Darkness fills the Void Between. Not the gloom of a cloudy, moonless night, nor the murk of the deepest ocean trenches, nor even the utter blackness of the grave. Light has never, will never, can never exist in the Void Between. It exists beyond the concept of form, time, mass, or energy. It binds every world, galaxy, universe, and dimension to each other, yet it also keeps them separate. Nothing can exist there, for it is not a place so much as an idea, a metaphysical concept.

Yet, still, a voice slashed through the consuming darkness. "Has all been prepared?"

"The Keyss have been formed; the Sspell hath been readied." A sibilant voice responds.

"Our die hath been cast; the Chosen will choose." A third voice, deep and echoing.

On its heels, dozens, hundreds, endless legions chanted, "May their Paths be true."

Power welled up within the Void. It flowed, twisted, seeking in a web across space with no boundaries. Tendrils tunneled across dimensions, violating the inviolable. Each writhed, passing formlessly through countless worlds. One by one, after minutes, hours, years, centuries, they found a suitable candidate and latched on, then burrowed backward across space and time towards their anchor points.

As uncounted entities watched, the tendrils began to pulse. First one, then another, then dozens at once, conveying their Chosen towards the destinies that awaited them elsewhere, elsewhen. Adventure they sought, and adventure they would find, each to their own: new life, new loves, enemies and friends, homes and hearths. And, one by one, the tendrils withered and died, severing the connection, leaving the Void Between pristine once more.

Daniel Stewart

Earth

Wednesday, March 8th, 2062

Approximately 4:30 PM

The Atlanta metropolis, USA

Daniel Stewart paced back and forth in the cramped space he used as an office in his apartment. All the room held was a desk, a chair, a computer, an immersion VR rig, a printer, and an overworked desk fan, but the room was only about 80 square feet, so his pacing by necessity involved a lot of turning and relatively few footsteps. With the heat put off by the computer confined in such a small space, Daniel was actually sweating even with the air conditioner and fan, but he couldn’t leave the room; his eyes were glued to the screen where he was tracking the progress of a delivery drone. The drone and its precious cargo were only a few minutes away, but each second seemed to crawl by.

Daniel’s anticipation for this delivery had been building for months, ever since he’d been accepted into the alpha test of the newly announced single-player open-world RPG, The Realms. It promised a whole new level of immersion VR experience and advanced NPC Virtual Intelligences that would respond to emergent situations in ways that didn’t have to be explicitly programmed ahead of time. In short, if it lived up to the hype, the player would genuinely feel like they were living in an actual fantasy world. And the fact that it was a single-player game, rather than an MMO, meant that the player could actually be involved in the story of the game; with only one player to care about rather than millions, the world could react to that player’s particular actions.

It was right up Daniel’s alley. He was never overly social, and although he had played and even enjoyed MMOs in the past, single-player games were what he was drawn to. Interacting with real people was taxing, but knowing that the NPCs weren’t real meant that he was able to relax and act without overly concerning himself about how his actions would affect them. Not that he played cruel or oppressive characters, usually, but the distinction between real and not was crucial for his ability to relax and enjoy the game. And single-player meant there was less stress. He could relax and enjoy playing "sub-optimal" builds without having to worry about PvP or getting slots in raids or—

Thwump

The sound of something being dropped against his front door jolted Daniel out of his thoughts and sparked him into action. He raced out of his office and down the hall and jerked his door open. There on his doormat was a small rectangular package bearing the logo of Distant Journeys, the developer of The Realms. “Finally!” exclaimed Daniel as he scooped up the box and practically slammed the door behind him. Within moments he was back in his office, ripping open the packaging even as he slid into the chair in front of the computer. Inside the package were several pages of legal contract—which he tossed to the side after glancing at it to be sure that’s all it was—a small thumb drive containing the game installer and files, and a hand-sized and surprisingly heavy black box. The latter was a module that would add needed functionality to his Immersion VR rig, according to the email he had been sent when the package had shipped.

