Installation Complete

“Looks like the game’s done installing.” I said, turning my chair to face my computer.

“Oooohhh! I’m so excited!” Touya cheered.

“Didn’t think it was that big of a deal.” I chuckled as I placed my phone on the desk, my hands moving to the mouse and keyboard to login and start the updates.

“Come on! It’s exciting.” Touya said with a giddy laugh. “We’re going to play Lost Legacy, one of the big three. I know you have your reasons, but I’m still excited. I want to introduce you to everyone in my company, level a new job with you, see what you do with your Evano Sphere!”

“And become kings of the Royal Knight cup!” I cheered.

“Exactly! See you get it.”

“Well when you say it like that, it’s kinda hard not to get pumped.” I said with a smile. Touya always had this way of getting me excited for anything, even when I felt weird about it.

“Right. I still find it weird you never took a look at this game though.”

“I got bugged about it a lot, but it always seemed like a time commitment.”

"You say that cause you haven't played it yet. Trust me, you'll see why people like your brother and I play so much. It sucks I can’t join you right away. Oh well, at least I get to see you make your character.”

“Oh, you got class soon?”

“Yup. Introduction to Psychology.”

“Exciting.”

“A little bit. Maybe I can use this course to make our little Marcus Dylandy here less shy.”

“Shut up, I’m not that shy..” I said glaring at my phone. “Anyways, the drivers for the new headset finished updating. Just waiting on the game now.” I said grabbing my phone. “All I need is the Lost Legacy App so I can use my phone in game, right?”

“Wait, did you finally replace your old NeuroH? Touya asked, giddiness filling his voice. “Yeah, there are some other apps, but those are pointless for now. Tell me what model you got. Is it the latest Neuro R2D?”

“Yup.” I said, pursing my lips as I made sure the app was set up.

“What colours?”

“Blue with gold accents.” I said as I looked over to the virtual reality headset sitting on my desk.

The new R2D was a vast improvement. It was wireless with a sleek design, built to be worn like glasses unlike the huge helmet that is the NeuroH. I’d be more ecstatic but this headset felt… tainted.

“No way! You got the special edition.” Touya cheered. “Someone’s got expensive taste.”

A ping came from my computer as Lost Legacies updates finished. I synced the headset to lost legacy and pressed play making it so the game was ready.

“Arrived yesterday. Guess dad was feeling generous for the upcoming birthday bash. Anyways, my updates are complete so give me a call in a minute, I’m gonna jump in right now.”

“Right.. Be fast, you know how lonely I get.” He said with a soft chuckle before ending the call.

I grabbed the dangling wire from my headset, plugging it into my phone as I made my way to my bed. Sitting down, I slid the headset on filling my vision with colourful text that said 'Lost Legacy'. A symbol floated above in the top left corner indicating my phone's connected.

“Alright, let’s get this ball rolling.” I said as I laid down.

Pressing the start button on the headset made my eyes flutter close. Then within a blink, I was falling down a tube of data lines.

I took a quick look around before I looked at the information board displayed in front of me. Usually when playing a VR game you wake up in a calibrating chamber, or a tutorial to get you started. Yet, Lost Legacy used this time to show off events happening within the world.

I skimmed over the board noticing that there was an exp boost event for new players, lucky me. Below that banner was a way more interesting event.

The Royal Knight Cup! A six on six tournament meant to test your teamwork for the top prize! Along with special gear only obtainable within this tournament. VenomWare will be giving the winners a fifty thousand dollar cash prize! Will you and your team be able to defeat the unstoppable Aurochs! Come join us March sixth to find out. Click for registration times and rules.

“A lot of people are going to enter. I wonder if I stand a chance…”

I reached for the banner, but before I could touch it my nose took in the sweet scent of flowers. I looked around till I noticed the platform below me, a platform hovering amongst a vast field of flowers.

The moment my feet touched the floor, I sprinted to the edge. My breath grew short in awe of how beautiful the world looked. All the different colours, the gentle breeze, the sweet scents wrapping around me. I’ve played a lot of competitive games that don’t focus on this kind of immersion, so standing here felt wild.

