The world pulled back and I hovered over myself as a disembodied entity. This was new.

My vertigo didn't kick in because I was still close to the ground. If I were forced to go higher I would have had a hard time doing anything.

My body stood and turned to face me. Kevin and the rest of the world faded to black leaving me staring at myself.

The Azerail clone suddenly bent over with a pained look on her face. She grabbed her stomach and her body blurred separating into two different copies of itself.

A wail of despair came from the one on my right as its skin paled to a stark white. The hair swapped from pitch black to a deep brown. Her face warped and twisted until it settled on the one I'd come to know and love, Inethiel's. She then straightened her back and had an almost regal look to her.

The change happened in only a matter of seconds but seeing the animation for the first time was awesome. I wondered if this was how character select looked now or if it was part of the pre-release content they mentioned. Either way, it was way better than what it was.

Previously I selected my character through my interface and it loaded an overlay that would change my skin and sight. It wasn’t very intuitive and there was a lot of feedback from the players complaining about it. I was happy that they were listening to their fans. They tended to be pretty strict on keeping things the way they liked it.

I reached out to touch Inethiel but I didn't have limbs. How do I select my character? I tried to walk and even though I didn't have feet I floated forward. A part of me wanted to soar around my room but I knew what that would do to my stomach so I drifted directly into Inethiel.

It was dark inside her head so I opened my eyes. Surprisingly it worked, I could feel the grays and blues of my new vision alleviating the constant pain I felt. Now that I had the developers at my house I wondered if they could lend me whatever filter they use for undead vision. I made a mental note to ask them before they left.

Before I could even look at the Azerail clone next to me I felt a tugging motion and the environment shifted into a blur of blue and grey lines. As quickly as it began it stopped and I was suddenly in a pure white room.

The room gradually faded and a small fuzzy ball appeared. As it got closer I realized I knew what it was; a floating dandelion. It settled on the floor and a gust of wind blew scattering the little floating seeds along the ground. The floor turned green as a meadow of grass and flowers sprouted around me. It was very similar to the grasslands near the border of The Fields of Woe.

I immediately opened my menu and checked my inventory. Kumo’s Fang was the only thing in there other than my basic clothing.

Kumo? I asked.

No response.

Part of me wanted to take the sword from my inventory and examine it. The smart part of my brain took over and I left it alone.

A moan followed by a gurgle came from behind me. I jumped and screeched.

As I turned a masculine figure slowly pulled itself from the dirt. Its disfigured face had an eye missing, and bits of flesh hung from the empty socket. Its jaw was dislocated and hung there uselessly.

It was just a shambler.

“Azerail?” it slurred.

My heart pummeled the inside of my chest. “Y-yes?”

“Great, glad you made it,” he said.

Several more shamblers showed up in a similar fashion followed by a scraping sound.

A single bone swept past me as the unmistakable clink of countless others gathered beneath the tall grass. A skeleton of an orc put itself together like some arcane puzzle. When it finished a small blue glow emanated from its body and then faded. Where the eyes were supposed to be two piercing blue orbs of pure light shimmered in their place.

Not every shambler, skeleton, or ghost was human. But it seemed that humans were much more common than the other races. At least, from my experience.

Every Hexed spawn animation was unique in some way but each race had a similar action. Shamblers climbed from the ground, skeletons reassembled themselves and ghosts faded into view. I'd seen a VRV of a shambler bursting from the ground in a cloud of dust and debris. It was epic. Perhaps one day they would let us create our own.

“This is so gross,” the only female shambler said.

You could select someone in DO but couldn’t see any information about their character unless you added each other as friends. Even then you got to choose the information you wanted to share. Mine was set to share the bare minimum, which was only character name and race.

Normally, you could adjust the AR vision to see who was around you and while they would appear as a blur you could still see their real-life profile. The blur was to inform you that the person was currently playing an AR game.

To make things easier I strolled around the area examining each of the shamblers so I could properly distinguish who each one was.

There was a problem though. I wasn’t in AR and couldn’t bring down the visuals to see who was who.

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“Gather around,” the first shambler who appeared said.

I walked up next to him and waited for the others to join us. There was only a single female shamber which I wasn’t sure was my mom or not. It was interesting seeing them trying to walk like normal and then quickly acclimating to the slow limps they were forced to do. Well, except for the skeleton.

As everyone settled into their chosen position we exchanged glances with each other.

“So, we are going to be a few tests today but we should first make sure everyone knows who is who. I’m Florence,” they said.

They looked directly at me.

“I’m Azerail,” I said.

The Orkish skeleton next to me said, “I’m Kevin.”

“I’m Jason,” a shambler with greenish skin, and a missing nose said.

