Hello, World!

Prologue: The final countdown

Time it seemed had slowed down. And not in the fun way, not in the Unfolding World Online way. UWO had a time dilation system, time would actually slow down artificially. Ok, so time is not really affected of course, but our perception of time is, which is as good as the real thing. There were whole research papers on the effects of time dilation on the human brain and body, they were publicly available. I had even once given it a shot, to try and learn more about it, but the dryness of the content had me quickly giving up on it. Everyone in the end agreed it was safe for use when the proper safeguards were in place, and that was what mattered for me.

I was one of the lucky few that played the Beta of UWO. I had been following the game for ages now (or at least that’s what it felt like), and participating in the forums like a madman... girl... madgirl. Meh, some things just don’t translate well, and yet I can’t help but try. Anyway, my participation on the forums got me recognition and I suspect they knew my name when my Beta application came in. But whether through my participation or sheer dumb luck really didn’t matter; I had my Beta key either way.

In Beta full immersion had still been on FDA lockdown. The key agreement and acceptance was in, but the last safeguards and contingency plans needed to be implemented. It had been tested internally, and it was to be the big surprise for going live. But even without full sensory perception, without tasting and feeling stuff, it had been so… so right.

Right in a way the real world wasn’t. Sure medical- and surgical-wise we had come pretty far. What they had done was good enough. Well, that’s what I kept telling myself. It was the nearest to the real thing that science could get me right now. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t... It was not the real thing. It was not complete. Maybe science one day could give me the peace of mind by correcting my body 100%, but for now I’d have to make do with a close approximation.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am a girl. I know this in my core, in my center, in every fiber of my being. Yes, even in my body. Some of you might call me lucky. I’m not burly, not overly hairy (and what hair remains on my face was being taken care of). I passed most of the time. It had been months since last someone clocked me. But every time I look in a mirror I can’t help but see the traces of him. Every month I am reminded that though I might mostly look the part, my body isn’t.

It’s good enough... So they say. And in a sense, it is. I can survive like this. As long as people accept me for who I am. As long as I can express who I am inside, I can survive. Lots of girls have their womb removed, or have dysfunctional ones. It doesn’t make them less a woman. It doesn’t make me less a woman... Or so I keep telling myself. It’s good enough and yet it isn’t. There’s always this voice in the back of my mind, telling me it isn’t enough, that this isn’t how it is supposed to be. In the real world at least.

The moment I entered virtual reality that voice was quiet. Well, let me correct that, the moment I entered Unfolding World Online it quieted. I’ve tried VR before. It was intriguing, promising, it had so much potential. And yet it failed to deliver the full potential. Don’t get me wrong here, it was indeed awesome to “be” in those other realities. You could move about (if you had the space) and interact through controllers in your hands that were accurately tracked. But so much was missing still.

I’d been following the development of VR closely for years. It started out as basically a gimmick with the limitations I just mentioned. But slowly things progressed from there. First the resolution went up. Then gloves came to track finger movement and add touch. After that inside out tracking had taken off and cameras were able to follow the bodies movements but this came at the loss of the sense of touch, as there were no gloves to offer resistance anymore.

Huge frames were built in which you basically hung your body to offer complete movement, but still it wasn’t quite there yet. Touch was still an iffy thing for which one need wear a full body suit to imitate pressure. The headsets had thankfully grown lighter as well, making prolonged time “inside” more comfortable. It was an awesome experience, it was so much more than traditional PC or console gaming was, but it still felt so… lacking. VR was so much already, but the potential was just so much…. More!

Then came this company called Origami Inc. For years they had been on an alternative track of VR, and most people thought little of them. They had a Halo system, a clunky band of technology that was placed like a crown upon your head. Sure, it had fantastic visuals, there were no pixels to be spotted. But there was no tracking, no feedback, none of the really interesting stuff.

Until there was. It turned out the FDA had been keeping this under close control because of the direct interaction with the human brain. The amount of hoops to jump through to get the full interaction was told to be immense, but it also helped to make the system fool proof. Backup plans for the backup plans were worked out, safety measures implemented, all while the technology improved and the clunky band became a sleek silver halo.

