Denise Healy discovered that a character heals faster when the Player is logged out of Prince Herald's Unfinished Kingdom. As it turned out, he only had to wait around ten or so minutes while the doctors checked out Stephanie and said she was free to go. Though patience is a strong point of his, he barely notice any time had gone by as he was off his Menu Screen throwing together a few Playlists of MP3's to listen to while he worked. The only downside was that he couldn't figure out how to play them yet.
As Stephanie Louis stepped out the front glass doors of St. Helga's hospital, she reached into the pants pocket of her torn up navy blue dress slacks, puling out the business card that the NPC Doctor had given her before she logged off. "Edward Norton," she said to herself, as she used her right hand pull her white shirt so it wasn't chafing her breasts so badly.
"Doesn't anyone come up with their own fucking names anymore?" she asked aloud as a man standing at the street corner with his son looked back at the swearword. Stephanie stared at him for a moment, and he glared at her. "Fuck off, it's a public place," she hissed at him. Looking back to the card, she suddenly wondered her original owner gave her a nice original name or not. It had never occurred to her before.
She pulled at the strap of her yellow thong bikini from under her white shirt, and looked down at herself, "I thought all this stuff fit me," she said, realizing she'd been off and on messing with her cloths since she got out of the Hospital. She looked up to notice for the first time that there was a mall across the street.
She looked left and right at all the people walking up and down the sidewalk like they didn't have a care in the world. NPC's all of them. She shrugged realizing she might be the only 'real person' on this block and ran out into traffic before the light turned red.
Nearly being struck by two cars in the first two lanes, she crossed the suicide lane and rolling-dodged over the top of another car, landing in the final and empty lane and then walking onto the sidewalk. She smiled to herself and looked back at the man and his son back where she'd come from. The son was pointing and looking on in awe, and the man was again glaring. She raised her middle finger to the man and then turned to head into the mall behind her.
Through the rotating front doors, she stepped into the mall and looked around. It was three stories high and filled to the very brim with all kinds of people and stores. There was a glass skylight up over the ceiling at that third floor, and there were vines and potted plants hanging down from above. Along the bottom floor, large trees were growing out of holding places in the ground, reaching up as high as even the third floor at some junctions.
She stepped over to the Greeting Column, a black square that was four feet wide on each sign and went up through the first and second floors, stopping just six feet above the third. On it (on each floor) was the obligatory Mall Map that showed that the building was shaped like an Asterisk, one center column of building crossed by two other columns in a squished X. In the center, it showed there was a thirty-story hotel.
"The Neo Hong Kong Megaplex," Stephanie read from the tan back'd parchment-looking paper, "Began construction Six Months ago with the annexing of the Great Grass Valley into The Kingdom. Products from all over The Kingdom, from as far away as the Orient, The Middle East, Russia, Southern Africa, Australia, and Brazil are all sold here within these walls," she said, looking around at just how large the place was.
"At the center of it all," she continued, "Is the Grand Atlantic Hotel… A home away from home for many visitors from all over The Kingdom, near and far. The thirtieth floor and up is under construction for expansion even now, and there are rooms to house any inhabitants, regardless of shape, size, or species (except for Giants)," she gave and impressed smile.
Skimming the rest of it, she saw that there were Casinos on the first two floors of the hotel as well. Her Gambling Skill was pathetic, but money was just as good for buying weapons as it was for buying bribes… which reminded her that she need to get new cloths and items. Her duffle bag slung over her back was full of ammunition and weapons and was rather heavy.
Looking ahead and around, she saw that mall security looked lax, and there weren't any metal detectors. She glanced at the business card again as she walked forward into the NHKM, "Suite 3612," she noted, glancing back over her shoulder at the map. "Ah, Floor, Hall, and Block," she noted, "Third Floor, Sixth Block, Twelfth Block," she grinned, walking forward passed two centaurs and an eleven foot cyclops before crossing the path of a family of humans.
Stepping up into the rim of shops that circled wide the large column of Casinos and Hotel, she looked left and right at what was obviously the Food Court that circled the main and central building, and stared around amazed. There was tons of people, to kill or otherwise, that populated this place… and so many directions to go.
"This could be the start of an Adventure all it's own," she noted, checking the signs. She was standing in Block One, America's District. "New York City Steaks, Blame Canada," she laughed at that one, "Hollywood Happens: Talent Agency, etcetera, etcetera," she shrugged, notting that each Block of the Asterisks form of the Megaplex had it's own theme.
"Now… where to?