Ha ha, easy money! Ari is going to kick herself when she sees what I’m doing!

Connor laughed out loud as he settled into his gaming chair after all the usual preparations; loading up on nutrient drinks, setting up his foam pad cushions, pulling the blinds, and setting all of his alerts to busy.

He didn’t care who Mr. Grey was. All he knew was that the man had money. On a whim, he paused before going in, shooting a one-line message to his friend.

GhostEffect / Personal Message Board

To Ari:

Yeah, sorry I guess. We’ll see who becomes Legendary first! :)

And it’s a no-brainer, really, Connor thought to himself, still smirking as he took up his old, trusty, battered Vision500 and settled it on his head.

His world instantly went dark.

Mr. Grey had a lead on on some rare Legends artifact. If he got there first—or I if I did for him, more importantly, Connor thought—then he would have a very powerful bargaining chip, right at the start of the game. Right now there had to be hundreds, maybe thousands of players and businesses registering with Legends, and well, it was market forces, wasn’t it? Supply and demand.

Mr. Grey apparently wanted to be the first with all the best goods, and he was willing to pay for them.

Ha! Connor didn’t rightly care too much about the items. He just wanted it known that he, GhostEffect, was going to be the first great player of the game.

The darkness was illuminated by a message.

Tir’Nan’Og Server Found! Do you wish to Join?

Conner answered, “Yes.”

Available Options: Legends of the Six Realms. Join?

Again, he answered, “Yes.”

The blackness flickered for a moment, and once again Connor had that sensation of vertigo, of suddenly falling…

Then the darkness started to lift, hazy at first but getting clearer. Connor felt like he was struggling to wake from a deep sleep. He struggled, suddenly wanting to move his limbs, though not even able to see them.

Connor heard a gasp, and realized with certainty that it was his own breath, then suddenly light was streaming into his eyes and he was coughing and panting. He was suddenly whole again, suddenly alive, suddenly—

In a forest clearing.

***

Connor, or the adventurer that Connor had become, blinked and sat up.

“Okay…” he mumbled, looking around.

He was sitting on the soft ground of mixed grass and moss, sunlight streaming through the leaves in what felt to Connor, instinctively, like early morning. The sky that peeked through the boughs and reaching fingers of the trees was a bright, high blue, and scudded with the faintest white lines of wispy Cirrus clouds.

“Ha!” Connor let out a laugh, surprising himself with the delight of it. Ari had been right after all, this was the best virtual simulation that he had ever encountered.

Sure, a small and nerdy part of him knew that it was all actually ones and zeroes that were being beamed directly into his brain through the imagers in his Vision500 headset, but still…it would be so easy to forget that this wasn’t absolutely real.

He could smell the slightly musty tang of rotting leaves and taste the earthiness in the air. The clearing was small, almost perfectly circular, with tall, mighty trees surrounding it. A single path led out of the clearing and into the forest.

His skin felt alive, and, when Connor looked down, he saw that his hands and arms were nothing like what he thought they should be. They were pale, a ghostly white luminescence, and fuzzy at the edges.

“Welcome, Brave Adventurer, to the First Realm!” said a sudden voice, and Connor swiveled his head to see that he was not, in fact, alone.

Behind him, on a half-mossy boulder was what could only be described as a faun.

“Uhm, excuse me? I mean...hello?” Connor said, and now that he heard his voice, it sounded oddly echoey, and faint.

“Oh, you poor creature!” the faun said, appearing quite sympathetic about the state of the confused almost-human in his midst. Connor watched as the creature, with furred goat legs and a regular human torso leapt spryly from the boulder and landed right front of him.

The faun had curly chestnut hair, the same color as some of the leaves on the ground at his feet, and his features were sharp – save for two pointed and curling nubs of horns on his brow. It wore a jerkin of greenish, finely tooled leather, but no other clothing.

“You have been summoned to the First Realm, but you are not yet yourself,” the faun said, casually stepping around Connor to inspect him as the insubstantial young man stood up.

“It takes great energies to bring you into the realm, you see, vast and ancient energies that will…”

“Okay, I get it,” Connor said. “This is the character creation bit, right? What do I have to do?”

The faun blinked, as if insulted, then burst out laughing. “Fine. I see that a spirit like you is used to such travel – along with all the others streaming into the world!”

The creature gave a heavy sigh. “Let’s get you started then…”

The faun waved a hand, and there, before Connor’s vision, glowed arcane writing.

Name:

Profession: None

Level: 1

Size: None

Health: 0 / 0

Vitality: 0 / 0

Agility: 0

Charisma: 0

Intelligence: 0

Stamina: 0

Strength: 0

Wisdom: 0

“Wow, you’re really generous with where you start players, aren’t you?” Connor muttered.

