“Hey Uncle James, can I play yet?”
My niece was standing beside me as I finished installing her VR pod next to my own. She had seen a commercial for Sundered World Online the other day, and decided she really wanted to play too. Because of her age someone has to be with her when she plays, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit curious about the game myself. I could possibly have had Sarah play with her, but I know she intends to play with Nathan. I don’t want to get in the way of them enjoying themselves, so I’ll take the job of watching over Lily.
“Just a little bit longer, Lily. I’m almost finished setting it all up.”
This was the third pod I’ve put together this morning, so I’ve got it down pretty well at this point. I’m fairly sure Sarah jumped into hers before I even got out of her room, saying she needed to “catch up”. As for the other two, they’re both in Lily’s room since they need to be connected for the parental system.
“Alright, there we go.” I finished making all the connections and turned on the pod. “Alright Lily, I need you to lay here for a bit while I get into mine, then we’ll be able to play the game. Alright?”
“Yeah. I can do that.” She began scrambling up into the pod. It’s a bit tall, so I had to help her into it. I reminded her to be patient, then closed the pod and got into my own.
Soon, I found myself and Lily standing in a black area. While the surroundings were all black, I could still see myself, Lily, and a woman standing a short distance from us very clearly.
“Greetings, and welcome Sundered World Online. My name is Kara, and I am tasked with guiding you through character creation, amongst a number of other duties. Shall we begin?”
The woman smiled and greeted us.
“Sure, what do we need to do?”
“To begin with, you have two options. First, you may choose from among the common races of the world and create your character as you see fit. The other option is to accept a randomized character. This has the possibility of unlocking a rare race, however this race will not be any more powerful than the common races. If it does have particularly strong abilities, it will have equally strong drawbacks. Also, if you choose to randomize and are unhappy with the results, you will not be eligible to receive a rare race again for at least 90 days. This means you will have to play with either a common race or the result of your first randomization for approximately three months in real time before you can possibly get another rare race. Any questions so far?”
Lily tugged at my arm. “What does that mean?”
“It means we need to pick what we want to be. In this game you can be all kinds of different things, so we need to choose one.”
“Oh! I want to be a fairy like Tinkerbell!”
“I’m not sure if we can do that, but we can ask. Kara, can she be a fairy?”
“I’m afraid fairies are not one of the selectable races. There is a very small chance of obtaining that race if you choose to randomise your character, but the odds are very high against it.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Lily looked at me, clearly not understanding. I was considering how I was going to tell her she couldn’t be a fairy when Kara continued.
“However, the character Tinkerbell that she mentioned would not be considered a fairy in SWO. While similar, fairies are about the size she is now. That character would actually be a pixie, which is available if she would like.”
Lily was now very confused.
“She says that in this game, Tinkerbell is a pixie, not a fairy. You can be a pixie too if you want to.”
“Yeah, I want to be a pixie too!”
Kara smiled and looked at me. “Alright, pixies live deep in the forest, so you will be limited to the forest dwelling races. Here are the options available.”
As she spoke, a number of figures appeared. These were all the races that I could choose from. Among them were a few types of elves, some beastman types, and some that looked like they would be more likely to be enemies, rather than playable races.
Looking them over, I finally decided to play as a Wood Elf. Back when I played more, I would often play as an archer, and in most games Wood Elves were very good with a bow. I will probably be doing all of the fighting for both of us this time around, so I might need to switch to a melee weapon. Maybe a sword and shield.
After that, we configured the appearance of our characters. Keeping with her goal of being like Tinkerbell, Lily gave her character short blond hair that was tied in a bun on the top. To match, I gave myself blond hair as well, parting it over one eye. Once we were ready, I asked Kara what was next.
“Next, you need to chose a name. This is permanent, however you can get titles and nicknames due to your actions.”
“I wanna be called Tink!”
Lily was clearly going all in with her Tinkerbell character. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a name ready like she did. I wanted something simple for Lily to remember, and also something that somewhat fit the character. Looking at the avatar, I thought about it a bit before deciding.
“Alright, I’ll go with Ravi. So Lily, remember to call me that while we play, and I’ll be calling you Tink, okay?”
“Alright!” She said excitedly. She was almost certainly going to forget.
With a sudden flash of light, both of us became the characters we had designed.
“Before you go, you might want to take some time to get used to your new body. You can also test your skills so you understand how they work before entering the world of Ariloth.”
That’s a good point. While I’m mostly the same, just considerably younger and smaller, Lily was much smaller, and was going to have to learn to fly.
“Lily, are you alright?”
“Yeah! I’m a fairy now!”
“Well, actually you’re a pixie. Fairies are bigger apparently. Why don’t you try flying before we get started. It will be easier if you can do that.”
It took us a while, but eventually Lily got used to flying around. The parental tether limited her to being near me, but with her size that gave her plenty of room to fly around already. As she gets older I could relax the limits and let her go further, but for now this was good. We also took some time to understand the things our characters could do. Finally, we were ready.
“Alright Kara,” I said, turning to the assistant who had been standing quietly to the side. “I think we’re ready to go.”
“Very well. I will now send you into the world. I wish you the best of luck in your adventures.”
With a flash of light, we found ourselves standing in a small clearing in the forest. On the ground beside me was a simple short dagger, which I picked up. There didn’t seem to be any enemies, so I suppose we were safe for now.
As soon as I told her it was safe, Lily began to fly around the clearing excitedly looking at anything and everything. While I followed after her.
Occasionally, she would hover over something she found interesting and call out to me. “Hey! Look! Look!”
“Alright, calm down a bit, I’m coming.” I walked over to her latest discovery, slightly bothered that her behavior seemed so familiar somehow...