the feeling when one dives too deep
wheels within wheels, masks behind masks
what you sow is what they reap
the feeling when one dives too deep
the salty tears burn as we weep
never any shortage of tasks
the feeling when one dives too deep
wheels within wheels, masks behind masks

The broken hum of the cars outside fades as one walks into the lobby of the skyscraper that houses MVS's local office. Like all such buildings, it's huge, expensive, and artificial. The exterior walls are windows that look black from the outside, and reflective, as though the entire structure is one vast darkened mirror. The interior is kept a comfortable nineteen degrees centigrade, and the humidity level is maintained at a comfortable forty percent relative.

The layout is spare, minimalist. There's abstract art on the interior walls. Decorative plants grow in hydroponic pots. A receptionist behind the black synthetic desk smiles at you with empty eyes. When you say you're here for the beta, you're sent right up in an elevator that is controlled entirely from the desk. The walls are steel, or more accurately a synthetic that looks like steel, because on the way up it fades to glass.

You can look out over the whole damned city from that elevator as it rockets upwards.

MVS's offices start on the ninety-seventh floor. But you go up a little further, to the one hundred and first, before the elevator dings and opens. Walking out, the halls are anonymous and sterile. The fluorescent lights glare off of white tile floors and white walls. It feels almost medical in its sterility. A security guard meets you and escorts you to a room with your name emblazoned on a placard outside the door.

Within this room is a hospital bed next to a huge tangle of equipment - monitors, hissing medical equipment, and stranger things. The security guard tells you to wait, but contrary to what this implies, remains standing outside the door. It's hard to miss the gun.

OOC: Okay, everyone is in different cities, so you're not interacting directly. For all of you, though, the process goes a bit like this. So it seemed easiest to type it once rather than post separate threads for everyone, as this section is quite brief anyway.

The day just kept getting better. Or, he had to admit, at least pretending to get better. Principle of Least Effort, you didn't have an armed guard for something unless it was worth guarding. Unless you just wanted to make it seem worth guarding, but there wasn't exactly a lot of foot traffic or media exposure here, and he was going to see the guarded tech soon anyway. That sounded like "actually worth guarding" to him. He also appreciated the touch of floor 101- VR 101, like an introductory class. It was the kind of thing he could see the planners doing.

Mostly, he was just excited because he'd never been to something like this. Betas, sure- half the VR games that launched did so as an extended public beta for liability protection against bugs. But never "come in to a medical room, we're going to hook you up to new tech" beta. The NDA had been an absolute beast of a legal document, and even when he was finished, he planned to bask in the smug secret knowledge all the way until release. He'd also quietly bought some shares in the company, nothing large enough to get looked into for amateur insider trading. Seeing the facilities, the guard outside- it seemed like that had been a good move.

Coming in to a corporate site for a Beta event struck Alvin as being a little unusual given that he should have most of the hardware required already. Entering the lobby, Alvin's eyes aren't drawn to the art or receptionist, but rather toward the lobby's ventilation. It was a hazard of his profession. Working mostly on blueprints and with CAD models, he didn't get the chance to evaluate these systems in person very often. As a result, he'd developed the habit of checking out the ventillation of most office buildings and other industrial facilities he found himself in.

The ride up was pleasant enough, as hundred-floor elevator rides go. Alvin paused momentarily before exiting. The guard that met him at the elevator was a little unexpected, the sterility of the facility more-so. He found himself listening closely for humming sounds, trying to evaluate whether there was a server farm on or near this floor. It or its cooling systems might be audible. He had a hard time imagining what reason beyond the need for computing power he might have been summoned to such a facility for.

The placard with his name elicits a raised eyebrow. It implied he might be here more than he had anticipated. Hopefully he could talk whatever admin he spoke to into letting him do further sessions at home.

Seeing inside the room caused him to re-evaluate that impulse again. He frowned as the guard told him to wait and stepped outside. This seemed like it might be more than he'd been expecting.

Alessandra hated this. She tended to be resentful to authority at the best of times, not so much because she had to be in charge herself as all the stupid pettifogging rules and regulations they insisted on. At least half of it was just to show everyone what a big dick they had to force everyone to do things their way; there was no real reason she couldn't have used her home rig for this, and have her own supplies and snacks on-hand. They'd even asked her what her home rig was when she'd registered for the beta. Why ask if it hadn't been to check her specs?

Despite the grumbling she wasn't wholly immune to the excitement; she stalked into the MVS building in trim black leggings and boots, with a maroon hoodie on over her t-shirt. She returned the receptionist's meaningless smile with a bland one of her own, then rode up the glittering elevator as she looked out on the neon city night.

Up in the cold sterile corridor, she walked down to the room with her name on the door like a good little cog, and when the security guard took her in she took a seat on the edge of the bed... and waited. Looking at the man outside her door. Looking at the medical equipment and stranger things, she began to have a sense of forboding about this whole thing. Why was all this necessary? This had better be the best beta test ever... but she wasn't sure she would come back. There were other games out there after all.

The day was finally here and while Adrian did his best to appear outwardly calm and collected he couldn't help but grip the upholstery as if he was trying to wring water out of it and a cold sweat had broken out across his brow. When the auto stopped outside of the obelisk-like MVS headquarters he nearly vomited on the polished walkway.

Making his way into the building he only processed how cold it was, at least to him. He only came back to himself when he entered a room with a hospital bed and...guards? Wait why were there guards here? Suddenly his nervous transmuted into genuine concern and confusion. Reflexively he grew back towards the door, unsure if he'd somehow wandered into an the world's most upscale chop house. Vat grown organs were possible but at a high premium; or so he had been told.

