SuppleHeart excused herself, explaining that she had plans to meet up with a group to explore the Maze, but she made sure to add Chris as a friend before she left. While he was at it, Chris sent a friend request to CrimsonValkyrie and added the man as a friend as well, finding out his username was simply Matt… probably a perk of being the game designer. As he dealt with that, Chris considered Matt's question. Thanks to Matt, he now knew he needed to talk to the Families if he wanted to figure out what exactly had happened in the Doppelganger/Elf conflict. Unfortunately, if the Families in the game were anything like the Families in the City, he would definitely need to level up if he wanted to get anything from them. The question became, how did he want to do that?

Physique was a no brainer. Pure strength was always persuasive, especially when it came to the Families. Intellect wouldn't be a bad idea either. Other than that, though… Chris let out a groan. He needed to level up Appeal. Physique and Intellect would make the Families see him as useful, but it'd only be as a tool, not as a partner. Not as someone to trust and confide in. Only with Appeal could he ingratiate himself to them, get them to trust him and tell him their secrets. But… Chris didn't want to flirt with anyone! It felt disingenuous when he had no intention of actually doing anything with them. Even if it was just an NPC, it just felt rude. And there was no way he would ever follow through with any of it. Even if it was virtual, he wasn't cheating on Beth.

"Is there a way to level Appeal besides flirting?" Chris asked Matt.

Matt raised an eyebrow at Chris, giving him a bemused look. "Appeal encompasses all social interaction, not just romantic. Bargaining over a sale, talking your way out of a citation, convincing a monster to be your pet, anything related to convincing others to do what you want. The more you have to convince them, the more likely it is you'll get an achievement for it. Flirting is a good way to do this, since sex is intimate and people naturally put up barriers that you must take down to actually get them into bed, but you could also spend a bit of time as a door to door salesman for pet rocks and get similar results."

Chris released a sigh of relief. "Fan-fucking-tastic! I am not a flirter."

"Eh, pick up a few skills and you'll be an expert soon enough." Matt replied, waving his hand dismissively.

Chris paused. "Wait, what? You can get skills for flirting?"

"You can get skills for anything. You just need a trainer." Matt chuckled. "Don't just depend on the skill though. No achievements for that. You have to learn from it, then improve upon it. Plus, once you learn it, it becomes your skill, and you can even use it in reality! One of my more brilliant innovations, if I do say myself. If only people wouldn't insist on restricting the game to eighteen plus… it could revolutionize the education industry!" Matt complained, his tone turning frustrated. "Before I invented this, I couldn't speak a word of Spanish despite spending years in school learning it. Now I speak seven languages! Admittedly, most of them are Maze languages that don't actually exist outside the game, but still! Why should a little gore and sexual content matter when kids could be learning calculus by ten and be a fully licensed professional by the time their twelve! Damn Christian Conservatives slowing down the evolution of humanity." Matt spat.

Chris went over what Anthony knew about 'Christian Conservatives' which essentially boiled down to religious fruitcakes who refused to mind their own business. Of course, coming from Anthony, that probably just meant they had certain beliefs that required him to actually work. But the gist was that they insisted on enforcing their own morality on others, and complained like crazy whenever anyone else tried to enforce a different morality on them. Sort of hypocritical in Chris's opinion. Still, when it came to kids… he might have to agree that it was best to limit their exposure to certain topics, or at least introduce them in the right way. Telling kids sex was fun and here's how you do it seemed like a bad idea without at least some emphasis on the potential consequences. "Couldn't you just make a version without all the eighteen plus content?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow at Matt.

Matt scowled. "Unfortunately no. The way Gaia works… I could pull the straight facts of how to do things out of her, but the part that really helps people learn is that she can take one person's experience with a skill and project it onto another. If you separate from that network of experience, then it's just rote learning again, which won't help anyone. I've offered to create special accounts that limit what children can do, but they're still not having it. There's also a faction that thinks somehow the game will brainwash kids, which doesn't help either." Matt let out a weary sigh. "Honestly, I understand their concerns, it's just… this technology could be doing so much good, and people only let me use it as a game!"

Chris shrugged. "Eh, eventually people will come around. That's how it always works, right? Innovation comes, people are scared of it, then they get used to it, and then it's everywhere. Give it a decade or two, and I'm sure things will change."