Origami Inc. saw itself as the next big thing. To prevent fracturing of the VR community they started licensing out their technology even while the FDA process was still finalizing approval for full immersion. Everyone was now free to use all the features of the new headset. There was a big but in that though. The software needed to go through FDA approval process as well, and although that was a relatively easy process when using only one sense, or even two senses, the more you added the more strict the FDA became.

The designers of course led the way with a slew of companies ready to utilise the product. Direct information transfer through implanted memories offered instant training. Rehabilitation therapy using immersive simulations improved the success rate tremendously. Crime investigation through directly experiencing the memories of the witnesses took on a whole new dimension.

And then of course there was gaming. While other companies all settled for a quick win by only implementing a couple of senses, Origami Inc. went instead for full immersion and the biggest scope for a game ever. This did of course mean long delays as the FDA once again strictly controlled the entire process with safety procedures wrapped in backup plans wrapped in emergency protocols.

But full immersion was what the entire gaming world had been demanding for years now, and it showed in the interest, the hype that the game had been building up to. Beta had some limitation while the last ordained safeguards were being implemented. But Unfolding World Online was promised to be the holy grail of gaming, and unlike many such games the Beta only increased the hype around the game even without the full immersion being enabled.

I’ll be honest here, playing UWO, although the game is absolutely awesome, was never primarily about the game for me. It was another way to be me. As it turned out, a more fulfilling way. My character was based on my family and my own features. I didn’t want to be someone else. I wanted to be me. The me I was supposed to have been from the start. So my character looked a lot like RL me. A lot, but not quite. There were subtle details that changed things, but oh were those details important.

Beta had been a blast to play. Instead of following quests I mostly just explored. I lived. Even with the integral immersion system being disabled for beta, it just felt right. It felt real. I interacted with the NPC’s as if they were real people. I made friends amongst both the player characters and the non players. And even when not questing I was still leveling at a steady rate. I found hidden temples riddled with traps, stumbled into enemy camps and had to fight my way out. I helped lost children, hurt animals and down on their luck monsters. Everything I did felt worthwhile.

30 minutes. Thirty long minutes. And then I’d recreate my character. They say our first character gets some achievements from whatever we did best (or worst) in beta. I wondered what I’d get from it. I explored more of the world than most. Maybe not in actual acreage covered, but in exploring the nooks and crannies. I found my fair share of treasure that way. But I also encountered a lot of bugs that way.

The most notable thing I encountered was when I entered an unexpected solution for a puzzle. It had been a long day and I was exploring a temple that was hidden behind a waterfall about halfway up. In any other game this would’ve been a fake front, adding some flavor to the world. The rocks had smoothed out from the water offering no hand or footholds and there was no hold that a grappling hook could catch on to either.

But in this game there were no limitations to stop you from going beyond it. Catapulting yourself to the entrance using rope, a young tree and a knife. Building a ladder from branches to climb up, using a freeze spell and a pickaxe to climb the water itself. Countless possibilities crossed my mind the moment I had spotted the temple. Most of them useless but not all.

The catapulting idea, although fun in theory, just seemed like a recipe for disaster. Trees by nature being rather uneven I had no assurance that I would actually enter at the right spot. And whether I got the right spot or not, there was still the issue of the rather sudden stop. Not looking forward to that I quickly dismissed it, and all the other ideas in a similar fashion.

After going rather crazy with my ideas I was growing a bit frustrated when suddenly it came to me and I facepalmed. I went to the top of the waterfall, attached a rope to trees on either side of the river, making sure it was nice and tight. Then I looped another rope around the one spanning the river. I quickly quaffed a water-breathing potion and waded to halfway across the river, tightly secured to the rope.

