[The scan on your iris and vein has determined that you are an unregistered user. Do you want to create a new account?]
James listened to the harmonious female talking to him as though she were his high school math teacher, the words went into his head and right out again. Right now the entirety of his concentration was focused on a single point, the glowing word ‘ETERNITY’ which was floating in the sky in front of him.
“Holy crap dad, who did you kill to get one of these?”
Even though the statement he had just made sounded ludicrous, James wouldn’t have passed the possibility by if he had been given the game by anyone else except his dad. Every gamer knew about the most anticipated game of the year, Eternity. It wasn’t as though James had access to secret information or anything. It was just a fact that the OmniGame Corporation had concentrated a large amount of effort into creating a single virtual reality based game which fans had affectionately dubbed ‘Eternity’ since the game had been in development a whooping ten years.
It had only been announced last year that the game, now being called Eternity, would be released to be played by people around the world and since the OmniGame Corporation rarely failed in their products and the world of gamers had instantly tried to find out any and all information about Eternity. Unfortunately the OmniGame Corporation had kept a tight seal on any major information escaping and even to the people programming the majority of the game it was a complete mystery, too big for any one person to know more than a few things about it. The only thing gamers could do was wait in silence and pray that they would be able to get one of the first copies of the game. But Eternity was scheduled to be released a few days from now. One week to be exact.
This meant that his father had somehow gotten an advanced copy.
[Do you want to create a new account?]
As though a flip had switched in his head James realized that in front of him was the most realistic voice he had ever heard talking to him. It was as though there was a real person standing invisible in the air in front of him and he could probably reach out and grab her.
In fact, he did just that, finding that there was nothing but the twinkling of stars in the sky in front of him. He was a bit disappointed. The thought had crossed his mind that the girl that owned a beautiful voice like that would also be physically beautiful. But that was just the whim of a video gamer discovering new experiences in gaming for the first time.
“This is definitely higher than fifty percent realism. Maybe even around seventy percent, but I haven’t seen enough to tell.” James spoke to himself rather than the voice that was repeating its question at intervals. He often talked to himself in games while he was still working things out. Eventually he simply looked up with a smile on his face and decided to finish this part of the game first.
After all, if this was just the log in then the actual game was sure to be a hundred times better.
Once he had confirmed that he wanted to make a new account he voice began to guide him through the usual pattern of signing up for a virtual reality game
[Select the name of your avatar]
James grinned at the first question he was given. Since he was almost guaranteed to be one of the first, if not the very first, players then he would also be guaranteeing that he could get an incredibly good name. After this, anybody that picked the same name as him could be considered to be copying him. It may have been petty but it was most definitely one of the biggest benefits of being an early player into a game.
“Lucifer.”
[You wish to name your avatar Lucifer? Please confirm.]
“Most definitely!”
He definitely couldn’t think of any name cooler than that of the devil. If he grew popular during any stage of the game it was almost certainly going to be a name that would spread quickly and easily, as well as leave a lasting impression on anyone that heard.
“If this is going to be the name that everybody sees then I definitely can’t think of anything better.”
Even after so long in the game James was still talking to himself out loud.
[Select your gender from male, female or neutral]
James thought about it for a second, on the most recent game he had played he had opted to play as a girl rather than a guy. Then again that had been a small time game and certainly not something done on the scale that Eternity was hyped out to be. It was possible that Eternity would have millions upon millions of players at the very least.
“Male”
[Eternity has a thousand races. You may select your race from the primary five hundred and ten races.]
“What race is the strongest physically and magically in the game?”
Even though his preferred race was the human race James wasn’t a fool. He would go for whatever race had an advantage in the game, he had played a couple of games in their alpha and beta stages before and it had been fairly easy to use his small advantage of time to go ahead of the other players and gain power and fame. To James this was already a war between himself and anybody else that entered the game ahead or before him. All was fair in love and gaming warfare.
[The strongest race in the continent is currently the Demon race, with a starting strength stat of thirty rather than the average starting strength stat of ten. Magically, the race with the most starting intelligence stat is currently the Elven race, starting with twenty intelligence stat as opposed to the average starting intelligence stat of five points.]
“’Currently’?”
