(John POV)

Darkness. Familiar darkness: the dive engulfs me as Jade actuates the pod. I rest for a moment, giddy with anticipation, before light seeps back into the world behind me, growing in intensity until my shadow stretches my form to giant proportions.

I can finally gather my bearings when Jade announces an automated message.

"Initiating data transfer.

Data transfer complete, the AI construct known as Jade now has access to the database of Throughout the Ages.

Available content includes: the Age of Stone."

"Everything alright? I know that the uplinking process always gets on your nerves."

I ask kindly.

clearly disturbed Jade responds back.

"I’m fine. It makes my skin itch, that’s all."

"Jade, you don’t have skin. I know you’re just exercising your idiomatic subroutines to give me a metaphor, but it’s still weird when you use one that refers to your non-existent body."

I respond half jokingly.

"I’m sure you’ll manage, John. Anyway, take a look at the sun. It's... beautiful."

She sounds truly unimpressed by my attempt at distracting her, so instead I decided to follow her advice.

Dives can give you all kind of strange experiences, but I’ve always found the overlaying of multiple realities to be one of the oddest. In one sense, my mind is telling me that I’m standing on a flat surface, across which my shadow streams. At the same time, my eyes and my inner ear are telling me I’m floating in space, impossibly magnified from my normal size. Before me, a star hangs in the void, a giant blue ball of superheated gas. It’s still far larger than I, but only four or five times my height, and I reckon I could reach it in a couple of minutes.

It’s all very odd. But, as Jade says, it is beautiful.

Sounding fair bit more impressed then I intended I echo her opinion.

"As start screens go, this one is… unusual, certainly. Ah… What am I supposed to do? What’s with the star?"

She quickly responds with joyful delight.

"According to the startup documentation, the star is ‘Garant’. It doesn’t give us much other information about the system. Our main focus should be on the planet ‘Lorinas’, which should be… on the opposite side of the star. Hold on, I’ll teleport you."

With a sudden jolt, I’m somewhere else. And there, orbiting serenely around Garant, is a small blue-green planet.

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I lean in and take a closer look. The first thing I notice is that the vast majority of the surface is covered in dense fog, an impenetrable cloud layer that is clearly artificial. A moment’s inspection reveals a single visible continent, with a few smaller island chains along the coast. It’s hard to tell at this scale, but the continent seems to have a fairly specific range of environments and climates, suggesting it’s been carefully designed for gameplay purposes.

Impressed once more I start to question Jade.

"I’ve got to admit, this is pretty cool. I’m guessing the rest of the surface will be revealed in later updates?"

"Exactly!

She exclaims loudly before giving a short explaination regarding the planet.

The only landmass currently available is Jurno. The documentation says it’s situated in the southern hemisphere of the planet, with a mix of Earth-like biomes including savanna, temperate forest, mountain scrub, and coastal marshes, all of which are designed for easy development of agriculture. On the north side of the continent the climate gets a little warmer - it describes it as ‘mediterranean’ - and only the southern island chains are going to have problems with heavy snowfall in winter."

Most of the other info’s not very helpful, essentially saying that there’s a decent mix of mineral resources throughout. It mentions that there’s slightly larger deposits on the mountain range which spans the continent diagonally. It might be worth taking territory within striking distance.

I start muttering to myself, expecting Jade to be able to follow my thinking progress.

"I guess that’s kind of helpful, although it’s rather long-term as plans go. It won’t be relevant for ages. Anything else I should know?"

She answers quickly not even leaving a single moment of silence.

"No, not especially. Mostly it just says that they intend to add more continents and island chains with later patches, which will have different flora, fauna, resources, and so on. Some might even become new starting areas."

Carefully considering those options I continue my introspective mumbling.

"Hmm. So, coastal access could be worth something. If this is the starting area, what’re the restrictions?"

"You can't spawn within vision of another player or their people. That’s pretty much it. If you look closely, there’s a few areas that are marked off for that reason. That red patch, there, for example."

Jade helpfully points to a small cluster of red dots on the northern coast.

I let a long exhalation whistle out between my teeth, and take study my options.

"Not too many of them, though - I think we’re ahead of the competition. Best get started."

To my right, green light splits the fabric of reality, and a moment later Jade's online persona has manifested. She wears ankle-long flared trousers and a T-shirt that doesn't quite reach her stomach, both in the jade green that colours her entire appearance. Her feet are bare, and her hair falls to her shoulders in straight locks.

Mostly what I notice, however, is that her arms are crossed and she is giving me the ‘haven’t you forgotten something’ look.

I wish she didn’t look like a 17 year old whilst acting like she's my mother.