5

A Name, A Mask

Rian’s consciousness reemerged as if from sleep. For a moment he feared he was still comatose, but here his sense of self returned in a single instant. He could vaguely feel his body as he turned to look around, but nothing was changing in the vast, empty silence surrounding him.

The game’s title rose out of the dark in sprawling letters, just as it had looked on the selection screen.

PROJECT MIRAGE ONLINE

The sounds of violins, cellos, brass, and piano began to swell as an orchestra kicked off into triumphant fanfare. The background lightened to reveal a sky flecked with clouds and a sprawling landscape below—distant mountains, rivers like gold against the sun as they flowed through the forests and plains.

It transitioned into an opening cinematic, the typical trailer for an MMO: players of all different classes exploring treacherous lands, killing monsters, teaming up and working together, opening treasure chests in dungeons, and generally looking like they were having as much fun as humanly possible. A voice-over narration began to play, and subtitles appeared below the center of Rian’s vision.

The land of Miracia, a continent once torn apart by endless strife, has begun to recover. The four gods who ruled over the land have fallen, marking the end of the Thousand-Year War. In their wake lies a rift, spilling countless souls into the realm. You are a Vessel—they who harness the remnant powers of the Four.

Was there any way to skip this, he wondered? He was sure the lore and the storyline were great and all, but he could always watch this another time. He was already looking around for hidden options to fast-forward it, but nothing was turning up. Not even his body was visible yet.

The cinematic shifted to a group of people in dark robes giving off a villainous aura: demonic knights and mages wielding gnarled staffs and barbaric swords and axes.

But there exist those who survived the Undoing and retain their loyalty to the Four. These Loyalists seek to halt those who would desecrate the memory of the gods. Drive them back, and take Miracia for your own!

Meer-ah-shi-a? Kind of an on-the-nose name for the world, considering the name of the game, but whatever. At least that was the end of the cinematic, it seemed. MMOs and their walls of exposition.

A server menu emerged as everything else faded to black again. Three towering stone monoliths appeared, colored light glowing beyond them like a halo. The first, surrounded by ruby light, held a drawing of a stout and muscular man wrapped in a cloak, with a mountain etched in the distance. Upon the second, bathed in deep blue was a drawing of a tall, lithe and robed man holding a book. The third, drenched in luminous green, was a smiling woman wearing a shawl and extending her hands. Overlay text hovered in front of the monoliths, which were the servers to choose from: Goam—the PVE server; Ezre—the PVP server; and Altir—the social/trade server.

Only three? He would’ve expected to see at least twenty for how popular Mirage was leading up to release, but maybe it was how these kinds of servers worked with their fancy new technology.

As for the choice, it was obvious which one his mom would’ve picked. If there was one thing she loved more than video games, it was competitive video games.

He focused on the center monolith—the PVP server, Ezre—and waited for the loading circle to complete.

The orchestra returned, harps plucking a pleasant arpeggio as his floating perspective descended from the void and into a forest. Off in the distance among the plains was a gigantic, white-walled city, its spires nearly blinding in the sunlight.

He landed in a glade, where the grasses flowed with the wind. Ahead, showing a view of the forest, there was an ornate mirror bordered in gold and standing at an angle. The character creation process, obviously. Rian supposed he could approach it when he was ready.

When he glanced down, he could see his body, dressed in a plain gray t-shirt and pants. About as generic looking as possible. But when he flexed his hands, he held out his palms in awe. The fidelity was incredible, way more lifelike than any other game he’d played. He could feel his virtual body as if it were his own—the breeze against his skin, the warm sunlight embracing him.

It always helped to dispel the illusion sooner than later, so he took a moment to convince himself that it was, indeed, virtual. When he pinched his cheek, there was no pain but a sense of pressure in its place. He was actually breathing the air, or at least he seemed to be. The low, persistent ringing that he could always hear in silence was gone, too. And when he gazed off at the distant, white-walled city standing among the plains, things were blurry the farther he looked.

A huge step forward over ElmSaga. Reflect Systems had outdone themselves. If he hadn’t known where to look for the seams of the virtual experience, it would’ve fooled him at a glance.

A text box appeared in front of him.

[!] Sensory Limitations

In Project Mirage Online, most sensory information is translated from reality. However, negative sensations are either removed or heavily dulled so as to maintain a pleasant gaming experience. For example, players will retain their sense of taste, but can only experience pleasant tastes. Certain sensations—such as hunger and thirst—will arise from your physical body while in Mirage; please remember to utilize half-sync appropriately to address your needs.

Huh. So the game could tell he was testing things out, probably from reading his gestures. The system was surprisingly adept. When he dismissed the text box, another appeared.

[!] Negative Sensory Experience

Players will not feel pain from their virtual bodies while in Mirage, but the anticipation of pain may provide some discomfort. Injuries cannot be inflicted upon players in any form outside of game-designated status effects; players cannot be de-limbed, blinded, deafened, or bruised. However, some blood may appear to signify damage taken. Other negative sensations such as dizziness and vertigo will arise as normal, but Mirage will not forcibly manifest them.

To unlock expanded sensory options such as the Intimacy Content Pack and Increased Pain Sensitivity Content Pack, please consult the DLC catalog.

Really? The game was already lobbing downloadable content options at him? That figured.

He hesitated, realizing he couldn’t feel anything between his legs.

Well, that was a bit disturbing.