Lexi had slept poorly, something hardly unusual but for a markedly different reason from the norm.  Restlessness had always haunted her in the run-up to something big, that horrible cocktail of hype, fear and caffeine thrumming through her veins. It made chasing sleep difficult at best, and what little she’d managed to secure after drifting through streams and VR chats for much of the night hadn’t exactly been of the highest quality. It wasn’t the sort of state she’d wanted to be in for a thing like this. Her friends wouldn’t be too happy if they ended up with a zombie on the front line, and MVS … well the less thought given to them the better.

That was perhaps one of the few benefits that came with her present state of mind. As much as it had occupied her thoughts the night before, come the morning she hadn’t quite been all there enough to think more than a few moments ahead. She didn’t have the energy or brainspace for worrying over walking into the lion’s den alone, and the sheer distance between herself and her friends didn’t even cross her mind – not until it was too late at least. Only once she’d crossed the point of no return did those doubts finally find purchase.

No briefing. No sign of other testers. Armed guards. Not exactly what she had been expecting.

But then maybe it should have been: this was MVS after all.

Suddenly sober, she swallowed hard, did her best to force those worries down into the pit of her stomach and meekly played along. She’d never hear the end of it if she chickened out of this one after all.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:35, Tue 01 June 2021.

The doctor arrives after a moment, walks you through another quick NDA, and attaches monitoring equipment. The prompt to enter the game appears, and you sign in. The world around you fades, replaced by an expansive grey field.

A synthesized voice comes on a moment later.

"Welcome to Avalon. Verifying codes...verifying access level...TGS-beta confirmed....welcome! My name is Komon. I will be your virtual guide in the world of Avalon Online. As you explore the gameworld, it is my job to provide you with information, support, and guidance to help you acclimate yourself. Before you join the rest of your party, please confirm that you are using the build selected before game start."

The voice is smooth, precise, utterly lifelike and yet somehow very clearly synthetic. The AI sounds feminine, and has a certain emotional tenor, as though actually looking forward to working with you.

"This is the menu screen, where you can make selections about your character and access information about the game rules and world. You can access the menu at any time by saying 'Access menu.' Please note that doing so does not pause the gameworld, and you should only do so when you are in a safe location. Now, let's introduce you to the gameworld."

The grey fades out to a black void with the Avalon Online logo on it in silver before fading in to a grassy plain, incredibly lifelike, with a group of people standing in it. In the distance you can see a river winding its way lazily along.

Mirima is there, in the group. She'd already decided on a new character, and from the looks of it, the plan is something far from her usual flashy speedster. At the moment, she's rolling the lace of one cuff between her fingers with a bemused look. She's synching up really well for the bandwidth she must be putting over her QE-Fi pipe. Better than usual, if anything.

"Took you all long enough," she starts with a grin. "I've waited here for milliseconds! We'll find out if they included an aging system at this rate! So hey, anybody go under the knife for this one? I have to hear details." Apparently satisfied with her investigation of the fabric, she waves a couple fingers vaguely at a flowering thistle. It begins to liquefy and peel open. Andarrea/Mirima frowns.

Confirming pre-selected options presented to him without really looking at them and bodylessly sighing at the additional NDA, Alvin endured the loading screen and nodded along with Komon as his virtual body took shape around his senses.

Alvin, now attempting to adopt his online guise as Vaxilion, squints for a moment as the world comes into focus. This focus did not seem to be strictly visual, which was unusual. Neural interface technology allowed for the simulation of virtually any sort of synesthesia, and he could swear that he could feel the things he was seeing with startling precision. Closing his eyes for a moment didn't seem to change this sense at all.

"No," he replies simply. "Though I doubt there's much available to upgrade my jack right now," he gestures distractedly at the back of his head, which does not feature the trans-dermal neural jack on his in-game avatar.

His gaze snaps to the liquefying thistle as it melts. "That's odd," he says. Its melting doesn't seem to be what he's talking about.

Calvin shook his head. "Please wait, Komon; I would like to customize my build first." Character customization was half the fun, and if he was doing any sort of decent beta testing, poking around the menu would be part of it.

Pulling up the menus, he started browsing through. It was an interesting system he hadn't seen before- pretty freeform. Wealth seemed fun, and then there was Desire- that was a surprise to see, actually, what with the review boards these things were subject to- and Shapeshifting? Both the last two were ones he was curious how they handled. Sure, you had sexy sims, but it'd be a bold move for a triple-A studio to tell the review boards to shove it. You also had dedicated animal sims, but… mappings were tricky. The three had a very indulgent appeal to them as a combination, although he suspected they might not live up to the promise. A few others had jumped out at him, like Deception for very amusing NPC interactions, but nothing that shook the initial impression. Still, he was going to finish the list.

He'd just about settled on it when he hit the end of the list, where the theme changed. Rather than abstractions, it dealt in creatures. He wasn't much of a dragon person, but a closer inspection revealed something very interesting. There was a gift that did a lot of what Wealth did, a gift that did a lot of what Shapeshifting did, and a gift that… well, it didn't cover Desire, but it did have mind control for minions. That was honestly preferable to anything too steamy in a closely monitored closed beta. The fact that it also came with great combat benefits sold it. Dragon, with Deception and Luck to make a bit more of a trickster character. Fill in some rough background- he could worry about that more later, and being a shapeshifter who could lie perfectly meant nobody could really say what had or hadn't been him.

"All right, Komon. Go ahead and load me in." He paused, because the assistant had rather more life about her than most. "And thank you for your patience," he added. From the length of the customization menu, the devs had obviously put a whole lot of work into this, and addressing Komon was, in a way, addressing them.

And then he was in the game proper.

He had been wrong. Clearly, the devs had been working to save beloved family members held at gunpoint. He was a dragon. He'd gone in expecting the usual clumsy feeling of having a butt-arm and two back-shoulder-arms as the link used familiar proprioception patterns. But he didn't have a butt-arm, he had a tail. He hadn't opted into flight, since the menu had given some clarification on temporary access, but his wings definitely felt wing-like rather than more arm.

