Chapter 189: Wave Four Begins

Holly and Maria didn't come online for the rest of the day, and her regular posts stopped after they had left the museum. 

The next day, Arthur made his way to the facility.

After saying goodbye and leaving Donovan's car, he walked towards the building while scanning over the even larger crowd that had formed around the building compared to the week prior.

There were several new faces, and some that he recognised, notably the streamers and lets-players that were invited to play.

There were a couple of news vans parked around, and several people who weren't part of the beta but were likely associated with some of the journalists who were invited had set up temporary pop-up gazebo tents and folding chairs near their vehicles.

It seemed as though a couple of the journalists and their teams were conducting interviews with some of the willing players, some experienced players from the earlier waves and others who hadn't yet stepped foot into the virtual world.

He noticed Quinn and Holly standing around near the interview tents, alongside Maria and Acai.

Arthur approached the group and immediately noticed how excited Quinn looked.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Arthur asked, "And why does Quinn look so excited?"

"You know that streamer he's been obsessed with?" Holly immediately answered Arthur, and then pointed at one of the interview tents where an attractive brunette was sitting."

"Oh, right," Arthur muttered to himself while nodding his head.

"Do you think it'd be rude to ask for a signature?" Quinn turned to Arthur and asked.

"I've got no idea, just... Don't make it weird," Arthur said with a pitying look in his eyes.

"Don't make it weird... Got it," Quinn muttered to himself while waddling awkwardly closer to the interview tent.

Arthur shook his head and turned to the rest of the group, where he noticed that Holly was playing with her new bracelet. It was a silver bracelet with a simplified design of Khepri's symbol engraved into it, a scarab beetle holding the sun.

"Maria's birthday gift?" Arthur asked, "It's cute."

"Yeah, I love it!" She said with a smile, "She also bought me a giant dinosaur plushy."

"How giant are we talking?" Arthur asked.

"I had to leave it in the car while we went out for dinner, here let me show you a picture." She chuckled while pulling out her phone.

What Arthur saw was a large stegosaurus plushy that was almost as big as Holly was, taking up a large area on her bed.

"That's a big dinosaur." He muttered.

"Yeah, he is," She giggled.

"You excited for today?" He asked.

"Yup!" Holly responded immediately, "I've memorised all the tips I've been given."

"Don't open too many soul slots, don't attack NPCs or other players unless they hit you first, turn combat assistance off, pick a reasonable weapon at the start, and I know which quests I should be grabbing straight away and a vague idea of where to get them from," She started listing all the things she had been told while counting on her fingers, "And something about feeding a cat in a back alley."

"If you can find him," Maria spoke up, "He wasn't there last time I visited."

"We won't be able to meet up right away, but once you make it to Macedonia we'll see each other more." Maria finished speaking, "We've got the raid this session."

"On the topic of the raid, where are you again?" Acai asked Arthur.

"I'm still in Megalopolis, I'll be making my way to Macedonia after a quick visit to the wizard college." Arthur replied, "Are you guys all in Hysia?"

"We're all in Macedonia I think, Mason said something about doing a blacksmith quest before we parted, so I think he's still in the city at least," Acai responded.

"Alright, well you guys are going to have to entertain yourselves for thirty minutes while I make my way over there," Arthur said.

"Is that him?"

"It looks like him."

Arthur heard whispers from the direction of where the interviews were taking place, and as he turned his head he saw a couple of people staring at him.

He averted his gaze temporarily after noticing Quinn waddling back with a bright smile plastered on his face.

"Did you get a signature?" Arthur asked him as he rejoined the group.

"Nope," Quinn responded, which made everyone's expression contort into a look of confusion.

"Then why are you...?" Arthur muttered.

"I didn't have anything for her to sign, but she promised to sign something I brought tomorrow," Quinn said, "I'm not sure if I should bring my poster or the limited edition keyboard."

"You mean the keyboard you haven't cleaned in a year?" Arthur retorted.

