Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! HERE START THEIR ADVENTURE!

ANYWAY, as promised, a double release on the first day! Hooray! Starting the story of the father and the daughter towards greatness! Or chaos, also works.

ALSO, not much else to say here, so…

Have a good read!

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After finally getting his daughter to sit still for even a brief second, Roger sighed loudly in relief before going to his bed and putting on his own D-lute gear on his head before laying on his bed. Just like his son had told him, the device itself was fairly easy to set up, just needing to plug on the power-line and then to the internet.

Turning on his already configured device, he quickly chose the Insania icon on his vision before seeing everything black out.

He soon found himself on a dark place, with nothing in sight besides darkness and the occasional pulsating blue lines. A window popped up in front of him telling to wait for a moment as the game finished some configurations. As he looked around, he wondered when he would see his daughter in game.

His answer came much earlier than what he expected, as well in a way he surely hoped it wouldn’t happen.

Suddenly he felt a wave of dizziness passing through him and everything went bright again. He slowly stood up as a light headache assaulted him for a brief moment. Looking around he saw himself back at his room, sitting on his bed and a small girl, no older than five years old holding his D-lute with her small hands.

“Dad, when are we going to see Booh again?” She asked innocently, receiving a long sigh from the father.

“Lily… Didn’t I just tell you to not take the glasses away?” He said with a weary voice.

“But you said that we were going to see Booh!”

“I know. But you have to use those glasses to see Booh…” He said while getting back up.

“Really?” The little girl asked surprised.

“Yeah. Now come with daddy so that he can help you put the glasses again.” He said as he took her hands and guided her back to her room.

After making her promise to not take her glasses off again, he sat back at his own bed and put on his glasses and once again he was back at the black area. At least the small progress during the configuration had carried over, so he didn’t need to worry too much about it. This time, after a few seconds he saw as a flash of light happened to his side and soon after he saw his daughter appearing besides him, wearing a simple white dress.

“Daddy!” She shouted cheerfully before jumping towards him and hugging his waist. “Where are we, Daddy?”

“We are probably on a buffering zone where they leave the players as their games finalize some finer adjusts, I guess.” He told her, receiving a confused tilted head in response. He smiled widely before ruffling his daughter’s hair. “Just wait a bit and we will get into the game, dear. And there we will go see Booh, okay?”

“Okay!” She said cheerfully before looking around. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds before it came. “Will it take too long?” She asked tilting her head.

Roger sighed loudly, already expecting this question. He gave the window a quick look before shaking his head.

“No, dear. Just wait a bit longer, okay?”

True to his words, the window changed its loading bar into a login button. He immediately pressed it and the whole world around him blinked, before turning into a white world with pulsating blue lines. Both let out a surprised voice as they saw this sudden change.

“Welcome to Insania Online, where the world is yours to explore!” A sudden voice came from their side, and both turned to see a beautiful silver haired girl floating majestically a few feet above the air. “My name is Cygnas, the acting main goddess…” As she looked at them she suddenly stopped and blinked a few times, leaving Roger slightly confused. Lily had since long hidden behind his leg shyly. “Oh! Could you be Gon’s father?” The girl suddenly asked in a cheerful way that simply didn’t match her previous tone.

“Gon?” Roger asked confused for a moment, before remembering his son’s nickname in the game. “Do you mean Wargon?” He asked just to be sure, and the girl nodded.

“Yup! The two of you are splitting images of each other!” She said sounding surprised, but Roger simply snorted.

“Please, can’t you see that I’m way more handsome?” He said with a shrug, and the girl giggled at this.

“Even the way you fool around is similar.” She said.

“He learned it from the best!” Roger said while shrugging before looking back at her. “Then, I take it you are the A.I. he told me about, right?” He asked and the girl nodded.

“Then I take it that the girl is his sister?” She said while looking towards Lily, who was still hiding behind his leg, but at least peeking interested. Cygnas approached the girl and crouched to her eyelevel. “Hello. Nice to meet you.” She said gently.

Lily looked towards Roger, who nodded, before looking back at the girl talking with her. She reluctantly let go of his leg before turning to the girl and saying.

“I’m Lily. Nice to meet you.” She said quickly before hiding behind her father’s leg again, who simply let out a wry sigh.

The girl smiled at her gently before standing back up and clapping her hands, getting the duo’s attention.

“Well, I’ve kept the two of you around for far too long. Let’s get going with the character creation, shall we?” She said while waving her hand to the side, where many different characters  of many different races appeared, forming two rings, one to each side of the duo. “Now, select your races!”

Roger whistled loudly while looking at all the options. He had heard about them earlier from his son, but hearing about it was completely different from seeing it with his very eyes. After some quick explanation about the workings of the system, he set himself to creating his character.

For his race he didn’t have much question, picking the manliest of them all, the barbarian. He set his character to be similar to the one from the games he liked. Tall, muscular with blue tribal tattoos on his arms. He left the hair the same as his black one, although longer.

Seeing as his body changed to be similar to the one he created, he then set out to help his surprised daughter creating a character for herself. The moment he asked her what race she wanted to be, she received a more than expected response.

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“I want to be a princess!” She shouted cheerfully.

