Chapter 149 - The First Stream

Before Merlin continued into the active part of the city, he stopped under the cover of a run down building and decided now would be a good time to start his stream. 

He had done the initial setup, which linked his streaming account to the game, but now he had to go through and mess around with the various options before he could start.

"System stream, settings." Merlin chanted a system command, causing a window to appear before him.

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Stream Title: ...

Stream Tags: ...

Stream Description: ...

Save VOD: Yes

> Advanced Options

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The floating keyboard appeared alongside the window, allowing Merlin to type in the various boxes.

"Stream title... Do I go for something quirky or just keep it simple." He muttered to himself. He thought about it for a moment before just typing in the name of the game in the title while sighing to himself. "I'm the only one streaming in this category, it's not like I need to clickbait people into watching."

With that mindset, he rushed through stream tags and description, and he didn't really bother with any of the advanced settings.

He saved the preset before closing the window and chanting another system command. "System stream, camera settings."

Another window appeared before him, alongside a floating ethereal classic movie camera. The window was full of settings specifically for the camera, and the options could be further expanded on. It was something that people could spend hours customising, but Merlin didn't feel like wasting time on getting it perfect.

'How did I do this again...' Merlin thought to himself as he scanned through the various settings, but the large camera kept drawing his attention away. 'Ok, but first of all, you're way too clunky.'

Merlin started by messing with the camera's appearance. He set it to the smallest option he could, which was a floating eyeball, and then set the transparency so it was almost invisible to him. He made sure the setting for being invisible to everyone else was on before moving on to the next part, controls. 

He began flicking on features such as dynamic positioning, and most of the cinematic options, he focused on the options that would give him cooler shots and smoother movements, and after about five minutes he was satisfied.

"Good enough." Merlin remarked as he swiped the camera controls away and began chanting yet another system command. "System stream, start."

He received a notification that his stream would become live in ten seconds, and another window appeared before him, although this one floated around his peripheral vision until Merlin tried interacting with it. It was the chat window, which allowed him to talk with his stream, as well as see how many viewers he had.

Merlin didn't have any viewers currently, which was understandable as the stream had just started, but he expected to have at least a couple in the next few minutes. Whether it was Quinn and Holly, any of his account's followers, or even people who followed the streaming page of the game. He was almost guaranteed to have a small group of viewers in no time at all.

Once the stream was live, Merlin stepped out into the rain and began making his way out of the city towards the farmland and road that lead to Megalopolis.

As he stepped out into the barley fields, his stream had received its first message.

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[MOD] Quinntessential: a

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Merlin waited for a moment, wondering if any more messages would come through.

"What, that's it?" Merlin muttered.

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[MOD] Quinntessential: Oh, you can talk to us through the game? That's cool.

[MOD] Atlas: Hey, we're here!

[MOD] Atlas: Oh look at you, you're drenched.

[MOD] Atlas: Cool character though.

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It seemed Holly had arrived not long after.

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[MOD] Quinntessential: We're just in a ranked game right now.

[MOD] Quinntessential: Give us like twenty minutes, we're stomping these guys.

[MOD] Quinntessential: Don't end stream.

[MOD] Atlas: Be right back.

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Those two had vanished as quickly as they appeared. Merlin continued his journey back towards Megalopolis, summoning his ball of light as he stepped out onto the road.

A few more comments started popping up, most of which were wondering if this was actually gameplay of New Genesis, and not just someone who was streaming in the wrong category again. And it seemed they were pleasantly surprised, as they began posting tons of questions about the game in chat, and the chat was flooded with notifications of people following.

He began answering as many questions as he could while he followed the road through the farmland, the rolling hills and then into the forest. He was keeping himself entertained as he walked, but a notification appeared beside the chat window.

「"Susan_Dilly" has gifted 6500 tokens with the message: "Do a backflip."」

Merlin fulfilled the donation's request, which seemed to impress chat. But Merlin was even more surprised at the massive donation straight off the bat. He couldn't help but feel sad when he thought back to how much he struggled trying to get big as a streamer in the previous timeline.

"And thank you very much for the gift. I appreciate it!" He said with a genuine smile.

The walk towards the city was long, and although he had chat to talk to, they seemed to be getting bored just watching him walk around in the night. Fortunately the rain had stopped, which was something positive at least.

Giving the viewers a little bit of a show, he slipped into the forest for a few minutes and showcased combat with the first monster he found, which happened to be a gnoll that was alone.

Merlin put on a show for his audience, choosing to be more flashy and dynamic with his movements than the efficient killer he usually was.

Being flashy came natural to him, as he spent quite a long time as an entertainer. The only downside was that it cut down his killing speed, but it was still much faster than those who fought with fighting assistance on.

His long flowing white hair and the camera's cinematic options made for quite a spectacle alongside his movements, or at least he believed they did, based on the messages he saw in chat.

"So yeah, that was combat." Merlin said, "But that little bit of entertainment has to be all for now. I need to get to the next city."

Merlin ran back towards the road and continued on his way to the next city. But as he traversed the road, he was met with an odd sight.

Merlin could see several lights moving as a group in the distance, and as he continued down the road, he saw that it was a wagon with a few guards walking alongside it.

'Why on earth is a wagon travelling this late at night. Everyone knows how dangerous it is...' Merlin thought to himself.

But as the wagon got closer, Merlin could identify one of the people within the wagon, and a few other faces that seemed somewhat familiar. The person he identified was Baron Doolmet himself, and the facial expression he held was full of anxiety.

Unfortunately Merlin was now close enough for the group to see his face too, and Baron Doolmet's face distorted when he locked eyes on Merlin, someone he would have seen around the rangers guild and near Callisto.

It seemed the guards weren't fond of his presence either, as they had their hands resting on their weapons as the wagon made its way past him.

Merlin caught a glimpse of the coloured names of everyone in the group, and it seemed they all had positive karma, including Doolmet, surprisingly enough. Merlin realised he couldn't do anything to the group without being severely crippled by punishments. 

His chat was full of people spamming that he should have robbed them, so Merlin took the time to explain how bad killing NPCs was, and a few of the punishments that arose from doing such a thing.

Holly and Quinn appeared in chat once more as Merlin could finally see Megalopolis in the distance.

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[MOD] Quinntessential: Have you actually been walking this whole time?

[MOD] Quinntessential: No mounts?

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"I could buy a horse, but they're pretty expensive." Merlin muttered, not bothering to explain mounts to chat, as it was a feature that nobody should know of just yet.

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[MOD] Quinntessential: So one of the greatest technological accomplishments of our time is a hyper realistic walking simulator.

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"To an extent, yeah." Merlin laughed at Quinn's remark.

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[MOD] Atlas: Do you have any magic yet?

[MOD] Atlas: Oh, Maria mentioned something about plants, what was that about?

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"You mean this?" Merlin asked as three vines escaped his arm and started twirling around in the air, which caused his chat to erupt in surprise once more. His chat was so hectic that he couldn't see any of his friends messages anymore, even if they were highlighted due to their mod status, they just flew past within seconds.

"I'll show it off in combat later, lets get in the city first." Merlin sighed, retracting his vines before he continued towards the city.

He made his way past the merchants association and walked past several of the ruins, including the mysterious door frame, which wasn't glowing.

Merlin looked up at the sky, only to see that the moon wasn't even remotely close to being whole.

"Damn, waning crescent, almost a new moon." He mumbled to himself.

Much to Merlin's disappointment, the old man he met that day was nowhere to be found tonight either.. Although he remained hopeful that he'd eventually find him and maybe get a hint on what the key could possibly be, or even what the language on the door frame was.