“We all gotta start off somewhere, sport!” the faun frowned at him. “Here, I will leave you with the handbook.”

The Faun held up one hand and a small grimoire suddenly appeared. It was bound in black leather with six interlocking gold rings embossed upon its cover.

“I am required to greet every damn one of you and welcome you in, so,” another sigh, “as I was starting to say, you have 50 points to distribute between your attributes. You also have a whole range of races to choose from.”

“Can I be a Barbarian?” Connor asked, grinning. “Or maybe an Assassin. Wait, do you have Rangers?”

“Yes, we have Rangers,” the faun groaned, “but those are professions, not races. You cannot choose a profession until you reach Level 5, and that,” the faun gave him a dry look “seems like an increasingly unlikely event.”

“Hey, I’m here to make friends and kill goblins,” Connor said, grinning as wide as a ghostly not-yet human could.

The faun snorted, flinging the manual toward Connor, who immediately made to catch it. The book shimmered as his insubstantial hands touched it, and the book disappeared into his body with a flash of emerald green light.

Choose Your Race

Human Elf (+4 Agility) Dwarf (+2 Strength, +2 Stamina) Gnome (+2 Wisdom) Halfling (+2 Charisma) Half-Elf (Bonuses up to full Elf bonus) Half-Dwarf (Bonuses up to full Dwarf bonus)

“Now we’re talking…” Connor considered his options. Essentially, he just needed to be as quick as possible, didn’t he? Which would probably mean agility.

Which means elf, he knew.

However, as Connor was about to ignore all regular starting character creation steps, first quests and what have you, he recognized that he could very well run into trouble along the way. Trouble that he might be unable to without some toughness.

Strength and Stamina are important too.

“With the Strength and Stamina bonuses, maybe I should go with Dwarf?” Connor mused out loud. He could sense the impatience of the faun once more, as if this was all very time consuming and boring.

Yeah, but Connor knew that dwarves weren’t renowned for being speedy creatures. Humans didn’t have any attribute bonuses but were generally well-rounded.

Ultimately, Connor decided to compromise and go with a mixed race. Since an elf, dwarf mix wasn’t available, he went with Half-Elf. He’d always liked the idea of Half-Elves anyway; they were part elf, part human, and didn’t really fit in with either. They were usually somewhat of an outcast.

Just like me! Connor thought ruefully.

Race: Half-Elf (+3 Agility)

The Half-Elves of the First Realm

Ever since the worlds were fragmented and split from each other, the half-elves have been a tribe without a natural home. Although they can claim descent to the Elvish Third Realm, they are trapped here, in the First. Both elves and humans view them with suspicion, and they tend to lead solitary lives, often becoming Rangers, Wizards, or Rogues.

“Good to know,” Connor thought, before turning to the rest of his characteristics.

It was time to allocate his fifty attribute points.

Agility: hand-eye coordination and balance. Effects ranged damage. Charisma: the ability to work people. Effects leadership. Intelligence: the ability to learn and know things. Effects spellcasting. Stamina: endurance in battle. Vitality = Stamina * Level. Strength: power. Effects melee damage. Wisdom: the ability to understand how things work and interact; problem solve. Effects magical item creation.

Connor was on a quick mission, but he would also be paid for every level he earned. Because of that, he wanted a well-rounded character, one that could handle themselves in a fight.

It was harder than it looked, to be honest. Normally, he would focus on one or two attributes; become a tank with high Strength and Stamina if he was in a tournament style deathmatch game, or go full spell-caster with high Intelligence if he was in a problem solving game.

“But I’m already going to get that sweet agility bonus from being a Half-Elf, so...”

Connor started to assign his attribute points.

Health: 20 / 20

Vitality: 9 / 9

Agility: 8 (+3 =11)

Charisma: 7

Intelligence: 9

Stamina: 9

Strength: 9

Wisdom: 8

“That equals 50 points, but…” Connor grimaced.

Playing it safe doesn’t win games, he knew from vast experience. Even with this straightforward job in front of him, he needed to at least be as good as he could be at one thing.

But there was a bigger question too. What did he want to be in this game? A burly fighter? A Knight? Or a spellcaster of some sort—sorcerer, necromancer, or wizard? Usually, these latter were seedier type characters, sacrificing things like strength and agility, even health, in return for awesome magical power.

Connor liked the idea of being able to summon lightning bolts and wield arcane energies, sure, but something about once again being physically frail, prone to infirmity as he was in real life was not something he wanted to experience in the virtual world. Who would want to be the same as how they lived in the real world, anyway? Wasn’t the whole point of virtual reality to become something new, something braver and more awesome than they ever could be otherwise?

He checked the list and quickly revised some of the numbers.

Who needs Charisma, anyway? He grinned to himself.