There were actually a couple of problems with what the female had told him just then while describing the races. The first was that she had specifically used the word ‘currently’ when describing the demon race as the strongest race in the continent. To James this usually meant that there was something that could change this factor in the future, but as to what it was he simply couldn’t find out since there wasn’t any information about Eternity out there in the internet.
There was also the fact that Elves started with a lower intelligence stat than the Demon race did strength. But again because of lack of information James didn’t know whether magic was strong enough in Eternity that only a little bit of intelligence was needed to match a greater amount of strength. It was possible that he could completely screw himself over by choosing to become an Elf and found out that strength did in fact scale as equally as intelligence in terms of power and as a result he was weaker than he wanted to be.
“But then again, I did call myself Lucifer.”
It was just a pleasant coincidence that the Demon race had come up as one of the five hundred starting races, in other games they were usually unlocked later on during event quests set up for players or event just kept locked until a world boss was beaten. Just to make sure there were over options, James looked over a couple of races he knew by name. ‘Devils’ weren’t listed as a race which was a pity, but Humans and Gnomes as well as Dwarves were all listed as starting races.
Unfortunately, Humans were an even mix of magic and strength, while dwarves were lacking in magic but also limited in their weapon uses as well as losing stats near large bodies of water. Gnomes seemed to be neither strength nor magic users, instead creating inventions with technology to use in fights. But they still seemed weak compared to Demons who had no debuffs in any situations and also had more beginning strength stats than all those races.
“Make my avatar a Demon”
[Eternity allows alteration of physical appearance. Would you like to change your physical appearance?]
Simultaneously with the voices words, a life-like avatar of James, no, Lucifer appeared in front of him.
“Incredible! This is exactly like me, I can totally think of it as seeing me in a mirror!”
James was almost jumping up and down in excitement. The avatar had some incredibly large differences to his normal body simply due to him being part of the Demon race but when he looked into that face he knew it was him immediately. He observed the changes made to him by the picking of his race, a couple of dark red, scale crusted horns had appeared from the sides of his forehead and stuck up a few inches high. His skin was a light shade of red and James was saddened to see that it was rather unflattering when mixed with his chubby face.
“Umm, voice. Please change the avatar so that it looks like-” before James could continue speaking his avatar warped slightly and he saw that his face, and some parts of his stomach, had become noticeably slimmer. Obviously since the virtual reality equipment was actually connecting his mind to the game, any changes he had thought about for the avatar had immediately been implemented. He quite liked the look of his slimmer avatar and found that the dark red horns and red skin only looked the more menacing when mixed with his dark black hair.
“I like this, thanks.”
[Your account has been activated. Your stats have been allocated to your avatar automatically. Demons can decide their class at level ten. Stats of the Demon race are; strength, agility, stamina, vitality, dexterity, intelligence and wisdom. Ten stat points have been allocated to each primary stat with the exception of strength with a starting stat of thirty and agility with a starting stat of twenty.]
“Ohh,” James sighed in appreciation, “A starting stat of twenty agility? That’s a really unexpected bonus.”
“Er, alright.’ Commoner wasn’t sure what ‘stats’ were but he would ask Sasha when he met up with her in game.
[Select your starting continent and city.]
“What continents and cities are there?”
James had no idea about the world that the game Eternity was set in. Most games lately had virtual worlds which spanned an entire planets worth of content to explore.
[The world of Eternity spans seven continents, five of which may be chosen as starting continents. These are the continents of Murcelia, Stendrid, Lexor, Rubintish and Chrysalis. The Demon race resides in the continent of Chrysalis and their starting city is the City of Calandor.]
“So basically you’re recommending that I start on the continent of Chrysalis and the City of Calandor?”
[That is correct.]
James took an involuntary step back as the voice suddenly answered back to his rhetoric question. Then he began to laugh as he realized that he was frightened of nothing, but at the same time he marveled at the personality the developers had put into sign up voice. It had kicked in later but it was still a pleasant surprise.
“Very well then voice. Please allow me to start at the continent of Chrysalis and the City of Calandor.”
[Sure thing bub.]
“um, what did you just say?”
“I said,” A girl suddenly appeared from thin air behind his avatar, directly in front of James, “sure thing bub.”
