Age of Victoria, page 2
Robert nodded to Emma as he offered his arm to my sister, but his eyes never left Emma’s retreating form. The Colonel, of course, led Ms. Northrop into the dining room. I was tempted to sneak away, but there was no way that my absence from lunch would be missed. After lunch, though it was likely that our guests would require light entertainment like cards or such, I would be able to escape. A quick trip for my adventuring clothes, a little time spent attaching the wheels, and I would be off and up and down the front drive. As a bonus, the game room was an interior room and had no windows. If there had been more men present, then the plan would have never worked, they would have retired to the study leaving the ladies together.
While lunch was light and enjoyable, there was a sour note to the whole affair. Twice during lunch, Owen entered the dining room then exited again to retrieve food which had not been requested. While no one commented on the head butlers slip up, they had all noticed it. Annie was barely able to keep herself from crying, and even Robert looked uncomfortable. He had spent nearly as much time around Owen as a boy as my sister and I had. The only one who could spend any time caring for him lately was Emma. As much as the social strata separated us from our childhood friend, it also allowed her to care for Owen without interference.
“A toast,” the Colonel said while raising his teacup in a self-deprecating manner, “to the joining of our two families. I’ve considered you ladies like daughters for many years, and I’m glad that soon, Annie will be a Collingwood.”
With a few murmurs of agreement, everyone sipped at their tea. Robert’s cup hid his frown, but it was still clear to anyone who knew him. Which, of course, meant Ms. Northrop missed it entirely.
Turning to Robert, she queried, “Tell me, Mr. Collingwood, what are your plans for after your marriage? Will you be taking up residence within the Blythe estate or will Ms. Blythe be moving to the Collingwood home? Given the current distastefulness and your studies, that is.”
If a mouse had decided to run through the attic, I would be afraid that everyone would be able to hear it at that moment. To discuss finances, even so obliquely, at a luncheon was crass beyond words. To have a woman initiate such a conversation was worse, but to do so in such a direct and frankly offensive way? Crass. I could have run through the room in my adventuring pants and not generate the same level of silence. Our Governess was technically only included in the luncheon as a pairing for the Colonel. Ms. Northrop’s social standing was no higher than Emma’s, and she would never have asked such impertinent questions.
Gamely, Robert responded, “Hmm, I do believe that Annie would prefer to stay with her sister for the time being. I will be finished studying at Oxford within the year, and then I will be setting up a practice.”
At that, Ms. Northrop relaxed in her seat, and the conversation continued, but I couldn’t get the moment out of my mind. I was sure none there would talk of it, the marriage was in the best interest of the Collingwood family, but her rude behavior was so very unlike the Governess. Annie seemed to find her fiance’s response to her liking as well. My sister gave a small tight smile to me and then a subtle nod to Robert in thanks. No one missed this little exchange, but it was ignored for further polite conversation.
After finishing our lunch repast, the men rose to go to the game room. Both men wore evening black, so did not need to change, but my sister, Ms. Northrop, and I could not say the same. Emma’s timing was perfect as ever, planned, and meticulous. There was not a second where she was alone with Robert, nor a moment where he could greet her as she crossed his path. The dance of avoidance was so perfect it almost appeared as if by chance, except for Robert’s frown and Emma’s careful blank-faced sadness.
My heart ached to see my friends so hurt, but there was little which could be done about it. I had told Annie that she should refuse to go through with the marriage, but she would hear nothing of it. Where I had found my taste for adventure from Father’s military stories, she had found her sense of honour. Where I had found a resolve to explore the world, she had found the shackles for her own life within Father’s wishes. Robert was just the same; his family came before all. The two of them were of a type. Such similarities made them stalwart friends. Emma had a different sense of honour, one tempered by practicality, entirely unlike the other two.
While Annie and Ms. Northrop softly discussed which dress to change into before returning to the game room with the men, I slowed to let the other two drift ahead. If the Governess failed to notice my absence, then on my return I could claim to be returning to my reading. Humorously enough, I would be changing just as the others were. My outfit would be unlikely to meet Ms. Northrop’s approval though.