Daniel plugged the thumb drive into his computer and started the installation process, then swiveled his chair over and began working on installing the upgrade module into his rig. Fortunately, the included instructions were clear and concise, and within ten minutes, he had both the module and the game installed. As eager as he was to get started, however, there were still two loose ends to tie up. First, he sent a short email to his boss, cashing in a week of sick leave. Then, he grabbed his phone and hit the quick-dial for Eve, his sister. After a couple of rings, she picked up.

“Hey Daniel, this is a surprise! Usually, it’s me calling you. What’s up?” Eve’s chipper voice greeted him.

“Hey sis, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be incommunicado for a little while, a week or so. The Realms finally got here, and I plan to be in VR as much as possible until the honeymoon wears off. Already called out of work.” Daniel grinned to himself, anticipating her reply.

“You are such a nerd!” She laughed, and Daniel laughed with her. “Alright, no problem, thanks for the warning. Hey, how about we meet up over the weekend and swap notes? Even if you intend to stay immersed as much as possible, you’ll still need food and drink, and a little exercise won’t hurt either.”

Daniel blinked. “Wait, what? Swap notes? About wh—wait, did you?!”

“You don’t think I listened to you rant and rave about The Realms just out of sisterly affection, did you? You know our interests run in pretty much the same directions, bro! Of course I applied for the alpha test! I’m just jealous you got your delivery before me!” His sister’s voice was full of mirth.

“And you have the nerve to call me a nerd!” Daniel fired back, exasperated. “Fine, fine, let’s plan for lunch on Saturday. Carmine’s?”

“Deal. See you then!” Eve hung up with her standard farewell.

Obligations finished, Daniel started up The Realms on his computer then climbed into his Immersion VR rig. Settling into the cushioned interior, he quickly pulled on the helmet and prepared to launch into the game.

Daniel Stewart

The Realms

Outside of time

Character Creation Chamber

The first sight that greeted Daniel was a static text box floating in front of him, stating that continuing past this point constituted explicit acceptance to the contract included in the alpha copy. As with the contract itself, he skipped right past that text box. Games were always saying that playing them was an agreement to the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement, but the game companies were still unwilling to push it all the way to a verdict in civil court. No one wanted to give a Judge the chance to rule that sort of language illegal. Besides, it was all boilerplate legalese anyway, and he’d already signed the Non-Disclosure Agreement (and immediately broken it by calling Eve to tell her the good news).

As soon as he closed the text box, a room faded into view around him. It was a small chamber, not much bigger than his office, with no furniture save for a podium with a massive book open on top of it and a mirror. A simple door was the only visible means of entry or exit. There was no one else in the chamber with him, but a voice with a strange dissonant quality, as if multiple people were speaking just slightly out of synch with each other, talked to him.

“Greetings, Chosen. What shall thee be called in The Realms? Think carefully, for giving one’s true name may grant power unknowingly.”

Daniel didn’t have to think, he’d been planning this for months. “Call me Aidan.”

“Hail, Aidan. Within this room, thou may decide upon thy avatar in The Realms. Know this: The choices thou makest here wilt have far-reaching consequences. Choose not idly, for these choices may be made only once and ne’er returned to. Turn now thy attention to the mirror in front of thee; its properties will allow thee to change thy form and even thy race.”

Dutifully, Daniel stepped up to the mirror, seeing his own naked body in the reflection. It was actually a little creepy to see a perfect replica of himself in a game, but then again, Immersion VR worked by directly stimulating the brain. He guessed it wasn’t so hard to just have the game use his own knowledge of his appearance as a base, and it wasn’t an online game, so he didn’t have to worry about personal data making its way back to the developers. Theoretically.

“To change thy race, gesture with thy hand from right to left or left to right. To alter thy features, concentrate on the changes thou wishest to make. When all is to thy satisfaction, please proceed to the book, where thou wilt choose thy starting Skills and location.”