They hadn't skimped on the dragon fantasy. He was the size of an elephant more or less, but with sleek elegance befitting a panther. Mottled black scales, some very murderous claws, and a whip-like tail. "Oh, sorry. Just haven't seen body-mapping done this well before. Also had a fun time poking around character creation. It's Calvin, by the way. Going with 'Vin' to make the local name easy to remember. No extra surgery or anything for this, just some checking up on what I have, so I guess whatever they're doing can work with mid-spec pretty well." He flexed one hand's claws experimentally, looking down at them. Satisfying.

During the signup process there had been a few online meetings to focus group initial adopters, what aspects of Avalon Online they were most interested in and what they were aware of in the upcoming bestseller. After one of those meetings (one she'd missed actually), Alessandra had been direct-messaged access to a character creation database.

Without any direct context on the game she had answered a series of questions about where she would allocate her Attribute points (which seemed to be a fairly standard StrDeCoInWiCha array), and then been asked to determine the key Words that would help to define her original experience. Well. Okay then.

She entered 'Cities' and the vague soothing space on her screen had filled with a kind of English Victoriana-aesthetic city. Okay, she could work with this.

'Sky' was next, and the clouds above the city cleared to reveal enormous silver-grey balloons as the whole extended structure lifted into the clouds. She had found herself smiling in the dim light from the screen.

Okay, this could work. If all the worldshards were as diverse as the promotional material implied, this was probably the way to choose her starting zone and probably some of the early quests.

The interface wanted one more option before it would move on to character creation. Alessandra was honestly fairly happy with what she was seeing - it wasn't perfect, but what game was? She considered a few more options, then tried adding 'Night' and the sunlight around the soaring city was replaced by lamps and starlight and the cold white light of the moon.

There, that would do well.

Her character design was almost an afterthought. The cosmetics were rarely as good in the game as they were on the design screen, but in the full VR immersion you learnt to look beyond that. The freedom and the full-world experience were worth that anyway, and until the latest generation of MVS neural jacks it was a trade-off she was happy to make. Her personal rig was fairly modern, but rumour had it the full-body rigs in the MVS building were bleeding edge with full EMS support.

The details were different in places, but any of her guild mates would recognise her at a glance. A lithe, elegant build with pale hair, light leather armour were common to most of her builds in other online experiences they'd shared. She chose a few interesting jewellery pieces that caught her eye from the options and called it done.

That brought her back to the suite on the 101st floor of the MVS building, where she had been left sitting with the medical bed and the beeping machines. A bit gun-shy, she inspected the machines with an experienced eye before she leaned back and waited. The neural jack seemed standard enough, although there was an assembly she didn't recognise around its root with blinking green lights and a spiral of darker metal traced around the jack itself. The doctor came in and they walked through the document before she gave her geneprint and then laid back as the power came up. The bed came alive and shifted into a support cocoon as the jack slid into her NRS and her vision and her consciousness sank into a new synthetic universe.

Finding herself in the group now, she lifted her hand and worked her fingers before her eyes. Huh. Looked like the hype might have been justified this time. Next thing the white-haired avatar was doing a fluid approximation of the Robot. All the movements seemed to be synching well, and she looked up at the others in her group standing in the sunny grassy plain.

"Hey there it's Alley," she said (probably) superfluously. "No surgery here, but... wow, that's impressive Vin." She looked up at the enormous dragon, then poked his side experimentally with a fingertip.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:40, Wed 02 June 2021.

Alsander is not a religious man. His role in the Townie experiential bubble means he performs a farcical recreation of a Qanonysmite precursor faith, but he doesn't believe it, doesn't fear the sad looking god nailed to the wall of the reconstructed church.

No, all Alsander's holy terror is reserved for Corporate.

The journey to the building, typically hidden behind rainbows and clouds so as not to disrupt the visitor experience to the island too much, feels like a procession to his own sacrifice.
The elevator ride is an ascent to heaven's antechambers where his brain will be scooped out and weighed against loyalty to the Brand, the atoms of his soul counted and assessed. The journey is made in mute surrender.

His bright smile is a rictus that will never reach his eyes.


Login is swift and smooth and he barely looks at his build - he recalls picking something as different from life as he could manage, loosely based on his favourite SWSO fighter Iron Maiden.

He arrives in the grassy loading area with a jolt, an attack of nausea as the unfamiliar air hits him and the ground seems to writhe under feet that feel... detached. Cut off and sewn back on, barely vascular, strangely humming. He flails and falls and staggers until a cold clarity settles over him.
He can feel throbbing generators, the hiss of hydraulics under taut, chemically preserved skin.

Slowly he recovers his feet. A black cloak constructs itself from simple nanofabricators that lurk in his personal EM field.

He turns an inky black gaze on the others present, seeing them for the first time. Silently absorbing them like the vacuum of space. Somewhere a man in a hospital bed is sick and sweating with anxiety over meeting strangers unscripted.

Koriban Brood's dessicated lips peel back from carbon-fibre fangs, a rictus that will never reach his eyes.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:25, Thu 03 June 2021.

There wasn’t much need for Lexi to give any last minute thoughts her character, be that her appearance or her build. She’d spent more than enough time in the days and weeks beforehand weighing up her options, balancing out comfort and familiarity with the desire to meet this new frontier with something fresh. It would’ve been all too easy to garb herself in a familiar face once more – perhaps Maerathyl the wildwood mage or starpriest Yndari – but instead she’d found herself wanting something more solid. That her guildmates tended to prefer finesse and keeping their distance to proper front-liners might just have gone some way towards influencing her decision too.

