There was darkness.

There was darkness, but it was rippling. Vague shapes of slightly lighter darkness were moving through the endless expanse of nothingness, giving an illusion of something. Or an illusion of nothingness where there’s something, perhaps?

They looked around. There was the something that was nothingness all around them, but there was one bright something that was clearly not nothing. A beacon to draw attention. As they looked at it, they could focus on their sense of sight and noticed that the thing was a perfect sphere.

You’ve managed to see a bright object in a dark room! Congratulations, you must be so proud! Now, keep looking at it while I calibrate your sight.

The sense was odd. They knew this was hearing, not the sense of seeing, but it wasn’t actually hearing. Or a language. Rather, something was adding knowledge into their memories that immediately came to mind, and the being managed to make these memories sound sarcastic and snarky.

The orb shifted, turning fuzzy. It turned back into a sphere, their sight changed and the orb shifted again. This time they could tell it turned into a cube. The cube shifted into a person, the person began to walk, and then then walked the wrong direction. Moonwalking, they thought it was called.

They didn’t know how long they kept staring at the bright object changing and shifting, but eventually the snarky memories seemed satisfied and shifted to hearing. It started with a strange hum, and this time the voice didn’t need them to focus. They just started, shifting from almost inaudible sounds to incredibly loud or disgusting ones without warning.

You might feel a little headache. Don’t worry, that’s just your entire life’s memoirs forcing their way into your skull! And just like all memoirs, this is going to be a lot of boring drivel you don’t actually care for, mixed with the few interesting titbits heavily advertised on the cover!

Their mind started to flood with images and other sensations, oddly perceived as if through a different filter. It wasn’t in chronological order, but the system that was being used to organize it was beyond them. No wait, him. Yes, he remembered now that he was a him.

Designation: Darryl. He’s a… He was a human. He remembered what that was like and the values that his upbringing and culture taught him, but parts of his memories were muddled.

Movement and bodily limitations, probably. Yes, he felt like there were going to be differences in his current body and the previous one, and his memories about the transformation and his choice seemed to be amongst the first to flood in. But the memories of how he used to move his limbs were vague, to avoid the muscle memories of a body now gone having adverse effects on his new mind.

That was probably the case, wasn’t it? It was hard to think with these rapidly changing sounds blaring in his ears, and his mind involuntarily focusing itself to listen to each and every single one instead of blocking them out.

Moving on to your smell. Aaand, done! I didn’t actually do anything, because you don’t have a nose! Same for your taste buds! Ah, if only all species were this easy! Moving on to your feelings… Oh my, they are quite fragile and bloated at the same time!

The world shifted around him, and Darryl found himself in a perfectly square room carved directly out of stone. There was a light source in the ceiling, and that was the only kind of ‘furniture’ here. The sounds stopped, leaving him in an absolute silence.

Calibrating body, please wait.

This female voice was different, more robotic and neutral. Darryl’s body buzzed as his height changed, and a few joints seemed to tighten.

Calibration complete, this temporary body now matches your height, weight, manoeuvrability and agility with 99,792 ± 0.12% accuracy. Your weight is simulated by deceleration of movements, please keep in mind that we did not actually adapt this trial body to match your true weight. Santec Corp. is not liable for any damages caused by incorrect or harmful utilization of this body, to oneself, property or others. This body is not meant to be used for reckless stunts or experiencing deathly situations. Santec Corp. does not guarantee that the mind and potential muscle memory of your original body won’t be affected by any trauma experienced while using this body. We thank you for choosing Santec for your body-exploration and wish you a nice day!

Darryl looked at his hand, which was a very bare-bones android’s hand. All the joints had little screws that could extend to simulate the exact body sizes he would have, and the same probably went for the rest of his body.

Quest complete! Looking around!

You’ve managed to move your head to look at more than whatever is directly in front of you. Because we’re in a tutorial, I’m going to pretend that that’s amazing! Well done! So incredible! You might actually be the chosen one! You’ve even managed to complete this quest before I gave it, almost as if this is the bare fundamentals!

Reward: Tutorial quests won’t give you any rewards, dummy. You literally just moved your neck a little to ‘complete’ this ‘quest’. But I’ll give myself a reward, namely that I’m going to completely skip this reward part of the quests from now on. Oh, and I should mention that these quests of course don’t count for your actual dungeon achievements!

A circle of light appeared before him.

New quest! Walk into the Light!

Or crawl, bellyflop or even fly if you can. Whatever wacky way you want to do it, just get into that circle somehow. Prove to me that you’re capable of basic movement!

Darryl took a step towards the circle, and immediately fell flat on his face.

Everything he knew and his lifetime of experience using his old body, even if it was muddled to avoid him relying on false information, created a huge dissonance with the way that his body actually moved. His balance had been completely off and his legs just moved wrong.

New quest! Get up!

You managed to fail walking a few steps! Woo boy, that isn’t very promising for your survival rate! This might be why the smart crawlers choose to stay as they are. But I’m willing to give you a second chance! Get back up again! Surely that will be easier than walking…

Darryl tried to get back up, and the voice was right for once. While his movements were jerky and his whole body wobbly, he didn’t need to maintain his balance this time. With both his arms and legs on the ground, his centre of weight wasn’t balancing precariously as it had been while taking a step.

He still took a while to get more used to his body’s movements and balance before he got up. The voice sarcastically congratulated him on this ‘amazing’ feat, and then laughed at him when Darryl failed to take a step again.

