You can see for yourself and spread it on the forums and stuff.”
“You still didn’t explain how you know…”
“I’ve spent almost the entirety of the last three days in front of the city. Of course I’d know.”
“Hmm, good point. Well, I guess I should get back to shopping.” She waved goodbye at that, and he did as well.
Jules sighed in relief. He wasn’t particularly good with women, and although he understood that they were human, if he wasn’t speaking in one of his comfort zones such as games, he had a difficult time. Jules wasn’t sure if he should have bragged, or at least acknowledged, that he’d been the one to convince the city to let players in. Well, he didn’t really want to be famous for it, but he did want his friends to know. Even Jules liked to have his work acknowledged.
——-
Jules let his friends know about Fesmoilia being open to players. He didn’t have any way to tell if they were near that city, though. Since they didn’t know where they were specifically, there was no way to tell. Jules knew there must be some way to find out in the game, though. Although Many Worlds didn’t seem to hand things to players, it seemed anything could be done with enough work. Finding out where one was should be relatively simple.
——-
Back inside the game, Jules thought about how to solve his friend’s problems. If he could add them to his friends list, he might be able to find out their relative location. So, the only question was whether he could. Since people didn’t have usernames, he’d only tried adding Mary, in person. Still, the system was very robust, so maybe he could invite them to be in game friends from far apart. First, he thought of Isaac, remembering his face, voice, and things about him. Then Jules concentrated on adding Isaac to his friends list.
| You have sent a friend request! |
Well, that part was done. Now to wait for the reply.
| Your friend request has been accepted! |
Next was to try something else. He thought about the messaging system in most games. He thought about sending a message to Isaac. Instead of being able to send a message, a help box showed up.
| Messaging:
In order to transmit messages to other players, please find appropriate equipment. |
Something that could transmit messages wasn’t really a mystery. Although they had lightning portcullises and stone buildings, the technology level of this planet was quite high. Therefore, they should have cell phones- or some kind of equivalent. Since he didn’t have one, he had one more idea.
Since his ability had shown him where Mary was, it could theoretically work for Isaac, depending on the range. So, he tried to activate the floating arrow, theoretically one of his Information Class abilities.
Indeed, it did work. The arrow pointed somewhere into the distance. How far? He wasn’t sure. Until he tried to find out. Then, he obtained the information that it was approximately 1000 km. Well, he obviously wasn’t near this same city. Jules took note of the direction and distance, using the sun as a guide… then he went into the city and asked Merkot for a compass, which was much better.
Jules did the same for his other friends, and their locations in Many Worlds seemed to be as geographically separate as in real life. Well, they could meet up eventually, Jules was sure.