So had the noble Saraya Brightheart sprung to life.

Running through the last few checks before taking the plunge, Lexi couldn’t help but feel a creeping sense of uncertainty. Maybe it was being under close observation or just last minute jitters but things just didn’t seem quite right. She found herself making micro-adjustments to the smallest of details, shifting colours by degrees and checking symbols were absolutely centred, before biting the bullet and forcing herself to admit that no, everything was already what she wanted - close enough anyway. She’d presumably be able to tinker in-game if anything really got on her nerves later on.

Smiling – forcing herself to smile – she okayed her choices, and then Saraya Brightheart really did spring to life.

---

Stepping out into someone else’s body (that was also your body) was always a novel experience – it never got old. That it let her enjoy being taller, stronger, more was also a big plus in Lexi’s books. Between that and the (vaguely) familiar faces awaiting her on the other side she couldn’t help but let that smile drift somewhere more genuine. Maybe MVS was merrily dredging through their brains right now but at least the company was good.

Lexi drank in their surrounds, the towering dragon and the techno-gothic nightmare, with something like wonder and found herself nodding in agreement with Alley. “Feeling a little shown up here,” she smirked, all good-natured cheer. “You're making me regret keeping things simple.”
This message was last edited by the player at 21:08, Fri 04 June 2021.

Vin looked smug, stretching leisurely. "I did pick up something for human forms, so we won't need to worry about the sci-fi plots trying to cram a dragon in and so on," he said, waving a claw. His tail curled around suddenly, poking Alley back. "I'm not exactly a connoisseur, but if this is the level of detail they put into an optional subsystem, they're gonna have a hard time getting me out of here when they're done with the testing. Hmm. Definitely going to need to clear some subscriptions for this once the actual release comes out," he mused. "Anybody else do something they like with their build?"

  "I was pretty proud of the light show," muses Mirima, through a demihuman skin that absolutely screams "the #shadows ancestry". She reaches out experimentally toward the nearby stream, and immediately a section a meter across begins also flowing through the bank twice that far to the side, reproduced perfectly without the water apparently coming from or going anywhere. She waves at the skeleton.

  "Hi newbie. Do you like the light show?" In case she hadn't already made her point, she points up at a flock of starlings overhead, and they immediately burst out of her, heading the same direction they had been. But now their feathers are all black and pointed the wrong way, making them look larger and furry.

  "I had it set up so I could spy on people from long range, then show up as part of the bolt of lightning that strikes them."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:59, Sat 05 June 2021.

Adrian was impressed with the quality of the virtual assistants voice, how lifelike and emotive it was. In truth that was what captured the lion's share of his focus and he spent more than a little bit of time thinking over how they had accomplished it rather than actually listening to what the AI, what Komon, had actually said. Coming to the realization that the assistant was waiting on him to do...something he sheepishly had Komon repeat her instructions.

It was fairly routine to have players confirm that they were going into the game with the build they intended. Adrian himself had stated out an undead, of a kind. He was still largely humanoid, save the phantasmal flames that seemed to have replaced his blood, with pallor gray skin, ashen white eyes, and short raven black hair. In his own estimation his avatar was pretty handsome but he had a fairly slanted view on aesthetics so it was really anyone's guess.

All the same he accepted and entered the game, the rest of the team having already gathered.

"Did I miss anything important?"

The white-haired woman gasped and then laughed as the tail poked her in the stomach. Prehensile, very nice!

That made her wonder if...

She frowned and half-bent forwards, and two great wings of translucent azure light drove out through her back, bating as she straightened up. That felt different, not the energy prosthetics she'd expected. She could feel the air brushing against feathers she hadn't had before, on skin that didn't normally feel the wind. She flexed experimentally and her wings beat once.

She smiled at Vin, "Well, I can race you in the sky sometime - maybe go for some aerial kareoke and see if we can hear each other over the wind?"

Alley checked out Mirima's show as well, putting her weight over to one foot and clapping. "If he doesn't, I do. Nice tricks, can't wait to see you do the lightning thing too. That should make fast travel a cinch as well, at least as long as you don't get caught in an escort quest."

Her lips twitched in memory. Some things had never changed from the primitive days of RPG computer gaming, well before her birth.

A gesture toward a nearby tree resulted in a small branch being neatly severed from the whole. It clattered through other branches on its way toward the ground as Alvin - Vaxilion - scowled at it. "That was not fire," he said. A few other gestures resulted in no effects.

He looked at his pale hand as if it had betrayed him for a moment. He also didn't recall setting his skin tone to be quite so... faded.

"I'm not sure my build loaded correctly," he concluded. Komon had told him a verbal phrase to bring up the menu, rather than a gesture as he had expected. "Access menu," he said to the air, addressing the system. "Let's see what's up."

  "Yeah, same here. That would have been the lightning bolt trick." Mirima nods in Adrian's direction, still looking up at the sky. "But everything's... garbled. I didn't know what that would do, really, but I knew it wouldn't be lightning."

  She looks down finally, to glare at the guilty index finger, but it seems to yield no answers. Once, briefly, something like recognition crosses her features, but it's quickly swallowed up again. She shrugs.

  "Definitely made us both spookier, too. There's no way for us to check that for being random, tragically. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind being the most stereotypical evil sorceress ever conceived." She pauses a fraction of a second too long, after the emphasis, before resuming so precisely the '-ved" was still finishing. "—in the slightest. But it's absolutely some kind of glitch. Ohhh—! I was hoping this would be a fun beta and it. is starting. sowell!"

"Accessing menu."

Alvin's surroundings fade to the grey menu page. On it, he can pull up his build and find that it doesn't at all seem to be what he put in. After a moment, he finds that it was changed prior to logging in, with the changes registered to his own account.

