What is this off brand pokemon game!? Eggz:Oasis

Starting off with a smelly fish

"S_hwa has hatched with 30 eggz points"
"Welcome to the Eggz:Oasis"
"You are our 5th player congrats you have received 1 smelly fish!"

Songhwa sighed with annoyance as she plucked off the virtual grass on her lens. She had already anticipated from the beta trailers that this was just gonna be another one of those upscale pet VR games.

But truly what kind of beginner item was smelly fish?! Giving only one as well how stingy. 

If it wasn't for one of the third biggest VR companies to have worked on developing this game she would not have spent her hard earned money in renting a space at the higher end virtual cafes to get this spot today!

 As she began to observe her surrounding she began to hear the familiar sounds of dings begin to encore around her as other new players begin joining as well. She quickly got up and chose to start off toward the wooded area on her left. It was mountainous and rocky so most people would avoid the long winded path necessary. Although behind her was the plains, perfect for beginners and surely filled with mission, having to deal with so many other people already gave her a headache. 

She quickened her pace and exhaled deeply after feeling the shade of the trees and the cool breeze. Despite being VR lately all technology was fully immersive and some even could eat and use the restroom in their VR cubicles. Easily one could live months in the cubicle only coming out to replenish the nutritional fluids and if one had a housekeeping robot or full time AI assistant it was easy to never leave the VR cubicle.

Most games you could adjust how much you felt fatigue in game but some games like this one had a fixed meter. Thankfully the pain and other senses were adjustable. The hike uphill was proving to be difficult as rocks and roots littered the path. As she was observing her surroundings one of the trees seemed to double. 

The game's graphics were pretty nice but it seemed there was some glitches. It was still in the beta and data was loading in. Whenever she shook her head really fast the graphics blurred into this weird mess which made her feel woozy.

Songhwa gave a laugh as she wheezed "Better not do that again I feel scrambled." 

She sat down on the grass as she tried to remember some of the guidelines. To her best memory it was something about having pets and making guilds. Guilds weren't really her thing but whatever. She reached up and clicked on the quest icon. There did seem to be a tutorial but that sounded boring. She swiped her fingers across it and pulled herself up.

Her foot suddenly tripped herself and she fell flat on her face. She groaned "I'm such an idiot" and remembered to adjust the pain. Most people put it around 10% but Songhwa wasn't very fond of it. Having it that low dulled her senses too much but she also wasn't a masochist that kept it at 100%. She adjusted it to a nice 35% since and although it wasn't a guns kind of game it did state adventure on the label so cuts and bruises were to be expected. 

Clicking on a oblong icon on the right of the panel she opened the status menu. As she scanned the list of abilities her eyes lit up and she reached over to click on one when it stopped her. A pop up appeared 

                    [You can only add abilities when discovered with an eggz. Find an eggz first.] 

She shook her head and looked up at the sky holding her breath. She slowly got up and let her breath out. She had read somewhere that being calm was good for the health although she didn't know how that worked Songhwa still practiced it as she cared for her health longterm.

Or how else was she to enjoy playing games all day!

She reached for her head to feel the gash on her forehead when she found flat smooth skin. Everything had felt so real even the pain. It looked like a few programmers had spent a lot of sleepless nights although why they paid so much attention to pain patches instead of the animals in a pet vr game was beyond her.

Which for the matter she had still not seen a single creature!

She quickly clicked on the map icon and discovered she was on one of the 5 main islands Apparently she had spawned in the island for the North American server. She noticed a few areas on the map had certain labels and level locks on them. Right now she could only go to the newbie areas.

The first stop was just a few hundred steps ahead. (High hollow) a forest with an egg label on it was by the top of the mountain so it was just a bit more uphill. Apparently the egg label meant it was a place you could find your pets. 

Songhwa grabbed her beginner rucksack and followed the trail to High Hollow. Unfortunately with the game trying to stimulate reality there was no teleportation mechanism from the screen. there was a teleportation hall but you had to pay around 100 points and Songhwa felt saving money while checking out the game a bit more would be more beneficial. 

"Time to find my off-brand Pikachu I guess" Songhwa muttered. She noticed she hadn't noticed others on the trail or any player markings yet. Perks of exploring ahead she supposed. And it seemed like most were pretty eager to check out the teleportation hall and explore the other islands.

While nearing the forest Songhwa noticed the white tipped evergreens and a slight chill. On the map it never mentioned it being a winter type forest so she felt a bit confused. As she started noticing the frost on the pine cones a notification pane popped up 

          [You are nearing an area with eggz. Use any means possible to catch some!]

Squinting a bit she decided to start looking for the oblong creatures. She had watched a few videos from the trailers and the guide caught them with some net contraptions but since the system doesn't supply you with those high tech nets she was gonna have to make do with her hands. She had also seen some ideas in the beta forum to use a fishing pole to lure a few eggs by a river but she was gonna have to try that next time.

For now she only had her stinky fish...

As she ventured deeper into the forest it was getting colder and colder. Whatever was laying here must be a pretty powerful item. 

Slowly treading on the forest floor Songhwa pushed the overhead branches aside but stopped,

A soft rustling sound was coming from the center of the forest.