Massively Multiplayer by P. Aaron Potter Page A

small room in the suburbs. Consciousness of the programmatic functions which made up the room, his clothing, and even his self-perception could eventually arouse him from the self-hypnosis necessary for immersion. Willing his breath to slow, he placed his hands on the small dressing table. This was real.
    And how very real it was. He realized that he could see a complex pattern of wood-grain in the table which he had never noticed before, probably because he had very carefully avoided noticing that it wasn’t there. It was an amazing illusion, and his admiration came close to toppling him out of the program again. If this was typical of the new version of Crucible, he imagined there were going to be a lot of players waking up suddenly with severe headaches.
    The next half-hour was spent in preparation. He and Uriah and Wisefellow had used few of the supplies set aside for their assault on the sea-trolls’ lair, and he had only to pick and choose which belongings he would need to bring on the journey. Torches, tinder-box, extra knives, darts, poison and anti-venom, rope, and a folding grapple fit snugly into his traveling pack. In truth, he knew, the interior-dimensions of the pack were limitless, and he was only restrained by his character’s strength rating, a modest number originally based on his own physique but mildly improved over time as he advanced through the circles of experience in the game. This degree of awareness was not enough to cause him discomfort, though he knew some players felt that even such admissions ruined the game’s immersion. He had never cared that much, and besides, he would need to think in such terms to familiarize Gil’s new clients with the mechanics of Crucible -- if those, too, had not changed with the rollover to the new version. Gil would probably be less than pleased if Druin’s instructions got his new clients killed on their first day.
    As he passed through the common room of the Grinning Pumpkin, he was amazed all over again at the scents, the sounds, the subtle textures on clothing and walls. He wasn’t alone. Most of the patrons were babbling excitedly over the new textures and sounds, sniffing excitedly at every surface and exclaiming at each new sensation. Yet, over the course of his trek up to Gil’s manse, he gradually became less and less surprised by the newly clarified world in which he found himself. This environment was, after all, and like every advance in computers for the past several decades, merely trying to approximate the real world as closely as possible. What more natural than that he should eventually tune out its complexity, just as one did in reality? The true triumph of technology, like the old dream of art, was self-transparency. By the time he reached Gil’s the transition was complete. At least for the moment, this was the real world.
    “Ho, Gil.”
    “Ho, Druin. Well met this day. Come, your charges await.”
    Boy is he laying it on thick, Druin thought as he trudged through the mud towards the side-door of the manse, where four figures waited. Someone must have been paying thousands for the ever-practical Gil to act like that. Did these guys demand it, for the authenticity, or was Archimago going to pay Gil a bonus if he stayed in character the whole time?
    Gil was talking again to the small band by the door: a woman, two men, and a fourth which Druin initially identified as a teenage boy. “This worthy is Druin Reaver,” Gil was saying, “and he will accompany you on your quest through the Drear Forest and introduce you to our land.”
    “What quest?” the woman interrupted. “I thought we were going to a town or something.” She was tall and thin, a scarecrow with a bushy haircut. Her plain gray robes hung from her gaunt frame oddly, and Druin realized that she had it on backwards. She had a snapping, challenging voice, and the nervous hands of someone who looked like she was hunting for a cigarette. “Why are we going to that town if