James was incredibly startled by the sudden appearance of the girl. Even though it was his first time meeting her something that she had done had made her suddenly seem incredibly familiar to him. This was definitely something that he hadn’t expected. Then he realized that he had heard the girl’s voice before.
“Hey! You’re the girl that’s been helping me sign up.”
She made intertwined her fingers and made them into a gun, mimicking a shooting motion.
“Bingo, right on the money bub. But that was actually just my voice. I was only there for the last few seconds. It was only the fact that there was suddenly an increase in players that I came to take a look around.”
‘A game master or something? Crap dad, I hope you didn’t do anything illegal to get this game.’ Surely his father wouldn’t give him an illegally obtained game. At least James hoped he wouldn’t.
“So um, what’s up? Is it that common to see a new player in this game?” James tried to casually talk to the girl, he was praying that his dad hadn’t done anything to get him in trouble but really the girl seemed to be acting way too nice for it to be anything bad.
She waggled a finger at him, “Don’t you know. There are only six people currently playing Eternity and that’s including you and me. And it’ll stay that way until the game is released.”
James was startled at the surprisingly small amount of people currently playing the game.
“How did you get in then?”
“Well obviously the pretty girl with the incredibly nice voice would get one of the first spots in the game.”
She did a small pose with one hand on her hip and the other placing two fingers in a ‘V’ shape above her forehead. After a second she looked at him curiously. Clearly she had a reason to be here, after all, she had worked on the games development itself. And the fact that she could simply interrupt his signing in process meant that she help some sort of power over the game.
“So what did you do? Win a competition or something?”
James looked at the girl for a second and then shrugged. If he wasn’t meant to be here then he definitely would have been kicked out by now if only six people were currently in the game. It would be quick to identify him and probably the fact that he hadn’t won any competitions for the game. He didn’t even know if there were any ways to obtain a pre-release of Eternity.
“Don’t know, my dad works for OmniGame and when I got home I found out that he had already gotten the game installed in my computer.”
The girl whistled, “Your dad gave you the game instead of playing it himself?” As though a sour thought had suddenly crossed her mind she suddenly frowned sadly, “That’s one hell of a dad you got there.”
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“I know it more than anyone.” James puffed his chest out in pride, and then realized that it was still his rather puffy chest and that his noticeably slimmer avatar was still standing in front of the girl. She followed his gaze and her eyes were drawn to the red skinned Demon.
“Err,” James was about to think of some sort of excuse or at least something to say to break the sudden tension he had brought upon the conversation but the girl beat him to it.
“You’re cute.”
“Well…” Those certainly weren’t the words that he was expecting. Not only that, she had been looking at him and not the avatar when she had said that. It sort of unnerved him since it was a new experience “thank you.”
“Hey!”
She suddenly shouted at him loudly and his eyes widened at the sudden shock. She placed her arms on her hips and looked at him with a slightly angry expression with puffed out cheeks and lips.
“An incredibly pretty girl tells you that she thinks you’re cute and the only thing you say is ‘thank you’?”
‘Pretty girl..’ James took a good look at the girl in front of him and found that he couldn’t deny that she was incredibly pretty. She had platinum blonde hair and light green eyes that seemed to have an almost unearthly fluorescent glow to them, enticing him to talk to her with their enthusiasm. It wasn’t just her eyes, her entire body seemed to radiate a lively aura that threatened to sweep you up in it if you stayed near her for too long, as though she was incredibly happy at a cellular level. Her legs were covered in black tights but James could still tell that they were incredibly toned and yet slender, certainly they would be a feast for the eyes if she were wearing a skirt.
As for the chest area, James had to admit that she probably had even Lindsay beat soundly. Instead of being unsightly melons, they were more like incredibly big yet perfectly shaped peaches, and mixed into a tight black top allowed her pale skin to contrast with the colour in a way that accentuated every curve and bit of exposed flesh to a level that made James think she had probably changed her appearance through the game system. If not, then she was clearly a girl that would have broken a lot of hearts during her school years. She looked to be around the same age as James, eighteen or maybe nineteen.
“Sorry, I’m just not used to people, I mean girls, telling me that I’m cute.” He looked down and ran his hands down his chubby folds of fat and his plump stomach which seemed to speak of a lot more than just prosperity and good food in his life. Sure, she was pretty, but James had accidently let slip something that he hadn’t meant to.
