"AIDAN, adjust the highlights on this tuft of hair to be more raspberry than strawberry, and can it be a little fluffier?"
"Shelby, this process could proceed much faster if you adjusted these options using the mental interface. In the interest of having you play Starchaser before the preview period ends, I am going to temporarily disable voice commands."
She scowled. That was easy for him to say. He had a savant-like sense of what the fine difference between raspberries and strawberries was that she couldn't put into words. Well, thoughts, but still.
Shelby squinted hard at the fringe of her newest character's wavy shag. She had made three rabbits before she learned that the "Hair" option meant haircuts, not just fur. Poor Carrot Cake was practically bald! AIDAN assured her that haircuts could be changed or added at any major city, but the shame was overwhelming. Now she had to research rabbit hats, and AIDAN seemed to be suspiciously hesitant to discuss that topic. This rabbit was going to make up for all the lost opportunities by sporting a wonderful cream and berry hair color motif. Her latest masterpiece. As she concentrated on the idea of a raspberry, the rabbit's highlights shifted to a slightly darker red.
With her hands framing the scene like a director, Shelby paced around the character until she gave a nod, "Great, I think we've got another winner."
"Confirmed. Registering character Caramel Latte as a Daizi Brushcourser. Proceed?" a distant voice responded.
AIDAN had taken to wandering around the campfire area while Shelby worked on her characters. It turned out the area changed as more characters were added, and now there were several groups of her characters hanging around the small meadow. She hadn't planned on making more than a few more rabbit characters. Shelby had seen a Brushcourser player very early in the night, and she had wanted to make one for herself immediately. She had logged out and gone straight back into the character creation menu, but then she noticed that there was a capybara Daizi. So, she made a Daizi Briarknight with the most adorable, serene face. She was curious about what other rodents she was missing out on, so she came back and made a pika priest, er, a Seedsage. It wasn't long before she learned about the cat people, the Nerki, and took 30 minutes to build out a family scratching tree. Then it was on to the plant folk, Antha, and before she realized it she had 16 characters. But none of them were rabbits with hair.
She took one last look and then approved the character. Her vision faded out and came back to a now familiar sight: a bird’s eye view of a thorny shrub and vine-choked peninsula. The camera began to swoop towards a small, overgrown town near the center, but she was already thinking skip, skip, as fast as she could. Her character stepped out from a small subterranean den, where she had just gone through some sort of introduction to the town's chief. It had been over an hour since she last watched the cutscene, but she still remembered something about her character being a rare visitor from distant lands. She would figure it out as she went. She had learned early on that she could save a good ten minutes on her character making loop if she bypassed the introductory movie.
She mentally braced for the persistently strange sensation of having her perception shrink down to a much shorter point of view. She had just been inhabiting the roughly human-sized Antha for the last four iterations, so her brain buzzed slightly as she got used to the new sensation. Or, rather, the new entire body. She stretched her short arms up above her head and enjoyed the gentle sunlight streaming in through the canopy of thorny vines woven over the town. She guessed the game runners had shifted the world's clock so that the preview event would take place mostly in daylight because the sky had gone from a gentle lilac morning glow early in the night to what now felt like just after midday. The stars never did stop shining. She yawned. She must have stayed in here much longer than she intended to, because she was starting to feel a deep tiredness that made concentrating difficult.
She called for AIDAN and the small helper orb floated in from nowhere to lend his assistance. She smiled at him, "Well done AIDAN! We finally got the bunny of our dreams. Now I think I should probably close the game and get some shut eye before I end up sleeping through my test tomorrow."
AIDAN's murky insides flickered with flame as he mulled over something unsaid, and then reported back with most inflection she had ever heard from him. He sounded perplexed, "Unfortunately I am having trouble communicating with the user desynchronization process at the moment, so I can't allow you to exit the game."
Shelby laughed, "you can't allow me? I can just shut down the game, right?"
AIDAN vibrated softly, "I can't allow you to do that either, or rather, it can't be done at all without my assistance. Forcing the immersive virtual reality environment of Starchaser to quit unexpectedly can have severe adverse effects on the user."
Shelby narrowed her eyes, "How severe?"
AIDAN's voice nearly tripled in speed as he blurted out a string of medical legalese, "Users may experience dizziness, nausea, prolonged loss of motor function, anxiety, depression, chronic indigestion, hemorrhagic infarcts, seizures, stroke, coma, paralysis, and in some rare cases, locked in syndrome or brain death."
Shelby blinked several times, speechless.
AIDAN continued, returning to a normal speaking cadence, "Although your synchronization with the game is not currently at the highest value, I am still restricted by mandatory safeguards that disallow my access to the game exit system until you have viewed the desynchronization sequence."
Shelby rolled her eyes, "Okay, then show me the sequence thing."
"The desynchronization sequence appears to be inaccessible at this moment."
"AIDAN, I really need to sleep," Shelby groaned.
"I apologize Shelby. This is an unusual circumstance. It may be the case that systems are undergoing temporary maintenance, but I cannot confirm this at the moment."
"Okay... then, what should I do?" This was the longest Shelby had spent piloting a character in about two hours and she was starting to feel twitchy, like she needed badly to hop.
"I would suggest either waiting for an update or sleeping in one of the game's simulated bedroom environments."
"You can sleep, like, in the game?" Shelby looked incredulous.
"Yes, sleeping within the game will induce a sleep-like state in the user's real body as well," AIDAN said, then his voice sped up again, "doctors recommend that users make sparing use of this feature as it has not been thoroughly tested in controlled conditions and is not approved by the FDA."
