Aster laid down on her bed, grabbing the visor from where it sat on her nighstand. Just three minutes until the servers open, she thought. She wondered idly if there would be a lot of lag. Supposedly, over a thousand people would be trying to login at the same time. She faintly remembered the days before immersion gaming became a reality, when loading into a game server could take up to ten minutes even if the servers weren’t backlogged. Thankfully technology had improved to the point that client-to-server communication was as smooth as possible.

She slipped the visor over her eyes and pressed the power button, waking it up. Despite what early fiction had suggested, even this slim visor could accomplish a full dive. Instead of paralyzing her by intercepting her brain’s signals, it projected a simple repetitive pattern onto her retinas. It was similar to hypnosis, and it effectively put her body to sleep, while her mind remained free. She could control an in-game avatar as if it were her own body, all through this simple lightweight visor.

After the loading screen passed, her vision went dark, cutting off the outside world. Now it was as if she were standing in a dark room. Then, before her eyes, a room appeared to build itself out of nowhere. As quickly as she could blink, she was standing in a damp stone room. Apart from a stone dais in the center, there was no furniture, and the room was lit by a row of torches spaced evenly along the walls. There was no door.

[Welcome to Project Terra!]

[Please use the mirror in front of you to edit your appearance.]

Nothing too different from the usual character creation process, she thought. It followed the standard medieval fantasy theme, with some obvious exceptions. There were a lot more colors available for skin, hair, eyes, and… wings? She scrolled through the options, amazed at how diverse she could make her avatar. She could add ears of various animals, change the texture/quality of her skin, even add in new appendages such as wings, horns, and tails.

She just knew that Dale would be having a grand time in his room at the other end of the house. He loved complex character creation screens like this. He never went for any crazy appearances, but he liked having detailed control over the shape of his body. Aster, meanwhile, liked creating simpler characters. Still, she did spend a little longer editing her body’s shape than she normally would, until she was satisfied.

For the most part, the appearance of her avatar matched what she looked like in real life, with slight changes. Her nose was a little smaller, straighter, and perfectly aligned with her face. She changed her green eyes to a pale grey, and changed her brown hair to a dark azure blue. Then she made her hips a touch wider, and made her entire body a little more lean. She wasn’t overweight by any means, but she’d always been a little uncomfortable with the small amount of belly she did have.

[You have created your avatar. Please note that, to change your appearance further, you will have to acquire a rare item in game or train your body.]

[Are you satisfied with your appearance?]

She confirmed her selection, and the mirror vanished. She looked down at the simple grey blouse and skirt she wore, wishing she could have started with some nicer clothes, at least. She looked like a village NPC. There was a small flash of light, and two items appeared on the stone dais in front of her.

[Please state your name.]

Well, that was easy. She used the same name she took in all her games. Azalea. She confirmed the spelling, and the text vanished, replaced by a new line.

[Please collect your starting equipment.]

For ‘equipment’, the game provided only a small sword, really a dagger, and small, short stick. She supposed that was a wand. There was room for both on her belt, so she secured them both. No auto-equipping, she noticed. That might prove to be annoying in the future. She looked around for any sign of a status screen, but found nothing. Clearing her throat, she tried speaking a command.

“Status.” Nothing. She tried a few other variations. “Character Sheet. Inventory. Stats.”

None of her commands seemed to have an effect. She frowned. Was this a bug, or a feature of the game? No MMO could really get away with not having an interface of some kind, right? Even the more realistic games offered their players a simple screen of information to peruse.

“Handbook.” That had an effect, at least. A book appeared in the middle of the air, and nearly fell to the ground before she caught it. It was a simple leather-bound volume, with the title Project Terra Handbook stamped on the surface. Leafing through the pages, she saw it contained the same information as the document she’d read from the email that Geam Studio had sent. Putting it away was just as easy. As soon as she had the thought of putting it back in her inventory, it vanished.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

She was drawn back to her surroundings as the stone dais slowly sank into the ground, leaving her in an empty room until a door formed in the wall in front of her. Was that it? Surely the game would offer some kind of tutorial, or give her an explanation of the mechanics. But as she waited, no new text appeared. Bemused, she walked toward the door and pushed it open.

There was a small and dimly-lit staircase that spun up to the right. So she’d been in a basement of some kind. Above, there was a whole crowd of people, all clad in grey clothes and sporting equipment identical to hers. Nearly fifty people in one room. She wondered if this was the spawn point for the entire server, but realized that couldn’t be the case. There was no way they’d be able to fit a thousand bodies in this space, even in a digital sense.