Aidan swiped his hand left to right, and his appearance in the mirror changed. Now, instead of being a bog-standard Earth human, he had a pair of feline ears atop his head, a thin catlike tail waving in the air behind him, and a thick coat of fur over most of his body. Even his genitals changed to be more like a cat’s. He swiped right again, and his reflection altered to be slightly larger and bulkier, with a complete lack of hair and two short tusks protruding from his protruding lower jaw. More swipes cycled through additional races: a dwarf, a halfling of some sort, a fair-skinned elf, a more swarthy elf, and then two apparent variations on humans. The first had almost alabaster skin, silver hair, and golden pupils, while the second had coal-black hair, red eyes, and a spaded devil’s tail.

Decision time, Daniel thought to himself. Typically, he preferred to stick reasonably close to the default options when starting a new game, leaving the more exotic stuff for later playthroughs. That said, plain humans were boring. He cycled back and forth between the angelic and demonic-looking humans a few times before settling on the demonic one. I think I want to be a little bit of a bad boy this time.

As he reached a decision in his mind, an information window appeared just to the side of his reflection.

Humans are one of the shortest-lived races in The Realms, but their prolific breeding rate means they are, arguably, the dominant race. Humans have an average affinity for all Skills and receive five attribute points to distribute per level. Helltouched are not a species of their own, but rather an echo of some distant ancestor’s transgression. Helltouched can be born to parents of any race, and for the most part, they look like their parents. There is always some feature or characteristic which signals their heritage, however, which could be horns, a tail, unusual skin, eye, or hair color, or a wide variety of other possibilities. Helltouched are common enough in aggregate that they are recognized and not attacked on sight as demons, but rare enough that they cause a stir and no small amount of unease whenever one appears. Helltouched take most of their affinities and traits from the races of their parents, but they also tend to have a higher affinity for fire, dark, and blood magic. Helltouched receive one attribute fewer point to distribute per level than their base race, but each level gives them +1 to Willpower and +1 to Charisma.

“Hell, yes! Pun intended.” Daniel smirked to himself. That sounds perfect. Human, but not quite fully human, and with just a smidge of darkness. Yeah, there’s that text about others being uneasy around Helltouched, but if it gets too bad, I can make a new character. Also, those racial bonuses are handy: three types of magic and effectively a bonus mental stat.

Satisfied with his racial choice, Daniel started to fine-tune his appearance. He kept his gender as it was; he was slightly tempted to switch to female merely to play with the body sliders, but the thought of seeing himself as a female weirded him out a little. Daniel spent several minutes adjusting his appearance, reducing flab, adding slight muscle definition, changing the shape of his face, giving his skin a healthy light tan, making himself a little taller, and adding a couple of inches and some girth down below. Finally, for his Helltouched features, he reverted the hair and beard to his real dark brown shade, but he kept the red eyes and changed the tail slightly. He made it long enough to wrap all the way around his leg to his ankle and switched the tip from a classic heart-shaped spade to a flanged diamond shape, almost like a Phillips-head screwdriver.

After a final glance over everything, front and back, he mentally confirmed the changes. Immediately, a shiver ran down his spine, and his skin broke out in goosebumps. He felt something brush up against the back of his leg, and when he looked down, there was the tail he’d chosen. It moved a little on its own without any conscious effort on his part, but when he focused on it, he could control its movements with a high degree of precision. He ran his hands over his tail, and it was sensitive to touch, but not really much more so than his palms or fingertips -- Daniel imagined it would hurt like hell to get it stuck in a door as it closed, but it wasn’t going to give him a constant erection or anything. Completely satisfied with his new form, he curled his tail around his left leg and walked over to the open book.

Again, the discordant voice spoke to him. “Here thou may peruse thine choices for the Skills with which to start thy journey. Thou may gain other Skills along the way, but those selected here will become thy greatest strengths in the times ahead. Choose wisely, for only five selections may be made.”

The book flipped pages automatically until it came to a section describing dozens of Skills, from the utterly mundane to the incredibly abstruse, Housekeeping to Circination -- which apparently involved the drawing of mystical circles to contain and direct magical forces. He mentally discarded the ordinary, menial job type Skills, and the words on the book in front of him swam and rearranged themselves to exclude them.