Health: 20 / 20

Vitality: 9 / 9

Agility: 9 (+3 = 12)

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 10

Stamina: 9

Strength: 9

Wisdom: 8

“There!” He said, confirming his choices. The stats flashed an eldritch blue that he confirmed the decision, then faded into nothing.

“Now, let’s choose my profession,” he said, expecting his profession options to appear, but nothing happened.

Connor screwed up his face in consternation then he remembered. “Oh yeah,” he groaned. “I can’t choose a profession until I reach Level 5.” And that would require quests, battles, and training.

“What’s next?” he asked, looking around for the faun, but not finding him. Instead of the magical creature, there was a simple leather backpack leaning against a mossed boulder, which he presumed was for him.

“Let’s see what pile of rubbish I get as starting gear,” Connor murmured, but still grinned. He actually loved this entire process but wasn’t delusional enough to expect great gear or anything. He would have to slay monsters and find loot to get good weapons and armor.

He stepped toward the backpack, and, as he did so he felt a strange electric surge rush over his body.

Wait… he thought, looking at how his form was suddenly changing, becoming more solid, taking on form and texture and shape.

He suddenly had skin again, if several shades more golden than normal—and with stronger forearms, he was happy to notice. He was wearing what appeared to be a white cotton shirt under a sleeveless leather jerkin, with curling leaves and thorns inscribed onto the material. He also wore simple, sturdy pants and lace-up boots,

Hmm. Connor nodded, somewhat impressed. That was pretty much exactly what he had been thinking about when he had started to envision himself as a half-elf.

He moved his hands up to the sides of his head and ran his fingers over two delicately pointed ears, and a ruffle of hair.

“Did the game predict what I wanted to look like?” Connor wondered, remembering that some simulations were so advanced, that they could pull ‘speculation data’ from a user’s own computer and predict their behavior, basing their preferred looks on what the player had searched for, and how they acted.

He pulled a strand of his hair forward, in front of his eyes to see that it was a dark brown, like his own.

“Ugh, I’m not liking that,” Connor muttered, and, right before his eyes, his hair grew darker and darker, until it was a glossy, but tousled black, as dark as night.

“Ha!” He laughed at the sudden, reactive change. He felt the same flicker of eldritch energy running through him again, and he knew that the change was permanent.

Connor smiled broadly and turned his attention to the backpack. As he did so, an inventory screen appeared with a series of labelled icons.

Inventory:

Socks Underwear Leather pants Cotton shirt Leather vest Backpack Coin pouch 1 Small Weapon…

“What’s that?” Connor wondered, studying the contents of his inventory which included a greyed out, vague shape. As he focused on it, more eldritch blue writing suddenly appeared.

One Small Weapon available, would you like:

Dagger Shortsword Hatchet Hammer Club

“Right, gotcha.”

Connor considered his options, and for some reason that he couldn’t quite explain, chose the Hatchet. The vague shape suddenly morphed into a small hand-ax, materializing in his hand. When he looked down, he realized that he now had an accompanying weapons hoop on his belt, too.

Name: Hand-ax

Condition: Excellent

Damage: 6–8 Health points

Requirements:

Strength: 6 or higher

Attack Cost: 2 Vitality points

With weapon in hand, literally, he turned his focus to the rest of his inventory.

Coin pouch

12 copper coins 10 silver coins

Backpack

2 Basic Healing potions 3 Torches, Flint & Strike 5 Sheets of parchment Charcoal pencil Chalk

“Looks like I’ve got everything I need!” Connor took a satisfied breath, looking around to see whether the faun had reappeared to tell him what to do next.

The creature remained stubbornly not present.

“Great. No starting spells I take it, then,” Connor grumbled, and turned to the only obvious route out of this starting glade: the small path that led into the forest.

Oh, wait a minute. He had taken about three steps when he realized that he had forgotten probably the most important part of any new character creation.

His name.

“Uh…” he thought for a moment about using GhostEffect, just for the sake of being obvious and shoving the noses of all of those in the Hacked Leagues that he was here, and he was going to ace it.

Even someone as reckless as he could be at times, Connor realized that it was probably a bad idea to draw too much attention to himself before he actually succeeded. There would be time for reveling in his glories later.

But he did still want to let Ari know that he was in here, and—quite petty, he knew—that he was doing amazingly already.

He pulled up his personal stats and named himself.

Name: Connor

Profession: None

Race: Half-elf.

Level: 1 (0 / 300 to next level)

Size: Medium

Health: 20 / 20

Vitality: 9 / 9

Agility: 12

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 10

Stamina: 9

Strength: 9

Wisdom: 8

Connor the Half-elf, he tried the name on, and nodded to himself. It worked, he thought. And soon enough he would probably be earning titles and achievements to add to that. He fixed his sights on the path through the forest and set out.

“Let’s get this party started,” he said.