POV - [Nigel]

The world spun back up into focus. I was in the middle of a small grassy clearing. Towering trees, way larger than any of the giant redwoods I had seen in the history channels, ringed the glade, thickening into an impenetrable forest. A soft breeze tickled my neck as I turned in place. This was surely a stereotypical beginner’s paradise. Butterflies fluttered by, flitting from here to there and bees busily gathered pollen from the abundant wildflowers. The occasional bird swooped in from the trees chasing some vaguely defined insect. Looking up for the sun I was surprised that there was none. In fact it clearly looked like the lovely backlit sky blue dome was curving down into the depths of the forest.

“Hullo…” Weird, no notification message… I sort of expected another blue box to appear. Hey, I thought to myself, remembering the trope where the system messages obscured vision distracting the main character at a crucial time. I needed them to be transparent and minimised. In fact minimised messages and audio alerts might be better. I heard a faint ding. “Hello…” I called again.

Nope - I was alone. I looked down at myself. I was still kitted out in my hospital gown, complete with the IV drip and fancy sedation kit strapped to my upper arm. My backside was dangerously exposed with just a simple tie holding the top of my thigh length gown together at the back. No wonder I felt insecure despite the manufactured peace that pervaded the clearing. Why couldn’t the System have kitted me out in starter gear? This was ridiculous. And now the jolly breeze was busy trying to flip my gown up.

“Haha! I bet you think this is pretty funny don’t you?” I was exasperated. Transported into an advanced fantasy setting and left kicking my bare heels under my bare buttocks.

“Hello System…”

“Open Status…”

“Menu…”

“Help…”

“Character sheet…”

For the next ten minutes I tried various commands and combinations, racking my brain and dredging up as much as I could from my somewhat limited experience of MMORPG gaming trying to get some response but to no avail. Okay, this was getting nowhere. What next? No food, no shelter. Try the trees? Maybe there’s a path that I’m supposed to find.

Just as I was about to set out on the first step of my intrepid journey a bright white nebulous orb blinked into existence about a hand span in front of my left eyeball.

“ARRRRGGGGHHHH!” I threw myself back in shock and promptly lost my balance heading exposed butt over guts in an impossibly graceless backflip, coming to rest on my tummy with my gown over my head.

The greeting tapered off. I pulled the gown down and tried to gather my scattered wits and reclaim my nonexistent modesty.

The glowy orb spun distractly with wispy tendrils randomly extending and retracting. . The wisp paused. This had the feeling of a script, not yet fully rehearsed and owned. Of course I had certainly made a great first impression which, no doubt, threw the poor blob off its stride.

“Yes I am” I responded as I shakily got to my feet, discreetly checking mini me was adequately concealed. Patting myself down, I brushed against the sedation kit that was still attached to my upper left arm. Ouch! I felt a sharp prick. I must have pressed something and triggered the injection. Heh, my nurse would have called that a sharp scratch, not wanting to use an even slightly naughty word. Weird, it was still there considering the complete rejuvenation I had received.

The clearing blurred, and an impression of great speed whizzed me into the heavens. I know, not the greatest descriptor, but even now I could feel the sedation taking effect. Count backwards to zero from… some number… they normally said. And normally the countdown is before take-off - not during it. I was well on the way to dreamland. No Nigel, snap out of it. This is important. Character creation is often one of the best parts. All that potential, all those choices. Already I could feel my nose begin to itch as the familiar drowsiness overwhelmed me. WAKE UP NIGEL! The combinations open for exploitation, working the angle, maxing the strengths and mitigating the weaknesses. I needed to beeee…

……tthhheerrreee…

POV - [WISP]

Late again. And this was the third time in a row. This was a very worrying trend. Were all of the umans so difficult and demanding? Surely it wasn’t too hard to go through the various stats, perform those carefully selected tasks and experiences and level themselves up from Tier H to Tier G. They were so weak it was staggering and we literally had billions to process.

I raced to the teleportation portal and threw myself through it. Hopefully the next volunteer hadn’t worked herself into a tizzy like that last one had. It was a safe and secure waiting room after all. Very calm and peaceful. Just the place to relax. Why the fretting? I couldn’t work it out at all.

. A loud shout interrupted my spiel before I could even begin. Whoops, looks like my teleporting in startled the unmistakably male uman. He threw himself violently backward, his strange garment doing a very poor job of clothing him. This was quite different to the previous males who wore fitted sleeves around all of their limbs. In fact all of them were rather hesitant to expose any skin at all. Scared of my radiance or some such silly thing. Well this one was a nice change from his prudish fellow participants. Already I was feeling more positive. I had a feeling this one was destined for something special.

. I paused, unsure that he was paying me any attention as he settled himself. I hesitated again, darnitall. There, I mentally patted myself on the back; that sounded good. Totally owned it.

“Yes I am,” he responded. At last, a decisive and confident answer. I mentally high fived myself in triumph and triggered our transportation into the tutorial proper.