The door she’d come through opened again, revealing a tall man. He had blue hair as well - the same color as her own - though it was cropped short, ending just above his eyes. His body was well-muscled but lean in a way, with broad shoulders and narrow, tapered hips. A name, Caius, floated just above his head. She knew this was Dale’s chosen name.

“Welcome,” she said, looking his avatar up and down. “You don’t usually go with blue hair. What made you choose that?”

He gave a slight shrug. “Since I might not be playing this for long, it didn’t really matter what color hair I picked. This way at least, we match.”

“Are you two a duo?” A voice interrupted. “Nobody else seems to know each other.”

Azalea - she always tried to think of herself in her character’s name - glanced to the side. A lanky figure was approaching them, smiling in a welcoming sort of way. The name Riley Griffiths floated above his head. Like Caius, his clothing seemed to consist only of a simple grey tunic and leggings. He also wore a short sword at his waist, though she couldn’t see any sign of a wand on his person.

“We kind of are,” she replied. “Where did your wand go? Didn’t you get one like we did?”

Riley glanced down at his waist, frowning slightly. “Hmm? Oh, yeah I got one. I put it in my inventory for now though. I don’t think I’m going to use it. At least, not for a while. No use when I only know the one spell.”

“How do you know what spells you’ve learned?” she asked. “I couldn’t figure out how to bring up my status screen.”

“I haven’t figured that out yet either. I just read the Handbook last night.”

“It’s in the Spell Glossary, Azalea,” Caius said. She also did her best to refer to him by his character’s name whenever they played together. Standard online etiquette. “It’s also mentioned on the main page.”

She could feel herself flushing slightly. “Ah. Sorry, I didn’t really pay attention to it. Not like it explained the game at all.”

“I’m starting to think that’s the point,” Riley put in. “Realism seems to be the goal.”

Caius nodded in agreement. “Kind of like Cliffs of Iron.”

Azalea didn’t recognize the game’s name, but it seemed to mean something to Riley. His face brightened at once. “I could tell you were an experienced gamer! Not many people know about Cliffs of Iron nowadays. Easily the best early immersion RPG.”

Caius nodded again. “You heard anything about this game before today?”

“Sadly not. My friend even tried to get a look at the metadata, but he couldn’t find any menus for skills or quests. And he’s good at that kind of thing, so if he can’t find it, nobody could.”

“Is your friend online now?”

“He is. He’s that one with the shaggy red hair over there. Hey, Oscar! Get over here!”

The auburn-haired man looked over as Riley shouted for him, then approached. He was less skinny than Riley, but still fit the skinny stereotype. In fact, he looked like the typical rogue build. He nodded in greeting, though he offered no smile. “What’s going on?”

“We were just talking about how little data you were able to get out of the game,” Riley explained. “Geam did a good job locking their data down prior to the release.”

“Either that, or the game isn’t nearly as finished as it should be at this stage, and there’s simply nothing to find.”

“Either way,” Riley said casually. “Have you guys figured out what we’re supposed to do after character creation?”

Azalea shook his head. Caius pointed toward the exit of the tavern. “We could always go out and see what’s around us.”

“That’s true. I’m just not sure about the PvP aspect.”

“There’s PVP?” Azalea asked, her eyes widening. It wasn’t that uncommon in games like this, but usually safe zones existed. Surely this was a safe zone. “I’m not much of a PVP player.”

“That’s alright,” Caius said. “We’ll just operate like we normally do. Not like we have much to lose at this stage.”

Oscar inclined his head slightly. “Still, ten percent is tough, even at fifty.”

“Not that we know how to access our money, of course,” Caius said with a sigh. “Maybe there’s some kind of starter quest in town that will help us figure this stuff out.”

“That seems likely,” Riley agreed. “Should we go check it out, then? There’s a few people leaving already. Might not be a good idea to loiter during Raid Hours.”

Raid hours, Azalea knew, referred to the time between noon and ten at night, in which all PVP was allowed outside safe zones. Every other hour of game time was without it. She glanced at Caius to get his opinion, and he nodded, indicating that he was okay with the plan. She nodded as well, showing her agreement.

“Sounds like a plan,” Caius answered for the both of them. “Let’s see what the town has to offer.”