It was perfectly possible that the girl in front of him was actually a guy.
James had seen it happen a few times in games. Usually the incredibly sexy girl was actually the incredibly lonely guy in real life and it wasn’t in James’ mental book of gaming tips to fall for the oldest trick in the book. The girl’s voice had even offered the option of changing his gender when he had been creating his avatar.
“You’re honest. I don’t see that usually, I like it. Hey listen,” she suddenly twiddled her thumbs and her face lit up as though she had come up with a spectacular idea, “you know I’m actually part of a guild in the game, well really the only guild in the game at the moment. Did you want to join us? I mean, we’ve only been in game for about a day ourselves so we’re just getting starting it as a way to keep track of people that started the game early. There’s definitely nothing else or a deeper meaning in that!” The girl’s face had actually grown slightly red as she sped through her words and she drew ragged breaths as she rested after speaking.
“Is that okay?”
“Sure,” she looked at him with a funny expression on her face, “why wouldn’t it be?”
“I mean, aren’t you a game master or something? So the other guys would be too?”
“Game master?” She looked at him with a slight smile on her face, “God no, I’m just a girl that happens to be playing the game a bit early. The others are like that too but you won’t be able to meet them for a while where you are. They’re all on other continents, me included.”
James looked at her in confusion, “Then how will you get the invitation to me?”
He sincerely doubted that one of the four other players would cross entire continents just to invite him to their guild. Surely they were already immersed in the game completely.
“Oh, you’ll get the invitation when you log into the game. I can’t give it to you here since it’s technically not part of the world yet. This reminds me. You have to pick a power.”
“Power? You mean my race gets a set of skills to choose from?”
It was a common thing for James to be able to choose a race specific power in a game. But the girl was shaking her head at him, “No silly. The first one hundred people to join eternity all get a special power of their choosing. It’s really just an extra skill that you get to use no matter what your race. So if your race is restricted from using water magic then you can still pick a water spell from here and be able to use ir or stuff like that. There are like, one thousand powers to pick from but you can’t pick what the others have picked before you.”
There was a special power that was only given to the first one hundred players of the game?
If James had been with his father at that moment he would have turned around and hugged him while jumping for joy. This would surely give him a boost over all the other players that would join after him, especially with the fact that he still had a week until the game was officially released.
“What powers are there?”
[Well let’s see.]
Although the girl was right in front of him he suddenly heard her voice floating into his mind once again. A list of numerous powers was in front of him but it only took a few minutes of looking for him to find the power that he wanted.
“Fire Fortification seems like the skill I want, yup, I’ll definitely take this one.”
James could swear he heard a little sound of surprise in the girls face as she accepted his choice and he looked around him to see if anything was different. But nothing happened. He had specifically chosen the Fire Fortification skill for two reasons, one, it’s use was to give any weapons he was holding a fire aspect which included increased damage and two, its visual effect set his weapon on fire so it would look incredibly cool when mixed with his devil form. James had every intention of becoming some sort of warrior when he went into the game since he had already chosen his race based on strength.
‘Maybe I have to get into the game to acquire the skill. Seems likely.’
“Well then, that’s all done. Trinity.”
“I’m sorry?” James looked at her in confusion and she blushed slightly, her blond hair covering her eyes so that he couldn’t see her expression.
“My name’s Trinity. It’s the same in game and outside. What about you?”
James looked at his avatar, “Well, inside I’ll be Lucifer. But…” James thought about lying about his real name for a second then immediately discarded the thought, there were a few million other people named James in the world so giving away his name was no big problem, “Outside I’m James.”
“Alright then James, I guess I should send you down there now. Have fun and I’ll be on a different continent but I hope that you’ll meet up with us at the guild at some point. We really only planned to recruit the people that were playing the game before anyone else even after it releases so don’t expect too much activity from us. Just remember to always train! I don’t want to have recruited a weakling you know!” With a final wave of her hand the Trinity disappeared and suddenly the world of stars around James blurred and waved.
He closed his eyes to avoid growing confused by the sudden changes and when he opened them again he found himself facing a rather beautiful red city that was made out of black and ruby coloured bricks.