"Maybe a glitch," Alvin agreed tentatively, scrolling through his current character build and briefly examining the abilities to get an idea of what they did. "Maybe not?

"This says I changed build settings sometime before login, but, of course, I did no such thing. Could it be a bug? I guess. Could be a dev hack too, I guess. Though I don't know why - and why they'd use my credentials to do it instead of a dev account." This, his guildmates knew, was fairly consistent behavior - speculating out loud about things they didn't really have enough data to form sound theories about.

He shrugged, "Hard to say either way without talking to a GM or something. I suppose its not impossible that I accidentally hit some sort of randomization function, though these abilities are a little to thematically consistent to be random picks."

Alvin scrolled around to examine other menu options. He was a little curious as to what sort of settings were available to such a full-sensory experience as this. He also wasn't sure how they were intended to submit bugs or otherwise provide feedback, so he kept an eye out for a menu option for that as well.

"Was sort of expecting a more classic fire-and-lightning sort of caster experience," he admitted. "But I'm not adverse to seeing what some of these abilities do instead. Re-rolling would probably take too long."

Adrian looked at the apparent glitches that his fellow players were experiencing and frowned.

"That's unfortunate. We should definitely keep note of that. Definitely pull the timestamp for the error reporting. Should help them search through the event logs."

"Or wait. You think the error logging is automated during the beta? I'm still not sure how much of the game is going to be fully autonomous yet."

Realizing that he wasn't actually talking to any in particular he stopped talking and instead starting looking around as his surroundings. After a cursory glance he offered a general question.

"So...where to now?"

Just rezzed in and already there were glitches. Alley shook her head, already mentally rehearsing lines in her comments. And overwriting Vaxilion's character setup wasn't amazing either, whoever or however they'd done that.

"I hope so..." she said thoughtfully, then had an idea.

"Komon, bug report," she tried. "Character Vaxilion build settings not as originally designed by player. Possible data corruption. End report."

It might work. Or maybe she'd just wasted her time talking to the air.

She couldn't think of anything she'd done differently, but her build seemed to mostly be functioning as designed. She pointed her toes and her wings beat powerfully, lifting her inches off the ground. She was flying!

"Does anyone know what settings are open to us? There was a city backdrop in my character creation, but I don't know if that was a real place or just background."

There should be some variety on the Plane of Endless Green.

Vin laughed a little, flapping his wings. "Sure, I'd be happy to try out flying. I have to confess, though... I didn't have enough points to get it as a permanent buy; I have to get it as a temporary buy. As far whether my build goes, I don't know- most of my stuff focused on NPC interaction. But I also didn't prep anything beforehand; I just built off of what was available from the extensive in-game menu." Vin looked over curiously at the others who were having issues. "I mean, I at least loaded in as a dragon. Oh, that's the one thing I can try easily." A moment later, he was a human. Clothed, fortunately. Next, another human. And finally, back to a dragon to make sure that all worked. "Working so far on my end, Komon."

Seeing the bug reports already start to pile up Lexi couldn't help but click her tongue. So it was only a beta build and it was their very job to catch stuff like this, but she'd certainly assumed the devs would have gone out of their way to make a good first impression, especially after all the effort put into character creation. Hard not to start having doubts about just how immersive this sim might be if its unfinished nature was already starting to show.

Shrugging off any rising doubts, she brought a fist up and willed a bold golden aura into being about it. That brought a smile to her face. Lexi amused herself a moment moving her arm through forms, watching that energy trail and solidify like molten gold, before waving it away with a flick of her hand, the power dissipating like sparks on the wind. "I haven't got the best kit to test things out here, mostly social and reactive defence - think parries, but I think everything is as it should be. I did keep things pretty close to one of the presets though, so it might just be that I played it safe enough not to hit any trouble. Hard to say."

"All seems to be fine for me, Komon," she told the air. Adrian's question had left an impression though. Lexi's eyes flicked his way and then back to the nebulous 'up' before her. "So Komon ... is this supposed to be the starting zone or is it just some tutorial space and you're waiting to hear we're happy to move on?"

  While the others sort out their thoughts about the initialization, Mirima silently steps through the gestural and cognitive triggers for the abilities she does have. That cocky yago gave her a scare, and she absolutely meant to burn some secrecy to express her pique. But from all appearances, her new kit is at least as complete as the one she picked. She smiles in the fourth way and folds her component asura tightly down until they vanish into empty maya. A commission then. Well.

  "Mm, leave me out of those, yeah? Aidan can bring it to immediate attention. I'll see if my later advances are corrupted in the same way so I can give them something more complete. You know how I love mistakes!" And their friend does, indeed, look excited by the prospect. She presses her palms together and stamps one foot, and a circle of runes expands nearly two meters from her feet. In reality, the shifting of the glyphs is probably race conditions and a corrupted textures file, but the VR is very effective at presenting it as a creeping blasphemy against Sight itself.

  "So we want to head out of here? Anybody who can't fly, I have us covered." Blades of grass thicken into thorns along vines that erupt from the loose soil and wind around her ankles. Something is whispering in Andarrea's voice, but it can't be her: she's talking. "Shouldn't even need to unlock fast travel. There's already a note on these about not updating terrain costs properly. Just give me a few seconds."

"No bug is detected; the build notes were entered by your account. If you believe your account's security compromised, please contact an administrator immediately. And this is a tutorial area to introduce basic RPG mechanics. Would you like to skip the tutorial?"

Adrian listened and watched, much to his dismay, as Mirima attempted to cast a spell of some kind. It was frankly the most unsettling thing he'd had the misfortune of witnessing in a VR game. Not only did it seem like a glitch given form it decided that moving and shifting was a good idea. Still so long as it did what it was supposed to he'd let it go.