A ringing began to fill the air, breaking my trance completely. “Right Touya.” I thought as I opened my menu to answer his call.

“Hey Touya.” I answered.

“What up, you start character creation yet?”

“Nah, I was admiring the view.” I said taking a few steps back before turning around. In the middle of the platform stood a podium. “Podium in the middle is where I start?” I said as I walked to it.

“Yeah yeah.” I could hear the squeaks in his chair from how excited he was, it was kind of cute.

I placed my hand on the podium prompting a screen to appear. It showed several humanoid silhouettes with the words No data written on them. Pressing my finger against one of the silhouettes made eight sets of people appear, a set for every race.

“Hey, throw your stream up.”

“Oh yeah, let’s open that.” I said as I navigated my menu. Pressing Touya’s name made a drop down appear showing me the option to stream. “Can you see?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Yeah, mind if I have control. First person is disorienting.”

I went back into the streaming menu and gave Touya the option to control his own camera. This made a small bunny avatar appear.

“All good?”

“All good. So when researching, did you decide on a race?”

“To be honest, I only got a chance to read up on the jobs. The jobs alone were so overwhelming that I forgot to read anything about races.” I sighed as I looked towards the races, watching as Touya's avatar ran towards them.

“Well most of the races are pretty basic. You’ve got the Calum which are your standard humans, the Tabani which are your apomorphic animal race. Then the Talum which meets in the middle of those two. After that you have the Hanari, your typical small race. The Eltaine, which are lost legacies version of elves. And the Gramando, which are the giant race. Their max height is like eight feet and they’re beefy as all hell.”

I examined each race as he spoke about them, wondering which one would fit me best. “I’m leaning towards elves right now.”

“Well hold your horses we get two more races, and I’m positive you’ll love the last one.” He said, making an emote of a rabbit wagging their finger appear. “These two came with the newest expansion, lost treasures. The Tanto and the Halum. The Tanto are angel/devil-kin, while the Halum are an android race. They look human, but as you can see, they have mana marking all over their bodies.”

I looked at the two races as he talked about them, taking most interest in the Halum. In front of me stood a man and a woman with these awesome blue lines covering their skin.

“Were you thinking I’d like the Halum? Cause they’re super rad. Anything I should know?” I asked as I took a quick glance back at the other races, seeing if my mind would change.

“Of course it was, I know my boy.” He said as he made an emote of a rabbit wearing sunglasses appear. “Each race has bonuses to them. Like Talum and Tabani can have special abilities depending on the animal aspect. But you can find ways to get those same abilities in game. I chose what looked coolest.”

“Halum get anything?” I asked, turning back to the Halum pair.

“I know they’re good with magic because of the marking, that’s about it though. I know more about the Talum than anything.”

“Ooo, that’ll help me out. They look way too cool not to play.”

“Right! And you haven’t even heard the lore. The grand alliances found remains of a large ship that crashed into the planet a few thousand years ago. All the original crew members were dead. However, when they powered up the ship, the halum cryo pods unlocked. Being conscious they decided to join the grand alliances to figure out where they came from. If I remember right, they have several main cities including Jashan, EF04-Starblazer, an-”

“Nerd.” I joked.

“Hey! At least I’m not using my brains to create a new strain of heroin.” Touya said as he sent an emote of a pouting rabbit.

“Probably make us more money though. We could call it something cute like Thunder Skunk.”

“Always about money with you, you sound like my dad…”

“Hey, I’m worried about the future of my grand kids.” I chuckled as I selected the male version of the Halum.

“So you want me to sell drugs!?” He said laughing with me.

The male Halum began walking towards me as the other races walked away and as he approached me, a screen appeared. The screen displayed various options that let me change aspects of the character. This left me stumped on where to start.

“You can upload pictures of people or drawings if you want. The system will do its best to recreate it. It won’t do wild proportions though.”

Hearing that, I uploaded a picture of a character from an anime Touya showed me, Mikhari of the Royal Braves. The Royal Braves was a story about noble knights who fought the demon lord Dolraga, in a quest to save the world. Mikhari was a mercenary who joined the main character to save his friends from mind control.

