The white haired grounds keeper came over and sat next to the musician.

Jericho ended his piece. "Hey Staul, it's been a while." He greeted with a smile.

"I see you are back again, Jerry. You didn't bring Moira with you today?" The aged man inquired.

"No, just me today; a lot has happened recently and I needed to come clear my head. Being here is a good change of pace. It helps." He replied.

The old man let out a laugh.

The two chatted for a bit.

"Hey, Jerry, remember about 7 years ago? You brought that large object you called… What was it, a gooey tar?" Staul asked.

"When I brought one of guitars I built and wanted to play it in front of my parents' graves? I remember, you took it away because my playing and singing was interrupting another funeral. What about that day?" He chuckled lightly.

"I'm surprised you forgave me for taking away."

The adult shook his head. "I wasn't very considerate back then, rocking out in my own grief while others wanted to silently grieve their own loss. You were only doing your job."

"Well, I still have it, if you want it back." He smiled.

"Wait, you told me you got rid of it!" Jericho exclaimed in happy shock.

"It's over in the keeper house. I'll give it back in exchange for a performance. To be honest this place gets too quiet when you aren't around."

"Deal!" Jericho beamed.

After the groundskeeper returned with the instrument Jericho tuned it and began to play. He strummed the guitar to produce a relaxing, vaguely western tune that sounded like someone journeying with friends.

***

Jeannette Long stared out over the city of Newcastle.

Her pet.i.te, blond secretary came into the office. "Mrs. Long, the report on the player Jericho has been complete. It is predicted that his influence will increase the game sells by a significant margin. Details are in this folder here. After seeing the data, the development team has requested a meeting to discuss the future of the game. They and the other company leaders are waiting in office room 9."

"Thank you. I will head there now." Jeannette picked up her violin and left her works.p.a.ce.

The head of the game development department, Director Fletcher, spoke first. "Based on the report about the player Jericho requested by Mrs. Long, we want to work on a patch to give stats and levels to artistic items. Mrs. Long, as you are the head figure in charge of this game, we came to seek your approval."

The model like woman shook her head and pointed to the violin in front of her. "How many instruments exist?"

"In-game? Or in real life? The team head replied.

"Both." She answered.

"In-game there are 81 different instrument types, we primarily focused on the more popular ones in history. In real life, I don't know how many there are. How is this question relevant?"

"Right. Let me help you see this in perspective. You can't treat artistic tools like a sword."

"Go ahead."

"I know it is only a single program for this virtual reality game, but to make a single simple in-game character, how many tools inside your program do you use?"

Mr. Fletcher started mentally counting. "104 if we count the coloring tool as one tool." He replied after some thought.

"As you can see, department head, the arts are special. Tell me, if you had to switch out every single tool individually every 10 or so levels, how frustrating would it be?"

The man frowned. "I see. Then what is your suggestion? The team wants to promote these new in-game avenues. We may even be able to outsell the current most popular game if we do."

The Vice CEO smiled. "We will do it like this: Ignore item levels on artistic things. Making them have levels will only add frustration to the artistic players. Give the art items a quality rating like other items. For normal artistic items have the standard Tier 0, 1, and 2. Then create special instruments that have additional effects rather than stats. These can range from tier 3 on. But something the development team must understand is that even a basic instrument in the hands of an expert will produce amazing results. A higher grade item doesn't always mean a superior performance. Someone like Jericho wielding a Tier 0 instrument will outs.h.i.+ne someone with a G.o.dly instrument because of pure skill alone. Just like you and your NPC design program. I could only create an okay NPC if I had the knowledge of how to use each tool and someone helping me. You on the other hand, could create an outstanding NPC with the outdated version of your software from 26 years ago."

"But, Mrs. Long, if we do that, the artists will have a huge statistical disadvantage later in the game."

The Vice-CEO looked over to her co-worker. "There is truth to that. However, armor and clothing already have defensive stats. Not many artists are going to run around without cloths are they?"

"Well, I hope not, that would be really awkward." He replied.