"But it could be helping now!" Matt groaned, before letting out a sigh. "Ugh, you're right. I'm just impatient. The curse of ambition. It's driven me to accomplish great things, but it makes it very frustrating when things get stalled."

"Sounds annoying. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that." Chris commented, causing Matt to snort.

Getting back on track, Matt brought Chris to the general trainer where he could pick up some basic skills. Chris looked over the skill list, wondering what he should focus on. Some sort of combat skill seemed smart, but with his starting credits, he could only afford the basics, which… Well, Chris already knew the basics. Honestly, with Chris's military training, he was already well into the level of intermediate combat skills, and buying a skill to teach him what he already knew just seemed… wasteful. Chris decided to try fighting without Physique skills first.

Instead, he looked at Awareness and Appeal skills. Awareness skills dealt with tracking, situational awareness, picking out weak points, noticing resources, judging the strength of your opponent, and on and on, a long list of skills that allowed you to notice what was around you and then actually identify what you noticed. Appeal skills were all about persuasion. All the skills were about how to use your body and your words to make others more or less comfortable, based on what you were trying to do and how you wanted to do it. The skill to trick someone into purchasing an item was different from the skill to convince someone to purchase an item.

Looking through the skill options, Chris began to notice how specific these skills could get. You could get the skill to notice weak points, but there was also the skill to notice weak points in two legged creatures, and then even deeper was the skill to notice weak points in goblins. "You're really dedicated to realism, aren't you?" Chris turned to Matt, raising an eyebrow.

Matt frowned. "How so?"

"These skills. They go into so much detail-"

"Don't worry about that. Just take the general skills." Matt interjected. "The more detailed a skill, the more it holds your hand. If you're struggling, it can be useful, but it will make it much harder to get any achievements. The best way to find weak points is to get 'Observation' and 'Notice Weak Points', then observe things until you know enough about them to judge what their weak points are. That's how you get Awareness achievements. If you buy the skill 'Notice Weak Points: Goblin' then the skill gives you the info on what a goblin's weak points are, and you aren't pushing yourself to be aware of them. The more you can do with fewer skills, the better your chances of getting an achievement."

Chris blinked. "So, I shouldn't buy any of these, huh?"

Matt rolled his eyes. "You need at least some foundation to work off of. Unless you want to waste a bunch of time dying over and over while you try to figure out how to fight or sneak or whatever, you should at least buy a basic skill. It won't hold your hand too much, but it'll give you the boost you need to at least be functional. It's the difference between learning Calculus and trying to invent Calculus. Just not worth the effort."

"What if you already have the skills? Why buy them if you can already do it on your own?" Chris asked.

"Because once you buy them, you give Gaia permission to guide you, helping you improve the skill. If you just do it on your own, then you'll only ever have your own experience to work with. With a skill, you tap into the experience of everyone playing the game! Plus, once you have the skill, you get a little more leeway in how you use the skill, ignoring mistakes based on your Intellect." Matt explained. "It's more important for skills like crafting, so minor mistakes don't ruin the entire thing, but even in combat it can turn normal hits into criticals."

Chris grimaced. "Feh. Fine, I'll buy some skills." Chris bought a hand to hand combat skill, some martial art he'd never heard of before that at least seemed somewhat interesting, 'Observation' and 'Notice Weak Points', because they seemed pretty basic awareness wise, and finally 'Ingratiate', which was a basic Appeal skill to get people, or anything, to like him. There were more he could get, but unfortunately he was running low on credits and he couldn't afford to pay for any more skill training. "Alright, now, the Maze… right?" Chris raised an eyebrow at Matt.

"I might recommend joining a faction first, so you can make some credits by doing some tasks for them, but that can be annoying and just picking up a lot of loot and selling it works too." Matt shrugged.

"How annoying?" Chris asked with a frown.

"Well, just like in real life, you need to prove your ability before anyone will trust you with anything big, so you'd need to go through a bunch of tests and crap work before you'd be in a position to do anything significant." Matt explained. "If you already have a faction you want to join, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start working on it now, but otherwise, eh?"

Chris frowned. "Are the Families a faction?"

"As a group and individually." Matt nodded. "I'll warn you though, if you want to talk about annoying hoops to jump through, they take the cake. Prepare to be worked like a dog if you want to join any of them. Though, if you can get into the upper echelons, the benefits are unbeatable."

"Fuck…" Chris groaned. "I guess I'll need to start there, then."