“Mikhari huh? Man that’s a deep cut, isn’t that show like ten years old?” Touya commented as the body finished forming.

“Royal Braves is a classic. That show will never stop being awesome.”

“Hey I ain’t bad mouthing it. The archer guy, what was his name, Claude? Anyways, he's a badass. So you gonna play Mikhari?”

“Hmmm, nah. I don’t wanna be a carbon copy…” I said as I began to adjust the character. I shrank his frame to match my height as well as giving him my tanned skin. Yet something still wasn’t right. I removed Mikhari’s iconic facial scar and began to adjust the mana marking on his body. But still my finger tapped in frustration.

Then it all came to me. My character needed a new hairstyle that was all his own.

I swiped my finger across the menu, looking at the different hair styles till the perfect match showed up. Black medium length hair that's held back by a red bandana. The colours weren’t right, but we can change that. I dyed the hair a light blue and the bandana white.

With this revelation I began to adjust my character's body and face to fit the look better. I kept the slender frame, but gave them a more muscular pretty boy look. When I finished tweaking it, it looked nothing like Mikhari, but I’m really into this look.

“There, perfect.” I said as I put the final touches on the mana marking positions.

“Yeah, he’s a cutie.” Touya whistled.

“You think so?”

“Yeah, so cute in fact I’m excited about the idea of people flirting with you. You always get so flustered, it’s so funny.” He said with a soft snicker.

“I get a few words out! They’re just a little jumbled…”

“I know I know.” He said with a soft chuckle. “You do your best and I’m proud of you.”

“Whatever.” I said, running my fingers through my hair.

“Don’t forget to change the voice. Weirdly enough, it defaults you to a kids voice.” He said, still laughing.

“Good catch.” I said as I scrolled over to the voice section. “I’ll stick with my voice. Too deep or too high would freak me out.” I said as I toggled it to use my own voice.

“Don’t blame you, I did the same.”

I did one last pass over to make sure I had everything done before confirming my character’s appearance. This prompted the system to ask me what class I would like to play.

“So any of the classes speak to you?” Touya asked.

“I’m going to work my way up to being a Mongai.” I said as I cycled through the several classes, looking at their outfits before moving on. “I love the idea of using monster magic, plus they have the ability to fill all the different roles.”

“Oh? You actually wanna be a tank, healer, or a support? I figured you for a damage dealing kind of guy.”

“I have no clue what kind of guy I am.”

“Deep.”

“Not what I meant.” I said with a chuckle. “What do you play?”

“Clockwork apprentice. You’ll have to wait to meet me in game to see my jobs though.”

LLO Had seven different starting classes that lead into many sub jobs which you could choose two of. This system lets you make hundreds of different possible character builds. To be Monagi though I had to choose a hunter.

Hunter was a class all about wildlife, and it made my character look like Robinhood. The clothes were plain green, with a black chest guard, boots, and gloves. I examined how my character looked and sighed, thinking I gotta ditch this look as soon as I can.

“Monagi is a bit of a tough job, but luckily I have a friend in the company that can help you out.”

It was reassuring that Touya could introduce me to a teacher. I had no clue where to start with monster clans or even finding the job…

After confirming what class I was gonna play, the system asked me what name I’d like to go by.

“Oh yeah, I guess I need a name.” I said pursing my lips.

“How about TacoKing?” Touya asked.

“God no, I’d like people not to laugh every time they see me.”

After ten to fifteen minutes of Touya and I coming up with rejected names, I finally landed with Wayra.

In front of me stood Wayra, the new persona I’ll be taking into Lost Legacy Online.

“Dang, aside from starter gear, you got yourself a rad character! Too bad I have to go..” Touya sighed as he threw up a rabbit emote with x’s for eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure not to get max level within a few hours.” I joked. “Message me when you log in.”

“Will do boss. Stay safe.”

The icon in the corner of my vision disappeared leaving me all alone with Wayra and a floating screen.

Log in with Wayra?

Yes. No.

I pushed my fingers through my hair, readying myself for the adventure to come.

“Well Wayra, I guess it’s time to rock.” I said, letting my hands drop to press yes, allowing me to take my first step into the world of Lost Legacy.