Doe Ray: Seven

The young doe glanced at her new wristwatch and found that it agreed with the distant bell. Of course it would, they were probably run by the same subroutine. She noticed for the first time that the watch did not have a knob for setting or winding. Such things were not needed in this perfect world, but she could probably have chosen to have it anyway as an additional realism extra. Oh well.

Jim was still unfamiliar with such concepts as the female's prerogative of being late, so the doe had arrived early for her appointment and spent some of the time chatting with the tech we last met in the transition between episodes 91529 and 91532. (Those who are tired of excessive exposition may skip down to the line below)
Gwen (which was the tech's name) had explained a bit about how the VR worked for different people. As one of her colleagues had already explained, the players - that Jim was one of - were really sitting/lying in comfy VR chairs in rooms with no external sensations, which allowed for total sensory immersion in a fictive world where they could go anywhere, be anyone and do anything they wanted. The techs who ran the show, however, were really working in a control room which the room Jim and the doe had seen, was an exact VR copy of. They wore miniaturized headsets with semi transparent screens which enabled them to see and hear both rooms (and the avatars present in the VR room) at the same time, but they only saw the avatars as more or less transparent ghosts and had no tactile feedback, which meant that techs and avatars could walk straight through each other if they wanted or needed to, but because many people found that kind of experience sort of unnerving, they tried to avoid it as far as they could. Gwen had only been able to hand the doe a virtual cup (which had no RL counterpart; it would have dropped to the floor when Gwen let go of it) because of her extensive training in handling nonexistent objects. She had claimed to have a background as a street mime, but Jim was not sure if that was meant seriously.
They had spent most of the time waiting "outside" the door Haran had entered and left through - in a space which in the doe's eyes was a small garden adjacent to a road, but in Gwen's world it was just a small room with no other exits. The area was kind of an overlap between the real world and the virtual one - the doe and any other player avatar could just walk down the road, but if Gwen or any of her colleagues tried the same thing they would walk into a wall.
Okay, enough background for now, let's see if I can get some story into this chapter!

"Sounds like your ride is here," Gwen remarked as she got up from the bench they had been sitting on. "Good luck, deer. Have a ball!" She retreated through the door-between-worlds, but left it slightly ajar to watch what happened next.

What did happen next was that the carriage came into sight, and the doe discovered that it was not drawn by horses at all, but by a team of four anthropomorph stags like Haran. Who was nowhere in sight. In fact the carriage was empty; there was no driver in the traditional sense, and no reins either - the team were their own drivers. As they approached as a brisk trot, it occured to Jim that a similar team of horses was referred to as a four-in-hand. This had to be a four-out-of-hand then!

The stag on the left front, who appeared to be the leader, signaled to the others and they pulled up to the curb in front of the garden. He then unhooked his harness and came up to her.

"Good evening, fair doe," he said. "Are you..." He hesitated briefly as they both realized she still did not have a name - "the doe we are here to pick up?"

She nodded. "If Haran sent you, yes." It finally occured to her that Haran had not said he would come to pick her up, just to be here. Probably some kind of tradition she had yet to learn.

"Well, we got the right one then," he confirmed with a warm smile. "Not that there are a lot to choose from here..."

He went to the open carriage and opened the small door for her. "Do you want to take the scenic route?" he asked as she settled in. "We have time."

She pondered and nodded gracefully. Seemed like a good way to start the evening. He reached in and flicked a switch on a small box mounted under the front end of the carriage. A small red light winked on. Then he took a small wireless headset from a hook next to the box and put it on. Another red light came on at the end of the tiny boom mike. "Testing," he said, and his voice came from two places at once.

She nodded again. "Check."

"Welcome to Erri's Tours," the stag announced in a professional manner as he went back to his place and back into harness. "I am Erri, and I will be your guide and driver for this ride. If at any time you find my narrative tiresome, just flick the switch. My mike light will go out and save me from the embarrassment of talking to myself." He turned his head to give her a smile and a wink, then he turned back and nodded to the rest of the team. She almost did not notice the carriage staring to move - Erri and his team obviously had some practice at this kind of thing. Wonder if...

"Erri?" she said softly.

"Yes, deer?"

Ah. So it was a two-way device then. "Do you mind an OOC question?" she asked.

"Make it brief."

"Okay. Just wondering if you guys are all players." Of course, she thought, an AI might not be programmed to answer that kind of question, or even understand it.

Erri hesitated a moment, then looked back at her with a playful gleam in his eye. "One of us is," he answered cryptically. While she was pondering this, he added: "By the way, if you should find the need to ask someone else, the IC term is 'a true stag (or doe) of the Forest Clan.'"

She nodded, then realized he was not looking at her. "Check."

"Anyway," Erri started on the guiding part of his duties, "if you look to the left you will notice..."

1. The scenic route
2. Short cut to the arrival

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