"The one that is growing its own ecosystem underneath its keys?" Holly joined in, "That one?"

"Poster it is..." Quinn said as he lowered his head in embarrassment. 

A couple of the people who were doing interviews had slowly approached Arthur, and were now hovering around him.

"You go by Merlin, right?" One of the interviewers asked, to which Arthur simply nodded his head.

"We'd love to interview you, the first person to share a glimpse into the game world." Another interviewer said.

Arthur saw the doors to the facility open just in time, giving him a valid excuse to deny the interview.

"Unfortunately, it seems you've caught me at a bad time, I've got to go." Arthur said with a slight smile, "Maybe next time."

"Oh, of course," An interviewer muttered as Arthur's group walked away towards the doors.

"Unfortunately, we still have to wait an hour or so until we can get in," Holly muttered as Arthur, Maria and Acai followed a group of people into the facility.

Quinn seemed pretty disappointed when he was reminded of this fact.

"You also get to leave the game an hour after us too." Arthur turned around and said, which brightened Quinn's expression somewhat.

"Don't forget to add us after you log in," Maria yelled out, "You know my username."

Arthur's group made their way into the briefing room and took their usual seats while the developers were preparing.

"So, you had fun on your date?" Arthur asked Maria, whose face had turned bright pink after he asked Holly about the bracelet.

"I did," Maria muttered while partially covering her face, "The museum was a great idea, thanks."

"No problem," Arthur said as his gaze shifted to the developers who took to the stand.

The briefing started, and it seemed as though they were trying to speed things along so that everyone could get into the game faster.

There was mention of the fourth wave, how a large portion of the new players were influencers or journalists, and that new protections and moderation were being temporarily added to improve their first impressions.

There was also a mention that the server wouldn't be up for a few minutes, as Gaia was still implementing a new update that even surprised them as it didn't seem to be a bug fix, but rather an automatic content update.

This caught Arthur's interest, as he wasn't sure what the update was about or if he was the cause of it, and it didn't seem as though the developers had any idea just yet either.

  Eventually, everyone was led into the capsule room and was sent into the virtual world, or rather, just the white room he was familiar with. The server wasn't open yet, so he decided to check out the private lobbies once more. As usual, there was the default lobby for beta testers, which Arthur joined.

Arthur's surroundings went dark, and once he opened his eyes, he found himself at a beach resort with a nice tropical climate.

"I wanted the cat resort again," Arthur muttered to himself with a sad tone before walking straight towards a nearby tiki bar.

"I'll have a pina colada with no alcohol, thanks." He asked an NPC working at the bar, and once he received his drink, he sat down on a lawn chair and waited for the game to finish updating.

Several minutes later, the server came online and everyone suddenly dropped everything while rushing to join it.

Arthur finished his drink before slapping the join button, where he was once again thrust into the darkness, before reappearing where he had left off previously.

Merlin found himself in a quiet location within the town of Megalopolis.

He quickly started his stream right away as the approximate hour window where he'd be the only one streaming was one of his only advantages now that he couldn't monopolise the market.

There was still the benefit of being more skilled and performing more interesting feats, which would help him retain and even gain additional viewers, but the streamers with dedicated fan bases would have their viewership regardless of what Merlin did, and it was an unfortunate fact that he would lose a chunk of his viewers to them because of it.

But the other influencers would likely draw in a crowd that didn't view Merlin's original streams, and there was still the chance he'd grab the attention of curious drifters who wanted to see what other people were up to while their favourite influencer was learning the ropes or doing boring things like travelling.

"Hey guys, I'll just be getting ready for the big raid today. We'll be raiding in about half an hour or so," Merlin announced to his stream, "So stay tuned, we'll be taking a shot at the Necropolis."

With that, Merlin made his way towards the wizard's college once more while reading chat.

It was only now that he realised he didn't have any other moderators for his stream, as both Holly and Quinn would be joining him in-game very shortly.