Softly I closed the wooden door to my room and crossed the antique floor rug to my wardrobe. With little care I ripped off my pre-luncheon dress, my dark tresses caught momentarily within the lace of the dress. The sting of the pulled hair was oddly pleasing when compared to the mild numbness of my days. Yanking on my pants first, I checked to be sure the thick black belt was sitting at the proper length. I had measured, and cut, and trimmed, but I had no chance actually to assemble the outfit in its fullness. The white dress shirt was buttoned up quickly, the unfamiliar arrangement of buttons on the opposite side made the process awkward. An unladylike snort of amusement burst from my lips as I fumbled the alignment badly enough that I had to unbutton and rebutton the last few. Topping the outfit was a thick folded cap, oversized and almost ridiculous with my long curls hanging behind. The last item was my riding boots, high ankle, and low soled.
With a kick, I knocked my discarded dress across the floor in a careless manner. Marching down the hallway and out the backway, found me exiting the mansion on the far side from the barn. My exit left me with a short trip in the shadow of the building to the stable area. I listened, but I didn’t hear either Rufus or Philip. Odds were that Philip had decided to get some of the grounds cleaned up and was employing Rufus for it as well. I felt guilty over that. Philip was not a groundskeeper; he had been hired to manage the horses. Father would have never allowed such a disruption of the servants as Ms. Northrop had caused, but Father wasn’t here, and she was. Philip was probably willing to suffer the indignity to avoid being fired. Jobs were scarce at the moment, at least jobs which included room and board for a man and his son.
Arranged with two main areas, one side for the storage of carriages and the other outfitted with stalls, the stables were often used as a place to store large and bulky items. It was likely that the bike would be in one of the empty stalls in the back. The horse stall was probably not the best place to store such a device, it was massive and of heavy construction in wrought iron with wooden carriage wheels. Poor Robert had barely been able to lower each piece down from the roof of the carriage with both hands, and the man was in excellent shape. Little Rufus had struggled when moving it and had stopped to rest more than once.
The last stall had the heavy metal frame and wheels. Struggling, sweat already breaking out on my face, I managed to drag the frame from the hay. Hauling on the frame, I lifted the nearly sixty-five kilogram wrought iron structure upright. Inside the stall, I found the front wheel, the one with the peddles, and pulled it out and arranged it next to the frame. The front half of the structure would need to be lifted and then set down on the wheel before the locking nut applied, then the process would have to be repeated for the rear wheel. The direct wood to metal construction without a spring, like in a carriage, was what gave the bicycle its signature nickname. Together, the entire device would weight in excess of ninety kilograms.
Returning to the stall, I heard the clatter of the frame falling and the crunch of snapping wood. The sound of the breaking device, a conveyance that was expensive and was likely purchased solely for my amusement, had me frozen in horror. My eagerness had caused the velocipede to break. Hopefully, it was just the wheel, and a cooper could fix it, but either way, it would be an expensive proposition that was entirely my fault. Before I could exit the stall to check, I heard the crunch of boots on gravel.
“Rufus! Look at it! You were told to put that fool device away!”
The sound of Philip berating his son had me ducking down in the stall. The two had returned just in time to notice the broken bicycle, leaving me hiding in shame in the stall. I couldn’t keep hiding here, it wasn’t Rufus’ fault, and I wouldn’t let Ms. Northrop remove Philip for my actions, but my shame had me hesitating. The sound of a slap propelled me out of the stall and between Philip and Rufus.
“Wait, he didn’t do anything; it was my fault. I’m sorry!” I said.
Philip was red-faced, his large hands clenched in anger, while he backed away. His eyes raked over my clothing, his eyes locked for longer than was appropriate to my pant covered legs. When I turned to check Rufus, his eyes were averted, but his pointed avoidance of looking at me made me aware that my rash protection of the child had left my rear directly in his face. Being alone with a man, even with his son present, especially in such compromising clothing, had me flushed red in embarrassment. Worse, I would have to explain to Robert what had happened and entreat him to protect Philip from any reprisals from Ms. Northrop. Everything would be much easier if Robert could be enlisted to handle Father’s financials -preferably with Ms. Northrop no longer employed- but his studies and his families financial issues made that unpalatable.