Thus prepared I scaled down the waterwall. It was possible, and I did make it to the entrance, though a few times it had seemed like I would not . Tons of water coming down on your head offered a lot more force than I had accounted for. A couple of times I lost my grip on the rope, and if I hadn’t been secured the way I was I would’ve ended up at the bottom of the waterfall in questionable condition. Then came the issue of actually getting on the platform. But through a lot of swinging and timely releasing of the rope I did finally manage, just a minute or so before my water breathing potion would have run out.

Thoroughly drained I fetched a towel from my inventory. That was another thing about this game. Due to the realism of the game, you had to bring a whole set of items along with you that other games never bothered with,like soap, a toothbrush and a towel. Besides, if Douglas Adams taught me one thing, it was to always know where my towel was.

When I was dry enough to function normally again I took a good look around. Two rows of big white marble pillars led inward to a large archway. Intricate patterns adorned the walls and the fading color on them was the only proof left of what must at one point have been brightly colored murals. Carefully stepping through the archway I entered a large hall. The same kind of murals were here, slightly better preserved. Presumably because the air was less damp here.

The focal point of the room was a small altar on a platform against the back wall. Benches were placed in a half circle around it, with a couple of pathways leading towards the altar. Probably 200 people could be comfortably seated on them. This made me suspect that in the olden days there was probably a better way to enter then the path I took. Presumably it was less wet as well.

I scanned the room for more. It seemed rather empty for such a lovely temple. There were no doors, no chests or closets, nothing. Even the altar was nothing but a solid block of marble. As a proper rogue I methodically started to search and inspect the room. I tapped the walls listening for hollow spaces, inspected the ceilings for air holes, and the benches and altar for buttons, triggers, levers or other moveable items.

Nothing worked, nothing seemed to be there at all, until i noticed some very faint scratches on the platform that the altar stood on. The altar itself had been moved before. Well, that was easy then, all I needed to do was to move the altar sideways. I put my entire weight behind it and… nothing. Not an inch. In hindsight I should’ve expected this. Imagine a cube of pure marble with a slab on top of it giving it a somewhat table-like look. Neither my real self nor my virtual self would ever be strong enough to move that.

At least not by myself. Time to get creative again. I took a good look at what I had to work with. The slab had an indentation at the bottom of about 3 inch or 10 cm high and half that much deep. Maybe if i could make something of a lever? I went to check out what the benches were made off. To my surprise the benches came apart rather easily, and i could use the wooden boards that were used for seating for a lever. Another two boards and I had a tipping point as well.

I set up the lever, put my full weight on the outer end and barely managed to lift the thing at all. But it was enough. When it lifted the tiniest bit i shoved the lever sideways, and it moved the altar an inch. It took a long time, alternating the altar’s sides so it wouldn't just rotate. About half an hour in I knew my work was not in vain as I noticed a trapdoor, but it took me another 2 hours to finally clear the thing entirely. Then I was able to drop down into the puzzle room.

The puzzle was a set of runestones and each rune represented a concept of sorts. By putting them in the proper order the way forward would open up. But as I was working the puzzle I was attacked. The encounter itself was not very inspiring although I did wonder how the creature came in, it was a weak goblin using bow and arrow. A quick dodge and a roll later I was within arms reach. The bow was then useless and the goblin had no time to switch weapons before I finished it off with one of my daggers.

Turning back to the puzzle though, I saw that one of the puzzle pieces was cracked through the center where the arrow that missed me found its end. When I picked it up very carefully to see if it could still be used, the thing broke in two. This could have been the end of the puzzle if the mechanism wouldn’t accept a repaired piece, but before I got that far I noticed something interesting. The rune that had broken split up the concept that was before whole. Each individual half still held meaning. And opened up new possibilities.

They said that the Unfolding Artificial Intelligence of this game was really strong. It was time to test it. Rearranging the rune stones I put them in place. No longer would the answer read that intelligence was the way to open the door. The new message was that to open the door was the way to intelligence. If this worked I would probably get a stat boost to my int score, or maybe some bonus experience.

What happened next is not quite clear. I remember stepping through the door. I remember the sensation of moving at great speed across great distances. I remember the darkness, the sensations of shapes moving around me in random size, speed and direction. I distinctly remember words being said. The words had meaning. But though that meaning was clear at the time, they elude me now. Something had happened, and when I emerged from the darkness I was sitting on a bench in the park of the starting area.

