Omnitopia Dawn Read Free Page A

wait to find out! The hair actually stood up on the back of his neck at the thought.
    But then he took a deep breath. Outside, in the real world, time was flying: Angela was going to have words with him if he took too long about this. Okay, Arnulf thought. First, out to Langley B. That‘s going to take about half my transport gold for today. Head to the artificer’s there, pick up that new magian kit. Then back here and do the gating to Meruvelt. Get those robes, then meet up with Tom and see if his people are really serious about doing that run into Pandora . . . they didn’t seem to have their minds made up the last time. Stop in the tavern with them, shoot the breeze for a while, then head back home. Angela did say she wanted me to mow the lawn tonight—
    “Excuse me?”
    Arnulf turned around and found himself looking at a gawky young human male, dark-haired and pale, dressed in Omnitopian beginner’s standard issue: the brown cloak, bleached linen tunic, cotton hose, and brown leather boots of a low-credit kern. He was almost the archetypal Clueless Noob—almost certainly some kid in here for the first time, caught up by the worldwide hype about the expansion rollout. “Well met, comrade,” Arnulf said putting out a hand. “What’s the score?”
    The noob was so new that he didn’t even know yet to clasp Arnulf’s arm in return of the greeting. “Uh, yeah,” the noob said, “everything’s going pretty good. I think.” He looked past Arnulf, staring at the Ring. “Except, uh, I’m not real sure where to go from here . . .”
    Rik/Arnulf kept the smile off his face. I must have been like this once, he thought. But then who wasn’t? I can never understand the schmucks who like making fun of these poor guys . . . “It’s okay,” Arnulf said. “Everything’s a little overwhelming your first few times. You heading outworld?”
    “Oh, yeah, just got my first transit bonus.”
    Rik nodded. He’d heard on the feeds that this had been happening a lot in the run-up to the rollout; noobs were being given outworld transit allotments as soon as they signed up—maybe a little too early, in Rik’s opinion. But the people running the game probably wanted as many new gamers as possible to get out there, see the other worlds, and get their friends excited about it too. “Where were you thinking of going?”
    “Well, I heard about this place called Pandora—”
    Rik looked the noob over while trying not to be too obvious about it. Kerns couldn’t afford a concealed-carry license, so it was immediately obvious that this one didn’t have a weapon, not even a knife. He probably didn’t even know he needed one. Or he thinks they’re cheaper somewhere else, or—oh, heck, who knows what he thinks? But you can’t let somebody like this just charge in there. Though Rik knew there were gamers who would, amused by the prospect of having sent a clueless noob into a war zone unprepared. Serve them right, such people would say afterward. They should’ve read the docs first, they should’ve done their homework, blah blah blah.
    Rik/Arnulf shook his head. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “Unless you’re a really high-level gamer hiding in a noob suit—and don’t get me wrong, I know it can be fun to do that, I’ve done it myself on occasion—then I really don’t recommend you go into Pandora right now. Things are kind of busted loose. There are mercenary bands all over the landscape, and they’ll grab you and chain you up with a caffle of other slaves and sell you off to turn somebody’s grist mill or haul some big heavy war machine all over the landscape till they’ve whipped your avatar to death. Not the best way to get the feeling of the game, huh?”
    The clueless newbie shook his head vigorously. “So I’ll tell you what,” Rik said. “If you go over there—” He pointed off to one side of the Ring. “See that little booth off to the right of the Ring, by where Dancer’s Street comes