Daniel pored over his options again and again. His race gave a bonus to Fire Magic, which seemed like a solid choice, so that was one of five. Healers were always useful, so Vivimancy made two. He went around and around on his other picks, though. He didn't want to focus too heavily on magic without knowing more about the game, but at the same time, he didn't want to spread his picks out too much and risk a jack of all trades situation. He decided on Evasion for his third Skill on the basis that he picked Fire Magic as a combat choice, and the best defense was not getting hit in the first place. After another fifteen minutes of flipping through pages, he selected Persuasion as Skill four. He wasn't the most eloquent person in the world, loner as he was, so any help he could get there would be good. Besides, maybe it would help counteract the social stigma of the Helltouched sub-race.

With one selection left, Daniel was stumped. He didn't want to take a weapon Skill without knowing what the good weapons were. He hated it when he specialized in spears then found some unique magical sword; the decision on whether to switch always felt lose-lose to him. There were several crafting Skills like Alchemy, Smithing, and even Jeweler, but Daniel figured it'd be better to pick a craft later on once he knew how hard they were to train and which gave the best value. It seemed like there was always one lame-duck crafting Skill in every game. There were a few survival-oriented skills like Hunting, but the game wasn't billed as being focused on wilderness survival. Again and again he flipped through the book, filtering by different parameters until something caught his eye. Administration, Composition, Child-Rearing, Extortion, Gambling, Navigation, Logistics, Philosophy, Scavenging... Hmmm.

Sex was a Skill in this game. He'd seen before, of course, but had skimmed past it. The idea was growing on him, though. He already had a solid base build going: Fire Magic and Evasion for combat, Vivimancy and Persuasion for utility. There weren't any evident "power Skills" like Summoning. Necromancy was a thing, but he'd never really liked the idea of raising the dead to serve as minions; Eve always called him a goody-two-shoes when he expressed his distaste for it. Then there was the fact that he'd broken up with his most recent girlfriend more than a year prior and wasn't the type for one night stands.

Fuck it, he decided, it feels like I've been staring at this book for hours now. I'll just take Sex now and if that turns out to be stupid, I can always make another character. Just like with his race, once he reached a decision about his starting Skills, a window opened, showing the details. This time, however, it didn’t contain any new information, just repeating what the book told him.

Evasion Evasion is the knack for not getting hit—in style. Any fool can drop to the ground or duck their head; a master at Evasion can dodge an attack while seeming to remain perfectly still. Associated Attributes: Agility and Speed. Fire Magic Fire Magic bends the most chaotic and rapacious of the natural elements to your command. Fire Magic is the magic of passion, hunger, chaos, and destruction. Masters of this Skill can burn entire battlefields to nothing but ash and cinders. Associated Attribute: Charisma. Persuasion The art of getting people to do things they don't want to do and simultaneously not pissing them off. A master of Persuasion could convince a demon to forsake its evil ways or an angel to fall from grace. Associated Attribute: Charisma. Sex Making love, doing the horizontal tango, fucking. Sex is a primary driving motivation for nearly every sentient living creature, and you are no exception. Having sex with a master in this Skill is a transcendent, addictive experience. Associated Attributes: Endurance and Agility. Vivimancy One of the esoteric magics, Vivimancy is the magic of life itself. With it, you can heal wounds, cure diseases, bless crops, and ward against death. Masters of Vivimancy can even bring the dead back to life. Associated Attribute: Intuition.

The book’s pages fluttered and turned rapidly to a new section as the voice spoke up once again. “Thy final choice here in this chamber is where to start thy path. Even more so than any other choice made ere now, this will affect the course of thy destiny. Each location will provide thee with quests and companions alike, but the nature of thy path depends in large part on thy first step. When thou hast chosen thy beginning, thou needs only walk out the door, and thy adventure will begin. Choose well, Chosen, and good luck on thy travels.”