"Thanks Mirima. My kit does not have flight in it and I'm not likely to get it anytime soon. I've always been a fan of mounts and fast-travel myself."

He looked up idly into the sky for a moment.

"Might make myself something nice this time around. Pretty sure one of my powers is just the crafting interface fully unlocked with a gutted GUI."

He then heard the voice of Komon speaking to the group and a frown spread out over his face. His tone, however, seemed almost reverent.

"Komon just used a conjunction. It just combined distinct requests from separate players into a single response. Even layered in a prompt. That's sick."

"So are we doing the tutorial or no?"

Alsander listens to the conversation with a blend of detached apathy and mounting, terrified confusion.

They don't talk like Guests. He doesn't have any scripts for this interaction.

"I'd like to," he says meekly, in reply to the other spookily-themed player's question. "If it's not too much trouble. I've never played a game this advanced before. But if that's not convenient I understand!" His tone brightens; this is slightly more familiar territory. "You can just leave me here while you explore and enjoy your stay; you can..." he starts to trail off, a handful of protocols warring in his head. "..find assistance wherever you go, probably. Uhm."

Despite the shift in tone he continues to grin and maintain eye contact.

Adrian looks to Alsander and meets his eyes before giving the player a curt nod.

"No trouble at all. If anything it's probably a good idea to do the tutorial. It's pretty clear that the game has some serious bugs that need sorting. We wouldn't be fulfilling our role as playtesters if we didn't run the whole game through its paces."

He looked around the group, seeing if they agreed with him.

"Besides. Nothing could be as bad as Gloomhammer's tutorial.¹"


¹Random worldbuilding tidbit: Gloomhammer was an early attempt at 'gritty realism' in immersive VR that took things too far. Tutorial involved a unskippable high pain threshold torture sequence.

  "Khupha¡"

  Mirima drops a palm and sweeps it outward, releasing the magic circle to hide itself behind the world again, where such things belong.  Her dress flutters through itself a bit when she turns back to the others and gives Alsander a sharp nod.  "Then a tutorial you shall have.  Always a way in."  It sounds as though she's reciting something.  She looks up.

  "Komon, proceed with tutorial scenario, semantic register option personnel—"  Plum lips peel back into open-mouthed laughter, but the noise that comes out is mixed screeching and burbling pure tones.  It's brief, mercifully. "—Atma-Rath the Incisor, Denes protocol sixth rank, initialize special three, Saraya Brightheart."  She laughs to vent anticipation and looks around at some distance.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 22:03, Fri 11 June 2021.

Vin shakes his head. "Pretty sure 'nothing can be as bad as Gloomhammer's tutorial' is legally enforced now. And I'm pretty sure Komon's input is going to be sanitized? This is beta, not alpha, after all," he added, looking down a little dubiously at Mirima. It was awfully specific, though, and you didn't really hack stuff by voice. It sounded like a backdoor for permissions elevation; he supposed that kind of thing probably would get left around until dev tools got deactivated. How the heck did she have that? "But you seem to know what you're doing. Heh, they got a good deal, getting you in to try breaking things before release."

A flicker of light is the only warning before a spider of darkness appears. It is blacker than black, the black of a moonless night underground. It has too many legs, long and angular and needle-thin, with more appearing and disappearing from moment to moment. Looking at it hurts one's head, an icepick headache in the temporal region, and when it speaks, the sound is even worse, a screeching static buzz of tangled half-sounds and almost-language. [Language unknown: Theta al etle llasou t ome? Lin u es to onsandent?]

It skitters forward without moving its legs and leaps at Saraya Brightheart, fangs the size of soda cans extending to be the size of two-liter bottles before snapping down at the woman.

Attack of 13 and damage of 4 HD.

"¡Pon mucha crema en tus tacos!" Alley laughed, thumbing her nose at Mirima as she did her vocaudial hack. All shocks aside she was fairly sure Saraya had this, but why should she get all the fun?

Folding her wings in close to her back - it felt natural and intuitive now, great interface - she dove fast and fiercely towards the horrible spider thing. Reaching out, she felt the air thicken in the shadow of her wings, flowing through her fingertips like silk. She pinched it, plucking razor-sharp blades of that shadow out of the air and flicking them down into the spider-thing's rear quarters.

Sapphire wings opened and beat down once powerfully as she shot back up into the skies. Flight was the best, wasn't it? She could tell already that she was going to spend some time just exploring the skies in this game once it released properly.

10:22, Today: Alessandra Ramirez rolled 3 using 1d10.  Knives of Night.

"Babbling spider for the tutorial. Not going after the arachnophobe dollars, I guess," Vin says, rushing forward and taking a swing with his claws experimentally at the creature. The result was… unimpressive, to say the least. Proprioception might be all on board, but that was still a long way from being fighting-fit. It was harder than he'd expected, balancing on three limbs while attacking with the fourth. "Okay, glad we went for the tutorial…"

There had been a gentle prompt that he'd ignored- tapping into his daily Luck ability for a middling result. That might do for a tutorial spider next time.

So this was happening.

Lexi instinctively stepped back – there was a giant spider lunging for her, of course she did! - until it suddenly and starkly hit home that this wasn’t real. That was to say that it was real but a reality where the old rules didn’t apply; a reality where even threats like this existed to be overcome. That and also the monster was probably (?) some kind of tutorial obstacle if it was summonable in the starting zone like this, so clearly it couldn’t be all that bad…

She steadied herself. Saraya steadied herself.  A lighter fighter might have stepped aside, but as the strike came in she stood her ground, planted her feet and refused to move. She raised her arm to meet the fangs and that molten golden power burst forth at a thought, a shining shield about her arm where an eyeblink before there had been nothing. Even with all that weight and force behind it the spider found no purchase on her – immovable object meeting eminently resistible force – and the blow merely skimmed the surface of her shield, turned aside.