"More importantly you have been working on the customizing appearance section of the game that is supposed to come out this patch, yes? So artists that are concerned with appearances can wear the higher level gear but appear to be wearing the outfits they want considering it records all of the items they have worn throughout the game and what category they belong in"

"Indeed, the program just got completed two days ago. There is a restriction in place though, for a clothing appearance they have to be wearing clothing. for heavy armor appearance, they have to be wearing heavy armor."

"It is completely logical. It would be harder to dance in heavy armor even if it was given the re-appearance of a dress."

"Okay that covers that portion, but what about the difference in stats created by weapons and other held items?"

"If an artist was to equip a weapon instead of their art supplies, wouldn't the stat discrepancy disappear?"

"That's true, but..."

"If your team feels they must do something with stats, the team can create an algorithm that goes something like this, if an art item is equipped instead of a weapon, character gains a temporary bonus to X stats per level. An algorithm like this would be simpler than adding item levels and stats for each object anyways. Do these sound reasonable?"

"Indeed, Mrs. Long."

"Good, then I will look over the details of the Jericho report later to discuss other plans for the future."

"I understand. It was a brilliant move pulling Jericho and his sister into playing the game. How did you think of it?"

***

It was lunch break at Eisenberg elementary. Moira and her two guy friends, Kenneth and Alexander, were sitting and happily chatting about the game.

Alex dropped his fork onto his lunch tray in shock. "Moira, you are playing a video game? I thought you hated the idea?"

The girl laughed. "I told you before, my brother's music is magical and I would rather hear it than play a game. However, my brother learned his music could be just as magical in Freedom so the two of us started playing. Now I can do both at the same time!"

"What starting town are you in? Do you want to come adventure with us?" Alex inquired excitedly.

"Whoa, slow down buddy, I invited her first. I even arrived in her starting town last night." Kenneth interrupted.

Moira smiled. "You two, I would love to play with both of you. To answer your question Alex, my brother and I started in Trillith. We are just finis.h.i.+ng up a quest to save a town from a drought. So we should be good to adventure with one or both of you tomorrow or the next day. But first, you should know I have a few special rules. 1: My brother gets to come and you get to listen to his music. You will understand why I love listening to him so much. 2: My brother and I don't like hunting monsters. So the adventures we go on are a little different. While we adventure together, we will be finding other ways to solve problems without violence if at all possible. 3: My brother is the leader of our adventures. He may be new to video games like me but he is very responsible."

Alex gave a thumbs up and placed his hand on his s.h.a.ggy brown hair as he continued to eat.

Kenneth sighed. "You and your brother like to make things complicated. Alex and I are both higher level so we can escort you to another starting area. I started in the forest village of Pren. I can take you two there so we can adventure in the forests nearby. I'll help you level up first then Alex can have a turn."

"I have always wanted to see what a forest is like! Are you okay to wait until later Alex?" Moira asked.

Alex nodded and adjusted his gla.s.ses. "Sounds good to me, I want to try and keep up with the experts as best as I can. I want to be one of the famous players in this game."

Kenneth smiled. "Message me when you and your brother are ready to head over to Pren. I look forward to this weekend."

"Me too!"

Alex gave a serious look. "By the way Moira, what type of build are you going with?"

"Build?" Moira questioned.

"Sorry, what type of character are you going with? A magic caster? A melee fighter? A ranged fighter? A healer? I can help you find good skills to go with your plan."

"Oh, I am a dancer. I found out that my dancing is magical just like my brother's music."

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The serious friend frowned. "I don't know about any dancing skills. Sorry."

"It's alright." She replied. "Oh, I have a huge favor to ask of the two of you. If you find dancing equipment like ribbons, special dancing shoes or cloths, I could really use them. If you find musical instruments like drums, an accordion, a clarinet, or other instruments my brother would be very grateful. He has a lot of music he hasn't started playing in game because he lacks them."

Alex and Kenneth smiled. "Of course, we have been trying to get you to play games with us for a few years now. Why wouldn't we help you out?"