2: “AAAAAAAHHH” he screamed calmly.

After a moment in a gentle, embryonic silence, he felt a sensation he could only describe as his soul returning to his body. Opening his eyes with what felt like the same effort as prying open an old rusty door, he slowly sat up to drink in a healthy swig of his surroundings.

The ground was sandy, but the weather was fair, and behind him lay his decimated space ship. The sandy ground formed a path of sorts into the strange border of the two worlds, and surrounding him and lining the path were trees with dark leaves. In the distance, he saw the same dualized city that he saw as he was crashing down. He arose and dusted himself off, and to his mild astonishment, saw he had no visible injuries. He turned to look at his crashed ship in disbelief, when suddenly he was jumpscared by a user interface appearing in front of him. It was holographic, a soft, transparent blue, and stayed within his field of view no matter what direction he was looking in. There were submenus showing his current status, which was normal, his equipment, of which all he had was generic starting armor and no weapon, and his items, of which he had none. He spent some time scrolling through different menus containing the options, settings, and lastly, and an optional guide for general information and game mechanics. Constellarium’s main currency was atomints, and he currently had 1,000, the same amount given to all new players. He took another look around, soaking in his surroundings once more.
“Well, I won’t get anything done just standing here. Guess I’ll check out whatever that city is up there. Probably a central hub or something.”

He began to embark on the path to the marvelous yet numinously divided city, armed with nothing other than general game sense, and a small handful of sand that he had stuffed into his pocket.

His walking pace was brisk, and there was no sound other than his footsteps rhythmically pittering on the beige ground, which had gotten firmer than it was at his crash site. Trees outlined the path, and the taller ones further in had a gentle lean as if they were peeking over the shorter trees to look at him. There was a slight sparkle glistening on every leaf, and the bark was translucent as if it was made out of crystal. Although he had not seen or heard anything that would cause him immediate alarm, he walked cautiously and steadily. The path was shorter than he initially thought, since it wasn’t long before the vibrant city began to enlarge in the distance. After a few minutes, the trees began to diminish in number and he reached a path made out of marble bricks. It was sleek, but had a slight grainy texture to it, so walking on it didn’t feel slippery. Strolling down the path had turned out to be quite pleasant, without anything jumping out of a random bush or from behind a tree; he then mentally noted that it would be somewhat difficult to hide behind a translucent tree, then countered his own thought noting that an enemy could spawn in behind one and still catch him off guard. Between the ruminations of the potential enemies of this MMO and randomly pulling up his HUD, he noticed a slot for a card deck. It was empty, and he realized this MMO also incorporated card mechanics into the

combat.

“I wonder what kind of deck I should build… what kind of deck I CAN build…”
He changed the target of his rumination to deck ideas, when suddenly realized he had passed some kind of border and was now walking down an extremely wide road that split into two different paths. A horrifying sound began to enter his ears, and he quickly turned in desperate fear to see something he had yet to see in this strange new world… a sight worse than any enemy ambush… Walking towards him down the main road were two people walking side by side, engaged in friendly conversation. One was a tall young man, wearing armor that looked far more prestigious and well-built than what he had on, a sparkling teal with white accents, and resplendent jewels in the shoulder plates, with teal leg armor. The other one was a female wearing a white chest plate with gold accents, a white skirt with gold trim on the edges with a mesh sheer underskirt, over black stockings with patterns of stars and constellations that glittered as she walked. She wore a dark blue cloak with the hood up, and on one of her hands was a disproportionately sized large metal gauntlet. Above their shoulders was a floating HUD element that displayed their levels. They were both Level 40. As they grew nearer to him they both looked over, inquisitively for a moment, and waved. He gave a small, whimpering wave back and they started jogging up to him. He began to panic as they reached no more than a few paces away.
“AAAAAAAHHH” he screamed calmly as he took the sand out of his pocket and tossed it at the duo, leaving them in a small, dusty cloud, before sprinting off, taking the left side path to the bright marble and gold city.

As he began to run out of breath, he felt his heart racing as his pace slowed. Through the beautiful marble roads, he began to pass more and more players walking around him. He began to feel the increased liveliness of a bustling city compared to his peaceful seclusion moments ago. Along the road were various buildings ranging from small to tall, in uneven heights. Some of the buildings were simple, with a single holographic sign depicting their business name or a brief catchphrase, while others had ornate patterns or incorporated amazing pieces of art into their architecture. Restaurants, hotels, item shops, equipment shops, department stores, entertainment centers, anything you could ever find in a city in the real world, and then some. The city felt like an enormous living organism, with commerce and people as the blood coursing through its veins. Were it not for eventual starvation from sitting around wearing a VR headset, one could almost live here permanently instead of the real world.

Getting distracted by the incredible holographic flashing sign of a nearby Game Center, he quickly turned a corner and found himself in a head-on collision with someone that sent them both tumbling to the ground, dazed and confused.

