Page 7 of Control

“A lot?”

“That night alone I think I got more messages than I’d gotten in my entire time playing the game. Thousands of them.”

“I bet that was awesome!” Clover’s naiveté was showing through as clear as day.

“It was a nightmare,” I said, shaking my head. “So many messages were from people who were just sincerely curious and then an onslaught from people claiming that I’d hacked the game and I was a hacker and they were going to get me banned. I was probably reported several hundred times. I never did get any sort of message from the devs about getting banned though. They obviously knew this was becoming a huge problem so…they released a statement, both in game and on their real life website.”

“I never saw that,” Clover said as she leaned back in her chair. “What did it say?”

“It explained enough to get people stop reporting me,” I replied. “Basically said that there were titles given out to only a select few that were chosen by the dev team. They didn’t give any sort of reasoning for why they chose the people they did, nor did they explain why those titles were used. All they said was that this ‘gift’ as they called it was bestowed upon those they felt were worthy of such a thing. I guess they felt awarding me the title was because of something I did or said. I’m not really sure.”

“How many did they choose?” Clover asked, crossing her arms.

“Three,” I answered back. “There were three of us the first time around. It was me and Mustafa; he’s huge man and they gave him the title The Beast so it made sense. And then there was Spell Caster. His title is The Wizard which is, again, fairly appropriate.”

“Why did they call you The Lotus?”

“I’m not really sure.”

“Do you like flowers?”

“Not any more or less than the average person, I guess.”

“And they never told you?”

“The devs never talk to players.” I was lying to her again, knowing full well that Jazz was more than a friendly moderator. He’d never told me who he was, but I was certain he was a member of the Dev team.

“Really?” she asked.

“As far as I know,” I said as I stood up again, bringing Clover’s HUD up so I could apply her top to her body so I could start to pick colors. “The only time they communicate with people is through release notes and messages that address the whole community like the one about the titles.” I could tell she wanted to ask more questions and I was fine with it if she did. But I also wanted to work on her outfit to get her ready to go back out into the Aurora.

“Do you think I can ever get a title?” Clover asked as I’d figured that green would work well with her pale skin and red hair.

“I doubt you would,” I stated, very matter-of-factly. Realizing I had come off as curt with her, I made myself clearer. “Not to say that you wouldn’t be worthy of one. It’s just the are so incredibly rare, most people will never get to have one.”

“How many are there in total?” She asked me. “How many have been given a title?”

“Five,” I said, applying a darker, grass-like green to her top. “I was among the three that were selected first as I mentioned before and then two additional players were given titles shortly after that. That was some time ago though and no other titles have been handed out since.”

“Who are the other two?”

“The others,” I said, applying neutral colors to Clover’s undergarments since I’d not quite made up my mind which colors to go with, “are Cris or Chrysanthemum.” I looked backed over to Clover for a moment and noticed her hair had fallen down in front of her face so and out of habit, I reached over and brushed it aside. “Her title is The Lookout. And then there’s Giff. He’s known as The Spinner. He’s the most popular DJ in the game. His room is always packed and he opens it virtually every night.”

“Do you know him?” Clover asked as I turned back around to her HUD display and began to apply the garments to her body. “Have you met him before?”

“Yes,” I said as I glanced back to Clover once more and motioned to her to stand up. “I’ve met all of them and while I can’t say all of us are close friends, we all share a mutual respect for one another.”

“Is Giff stuck up?” Clover looked almost worried.

“Not at all. In fact, he’s one of the kindest and purest souls you’ll ever meet. He may come across as someone that might act all high and mighty, but he’s got a soft heart. The man loves kittens after all!” I found myself smirking, thinking about Giff and his affections for kittens.

“Kittens?” Clover said with a gasp followed by a laugh. “Are you serious?”

“Very,” I offered back as I smoothed out the top I’d placed on Clover, running my hands lightly across the fabric and making sure the material I’d chosen was something that would work well for her. “He really is a sweet soul once you get to know him. He and I go way back. When I first started playing, he was the first person that really stuck out to me because he was so boisterous. I remember seeing him in a BDSM club and wondered if he might accidentally cause a riot and have someone get hurt!”

“You can hurt people here?” Clover asked, again showing that she didn’t read the game book.

“Well, yes. But not really.” I pulled up a massive selection of jeans and slacks in my wardrobe HUD that I wanted to try on Clover. “You see, there are safeguards in place that can prevent any real harm from coming to players. Most of the time anyway. Some of them work better than others. Like how I mentioned earlier that you were overloading…if you overload, as a precaution, the game will kick you and you’ll wake up in real life, but that doesn’t always mean you’re safe. It can still backfire. In here though, you can still feel everything you’d feel out in the real world. If someone touches you or pinches you, slaps you, spanks you, your mind will still think it’s real and so your brain will interpret the pain. For all intents and purposes, this really is a secondary world that works very much like the real one. Only here, we have the safeguards and so no one can be killed or seriously injured.”

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