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
I really should have read that user license agreement, Shelby thought, what did Tara drag me into... speaking of... Shelby commanded the system menu to pop up. She had used it earlier in the night to check the time and respond to an email from her study partner. This time, however, it failed to materialize. She was getting a little frustrated. Message Tara. SOS. Alexa, send for help. Nothing? Please...?
She slumped, "Okay, I guess I'll goof around for a bit and hope the thing comes back online so I can go sleep in my human bed instead of on a big pile of carrots."
AIDAN didn't respond, but the embers inside of his core were still churning furiously.
She shrugged and started walking towards the center of the plaza she had started in. It was ringed by half-buried burrows and small shops, and it had a lush, garden-like feel. Almost every window had a planter box crowded with leafy greens and the rough cobblestones under her feet were thoroughly overgrown with soft, pale green grass. The kind you might put in a green drink or a healthy smoothie. It felt soft against her bare rabbit feet.
A notification box drifted up as she neared a set of stairs cut into a grassy slope:
Welcome to Starchaser!
You are in Copperglade, the starting area for the Daizi peoples. It is recommended that new players begin by completing a brief tutorial. Since this is not your first time playing Starchaser you may skip the tutorial if you wish. A small reward will be offered for those who choose to participate.
Skip the tutorial?
[ Yes ] [ No ]
Ye-, I mean not yes! No! Do the tutorial!
Quest: Copperglade Tutorial
Welcome to the tutorial. This short mission will introduce you to the basics of playing Starchaser. Please start by familiarizing yourself with the map system and using it to navigate the world around you.
Objective: Open your map and proceed to the highlighted area to continue.
Shelby, basically an expert at thinking at this point, easily opened the map by concentrating on the word "map". A semi-transparent circle appeared at the top right of her field of vision. She could see the basic representation of the village around her, a green and white arrow that she assumed represented her position, and a series of pulsing orange dots leading up the stairs. She couldn't see the aforementioned 'highlighted area', and to her surprise the map zoomed outwards as she wondered about the discrepancy. The area was just beyond the stairs in what looked like an open grassy area. Easy enough.
She tromped up the stairs and, still feeling like she could flop over and fall asleep right then and there, took a left towards a small park. There were some martial training objects arranged at random in the field, complete with the kinds of wooden swords made from two nailed together planks you might see in a kids' movie. There were also a handful of mannequins made from logs and bundles of hay that had thin stick arms spread wide. They also had wooden rabbit ears. Incredible world building.
You have completed your objective.
You have been awarded 10 experience towards the Brushcourser class.
Quest: Copperglade Tutorial has updated.
This is training field will allow you to experiment with your class weapons and become comfortable with the combat system. Combat is an essential skill for adventurers.
Objective: Strike three training dummies with your primary weapon to continue.
Shelby felt along her cloak and found the short bowstring digging into her shoulder and chest. Even though the string was tight against her body, she barely felt it. The game must be preventing me from feeling too uncomfortable. She removed the bow and it settled in her hand naturally, as if she held a bow every day of her life. She reached ineffectually over her shoulder for an arrow a few times before she had to crane her neck and spin in a small circle to snatch one. That was a little less natural...
She shut one eye and stared down one of the dummies a few yards in front of her. She pulled back on the bow and released the arrow with a flourish. It sailed over a shingled roof to her right, followed by the sound of pottery breaking and a small voice crying out in alarm. She gritted her teeth. AIDAN, who had been silently hovering nearby, offered a small piece of advice, "you will need to manually aim your weapon, Shelby."
Shelby pouted. Weren't these games supposed to do that kind of stuff for you? You just clicked on the bad guy and blam! right? Her hand found a second arrow with a little more grace this time. She slung the arrow inside the bow and lined it up with the dummy, using one eye to sight it. It was awkward to find a good angle where she could hold the bow taut and aim, but eventually she settled on a stance that was partially askew from her unwitting victim. She released again, and although she was aiming for the chest, the arrow sunk into the dummy's firewood thigh and then the arrow slipped out of the tiny indent it had made and tumbled to the ground. A white "2" floated away from the point of impact.
After taking minor damage from the arrow, a thin red line appeared over the dummy's head. Shelby started to take aim at the dummy again, but then she noticed a small progress box had appeared just beneath the map:
Dummies struck: 1/3
She turned to another dummy that was 5 or so yards away and released the arrow. It took another 3 missed shots before she decided to walk right up to the dummy and shot it in the head from point blank range. Sorry chum, but you never stood a chance. This time a "3" popped out instead.
She wanted to test the definition of "struck" in her mission log, so she roughed up the final dummy by hitting it across the back with the curve of her bow, but that apparently didn't qualify. It didn't cause any damage either. Sighing, she nocked one last arrow and left it vibrating a few centimeters deep into the dummy's posterior. Her eyes were feeling seriously bleary after all this dummy demolishing, so she shouted over her shoulder at AIDAN, "Any luck?"
He took a good three seconds before replying, "I apologize, but there is still no response."
She turned back to a new message box:
Quest: Copperglade Tutorial has updated.
Congratulations, you have grasped the basics of using your class weapon.
You have been awarded 10 experience with your [Short Bow].
Increasing your mastery of weapons will increase their accuracy, damage, and grant you access to advanced skills. Successful adventurers prioritize training with their weapons to increase mastery.
Objective: Proceed to the next highlighted location to continue.
She dismissed the box, but another followed.
Your mastery of the Short Bow has reached level 2.
She gave a small, "Woohoo!" followed by a yawn so big that it cracked her back.