"Well, if you are going for the Families, it'd be good to pick up a few levels first. The Families won't even acknowledge someone who's too weak. With your ability tier… I'd say your best bet is to get up to at least level four in Physique and Appeal to make them pay attention." Matt replied.

"So we start with the Maze then!" Chris threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Right!" Matt nodded, snickering as he led the way to the nearest portal to the Maze.

Chris quickly learned that the Maze in the game wasn't like the Maze in his world. There were still twenty levels, but each level corresponded to the game levels, not ability levels. On level one, the monsters averaged a level total of four, while on level two it was eight, and so on until eighty on level twenty. For ability tier, it increased the deeper you ventured into the level. It was like each level of the game Maze was like a mini version of the real Maze, weak, solo creatures in the beginning, large tribes and powerful creatures at the end.

Since all Chris's stats were at level one, that's where he started, stepping out of the portal and looking around the small base camp that acted as a staging area. There were a few small shops selling the basic goods necessary to explore the Maze, some low level players looking for groups, and a few npc guards manning the defenses, all carrying small devices that scanned the people coming in and out of the camp. Matt completely ignored all this as he led Chris out and into the Maze proper.

"Don't bother with the monsters around the camp. They're too weak and too dumb for anything other than farming loot. If you're looking to level, you want to be looking for mid-tiers." Matt explained. "Observe one for a bit and figure out its weak points for an Awareness achievement, subdue it without using your ability for a Physique achievement, and then convince it to fight for you for an Appeal achievement. Efficiency at its best. Do this a couple dozen times and you'll reach a decent level in no time."

Chris blinked a few times. "That's it? I just beat a few monsters and I level up?"

"It's simple, but don't think it's easy." Matt warned. "Monsters get more skilled the higher you go. On level one they'll have a basic skill level, so it's fairly easy, but on level five they'll have a decent grasp of the skills. On level ten they'll be professionals, on level fifteen they'll be experts, and on level twenty they'll be masters. If you don't keep up, there's no way you'll be able to beat them. I set it up this way so that the only way to grow is to actually grow, rather than just spend a lot of time in the game."

"Fair enough." Chris shrugged. This way worked out for him anyways. He didn't want to spend too much time in this game, he just wanted to figure out what he needed to know and move on. Admittedly, he might stick around to pick up a few new skills… he could see the use in that. But otherwise, he wasn't all that interested in some pale imitation of his own world.

The two of them headed deeper in, avoiding the low-tier monsters, or taking a brief moment to kill them if they couldn't be avoided, searching for a mid-tier for Chris to fight. "Ah, there! A goblin! Intelligent monsters are better for achievements than non-intelligent ones." Matt pointed out a goblin stalking through the tunnels.

"How do you know it's a mid-tier?" Chris asked, frowning.

"Energy sensing." Matt replied. "Once you're a high enough level, you can do a quest for the Elves and pick up a potion that grants the ability. Very useful. Otherwise, just keep working on your 'Observation' skill and you'll learn to see the signs. Or just stick to the mid-tier areas. That works too."

"Right. So, 'Observation'." Chris sighed, hunkering down to observe the goblin. Not that he needed to. The Immortal World had analyzed enough goblins that he was intimately aware of all their weak points. Chris cocked his head. How did that work? If he already knew it, without the game, how would it judge his observation? Would it count if he wasn't actually learning anything? He glanced at Matt. Maybe he should just ask. "So, if I already know the weak points of a goblin, how does that affect any achievement I might get?"

Matt blinked at him. "Well… if you already know it, then you wouldn't be pushing yourself to learn it, so… no achievement."

Chris frowned. "Shit." He grumbled as he stood up, heading towards the goblin. The monster screeched as it caught sight of him, rushing towards him, raising a hand. Chris leaned to the side as a fireball shot out, lazily dodging the attack. Matt was right, the monster wasn't very skilled, telegraphing its attack like it was moving in slow motion. A few more easy dodges and Chris was right in front of it, stepping in to land a heavy punch on the goblin's chest. A follow up kick to the knee sent the goblin to the ground, screaming in pain as Chris pinned it down. [Quiet!] Chris growled in goblin, causing it to freeze. [Good. Now, listen, I could start breaking things, until you either submit, or you become too damaged to ever be of any use to me and I end your miserable life, but I'd really prefer we just get this over with and you agree to help me find someone else to fight, hopefully a little stronger than you are, cause this was a little too easy and I don't think I'm going to get an achievement out of it.] Chris paused. [Maybe a high-tier? That should do it, right?]

