Max's roommate proved to be somewhat tolerable, once the stream was over. The mess in the room was apparently part of his "aesthetic" and he cleaned it all up in a few minutes once the stream was over, politely introducing himself and then going to bed so he was ready for the morning's early start.
Refreshed and ready to face the day, Max started hearing rumors the moment he entered the hotel restaurant. The word in the hotel was that the Blood Goddess had her roommate executed last night because she didn't want to share a room with her. While Max wouldn't put that past his best friend, he was pretty sure it was an exaggeration at the very least.
"No, she was in the lobby with us watching a movie while her roommate was streaming. Then the cops came bursting through and pointed guns at us all and dragged her away. She's not dead, she's in prison." Another contestant tried to clarify the situation, but most of the crowd was taking it as a rumor as well.
Max could see in her thoughts what had happened, and the second woman was telling the truth, so he relaxed, getting a good meal in before returning to his room to change and get ready for the event.
The tight costume fit him better than he was willing to admit, and Max was attracting entirely too much attention as he walked through the halls toward the venue.
"Captain Harkness, can we get a photo?" A bunch of spectators with cameras called, using the name of the character he was playing.
Max stopped and gave them a series of poses, which drew even more people over. All over the arena, the same thing was happening, as the contestants did publicity shoots before the tournament. A few refused and were soundly denounced by the crowd for not playing the part, but most of them were having a lot of fun with it.
Max was about to move again, getting closer to the stage and the next group of photographers when he felt a tongue on his neck and small hands on his shoulders.
"Oh em gee. I can die happy now, seeing that." One of the men in the crowd gushed, and Max realized that it was Nico posing with him the instant before he was going to toss whoever it was across the room.
Nico was definitely having fun today, hanging off Max in all sorts of suggestive poses and playing up her Character's Erotic Vampire persona.
They separated again after a few minutes, taking separate photos again, and Max knew that somehow today was going to come back to haunt him. He could only imagine what Ari would say about seeing him in skin-tight pants and having his neck licked by Nico, whose dress showed off her panties every time it moved more than a little.
Nico was flitting from gamer to gamer, taunting and teasing them as she went, making much better progress towards the stage than Max was. Looking through her thoughts, he realized what the trick was, and found a female gamer in the crowd to pose with, moving him past a crowd of onlookers with cameras without insulting anyone.
The character he was playing was a flirty hunk, so Max did his best imitation, making the crowd laugh and cheer.
Soon enough, he had made it to the stage where the group photo would be taken and escaped the mob. There were only about a dozen of the hundreds of competitors here so far, so he had a while to wait, posing for a few more photos until the organizers called for the others to hurry to the stage for the group photos.
"Welcome everyone to the Comor Game Development Agency's newest product launch. As you're well aware it will take the form of a blind tournament. Every competitor here has been verified, and none are aware of what today's game will be. The Agency developers have been particularly cautious not to allow any leaks of this project, just for this moment.
We introduce you all to Predatory Instinct, our pride, and joy. It is a Fully Immersive Virtual Reality Fantasy Game with no NPC or quest content. All gains in the game are made through player versus player combat. On every successful kill, you will gain a percentage of your opponent's battle power and points, which can be used to buy items to upgrade your character. The more difficult the kill, the greater the reward.
Every player will start with the option to take a selection of equipment with them, making the start of the game easier at the cost of decreased rewards for kills, due to their higher power level. But it might pay off in the long run to get that head start, right Gamers? The strategy is all yours, and only yours."
The room devolved into insane screaming and cheering after the announcement, and the photos were taken before the players were led to a group of Comor's most advanced new VR Pods.
Max saw that he had a collection of options. Warrior, cleric, knight, squire, princess, rogue, mage, witch, sorcerer, barbarian, street rat, and an entire second page of options. Each had its own bonuses and progression paths with different skills and class-specific equipable items. They also all had different starting skills, except Street Rat, which didn't have one at all, nor would it ever gain any. It was the pure hardcore mode, with no ability to have heavy armor, magic, or advanced weapons. It wasn't even a proper rogue, as it didn't get any stealth skills.
Given that VR games are usually best when you play based on your own skills, and Max had increased mental processing speed, he decided to go with the mage class. The faster you could mentally recite the spell chant, the faster the ability would activate. That gave Max a great advantage over others and should offset the lack of heavy armor in the late game while giving him an edge in the beginning.
With his selection made, and his character set to a nondescript avatar, he was ready to begin the tournament. There was a timer counting down at the top of his vision, showing that the game would begin in 5 minutes and run for twelve straight hours, with the accumulated power at the end being the deciding factor of the top ten players who would get the resort vacation package.
Max used his Innate Talent to check the decisions of the players near him in the pods, finding a fairly wide variety of tactics. Then he found Nico. She had picked Street Rat and had declined absolutely every optional bonus she could purchase. She only bought a crappy poisoned dagger from the starting store. She would get the most possible points per kill, but that assumed she was actually able to kill anyone with low bonus stats and no gear. Knowing her, it was going to be a bloodbath in the starting zone.
She wasn't trying to be subtle either. She had made her character look like a street urchin version of her cosplay, complete with the fangs and tattered black dress. Max could only imagine the response the crowd was having to the characters that everyone had picked, some of them were truly flamboyant, suiting the personalities of the players building them, while others were signature looks, or deliberately bland, like Max's own avatar.
