Rachel turned on the PLAYGear for the first time, and was met with a pristine world of white, like those office buildings, or the first level of Retro game “Super Mario Odyssey”. There was a person sitting at a desk, dressed in a white robe, beckoning Rachel over. Before she did that, however, she spoke the two phrases James told her.

“Settings enable background-conversation”

“Settings disable voice-suppression”

“All good” Rachel said, to no one in particular.

“Good Job, I’ll leave you on your own, for now, if you need any help, just ask the NPC’s or me.” James’ bodiless voice replied.

Rachel went over to the person at the desk, and as she sat down, he spoke. “Thank you for purchasing a Deluxe PLAYGear. Would you like me to show you around this white world, or through you straight into PLAYGROUND over there?” Rachel, not wanting to be left out, whispered to James “will I miss anything out if I skip?”. The NPC, who had excellent hearing, replied “No, I’m always here.”.

James asked Rachel, “Do you have a PLAYFourms account? If so, tell him about it, and ask to start streaming.”

Rachel did, in fact have one, but to her shame it was called “DarknessFan67”. But still, she told the NPC about her PLAYFourms account and wanting to stream, and he waited for a moment, before saying “All done, you’re live. To stop streaming, say ‘Stop Stream’.” He then continued, “Enjoy your adventures in playground”, and, with a gentle push, pushed Rachel through the portal.

The PLAYGROUND logo came up, along with one of its trailers, before moving to a video of its lore.

“Before time began, the world was a flat plane, devoid of live,” the narrator began, “but along came the Great God System, world bless his name, and he created the land into one great kingdom.”

“but later the countries were divided by greedy lords and nobles, who overthrew the Great Emperor”. “The lands, no longer protected the Emperor, were slowly infested by monsters and other threats to the kingdom.”

“Then again came the Great God, who invited immortal players into their realm, to push back the monstrous threat, and hopefully someday reunite the Land.”

The next bit was new.

“Some years later, a sailor spotted another kingdom over to the west, though it’s shores were protected by a mighty sea monster and none could get closer to it than that.”

“Welcome, brave player, to the world of System’s PLAYGROUND”.

The character creator screen came up. “Please choose a race”.

The major races, and their derogatory terms were as follows: the all-round, but boring Humans (“Manly”); the great blacksmiths and heavy hitters, the Dwarves (“Shorty”); the magical, beautiful and graceful Elves (“Pointy”); the forest-magic and potion making Dryads (“Woody”); the extremely magical, but weak Fae (“Sparkles”); those with body parts of mammals and a humanoid frame, the Beastkin (“Beasty”) and rumours of a scaley breed, the Draconian. In his previous run, James was an Elf. The choice was extremely difficult, but Rachel had been fantasising for days, and chose the Fae, as she was always a bit of a fairy fan. Next, was customising. Rachel her hair a warm, golden glow, like the feeling of sun on sand.

Next, it was name-choosing time. Rachel typed in DarknessFan67, but James stopped her, telling her to think of something a bit more original. He was going to go with “NovaNight”, if she wanted to go with something similar to match, she was welcome to.

Rachel took James’ advice, and switched her name to a much more fitting SolarSparkle. The last step was to choose a racial sub-type, and a class. The options for Fae were the six elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light and Dark. Given that her name was SolarSparkle, Rachel chose Light. For class, Rachel surprised James, by choosing Mancer, a rather underrated class.

Rachel’s last choice was which starting town to pick. James really wanted to make sure that they could meet up in the future, so he posted a question to System, asking what region he started in, as he wanted to meet up with his sister. System replied saying “You can pick what town you start in, dummy. Doesn’t matter ‘cos you’ll die in it anyway.”

Second important piece of news about his start: It was deadly.

“What starting area should I pick?” asked Rachel, unsure of where to go.

James looked at his sister’s map, and saw a large town near a forest, with a river running through it. Rated at medium difficulty, the town of Berry-Berry seemed like the perfect town to join. James suggested it, and Rachel clicked ‘go’

SolarSparkle’s adventure had begun.