In the yard outside the shopping centre, several players were hanging out in groups and chatting. A few were engaged in minigames, and Starboy wondered if it would be worth it to ask if he could join them. He decided it would be rude to just walk up and ask as a stranger; he needed to make some friends first. However, he'd conditioned himself to be shy over the years, and now he was afraid nobody would like him. Yes, he knew it was silly, but he couldn't get rid of the nervous feeling.
He sat on a bench and watched a group of people playing a virtual equivalent of marbles. There seemed to be a betting system to the game, and some of the players were racking up the big points. Starboy was fascinated. Nobody ever played marbles in the real world anymore, but he recalled hearing his grandparents talk about it. Maybe it was more cool than he'd thought.
By the time he realized someone was sitting next to him, she'd been watching him for a while. Her avatar was a faery with pink hair and glittery wings, and she was wearing some sort of steampunk piratey-looking outfit and a pair of rave goggles around her neck. She smiled at him.
"You must be new," she said.
"Yeah, I, uh... just started playing. Today," he replied.
The faery extended her hand to him, and he awkwardly shook it.
"I'm Sheera. What's your name?"
He started to say "Maggie" but quickly caught and corrected himself. "Uh, it's, um... Starboy. My name is Starboy."
Sheera giggled. "That's a cute name. How old are you?"
"I'm 18," he said. "You?"
"What a coincidence." She mocked disbelief. "So am I!"
Starboy chuckled. He already liked this girl. She was kind of sassy.
"So, umm... Do you wanna play a game or something? I kind of need to get some coins so I can buy a new outfit. This default stuff doesn't suit me."
"What, you mean like marbles?" She scoffed. "I can show you way better games that'll give you a lot more credits than that. Come on, I'll show you." She stood up and started to walk away. After only a moment's hesitation, Starboy followed.
Sheera led him down a path, across a field, and to the edge of a forest.
"What exactly are we doing here?" he asked.
"Bug hunting." His confused expression nearly made the faery laugh, so to stop herself from being rude, she coughed a couple of times and then explained, "One of the best minigames in TruSelf is bug hunting. Every time you see a bug, you try to catch it. All the bugs you catch go in your bug jar. When the timer runs out, if your bug jar is full, you get to keep all the bugs you caught, but if it's not full you have to let them go."
"What do you do with the bugs, though?"
"You can exchange them for credits at the bug hug over there." She pointed to a small building several yards away, which had colourful bugs painted all over it. "Some kinds are more valuable than others. What you really want is the golden rhinoceros beetle. They're extremely rare, and they're worth 1000 credits."
"Whoa, what? How much are the others worth?" the fox man asked in shock.
"Eh, anywhere between 5 and 500," she said with nonchalant hand gesture. "That's not really that much, but the more you catch, the more the numbers stack up. Anyway, are you ready? The game's about to start."
"Okay." He got into a ready stace.
"Oh, by the way," added Sheera, "we're playing against each other. Winner gets 2000 extra credits at the end of the game."
Before Starboy had a chance to respond, insects began swarming out of the ground, and it was a mad dash to catch them. He found he was able to grab handfuls and handfuls of the brown and black ones, but he figured those were most likely the least valuable ones. The green, blue, and red ones were much faster and harder to catch, so he assumed they must be more valuable. Sheera's jar already seemed to be halfway full and held a rainbow of bugs while his own jar was mostly the colour of mud with just a few bright spots here and there. An orange beetle zipped right by his face, and he instinctively swatted at it, unintentionally knocking it into bis jar. Lucky hit, he thought. The timer was nearly out, though, and it was clear that no amount of lucky shots was going to catch him up to Sheera. Still, he made a mad scramble to fill his jar with whatever bugs he could get his hands on just so he could keep them. After all, he reasoned, winning didn't really matter, as long as he got some credits from this.
The buzzer sounded the end of the game just as Starboy dropped the final bug (a pretty blue centipede) that his jar reauired to qualify as full. He was safe and would be allowed to exchange his bugs for credits. However, Sheera had caught more than him and was therefore the winner. The two shook hands and said "good game," then ran off to the bug hut to collect their prizes.
"Whoa, almost 5000 credits is enough to buy a new outfit!" Starboy rejoiced, counting up his reward. Including the 81 he had left over from earlier, he now had exactly 4789. "How much did you get, Sheera?"
She shrugged. "About 9000. That's including the winner's bonus, of course."
"Damn, that's a lot." The fox was in awe.
"It's decent," was all she would say. The two of them walked back the way they came. When they'd almost reached the place where they'd started, she turned toward him and said, "Well, this was fun. I have to go soon, though. I have school in the morning."
"Yeah, me too."
"Want to hang out again sometime?"
"Yeah, sure!" Starboy smiled brightly.
"Okay, add me as a friend." She made some sort of gesture, and a request appeared in his vision. He accepted, and they both smiled at each other.
Then Sheera logged out, and Starboy returned to his room. I'll buy a new outfit next time I log on, he promised himself. Tomorrow. But before he logged out, there was one more thing he wanted to do.
I just want to see how realistic this is. He took a deep breath to prepare himself, then undressed his avatar and lay down on the bed.
