Prologue
Vulcan Technology was the worlds foremost developer of Full Immersion VR. With the help of one Robert Penelope they were skyrocketed to the front of the industry where before they had been a small company making educational games, but now the most anticipated game of the year was here.
The Path Online was a mmo where anything could happen and when I say anything I mean anything. The game could recognize your intentions and if you practiced hard enough or made a clear enough image you would get a skill for it. The beta testers raves about how they became the epitome of the character they wanted to be and character customization was always my favorite part of video games.
Suddenly over the loud speaker I heard “Eric Cullen to room 204. I repeat Eric Cullen to room 204. Thank you.”
It was time for me to begin.
Chapter 1
“You’ll be fully immersed for up to one year depending on whether or not you want to. There is a lounge called Overlord Cafe where you can make calls to the real world and chat to other players out of character. Alright that’s my little spiel done and I hope your ready to forge your own path!” The technician told me with enthusiasm that let me know he was forced to say that line.
“Ready as I’ll ever be I suppose. Put me in,” I said while climbing into the pod and waiting for the technician to set up the pod.
It took about five minutes before he flashed me a thumbs up through the glass in my pod, and suddenly I was off.
As I opened my eyes I saw two options.
**Would you like to choose from a premade character or create a unique one?**
I wonder who in their right minds would play as a premade character in a game where your skills were the most important thing?
Of course I chose to create a unique one and as I did the screen swiped to the right as a saw a perfect simulacrum of my body.
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I was average height with a little bit of chub on me. My hair was pure black while my dull grey eyes stared back at me. Hopeful they’ll be a bit more full of life when he starts the game. His face was a bit ... weasely, no that wasn’t the word... Vole-y that’s what he was. A rat weasel man.
He started to customize his character. He kept his height because when you adjust that it can cause some problems with perception. He shaved off his fat so that he was just skinny, and he didn’t add any muscle. Finally for the big change he shifted his eyes from the overworked dull grey to a stormy grey that actually moved around like thunder clouds waiting to strike.
Perfection. He had no clue as to what type of character he would be but this body seemed fine for everything except strong warrior builds.
He hit the confirm when another screen came up.
**You may choose or create one skill to start the game off with. Which will you choose?**
Again who in their right minds would not want to be unique? Of course he went with being able to create his own skill.
**What do you want your skill to do? (This skill will be your main skill)**
So it would be the basis for his character. That made his choice much much harder.
He supposed he had one idea that would let him be a mage-crafter hybrid, but it would also take a lot of time to get up to snuff. Well might as well go for it after all ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’
“I want a skill that lets me carve runes into items that can give them characteristics based on what tunes I put on them. Oh and also I want to be able to collect new and find interesting runes around the world. Is that okay?”
**Skill accepted: Rune Smithing | The use of runes to create both unique and uniform items. Starts off slow but grows powerful in time.**
**High synergy detected.... supplementary skill added: Runic Knowledge | Gives basic runes in the beginning. Allows user to collect runes from other artifacts and gain them as boons.**
“I wonder what a boon is?” He pondered our loud and much to his surprise there was a answer.
**Boons: Given every ten levels or during a new skill specialization. May give items unique to your skills, skill books with high synergy, and one time use bonuses. **
That was...surprisingly useful. First of all this meant that he could get runes that let him do what he wanted, but also that there were specializations.
He supposed that this was all he could ask for at the moment and moved onto the final step.
**Choose your starting location.**
A map appeared in front of him with points on any number of cities, but the main differences were the regions.
When he was preparing to play and looking stuff up there was all the info he needed on regions. Each one allowed for different bonuses while also slightly modifying your character.
The two he had narrowed it down to while browsing the wiki had been joined by a third option. The first was the Desert Consulate. They made your skin darker while giving your character a more toned look. Apparently they had some good dungeons and a big quest chain about a sand dragon.
The second option was the Seafarers Association. It allowed for great trading opportunities and then the ability to travel almost anywhere in the world. Even if he didn’t start here he would probably eventually end up here.
The third option was the Ruin Recoverers. They traveled into the wilderness to explore ruins left by long lost civilizations to gain treasure and establish new towns. The reason he added this one was because he was fairly certain that these were the best places to find runes.
Then it struck him like a bag of bricks. Of course he should go for the Seafarers Association. He could create items to sell to either travel to ruins or just straight up bye runes from people.
He chose the seaport town of Amelia as his starting destination before finally beginning.