Then he looked down and realized that below his small island foothold was a long drop down into a lava lake and that the entire city was standing on the same place he was, some sort of floating island of dirt. It made James weak at the knees just looking down at the lava below, he seemed to sway from side to side and then realized that he could feel the ground underneath him rumbling and moving. To his sides were walls made of black stone and the illumination from the lava below revealed that there was no exit to the outside above, only a stone wall. The entire floating city was lying within a cavern.
The entire island was constantly moving in the air! And it was carrying the city with it. James, no, Lucifer, looked at the scene in amazement.
Before he could take in the situation completely a voice called out to him and he turned around to face it.
“Yo-” the persons voice broke off as a loud rumble suddenly resounded throughout the giant cavern James had found himself in, “-dead meat!”
A young man, maybe around twenty five or twenty six, was running towards Lucifer from the direction of the city. He was waving his hands up and down as though telling Lucifer to come towards him and when James didn’t seem eager to oblige he began to run towards him.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said that if you stay here you’re going to be dead meat. Let’s get out of here!”
Before Lucifer could respond to this random man that was trying to grab onto his arm and lead him towards the city, a giant pillar of flame suddenly erupted from the ground in front of him and hit the arm and leg of the man. He cried out in pain and let go of Lucifer, who was staring at his wounds in horror. He was used to realistic rounds in virtual reality, but this was clearly a new level of realism. He couldn’t smell the burning flesh but he could imagine it would be terrible from the way the man’s red skin simmered and boiled.
“Oh crap! It’s already here! Hurry, get out of here!”
As the man shouted he cried out in pain again and the pillar of fire solidified and seemed to form a vaguely humanoid shape. Swirls of flames were encased in an invisible barrier which seemed to give it the presence of a man shaped glass bottle which contained a lot of fire. The barrier wasn’t completely intact however since bursts of flames escaped it and surrounded the flame human, giving it the appearance of being some sort of monster. Lucifer looked at the man on the floor who waved his remaining hand towards the city with a wince.
“Wait, what about you?”
“Just…” his breath was turning haggard, “go… unless you want to take my sword and actually fight that guy.”
The man suddenly moved his hand into his pocket and was suddenly holding a small sword, tattered and rusty. He tried to hand the sword to Lucifer but he lost his last bit of energy and dropped the sword on the ground. Although the scene was incredibly troubling Lucifer was smiling. Of course this was something that had been programmed into the game, the likelihood of something like this happening right when he entered the game was incredibly low and he had experienced this sort of scenario before in other games. His guess was confirmed the moment he picked up the sword.
You have picked up the item: Rusty Beginner’s Sword. Description: This is an incredibly old sword which had long lived past its prime. Because of the lack of care its owner showed for it over the years rust has almost rotted the sword to its core and it is only suitable as a weapon in the direst of situation. Most warriors would rather fight barehanded than with this sword although it does offer benefits to those who wield it. Stats: Damage +2
As soon as Lucifer had finished reading the message about the sword a new message popped up in front of him.
Welcome to Eternity young Demon. A lower tier flame elemental has attacked a nearby passerby that was trying to save you from harm by steering you away from the dangerous outside area. Now it is his time to be saved and brought to the city or else he will lose his life. Saving his life is not optional: You have been given the quest; Tutorial Part 1.
Tutorial Part 1: The young man that tried desperately to save you from danger has become heavily injured by a flame elemental in the process and lies dying on the floor. Following the instructions given to you, learn how to use your weapon to fight against the flame elemental attacking you. Quest difficulty: F. When you are ready to start the quest simply close this window.
Lucifer smiled at the message and closed it, facing the fire elemental which suddenly lifted its hands into the air, flames spewing out of their tips and forming what could vaguely be defined as fingers. Eternity was already turning into the finest experience James had ever had playing a game and he had only been in it for a few seconds. Lucifer stared at the monster that was getting ready to attack him with a grin on his face.
“Bring it on!”
Authors note: Okay... right after this the chapters will speed up in pace a ridiculous amount (compared to the last 3) so get your riding pants on as we start this journey! :D Also, giving myself 2 days per chap left little time to pr, I will fix any mistakes pointed out to me if you find me in chat and I will be making a discussion thread for comments on someone's recommendation.