Daniel was hoping for a world map, but once again, his choices were presented as a list. He guessed that the developers didn’t want players knowing the whole map before even setting foot in the world. There were far fewer choices presented here than for Skills or even his race; only four locations were described. He carefully read every available detail of each.

Droan Fortress An immense citadel-town situated on the border between the nations of Gilhardt and Feralon. Non-humans are extremely rare in the area around Droan Fortress, but for a human, there are plenty of possibilities. Recommended paths: Military, Spy, Smuggler, Criminal. Dreamdance Isles A peaceful archipelago nation, enjoying good relations between a variety of races. Its oceanic location and strong navy mean it has no real threats, and its relative lack of manpower means that it is just as unthreatening to other nearby nations. Recommended paths: Adventurer, Trader, Explorer, Crafting. Mistvale Highlands Located between an inhospitable mountain range and a vast forest, with unknown lands to the north and human-occupied plains to the south. There is no unified central government or even governments in the Highlands, with the area being home to dozens of beastfolk tribes instead. These tribes act as tiny independent nations, feuding and trading with each other in a vast interconnected web. Recommended paths: Adventurer, Spy, Warlord, Explorer. Meadful Peak A Dwarven stronghold located deep inside a mountain range. It boasts superior craftsdwarves of many professions but is obviously most famous for its brewers. Its remote location means that it is under little threat of invasion from the surface. Still, tunnels have been dug so deep under the mountain that the dwarves inadvertently connected to vast subterranean cave systems hosting a variety of hostile threats. Recommended paths: Military, Adventurer, Gathering, Crafting.

Daniel took the caution about how vital this choice was to heart. From the sound of it, fast travel wasn’t likely to be a readily available option, so the location he picked was where he was expected to stay for the foreseeable future. Each offered a different style and flavor of gameplay experience, and each appealed to him in different ways.

Droan Fortress promised a fast track into a tense political situation, which meant that he would theoretically be able to have a significant impact on the game world quickly. He didn’t like the note about non-human races being rare, though; he wanted variety in his gameplay. The Mistvale Highlands seemed to offer the most of that and was also the only option that lacked a central government. Lack of governmental oversight meant he would be freer to do whatever he wanted, at least in theory, although it also stood the risk of promoting a might-makes-right attitude among the NPCs he met. Considering his Skill choices, that might not go well for him, at least early on. He was positioned to be a smooth-talking mage, and mages usually were weak in the beginning to balance out their immense late-game power.

The Dreamdance Isles looked to provide a much more laid-back experience than the other locations, being relatively free from external or internal threats. It almost sounded like a perpetual South Pacific vacation within a fantasy world. That was undoubtedly extremely attractive: Daniel had never really had the opportunity to take a vacation like that in the real world, and one of the main selling points of video games is the ability to experience virtually what you can’t in reality. At the same time, being in that kind of environment for an extended period seemed like it might wear thin. He had a similar concern with Meadful Peak. While becoming a master craftsman or exploring unique sights in what amounted to the Underdark were things he would definitely like to do, it sounded like by far the most isolated starting location and the hardest to break away from if he needed a change of pace.

Daniel eventually dismissed Droan Fortress and Meadful Peak as being too lacking in variety, leaving him to choose between Mistvale Highlands and Dreamdance Isles. They were both exciting to him, and it was a tough choice, but in the end, the deciding factor came down to his real-world roots. Both his parents were Scottish immigrants, and he and Eve were raised on stories of the Scottish highlands and Celtic mythology. The Mistvale Highlands sounded, geographically speaking, like a slice of Scotland, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity for Daniel to spend time in a place he’d always wanted to visit but never been able to. Sure, it wasn’t actually Scotland, but it was likely at least inspired by the Auld Country.

With all necessary decisions made, Daniel walked over to the door, opened it, and stepped through into the blackness beyond. As the darkness enveloped him, he heard the voice say one final line, “The Chosen has chosen; may his path be true.”