Her own counterpunch followed through, but a greathammer wasn’t exactly an ideal weapon for striking at such close distance. It might be nigh impossible to miss so large a target at that range, but without enough room to really bring the weapon to bear it was only ever going to be a glancing blow.

“Could always have one of those optional filters in the finished game,” she called back over her shoulder, voice strained but bright. “Make them look like giant cats or something.”

---

OOC:
Just illustrating the spider's failed attack and making a regular attack of my own.
Alexandra Barker rolled 22 using 1d20+2.  Standard Attack Roll.
Alexandra Barker rolled 3 using 1d10+1.  Damage Roll.

  Mirima made no move to intervene.  At first, it was clearly a matter of shock.  She stared at the emergence of an actual foe in response to that gibberish with more suprise than anyone else.  After all, she knew best that she'd been just making it up.  But something appeared to answer, anyway, and it takes until after the thing has leapt into battle with the more martial set that she recovers her wits.

  And then she laughs.  She laughs like Triumph and Satisfaction alike.  And for the second or two before she stops laughing, the voice is absolutely not the one from ordinary comms.

  Andarrea makes no move to intervene.  She does reach out and tug at a faint impression of strings that appears for the purpose, causing the creature to stumble when three of its legs suddenly translate sideways.  It's enough that a forelimb coming for the dragon falls short, but she leaves it alone after confirming that much.  She seems much more interested in just watching how the fight plays out.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:29, Wed 23 June 2021.

Adrian looks at the spider of darkness appear, seemingly from nowhere, and frowns to himself at the game breaking immersion so quickly. He'd have expected the spider to have burst from hidden burrow or at least materialized from gathering shadows. This thing had just sort of glitched itself into reality. He was also sort of disappointed that he couldn't understand the thing, unsure if he simply lacked the skill or if its speech algorithm was broken. Still as the others took to slaughtering the thing he considered his own options. His kit was built more towards making lasting changes within the world rather than fighting. So he silently observed while drawing the earth up into a spear that he clutched in one hand, prepared to fight should the need arise.

"You got this?" Alvin asked the others. He still had the menu open and started poking at the interface to close it, unsure if that also required a verbal command or not.

He took a few steps back from the creature and the combat anyway to get himself out of harm's way while he fumbled to get the menus closed. "I don't immediately see a filtering option," he added. "Though I sort of wish I did."

He scanned over the abilities he had somehow gained again as he groped around for a 'close' or 'cancel' or just a red x to get the menu out of his vision. I can probably kill this thing if I have to, he thought as he read through the short descriptions again.

The spider is pierced with darkness and struck by a hammer, and as the second blow crushes its carapace, it crumples, its limbs flailing, as it utters another staticky cry.[Language unknown: Roekus, E ad ine t conyinurehatrom.]

It falls still, its flesh rapidly distorting and melting away.

"This was a nonstandard encounter. Filing bug report...filed. Tutorial combat section completed. There is a river in each domain of the Avalon network, allowing for travel between domains. In some domains, the river may be able to access only specific domains, or it may be unavailable until some task is completed. Please advance to the river when you are ready to continue. Thank you for your patience." Komon's voice sounds quietly concerned as she says that the encounter was nonstandard, as though she is worried about your safety despite how swiftly the spider-like being was dispatched.

  After a few seconds with nothing else happening, Mirima cackles aloud. She may have decided to stay in character, though the laughter sounds sincere enough.

  "It did a thing! Shit, I wonder if every bad joke will do something real." She glances back at the rest of the group and corrects herself a moment later. "Well, not real exactly, but you know what I'm saying. It produced a distinct change in the environment. And one that still responded to me! I'll have to try that when there's not an ordinary instance to overflow."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:57, Tue 29 June 2021.

Adrian looked at the twitching corpse of the spiderling and then watched with detached curiosity as it broke apart, sinking back into the ground.

"Did you all get any notifications for the kill? Loot drops?"

He wasn't exactly sure what to expect if he was to be honest. While the nondisclosure agreement had been very exacting the actual details of the game were less forthcoming. Still with Komon's instructions he looked to the mount that had been summoned and climbed atop it.

"I guess our next destination is the river."

Vin shrugged, and shrank down to a human form, giving his arms a stretch after. "Well, it was a non-standard fight. They might also want to cut down on immersion breaks. Lots of reasons to not throw a fanfare- leveling and loot might be more quest or achievement based." He looked over at Mirima, shaking his head. "Seriously, busting up the tutorial? I'm impressed."

He started towards the river, looking with interest. "Different domains sounds cool. Lots of smaller worlds, rather than one big open world? It's been a bit since I've seen anybody really go for that." It used to be a loading trick. It seemed like any time game technology leapt forward, there was some catch-up period where smaller maps came into style before reaching the 'open world' part of the cycle again. He couldn't imagine trying to run anything as big as, say, a VR city with this level of detail.

Finally closing the menus, Alvin - Vaxilion - rejoined the conversation. "The domains could be pretty big too if they procedurally generate them or use similar automated generation for each of them," Vaxilion said. Though system capability and capacity of computing systems could be a factor, he thought, as Vin did. He frowned at the spot where the creature had disappeared. "Still, the possibility of glitching creatures with voice commands is a disturbing one. I wouldn't expect dev-level command processing to be verbal."

He also started heading for the river, curious as to how they'd use it to get from place to place. Hopefully there'd be a boat, but he'd be somehow unsurprised if they had to cut down trees to make their own, or just swim. He hoped they wouldn't have to swim - adventuring clothing in games was usually elaborate enough to be heavy, particularly if there was any armor or other metal incorporated. "Any bets on a boat?" he asked as they moved. "Gondola, catamaran, sailboat, canoe?"