The one next to him had long hair and was dressed like a farmer. “I’m Johnathan.”

He kind of reminded me of Edgar the Bug from the old Men in Black movie.

“I’m Autumn,” the female shambler said. Her body was mostly intact which was probably a decision the devs made so the transition wasn’t too hard on her.

A shambler wearing a partially destroyed military uniform raised its hand. “Dr. Stevens.”

That was all of our original group but there were two more.

“I'm Ellen,” the one next to Dr. Stevens said. It had an eye dangling from its socket and had a football uniform on.

Between Ellen and Florence stood a Goblin shambler with half of its face missing. It wore a spotless striped gray suit. “Euslin.”

My mouth dropped. Euslin was DO’s Narrative Designer. I followed his work very closely. Infinite Diffusion only recently brought him on for the story portion of their game. It wasn’t out yet but I anticipated its release. I started playing the game before they hired him but was even happier when they announced his participation.

“So, now that we all know whos who let's talk about the tests,” Jason said.

I raised my hand.

“Azerail?” he asked.

Everyone's eyes focused on me. “Kumo’s Fang is still in my inventory.”

“The character duplication wipes all of the stats from your equipment on the duplicate,” Florence said.

That didn’t make much sense, I never had to wipe equipment or items stats when I made a world. “Why?”

“It’s a legacy code thing that we haven’t patched out yet,” Jason said.

Wait, what? “Why not just have Zix—”

“All of our code is written by human hands,” Jason said.

I blinked. “But you hired Euslin.”

“Who is writing the story by hand,” Jason said.

Surely I would have read something about them writing the code themselves before now. Zix, is this all public information?

This is all new information, Zix said.

I turned to Euslin. “Do you write all of your stories by hand?”

“This'll be my first one actually,” Euslin said.

My whole worldview flipped on its head. Why would people code and write their stories by hand? Working with Zix or Stephanie I had unlimited control over what happened in the stories and worlds I created. Anything I could dream up they could make it for me and I could tweak everything till I felt I got it right.

I didn't know how to code and my typing was atrocious. In fact we didn't have to type anything after the first few years of school. There were even talks of removing it from the curriculum completely.

“Is this a secret? I won't tell anyone,” I said.

Jason laughed. “It's not exactly a secret but we don't talk about it much."

It dawned on me that they must have created every character, every strand of grass, and all of the buildings. “It must have taken you at least a couple of years to make—”

“Fifteen years actually,” Florence said.

Fifteen years! That as long as I've been alive. I could create a whole world in an afternoon and couldn't fathom doing it all by hand. That was what kids did and I didn't want that stigma attached to my name.

Despite their weird way of doing things, my interest was peaked. What did they do all day in their studio? I would have to get a full tour if they would let me. For educational purposes only of course.

“Anything else?” Florence asked.

I shook my head.

Jason clapped his hands, and bits of blood flew everywhere. The sound was sickening. It turns out slapping rotting flesh against itself wasn't a good idea. “The first test will entail Azerail focusing on a single person and seeing through their point of view.” He pulled his hands apart and strands of blood dripped into the grass. “In the second test Azerail will try to control as many of us as possible, and in the final test she will share an experience with us.”

“What do we do?” Johnathan asked.

Florence answered, “You don't need to do anything but observe. We would, however, like you to record your experiences so that we can review them later on. That includes you, Azerail.”

“Should we start recording right now?” I asked.

They shook their head. “No, you can wait till the testing starts.”

A notification popped up on my interface informing me that new clothes were added to my inventory. The items included a muddy green dress with frayed edges, a chipped skull hairpin, ruined leggings with holes in them, and a pair of flats that might as well have been sandals. Each one was cloth based and gave my concentration a boost.

When I put them on the combined items didn’t quite make my con two hundred but it was close.

Another notification popped up indicating I received another piece of gear. It was a pair of steel claws that looked like long nails.

I spread my fingers wide and equipped them. They gleamed in the sunlight, sending little streams of light running across the grassy landscape.

Jason caught me grinning. “We decided to allow shamblers to equip fist-based weapons.”

While I didn’t have much strength or agility I was still forced to use my unarmed skill when taking out enemies so it was one of my higher-ranking abilities.

The claws tipped the scales on my concentration making it exactly two hundred. “Do I get to keep these?”

“You can keep them but we’re going to have to remove the enchantments,” Florence said.

“Awww,” I said. Enchanting them again wasn’t going to be too hard but I’d have to grind for a while to up my skill.

Jason backed up a step. “Okay, everyone spread out.”

We did as he said.

“Okay, start recording,” Florence said.

Zix, could you start it up? I asked.

Done.

“Alright, Azerail. Do your thing,” Jason said.

***