[I'll never do anything for you!] The goblin screeched. Chris shrugged, breaking the goblin's arm. [Ah! I'll do whatever you want, please stop!]

[Was that so hard?] Chris asked, letting the goblin up.

The goblin sniffed, cradling its arm as it stood up, before bowing to him and suddenly disappearing. Chris blinked as a notification appeared, sending him to a 'pet' page where the goblin was listed with a slightly reduced health bar, a healing time, and a summon button. "Huh…" A few more notifications appeared, letting him know he'd gotten achievements in Physique, Awareness, and Appeal. "Oh! Nice. I didn't expect that."

"So… a few notes." Matt began, slowly approaching as he eyed Chris with a weird look. "First, you are much, much more skilled than I thought you were. You could rush to level ten in Physique easy, maybe even as high as fifteen. Your Appeal could use work though. Blunt intimidation and torture will work for a couple levels, but after that, you're going to need some real persuasion methods. As for Awareness, if you can focus on predicting attacks like that and hitting weak points, you'll do fine." Matt pointed out, speaking quickly as if he was rushing through them, before getting to what he really wanted to say. "The thing that confuses me is this… Why are you so good at fighting? And why do you know goblin?!?"

"I'm in the military." Chris shrugged. "And I learned goblin from Dyrdek."

"You studied goblin outside the game?" Matt asked incredulously.

"I wouldn't say I studied… I just learned it." Chris shrugged.

Matt frowned. "That- that statement makes absolutely zero sense."

"Well, you see, when a creature gets attached to my world, I can go through their memories, which lets me learn their language." Chris cocked his head. "I suppose it lets me learn all their skills, but so far, none of my subordinates have been very skilled… the Maze isn't very good for education. Maybe I should go through Debra's memories though… she's pretty skilled." Chris considered it before grimacing. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what she'd gone through to make her… whatever Debra was.

Matt blinked. Then blinked again. "I feel I'm missing something…"

"Hm, probably." Chris nodded. "I wouldn't expect you to know that I'm from a world that actually has a Maze, similar history to your game, our current time sitting at just about where your game started. Though I'd imagine it'd explain a lot for you if you did."

Matt's mouth opened and closed speechlessly, before he finally managed to say something. "Why- why are you telling me this?"

"Why not? You seem like a nice enough guy, and I've already told two others, both of whom I'd only known for a few minutes, max." Chris shrugged. "Plus trying to lie seems like a lot of work I'd really just rather not do. If I'm going to explain something, why not explain the truth, instead of some complicated lie? It isn't like telling the truth will hurt me or something."

"You-" Matt began, before freezing and pinching the bridge of his nose with a groan. "Okay, hold on. I know- I know you aren't lying. And I will admit, your story would explain some discrepancies I've noticed. However, I'm going to need something a little more substantial if you want me to believe you're actually from Azza, and not just a very well educated crazy person."

Chris cocked his head. "I could show you my ability, but to do that we'd have to meet up outside the game. Honestly, I'm not sure that's very smart for you, whether I'm crazy or an alien. This could all be a trick to get you to lower your guard so I could kidnap you or something. Though, honestly, I'm more interested in Gaia… if an AI that powerful got access to my world… that could be interesting."

Matt frowned. "What would be special about Gaia on Azza?"

"Not Azza, my world. It's- well, it's like a pocket dimension I control. Lets me do a lot of things, like connect creatures to it so I can go through their memories." Chris explained. "That's how I got here, actually. I sort of split my world and a piece connected here for some reason. Still trying to figure that one out, though the whole 'Doppelgangers and Elves fighting in the City' thing has sort of sidetracked me. Seems rather important, and I'd like to actually figure out what's really going on there, rather than the propaganda that just says Doppelgangers bad, Elves good. Saying Doppelgangers are evil just because they're Doppelgangers seems racist."

"Dude, you are giving me the mother of all headaches." Matt groaned, struggling to process everything Chris was putting out there. It wasn't that it was complicated, it was the implications of it all that had his mind spinning. If Azza was a real world… had Gaia somehow managed to find it? Had she seen it and begun to build the game based on it? Or was there something else going on? Could it all just be a coincidence? What would that imply? Was multiverse theory real? Did every world exist out there somewhere?!? "I think I need to sit down." Matt groaned again, leaning against the tunnel wall and sliding to the ground.