He appreciated the heads up about the level of pain and abstraction of violence in the game, though. It wasn’t something that many people considered, but as games attained more lifelike realism, it became harder to distance oneself from the effects of gruesome experiences. The last thing any major company wanted was their game literally traumatizing players for life because someone stabbed and disemboweled them with realistic pain in a virtual setting. Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Rian made a shoo-ing motion and the text box disappeared, probably storing itself in a menu somewhere. When he looked at the bottom of his field of view, nothing was there yet. Not even a heads-up display. Nor could he access the friends list yet.

Fine, he guessed. He’d play along for now.

When he approached the mirror, his reflection was staring back at him—exactly how he looked in real life.

Please adjust your appearance as desired.

He was expecting some kind of slider system to appear, but nothing happened. When he looked closer at his reflection, it began to shift in subtle ways. It looked overall similar to how he looked but better, as if he were staring at an image of how he imagined himself to look, with all the imperfections smoothed out. There was a bit of delay with each change, which kept his look consistent and seemed to prevent his mind from letting his appearance go crazy if he let it.

When he tried to imagine himself extra buff, nothing changed. Bummer. He could, however, change almost everything else when he focused on the individual attributes of how he wanted to look—hair length and color, his eyes, nose, mouth, ears. He could give himself a mega chin. The possibilities would’ve kept him occupied for hours, but for now he’d keep things simple so he could move along. He reset everything to the default appearance: something similar to his real life self.

When he stopped adjusting things, the game noticed.

Save changes? (Yes / No)

Please note that your appearance cannot be changed except cosmetically.

Rian nodded in understanding at that last bit. There were probably a bunch of cash shop items to fine-tune things later on.

Are you sure?

Shit, he hadn’t meant to trip the gesture system with that nod, even though he was done. But he appreciated the second chance.

“Yes,” he said, and the text faded.

His menu options finally appeared along the bottom of his vision—character, inventory, friends list, guild, system options, and so on—but they were all grayed out. Instead, his character page automatically opened in front of him.

Level 1 Beginner

HP: 106/106

MP: 94/94

STR (Strength): 4

DEX (Dexterity): 4

INT (Intelligence): 4

SPR (Spirit): 4

Please provide your character name. Note that it cannot be changed.

At any other time, this would’ve been the hardest decision—a name he’d be stuck with forever. But after years of streaming, his tag had kind of solidified itself, and that combined with his appearance meant that maybe someone would even recognize him. All he hoped was that someone hadn’t taken the name already.

“Cobalt,” he said.

Like magic, the game spelled out the name in front of him, followed by a list of people who had already claimed it. He frowned, then realized what it meant: multiple people were using the same name. There was a number next to them, starting at #000. As he was added to the list, #003 appeared next to it.

The name Cobalt appended itself to the top of his character page. He closed it and finally opened his friends list by tapping the floating smiley-face icon on his menu.

“Add Azure,” he said, and again a list of players with that name appeared. Nearly a hundred people. He sighed. People loved that damn word.

He sorted the list by identifier. Emily had been among the first in the game if what he’d been told was true, so she’d likely be the original “Azure” if not one of the lowest numbered ones.

He glanced at the top of the list.

Azure #000 (Level 50 Grappler)

Last seen: 119 days ago.

...

The number hit him like a punch to the stomach. That long? Shit, that wasn’t good. When he considered the players directly below, all of them were either logged in or had previously logged in just a few days ago. But none of them aside from the first was a Grappler—the same archetype that Emily had played in Comrade Clash.

He calmed himself. There was a chance it wasn’t her, or that she’d just moved on to an alternate character. But when he asked the system to check for him, it wouldn’t let him see other characters on a person’s account. If she were online right now, he’d have no way of knowing until she logged into Azure again.

When he scrolled down, there was only one other Grappler with that name, and they were online. It was worth a shot.

“How do I message players?” he asked, looking to the sky, hoping the game would answer.

[!] The Whisper System

To privately message other players, whisper that character’s name and identifier while not facing any other player; or use the /whisper command through your virtual keyboard. If their name is unique among your friends list, stating the identifier will not be necessary. Other players will not be able to see or hear your conversation.

Okay, simple enough. He whispered, “Azure 005,” and a translucent box flickered into existence in front of him. When he spoke again, the game translated his speech into text, and it appeared inside the box, shortly followed by a response.

: Emily?

: uh...no? who is this lol

: Sorry.

He swept the box aside, and it vanished.

Why had he thought it would be that simple, to just log in and find Emily? Was the note she’d left baiting him, somehow?

He let his shoulders drop, then wondered what his next step was—maybe contact a GM to see if he could get information on the other Azures. He doubted they would give away info like that, but he was starting to run out of options. If she were on an alt, he could do something like send out a global message for her. But normally, like in other MMOs, he would’ve seen one such message by now, flooding his chat box. He didn’t see anything mentioning global messages in his system options, and there wasn’t any text about it popping up.

Maybe looking outside of the game for Emily’s whereabouts was a better choice after all, despite what the note had said.

Foliage rustled behind him, and he turned. Stepping through the grass was a burly man dressed in brown work clothes. Chewing on a stem of barley, he smiled through his mustache and beard.

Ugh, here we go, Rian thought. The tutorial NPC.

“Greetings, newcomer!” the man said, dusting his hands. “I’d like to welcome you to—”

The NPC’s eyes went wide as he gagged, his entire body tensing. Collapsing to the ground, he landed on his face with a terrible thud. A dagger with golden cross-guards and an amethyst in its pommel protruded from his spine. Bright red blood welled across his back and soaked into his shirt.

Behind him stood a small man in a black and purple tuxedo, four stubby horns atop his head. The slitted pupils of his eyes flexed against the sunlight. With a fanged smile he spread his arms.

“Welcome,” Corvis said, “to Miracia.”