Moving over the next hill, a slow river rolls along just on the other side, with a raft moored at it. The air flickers with something akin to a heat haze just downstream.

  "I'll bet twenty on a raft," remarks their gray friend once the raft comes into view. Immediately, she lets our a triumphant laugh and extends a hand toward Vax. "Pay up, casual! Hey, you guys think we have to be on the raft to go through the zone transition, or just cross that space?"

  "Actually, you know what?" She starts down the hill towards the waiting raft. "Let's not crash the tutorial zone in the first hour. C'mon."

Adrian nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah probably best to give the devs a break after that whole spider situation."

He then moved onto the raft, looking for a prompt or some indication of what to do next.

As the group moves onto the raft, it proves quite easy to unmoor and guide downstream through the wavering air. As you pass through that spot, the world fades to black, and the Avalon Online logo blazes silver against the backdrop.

"Welcome to Avalon." Komon's voice has a certain degree of pride.

An instant later, the world fades in again, showing a bend of river against a forested hill. A cave opening at the bottom of the hill opens into what looks like a cave that has been slightly expanded by manual labor. A path winds up from the shore along the hill to a campsite, already set up with a campfire burning outside of a few tents. There's a good stock of wood laid in, and some empty crates and chests, but no other supplies.

"Welcome to your campsite. This domain will serve as your home base as you explore the Avalon network, providing a safe place to rest and recording your achievements. Keep an eye out for changes in this domain as you accomplish various tasks in the other domains of Avalon. Now, would you like to rest and explore your campsite, or may I recommend other domains for you to visit?"

Vin looks around, smiling broadly. It was a good deal less menacing in human form. "It looks lovely. I love the relaxing base camp idea." And it sounded like changes here would show up as quest rewards? It beat a generic achievement system.  "Personally, I'm inclined to get into the meat of things. If this is the base camp, it'll be nice to unwind here after playing a bit. Unless anybody objects?" He took a look around, checking. "At the very least, I'd love to hear what some of the recommended starting worlds are."

Adrian listened to Komon speak and moved about the campsite.

"A personal domain huh? How interesting. I guess the territory control features are more integrated into the game. Or perhaps this is more like personal housing?"

He wasn't sure but he knew that it would be revealed to him eventually. Instead he considered what Komon had just said about exploring the area or recommending other domains. Speaking aloud so that the rest of the group could hear his thoughts he replied.

"I'm with Calvin. I'd like to hear about the other domains that we can visit."

He then looked to the others in the group.

"Once I rank up I can drop a whole wizard's tower here. Comes with servants and everything."

  Andarrea stays on the raft, seated with her feet in the water. The water behind it churns, where it piles up and has to flow around the stationary section below. "Let's hear it, Komon. I didn't connect to nap in the woods."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:53, Thu 22 July 2021.

"Certainly. The following domains are available to access immediately: Halson's Quay, House, Stormwall, Entomos, Arianus, Cloudhall, Arcadia, the Great Forest, Kitchen, Dark River, and Ouriopolis. Additional information on each has been entered into your logs, if you would like to consult it further."

The log information has the following to say:

Halson's Quay is a swamp village, not known for being welcoming to outsiders. Though it seems an insular place of little note, it has a dark secret, and much can be learned here...for a price.

House is a vast mansion in a world where the notion of an outside holds no weight and the corridors go on forever. Staircases lead to nowhere, doors open onto walls, and pillars hold up a ceiling so distant it's out of sight. Though largely uninhabited, those few who call this place home live by scavenging food from the kitchens and dining rooms.

Stormwall is a city under siege by a goblinoid force which demands greater rights and a cessation of raids into the wilds where they make their homes. These demands have been met with scorn by the ruling elite of Stormwall and the kingdom of Arcadia as a whole, and as such the goblins have marched to war.

Entomos is a research domain, built to study insects. It allows player characters to interact with these creatures at their own scale, effectively reducing their size to the point that insects are equals in size rather than inferiors.

Arianus is a world of islands, but they aren't in the water. Rather, built on levitating stone, they float in an endless expanse of sky. Water is precious, with the only real source being a flow of it from the sky at the center of the domain. Battles over water and other resources are common, and take place from the backs of dragons or on airships.

Cloudhall is a city built on clouds, designed as a reference to the video games of its creators' youth which featured clouds as bouncy surfaces that could be walked upon. It is inhabited by many air elementals and related creatures.

Arcadia is the capital city of the kingdom of the same name, which is the primary kingdom of the fantasy setting portions of the network. It is a cosmopolitan city, and creatures of all sorts make their homes there.

The Great Forest is a world of vast trees, trees so vast that whole cities can be built on the moss sheets that drape between enormous branches. Lakes pool where rainfall collects, and the sun shines always down upon it. To the locals the idea of a ground is all but unheard of, as reaching it would require a long trip down the trees - and the lower one goes, the more dangerous the world becomes.

Kitchen is a cartoon world focusing on the anthropomorphized inhabitants of a twentieth century kitchen, in which everything is animated. Each night, a war plays out between the inhabitants of the kitchen and the refrigerator, where the wealthy elite live.

Dark River is a world of no light, where none can see at all. Navigation is entirely by touch and sound. There is a river of flowing air that can carry people along, and the world's physics work differently than is usual. As one might expect, there are things lurking in the dark, and it is not always easy to tell whether the person one is talking to is a friend or just a stolen voice.

Ouropolis is a city of the future, built on a huge space station orbiting a blasted planet. It has highly advanced technology and resources, but is largely crippled by the intense feuding among the upper classes. Lower class citizens live out normal lives, surrounded by the neon and noise of a spacefaring culture. Note: Most technology from Ouropolis and other science fiction domains does not function outside of its home domain.