“Excuse me, Ms...I didn’t know that you were…uh. That is, me and Rufus here will uh,” said Philip Nye as he tried to find the formal response to the situation. One which did not have him or his son staring at his employer’s scandalously dressed daughter.
“I’ll go tell Robert that I have accidentally damaged his property. I will make it clear that Rufus had nothing to do with my actions. Excuse me,” I said.
Annie had an overdose of honour and responsibility, but I didn’t lack it. I just tried to temper it with adventure and fun. This situation was one I had to own up to. Likely, Robert would be annoyed but forgiving, the bicycle being mostly an exhibition to entertain me in the first place. Annie would be upset, probably worse than the situation warranted, but it would be a safe way to let out some of her sadness. Ms. Northrop, though, she would use this mistake in every diatribe from here out.
Kicking a few of the larger stones on the walk to the mansion, I tried not to stomp. Pulling open the large mansion door, I cringe when I noticed Owen at the foot of the stairs giving me a curious look.
“Hmm, an interesting clothing choice,” he said before he smiled and continued down the hall.
I planned to change out of my adventure clothes and into ‘appropriate’ stable clothes which would avoid at least one diatribe. Before I reached my room, with my hand in the air reaching for the door handle, the world stuttered and stopped.
It was as if the air became a cage and locked me in place. It was more than just the air, my muscle locked up, my eyes remained focused ahead, and the breath in my lungs became stone. Even my heart lay silent in my chest. Panicking I strained my muscles to move but nothing shifted even minutely. The dust suspended in the air, shining in a stray shaft of light, remained perfectly frozen.
While I was in that world of a static moment, a large blue box with a square, evenly spaced writing, appeared in front of me.
Chapter 3
Everything I was screamed that I should be dying, my heart didn’t beat, my lungs didn’t pump air, and the whole world was silent. The only thing I had to focus on beyond my frozen existence was the box of text hovering in front of my eyes.
This simulation has been sold to eX-Tre Entertainment and will become the basis for ‘Age of Victoria!’, an old school immersive MMORPG set in the Victorian Age upon a backdrop of a magical apocalypse and the return of the Old Ones.
The Old Ones have found a crack within the Veil. Magic has returned to earth, and the collective unconscious has awoken. Unfiltered and unconstrained magic has engulfed the land, giving rise to Monsters of both Creatures and Men. Can you survive the horrors of the Old Ones?
As an NPC within the beginning of ‘Age of Victoria,’ you will be given limited options of freedom and advancement. Your initial class has been selected by the Overmind AI as ‘Warrior’ due to emotional or significant actions taken within the last twenty-four hours. Your activity was:
Protecting NPC ’Rufus Nye’ by drawing Agro.
Warrior’s are masters of armor and weapons, skilled at protecting their team members and providing defensive buffs through war-cries. The signature skill of the warrior is [Taunt] and its derivatives.
Warriors have no limitation on their weapons or armor.
Warriors can wear cloth, leather, chain, or plate armor, though usually, they wear only the most massive and durable of plate armor.
Warriors are not restricted in weapon selection. Warriors may use the smallest dirk to the greatest two-handed sword.
Warriors can learn all defensive skills.
Warriors do not have mana. Instead, they have Rage, a resource which rises as the warrior takes or delivers damage.
Warriors do not gain many of the damage increasing skills of other melee classes. The signature DPS advantage for warriors is the ability to wield a Two-Handed weapon in the primary weapon slot while also wielding a one-handed weapon or shield in the secondary weapon slot.
Warriors are suggested to work with groups. Warriors are rated as ‘Weak’ soloers.