“Dearie, princesses aren’t a race.” He said wearily to her. “Can’t you chose something else?” He asked.

“Then I want to be a dragon!” She responded immediately.

“I don’t think that dragons are a playable race…” Roger started speaking before Cygnas stopped him.

“Well, there are the draconids, which are kind of dragons.” She said while showing the race to the duo, in there standing a five year old girl with black hair, a pair of red horns and claws for hands. But since she still had to customize her character, he thought that maybe he could change it to something a bit more normal looking.

“Why couldn’t she choose something a bit more normal… Like a fairy or something?” Roger said with a wry smile, but this seemed to perk the girls interest.

“Ooh! I want to be a fairy too, daddy! I want to be a fairy dragon!” She said jumping up and down happily while the father cursed his own mouth.

“Sweetie… I don’t think you can be a fairy and a dragon at the same time…”

“Actually… If she makes a half, she can.” The A.I. said while snapping her fingers and changing the image of the draconid girl to one in miniature, with its wing out floating gently. The girl’s eyes shone brightly as she looked at her father with expectations.

“Okay… Okay… You can be a fairy dragon then.” He said giving up as the girl jumped up and down cheerfully.

When he helped her customize the character, at least he managed to make something that didn’t look so strange. Not only that, but he actually managed to make something that looked cute. She looked a small draconid around fifty centimeters high. Her draconid parts were set to look similar to a fairy’s, looking slightly spectral, much like a fairy’s. This included both the wings and the horns. At least he managed to convince her to remove the clawy hands.

“As a half, she gets to keep one practical and one cosmetic racial from each race.” She said with a smile. “Some racial skill, like the fairy’s low flight are obligatory to keep. Other’s you can choose.”

“Low flight?” Roger asked surprised for a moment before nodding. “I see. What exactly does it do?” He asked curious.

“It allows her to fly freely with no cost, but she can only fight up to two meters from the ground and heavy weapons can disturb her flight with wind pressure.” Cygnas quickly explained. “This one is obligatory due to the fact that they are too small, and can fly.”

“I see…” Roger said with a nod, before looking again at his daughter, who was flying cheerfully around. “So… Now not only to I have to look around for her, I also have to look up and down?” He said with a tired tone. “I have a bad feeling about this…”

“Well… If it helps you…” The girl said while smiling a bit. “You can set a leash distance. Which is how far she can go before being pulled back.”

Immediately after, she helped the now barbarian to set up said distance, and taught him how he could alter it later. For now, Roger set it to be around ten meters, as it should be enough to give his daughter some freedom, but also help him keep an eye out for her.

Nodding satisfied, afterwards they set off to start choosing their starter gear. Roger went with a heavy plate armor and a two handed axe. As he usually said, when playing a game, he doesn’t want it to be complicated, and only want to go around chopping people around without having to think too much.

Testing the armor and feeling surprised at how realistic it felt against his skin, he then turned towards Lily, who was looking at the choices curious. Fearing for her safety, he managed to convince her to pick a wand as a weapon and the simple cloth set under the argument that she would look more like a fairy if she did so.

The girl quickly accepted it and started waving the wand around, throwing some wind-blades on the open area and seeing them with shining eyes. Heaving a sigh, Roger went back to finishing his character by choosing the resource. He selected rage because he was already familiar with it from the other games he played. Then he managed to convince Lily to choose energy, as it seemed the simplest to use for her.

Finally, came the name.

He wanted to use the one he always used, but it didn’t fit well with his character, so thinking a bit more, he decided to use a name from one of the books he liked to read.

“Uhtred Uthredson.” He said proudly, and Cygnas smiled at him.

“The Saxon Stories, huh?” She said with a smile. “And for a nickname?”

“Huh? I have to choose a nickname too?” He asked surprised, and the girl nodded. He stopped to think for a moment, before sighing. “Then Wulf, I guess.” Cygnas nodded.

“And what will be your name?” She asked the little dragon-fairy girl, who looked confused.

“Hmm… My name is Lily.” She said confused.

“Not that. What is your nickname in game?” Cygnas asked patiently, but the girl kept looking confused. Noticing that an answer wasn’t going to come from her, she turned towards Wulf. “Should I put it as Stiorra? Stiorra Uhtredsdottir?”

“I guess that works…” He replied. He never was very good with names anyway, so he left it as is for now. Cygnas nodded, and when she asked for the nickname, this one came easily. “Pea.”

“Pea…? As in the plant?” She asked confused, and Wulf nodded.

“A little inside joke.” He said, and Cygnas nodded before setting the nickname.

“Well, with that, everything is done, all that’s left is for you to choose the starting point.” She said as a map appeared besides her.

Roger only looked briefly over it before choosing a spot at random. He knew nothing about the game, so spending his time looking around would lead to nothing, so he chose one that looked good to him and selected it. Pea’s didn’t really have much a choice in this matter, so she would go with him there.

But when he looked back at the girl, he couldn’t help but be surprised at how amused she looked, as she was hiding a grin behind her hand. Looking at her confused, she simply shook her head, telling that it was nothing.

Shrugging it off, he quickly gave his good-bye to the A.I. and made his daughter do the same.

Then, the world dissolved into light, before reforming as lush green fields and a village behind them.