“What the %$&* are you doing?” he managed to yelp. “Watch where the $$$$ you’re going.” He noticed that when he swore, the word sounded muffled through static, to the point of being virtually incomprehensible. He looked up to the sky, as if shouting at the world in general. “Huh? This game has a $%^@$% swear filter? For voice? In REAL TIME?”
“Um…” a soft, timid voice cut into his tirade, “I’m so sorry.” It came from a girl who was bowing as he was still on the ground fumbling around, and he noticed her dark brown hair lay gently in front of her face.
“I was in a rush and I opened my HUD for a brief moment to check something, and I- I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?”
She was frantic and looked at him with such remorseful, teary eyes, that he actually began to feel embarrassed.

“Um, no I’m not. Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” He stood up and noticed he was about a head taller than the girl, and she had a zodiac symbol on her right cheek, under her jade green eye. She spoke once again with a gentle voice, “I’m glad you’re not hurt. I’ll definitely watch where I’m going next time, even if I am in a rush. I’m Celeste. It’s nice to meet you. Your name is… Tanuki? At least- that’s what it says on your player card.”
“Yeah. In this world, at least. In the real world I’m… well I’d rather not say. It’s on a need-to-know basis.” She gave him a brief, quizzical look. His eyes darted around for a brief moment. “Well, why are you in such a hurry? Are you late for something?“
“Sort of. I have to get to Noctis right now for something important.”
“Nox?”
“It’s the city of obsidian on the other side of Geminus, the hub world for Gemini. This city is Luxiem. Oh- I’m- I’m in a bit of a hurry right now. I’m sorry I ran into you like that. If I see you around again, I’ll make sure to apologize properly. For now, please take care.”
She bowed again, and started gracefully trampling back down the path she was going, turning the corner and vanishing from view. He turned around and continued down his own path, he noticed that slightly off from the main road was a path that led up to a simple but elegant building, with gray marble bricks with silver inlays repeating around it, which looked as if it was built around a large, holographic sphere. Text revolved around the sphere, stating current deals or new inventory, and occasionally an animation of someone using a Tarot to demonstrate its effect would loop in the center of the sphere, perfectly viewable from all angles. Catching his attention, and realizing he had no Tarots of his own, he headed towards the Tarot shop as a wealthy thousand-aire. The entrance had no doors, but when he walked inside, the bustling of the city outside the shop softened, as if being noise cancelled, and he felt a gentle breeze of cool air on his skin, bringing with it some kind of subtle, tropical-like fragrance that grazed his nostrils.

A small robot greeted him at the front entrance, his blue eyes rapidly flickering with cheer and enthusiasm.
“Welcome to Solomon’s Outpost! I’m YuBi! Please take a look around! Would you be interested in our latest pack, Cute Girls Doing Space Things? I didn’t choose the name!”
Tanuki looked mildly perturbed.
“Um, no thanks, not interested. This is actually my first time here. I just want to look around.”
The little robot’s enthusiastic tone was undeterred.
“I don’t recognize your user ID in our registry! Would you like to become a member? Membership is valid at any of our 3,000,000,000 locations galaxy-wide! You’ll need one if you wish to purchase or sell Tarots! So, how about it?”
“I’m not even sure if I want to buy anything yet.”
“Your first 3 packs are free after registration! After that, full price!”
Shrugging the rest of his reluctance out of his shoulders at the mention of free stuff, he agreed as YuBi eagerly shot a small beam of light out of a slot in his head and scanned Tanuki’s body, from head to toe.
“Registration complete! Welcome Mr. Tankuki! When you find a pack you would like to purchase, the first 3 you select for checkout are automatically redeemed at no cost! Thank you for being a valued member of Solomon’s Outpost!”
“It’s Tanuki-” he stated but the eager little robot was already waddling away and paying him no mind.

The store was divided into spacious aisles, looking bigger on the inside than it did from the outside. The aisles contained various Tarot sets, in which a holographic image of the set’s art gently hovered. The Tarots were designed like traditional Tarot cards, but with art relevant to what the card’s ability was. When examining the set, it would provide information like what Tarots were in the set, and the odds of pulling each Tarot in the set. Some sets offered the same Tarots but with different prices and pull rates. Certain aisles offered individuals Tarots, ranging from commonly used staples to legendary pulls. People littered the shop, talking about various strategies, mulling over their bad pulls, or just window shopping. There was a counter where you could initiate trade offers with the shop, sell your Tarots back, or submit duplicates in exchange for guaranteed rare Tarots. Tanuki curiously looked through the many packs hovering for sale, checking the odds of each Tarot, and playing demo animations of the Tarots being used. One particular pack caught his attention, simply called ‘Copy Cat.’ He pulled up the card list, which involved spells of cloning, duplications, and even mirroring other spells of opponents. He stood motionless, staring intently at the demo of someone darting around a battlefield, and summoning a doppelganger to attack an enemy from opposite sides. It was a fascinating mechanic, and he theorized other ways this mechanic could be used. It could be used to distract enemies, to divert attacks, or even absorb them entirely so he could remain unscathed. If he wanted, he could summon one just to dance the entire battle to assert his dominance. Lost in his own kitchen of thought, cooking up various strategies, he suddenly felt a hand land firmly on his shoulder.
“Like what you see there, bud?”
Tanuki abruptly whipped around and saw his own face in the reflection of the crystals of magnificent teal armor.