Currently, ‘Victoria Marie Blythe’ has been set as a Zone-Locked Combat NPC. Zone-Locked NPCs are restricted from leaving their zone and are predominantly responsible for Quests and Shops. Zone-Locked NPC’s have ten days to reach level ten to remove the zone lock restriction. Zone-Locked NPCs have a slow respawn rate, and if the Old Ones encroach on that zone, they no longer respawn. After the tutorial, the event ‘The Great Cleansing’ will start, any NPC who fails to survive the event will be permanently deleted.
Reading the text was odd. I couldn’t move my eyes, but my vision was focused on the next word that I was trying to understand. It was like trying to focus on a bit of text caused it to shift to be in the center of my vision. I had never believed the women who had claimed to suffer from hysteria. The idea of something could be so upsetting that it would cause them to scream and faint was laughable. If I could move at this moment, I would be diagnosed with hysteria in a moment. Was the world ending? Was the apocalypse at hand? I was no longer a minor noble but was now a warrior? What did that even mean? The last line though was chilling, I can’t imagine why they would phrase it that way -deleted- but not surviving was a very clear message. Before I could work myself into a tizzy, a new box appeared that was much like the previous one. This box was titled ‘tutorial,’ while the previous box had been untitled.
In the upper left-hand corner of your vision, three bars should exist. The top red bar is your health, when it reaches zero from injury or spells, you die.
Sure enough, three bars appeared. The topmost bar was red and full, inside the bar of red was two numbers with a divider between them; sixty-five and sixty-five. Below that was another bar, but this one had five odd bubbles inside it, none of them were full, and this bar had no numbers. The final bar was yellow and said one-hundred percent.
The second bar is your Rage Meter. Each bubble is a Mark of Rage which a warrior can use for their skills. A Warrior increases their Rage through taking or delivering damage. With skills a warrior can increase the number of Marks of Rage they have. Currently, you can have a maximum of five Marks of Rage.
The fact that the tutorial felt the need to inform me that I could have only a maximum of five marks was infuriating, I was perfectly capable of seeing it with my own eyes. It felt like whoever was writing the text was looking down on me. They were like every tutor who thought that women did not deserve to learn particular subjects, the things I was most eager to learn. Whoever wrote that text would probably be good friends with Ms. Northrop.
The final bar is your stamina. During a battle, stamina regenerates at a slow rate while attacking and a faster pace while defending. Outside of combat, stamina will regenerate at high speed. Running and walking have no stamina cost. Non-standard movements will experience a stamina cost relative to their difficulty: swimming, crawling, jumping, climbing, crouch-walking, etc.
That was an intriguing message. The idea of being able to run as long as I wanted without feeling tired was interesting, that is if this entire thing was not a stress-induced hallucination. If this was an apocalypse, and especially one with monsters, then being able to run non-stop without tiring was a good thing.
A moment after I finished the message in the textbox, something new floated into view in the upper right-hand corner of my vision. Trying to look at it caused it to swing out into my vision further and ignoring it caused it to swing back above. The same happened with the three bars, something I hadn’t noticed before.
In the upper right-hand corner of your vision are a compass and minimap. Quest markers, areas you have explored, and areas of interest will be displayed in this area once you have visited them.
The circle of the minimap looked useful. There was a bronze looking loop, marked with an arrow which was pointing off to the North-West, while inside the loop was an image of the layout of the mansion as if seen from the sky. In the very center of the minimap was a blue dot, which I thought was supposed to represent me. Far to the North-East on the minimap, almost to the edge of it, was a marker of a cave centered in the clearing in the woods.
Now think ‘character’ to display the character screen.
I was going crazy. I had to be. The content of one’s soul and mind was inviolate, yet this message wanted me to think something and command it. The chances of me merely being insane and talking to myself, most likely reduced to paroxysms of tears and gibbering, were rising. When I finally broke down and tried to think ‘character,’ a new window appeared before me. It had a little model of my body, rotating within my view, and there were slots for each item I was wearing. The knowledge that the creator of this text could see down to my underclothes and likely beyond left me faint.