It was frustrating, failing so badly to do something that he had been capable of for as long as he could remember. But he knew that this was also normal, probably, and that it probably wouldn’t take him too long to get the hang of.

Or wait. No, that wasn’t exactly true. It probably wouldn’t take me that long to get the hang of.

Yes, I was starting to synchronise with this mind, with these memories. They didn’t really feel like mine; it was almost as if I was looking at them from a third person perspective.

I recalled my dog, which I had been walking when all of this happened. I remembered my parents. I remembered fighting the first Woolf I ran into, and the frantic but amateur fight I had with it. I recalled the pain of the Krutnik that bit into my arm, and the consequences that followed it. But I recalled them through a filter, almost as if I was just watching a videotape of someone else’s life and was told to study them because I was going to impersonate this man.

More and more memories and emotions were flooding into my mind, and none of them truly felt like mine. I knew them and could recall them as easily as I could before, but they still felt like echoes from a lifetime ago. I didn’t have to pay much attention to the stream of images and impressions to know them, this wasn’t like a movie or learning for a test. The memories simply found a place in my mind, where they’d be waiting for me to use them.

I still watched the memories flood in as I was trying to walk. Focussing too hard on it was only going to make things worse, it was just walking after all.

New quest! Press Shift to run!

You can walk! Yippee! This means that you can now walk towards the deadly monster! Next comes a more important skill to have: running away again after learning that you cannot beat it with just your swag strolling skills!

Things were starting to get easier. The moment that I relearned my basic skills of standing upright and moving, much of the difficulty fell away. It wasn’t easy, as the muscle memory I relied on before was now gone, but there were no more… fewer, humiliating times of me falling flat on my face trying to perform a basic task.

New quest! We’re going down, down, down, down, down!

Sometimes running won’t work! Crazy, I know. But it’s true! While it will be hilarious, running face-first into a low door isn’t going to do you any good. So let’s learn how to crouch underneath that bar over there! Bonus points if you complete this quest doing the limbo!

New quest! Throw a punch!

Listen! This is very important! Are you listening? Well, listen carefully! Do not, under any circumstance, detach your fist and throw it at the target! That’s not what I mean when I say you have to throw a punch! You understand what I’m saying, right? Well, then use your newfound ability to walk to a thing, before punching that target over there! You can do it! I believe in you!

New quest! Bon appetite!

See that plate over there with the delicious-looking minerals? That’s cobalt(II)chloride hexahydrate, a delicacy for your species! Now, let’s see if you can figure out how to eat! If you can’t, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble in about a week from now!

I walked over to the plate and looked at the red crystals. The voice had a point for once, I didn’t have a mouth any more. I was wearing a helmet that was my head, and there was a slit just underneath the eyes where the nose would normally be. Squeezing these crystals through there might be possible, but it was going to be messy.

I felt the crevice and there was a little give there, but it stopped just millimetres in. There was no actual hole towards my stomach there, the slit seemed hermetically sealed.

I tried opening my mouth by saying ‘Aaaaah’, and the small bull-horns shaped split that looked vaguely like a nose went up to let out the sound. I kept it open and felt it. The ‘mouth’ was about the size and general shape of a leaf, and the inside was softer and a lot more sensitive.

I see, so I had a smaller mouth on a different part of my face. Odd.

I grabbed the spoon and scooped up a spoonful of the red crystals. I brought them to my new mouth and opened wide to eat and swallow.

But instead of my small mouth opening, I felt as if I was a pressure-sealed door that unlocked itself and opened. My cheeks went to the side like double doors and a piece of flexible rubber longer than my hand came out.

Hello future Talossian, you are currently experiencing a sense that has not been fully implemented into this model. While Santec Corp strives to create androids that give the ultimate experience of similarity as your soon to be real body, you are currently experiencing a tagged-on modification that does not adhere to our standards. We do not promise a similar experience as the real deal until you upgrade to our proper Talossi model. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope to get your call soon to upgrade your new body experience to Santec standards!

The rubber tongue was sticky, and I touched the minerals with it. They stuck to the tongue easily enough, and I retracted it into my mouth-hole.

Quest completed!

I would normally have you finish all your veggies, but this cheapskate model can’t actually remove the food on your tongue. So just ignore the rest of the food, and enjoy that you’ll be spending the rest of this tutorial with a mouthful of food you cannot swallow!

Memory transfer complete! Your former mind and your new body have been successfully synchronised! An amazing feat, but yours truly can do it with ease even if I have to do it for thousands of crawlers at the same time! I’ve only accidentally killed a crawler three or four times thus far! Don’t worry, nobody will miss those guys. You on the other hand! Erm… Nah, they wouldn’t have missed you either!

You now see a little timer in the corner, counting down. This countdown shows how long you still have before your body will be complete! You can stay here and practise until it runs out, or leave now and be in stasis until I’m done!

You have not yet completed the basic tutorial, are you sure you want to leave? Y/N

I selected the N and looked at the timer. 21 minutes and 39 seconds, but the seconds were moving down very slowly. The rest of my HUD came back too, showing that there were still 7 days and 19 hours left of the third floor.

This place must be in some kind of time dilation field, or perhaps I was just thinking faster. I hadn’t realised it until now, probably by design, but I just spent literal days in this room training all kinds of simple movements. Just being able to walk slowly while using all of my concentration had taken the better part of a day, if I could gauge the time passed correctly. Yet only about 4-5 hours had passed in the real world, hours that I would’ve needed for my body transformation anyway.

Well, I still had a few hours left, so I might as well make the most of it. I selected the next tutorial quest and began practising yet another demeaning simple task.