I immediately did the responsible thing. I wrote a bug report. But the feedback startled me. There was no such puzzle. There was no doorway, nor did the code or the logs report me anywhere else than moving about the starting area. The developers agreed that it was very odd. I had gained a bit of a reputation as a bug hunter, so it didn’t take much discussion for them to take me seriously despite the lack of proof, but as there was no record there was little they could do. After trying without result to reproduce the conditions that led to the event, the ticket was closed.

5 minutes until launch. I was about to grab a last drink before entering VR, when my rig whirred to life. Odd, it wasn’t time yet was it? I double checked my pc, but it really showed 5 minutes before launch. Wasting no further time I pulled the silver band over my head, letting it rest just above my ears, and laid down. The real world faded out and any musing about minute mismatches mysteriously moved from my mind

I stared for a second at the login screen. I had already started the launcher before, accepted the eula and all that boring stuff so it would not cut into my prime VR time. My credentials also pre-entered, all I had to do was reach out and tap “login”.

“Welcome back Jessica“ The words resounded in my head as I resided for a moment in nothingness, and then I was thrown into character creation. There were two choices I needed to make before I got my body. I spoke quickly, not even looking at the options, “Human, Female.” And in faded the world. I was standing in what looked like a castle bedroom, in front of a big mirror. Here I got to change any part about my body simply by interacting with the mirror.

I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted me, but a slightly idealised me. 5’7”, an inch smaller than I actually am. Noticeable hips and breasts, but not too much. A very subtle curve that was sadly missing from real life, that just felt right. Long black hair, straight and thick. Ok, so my real life hair was a bit thinner, much to my frustration at times. A little bit more of a tan than I actually had. I would’ve had this tan had I actually spent a lot of time outside like my character did, but instead real life me was sitting behind her computer most of the time.

I zipped on through the rest of the options. Green eyes, not slanted, slightly wide, a tiny bit further apart. Lips a bit thinner, not as pouty, a bit darker in color. Smaller nose, tip pointing up slightly, nose bridge a little less defined. Cheeks a bit fuller, a bit higher, jawline a bit rounder (here I deviated slightly from reality again), ears a bit flatter against the head, a bit less of a lobe and just the tiniest bit pointier.

Neck a bit thinner, a bit longer. Shoulder a bit less defined, arms thinner, more wiry, and a bit longer. Long fingers, with nails long enough to be fashionable, short enough to not get in the way all the time. I did not even want to consider getting a broken nail in full immersion.

Torso, breasts go down a size. I don’t know what everyone’s fetish with big breasts is, but it's not mine. Enough to be clearly there, to give me a figure, but not enough to have cleavage without a bunch of help. Waist a bit wider, hips a bit slimmer. The fantasy hourglass figure was default which again, was not my fantasy.

Pretty soon I was ready and a cute athletic girl was staring back at me from the mirror. I did a double take to admire my work, but after finding no more flaws I tapped the mirror and entered my name, “Jazz”. I turned away from the mirror and took a look at the room. A small table had appeared behind me upon which lay the character contract. I skimmed over the text on it quickly, it seemed to be much like the Beta except for one clause they added.

“Upon signing this agreement you signify that you understand that your rewards from Beta will be transferred to this character. This transfer is a onetime occurrence. Any subsequent alts you may play will not benefit from these rewards.”

I had no intention of playing any alts, this was to be my alter ego. Actually, now that I thought about it, calling it an alter ego was not quite right either. This felt so real, so comfortable. I felt so at home in this body that calling it an alter ego would be an injustice. A super ego sounded more like it. With a flourish I used a nearby quill to put down my name, making the agreement binding.

A circle of light lit up from the floor, arcane patterns twisting in and out of existence. This was it, my door into the actual game world. Taking a deep breath in anticipation I stepped into the portal, and disappeared into the Unfolding World.

To be continued