I was flat on my back, and all around me the world was stark white. The sky, the ground—all of it. At first I thought I’d gone blind until everything began to change. Dust in a gust of wind blew over me and scattered across the flat white floor. Above me the sky was suddenly there, bam, a dark blue stretch of vast expanse full of celestial bodies, including an unrecognizable planet with rings. The sun was on the horizon, dawn approaching.

Texture populated the ground an instant before it filled with color. Leaves and shrubs appeared in silence, already animated by the gentle breeze. Then came the trees. As thick as homes they rippled into existence. Their canopies blocked my view of the sky, unveiling their branches and trunks until they filled their designated spaces in the soil. Giant roots rose from the ground creating arches and deep cavities in the dirt floor.

A wave of moss, flowers, and other textures swept across the scene, adding flavor to the whole ordeal. To top it off, a handful of sharp boulders jutted from the ground here and there at angles in between trunks.

And there I was, in the middle of it all.

I sat up and noticed I was still wearing my skin tight jumpsuit. Very alien for a place like this. I looked even skinnier than I really was. That was probably a glitch. I’m sure I had way more muscle than this. Didn’t I? At least I was still me and not some weird looking elf with pink skin or something.

When I stood I could feel the soil squish beneath my bare feet. That was some incredible attention to detail. I’d played in immersive fantasy worlds before but this one definitely took the cake for aesthetics and realism.

A written message appeared in my line of sight.

WELCOME TO LYNN ELLA WORLD

Hi there! I am the Lynn Ella System Artificial Intelligence, or LES for short. Not only will I be monitoring your actions while inside, helping you along your journey, but I am also responsible for maintaining your body’s organic functions outside the simulation. So, a word of advice: try not to piss me off. Just be a good little adventurer and enjoy your time with us for as long as you can. #smiles.

Well, that was unusual. It appeared our resident A.I. had a bit of a snarky personality.

An interface appeared in front of me. It was transparent enough to keep an eye on what was happening in front of me but opaque enough to interact with it. Most immersive games had some sort of interface like this so it wasn’t a shocker to see it pop up. What did shock me was the lack of keyboard or some way to toggle through the different tabs.

After a minute of playing around with it, running my hands through and trying to speak to it like an idiot, I discovered I could control the interface simply with my thoughts. I’d never been so deeply integrated into a simulation before to allow for this level of interaction. That was both terrifying and awesome. If I wanted to make the interface do something, all I had to do was will it so. It was still going to take some getting used to though.

There were six tabs at the top of the interface:

Notifications Profession Objectives Abilities Chat: Notes:

There were two remarks from LES under notifications:

General insight

Based on a number of arbitrary factors, I give you a 16% chance of surviving your full 25 years with us. 18% if you beef up and meet someone more talented than you. Hey, that’s better than the last guy.

Congratulations

You get a weapon. That’s right, we’re just giving you one. Aren’t we nice? You didn’t even have to do anything to earn it other than show up for the party. Don’t think you’re too special, though. We give everyone a weapon on their first day. Think of it as a welcoming gift. Now go kill something with it.

Accept gift: Yes or no.

I mentally selected yes.

A simple, holographic dagger appeared floating in the air to the right of my interface. It spun slowly, blade pointing to the sky. I grabbed the hilt and it materialized in my hand.

“Nice,” I said, tossing it from hand to hand. I didn’t have a place to put it so I just kept switching it back and forth as I continued exploring my interface.

Under Professions, there was a note.

You have not chosen a profession yet. Please choose from the following selection.

A list of professions to choose from followed, including: Archer, Healer, Mystic Bard, Journeyman, Engineer, and about three-hundred others. I could mentally click on each to learn more and at the end of each description it asked if I wanted to enter this field of study.

I decided to come back after I played around a little more. I was going to want to go through each before deciding, and that would take some time. I had a feeling my profession would play an integral part in this whole new phase of my life and I didn’t want to pick something I’d regret.

The Objectives tab had one objective in it.

Objectives

Current: Don’t die.

Completed: Well, you haven’t died yet. Good job. Keep not dying and you’ll do just fine.

The Abilities tab was blank but I assumed it would populate once I chose a profession. The Chat and Notes tabs were blank as well. I mentally dictated a sentence into my Notes tab:

LES is awesome.

I immediately received a notification in my Notifications tab. It alerted me with a beep and a soft, visceral buzz that actually vibrated my skull. It left me with a lingering tickl-y feeling in my teeth. Also, a helpful exclamation mark popped up over the Notifications tab. I opened it up.

Notification

LES: Nobody likes a kiss-ass, Jack 889.

I snorted a laugh. It would seem if I ever wanted to keep a secret from this A.I. I’d have to get pretty crafty. Also, what was with the 889? Did that mean I was the eight-hundred-eighty-ninth Jack in the game? If so, that was kind of lame. There’s not a better way to remind someone they’re a prisoner than by adding some numbers to their name. Or maybe that was the point. Why not let me make up a cool fantasy name of my own like Trogador or The B.A.M.F. though?

There were no new tabs to explore after that, so I went back to the list of professions and perused through the ones that piqued my interest.

Swordsmen

Description:

Well, I think this one is pretty obvious. Anyone who chooses this profession typically has an affinity for swinging and slicing things. This doesn’t mean you instantly become an expert if you pick this profession. This isn’t that type of game. You’ve got to earn your skills just like in the real world. You can, however, set any blade to ‘guide mode’ allowing the sword to semi-dictate your movements until those movements become muscle memory. You’ll also get a membership to the Swordsmen Academy where you can fine tune your skills with NPC masters and other swordsmen. Also, swords infused with offensive/defense magic cannot be touched by anyone who is not a swordsmen.

Do you want to enter this field of study? Yes or no?

When I selected no it took me back to the list of professions. I selected Trapper next.

Trapper

Description:

Do you like setting traps and watching unexpecting victims saunter right into them? Want to learn how to take normal everyday items and make them snap, crackle, and pop bones and flesh all in the name of completing your objectives? Well, then this is the profession for you, you morbid bastard. This profession also comes with a membership to The Trappers Guild, where only trappers can buy, trade, and learn all the secrets the Trapper profession has to offer. Traps built by anyone who is not a trapper will have a 90% chance of malfunctioning and …

I skipped the rest of the description and selected no. The next two on the list that grabbed my attention were: Offensive Magician and Defense Magician. Both played off each other. The Offensive Magician could conjure elemental forces and use them as projectiles or other kinds of weapons, while the Defensive Magician could do the same but instead of weapons it was shields and barriers.

Would make a good duo, I thought, as I put the Offensive Magician title in my notes, the first on my short list. Anything with magic in it felt bad-ass and had my interest, that was for sure.

I almost skipped over the next one, but I clicked on it only because I thought it was a typo.

Spacialist

Description:

No, that’s not a typo. I don’t make typos. It’s not ‘specialist,’ it’s supposed to say spacial + ist. What does a Spacialist do? They open up spaces, or pocket dimensions (PD), hidden to everyone else but you. Spacialists are the only type of adventurers who can store items without having to carry them. You might be thinking, whoopdedoo, but let me tell you, this profession offers some seriously cool abilities once you start leveling up. Here’s a teaser: how does teleportation through multiple pocket dimensions sou—

Something leapt out of a bush to my left and crashed into me, slamming me to the ground so hard I heard my head ring.