ACOF/Alexander/Alone/Play

You bring out your JSS2, a videogame console older than you are, blow into the cartridge for Roads of Rome, and push it into the slot.

The game starts up and brings you to the main menu. You've played this game many times before, and this time you feel like starting a new game. You select an empty save file and hit start.

As the opening sequence plays, you feel a tingle like static across your fingers, spreading up your arms. You feel yourself being pulled forward, and suddenly you're lunging toward the JSS2, toward the Roads of Rome cartridge.

Everything goes black, you feel as though you're suspended in air, not falling but floating, the static tingle spreading over your body.

---

Colors fade into view, swirling around you, making you dizzy. You can feel the ground beneath you. You close your eyes to block out the view. Everything seems to settle, and you can feel yourself sitting on the ground. It feels like a stone floor. You can feel a cool breeze on your skin and hear birds chirping, and the sound of people in the distance going about their business.

You reopen your eyes. You are in fact sitting on a stone path between two brick and stone buildings, leaning against a short wall.

You feel mostly naked, and you realize you're wearing a short, white robe with a brown belt, pinned at one shoulder with a gold pin. You have gold bracelets on each wrist, and a larger gold band on your right upper arm. A pair of leather sandals are tied to your feet. Aside from the short robe, sandals, and jewelry, you're wearing nothing. You can feel the breeze blow across your body relatively freely.

What happened? Why are you here? And why are you dressed like this? Your outfit kind of looks like what Vitus, the main character of Roads of Rome, wears, but then it's kind of hard to tell by looking at his sprite in game. And this place looks kind of like where the game starts out.

There's no way this could be real though, is there? You must have fallen asleep or something. Yeah, that's it. You're just going to assume thiis some kind of dream or hallucination or something, for now.

Whatever is happening, if this is the start of the game, Cato should turn up soon. Cato seems to be Vitus' friend, though for whatever reason that's never explained in the game, he also seems to act as Vitus' servant.

"Oh, there you are, Vitus!" The boy's voice brings you back to what's in front of you. Cato is about the same age as Vitus. His clothes are a bit dingier than yours, worn out, with none of the gold ornamentation your outfit has. "Something big is going on at the temple. It looks like they found the shield! We should hurry if we want to see it before they seal it away."

The dialogue is so familiar to you, yet hearing it for yourself is still so strange. It takes a second before you realize he's still waiting for you to respond in some way other than a shocked look. "Are you alright?" He asks.

"Yeah, uh, I'm fine." You fumble. "Let's go!"

The two of you go to the temple. You know how to get there by heart. From a top down perspective. In person, you end up following Cato more often than not, but the two of you get there eventually.

The shield is propped against the altar of Maxima, and a crowd has gathered some distance from it. The shield is so much more impressive in person than a handful of pixels could convey. The face of the shield is divided into four sections, alternating gold and black, each depicting one of the four weapons of Maxima. A spear, a gladius, a bow, and the shield itself. Of the four, only the gladius and the shield have been recovered.

Soon, a priest and priestess carry the shield into a room in the back which is then locked, and a few men in armor stand guard in front of the door.

"Wow, I can't believe they actually found it." Cato says. The two of you walk out of the temple.

"Yeah, they've been looking since before we were born." You say reflexively.

"I honestly thought they were just a myth. I know they're supposed to have the gladius in that room but I've never seen it in person." He sighs. "Maybe someday we'll be the ones to find the spear or the bow. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

Knowing how the game goes, you want nothing more than to say 'We definitely will find them,' but you decide against it. "We can definitely try!" You say instead.

"Well, I have to go back home. I have some chores I need to finish before it gets too hot out." Cato says. The two of you wave at each other and Cato leaves.

Now, if you remember correctly, you have some free time at this point in the game that you can use however you like. Usually you use this time to build up "Virtue", a stat that affects what you will be able to do later in the game and allows you access to more abilities.

Ordinarily, the game wouldn't progress until you had decided you were done and went home to go to bed. But, you guess that this being real time, you have until nightfall.

How do you want to use your time?

• The best thing to do right off the bat is gain virtue.
• You're going to need some equipment.
• Cato has chores, but that doesn't mean you can't go see him.
• See if you can get a better look at the weapons of Maxima.

Status				Equipment
				Robe, Jewelry, Sandals
	100	V	2