A bright, cheery voice spoke from the darkness before me, “I imagine you have many questions, new Player.”

“Ya think?” I mumbled to myself in the empty movie theatre. Except it wasn’t a movie theatre. It was some place in between a dream and a reality, where my real body lay comfortably atop my bedsheets, only in boxers to beat the summer heat.... while “I” was watching some orientation video in a large, empty theatre. After hearing the Moderator babble on for a while and finally coming to Orientation, I had calmed down, the pain from earlier feeling like a distant memory that I purposefully ignored.

It was all so strange. So surreal. As if a lucid dream that gave me no option to escape it. My fingers caressed the leather seat, trying to come to terms that something so vivid could exist without my body to feel it.

My inner thoughts vanished as a stylishly old video popped up on the screen and the narrator began, “And I’m here to answer those questions. First, what is Babel?” A picture of some sci-fi city popped up. “Babel is a city.” The picture zoomed in on a massive skyscraper with “Babel” writing on the side. “Babel Inc, or BABEL, is a vast organization tasked with overseeing what we call, the Ether. You can use the term Babel for either the city or the corporation. Whatever you prefer.”

The city vista switched to a picture of dozens of spliced photographs ranging from strange alien worlds of purple suns to undersea metropolises. I perked up at that, interest growing.

“The Ether consists of thousands of worlds. A near infinite amount of worlds, in fact, with each more absurdly unique than the last. Babel is tasked with sending Players -that’s you- into these worlds to handle quests.” Rather silly looking cartoon goblins appeared and set fires to an equally cartoon village. They stopped quite quickly as a flashy blonde Player dashed in to slay them and save the day, complete with having the village shower him in gold while he looked at the camera, grinned while winking, a woman on each arm.

I cringed a bit at that, “Wow, tacky…”

“By handling quests, you gain money, fame, and power to tackle even harder quests, gaining even more and more!” The narrator was really getting into it as the cartoon hero battled dragons and even space deities, going to bed each day in his home which ended up a palace by the end. “Your Moderator will explain the specifics as they come up, but you can acquire skills and gear to boost your Tiers, which are like levels. The higher the Tier, the better!”

“Hey Moderator, what’s the average Player Tier?” I asked, having gotten a bit used to shooting questions at my aloof, invisible companion.

“The average Player Tier is Seven.”

“And the highest?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Huh…”

Our conversation ended as the screen flashed with multiple colored bars, in the order of green, yellow, orange, red, and black. “Now here’s some important details to remember, friend-”

“-I’m not your friend,” I had to interject, for all the good that would do.

“You can acquire skills two different ways depending on the skill. Natural Skills, those related to you as a person and the avatar you choose, can be simply learned. For instance, a dragonkin can acquire the Fire Breathing skill just by learning to do it. You, regardless of race, can learn the Athletics Skill because it’s natural!”

“Makes sense…”

“Synthetic Skills are the opposite and must be learned through skill tech, magic, or teachers. No human is simply born with Telekinesis, so you can’t just ‘learn’ that despite you wanting to,” he said with a jovial chuckle. “Also, all skills are Tiered and can evolve when high enough. Higher skills require their supporting skills to be unlocked and leveled. For instance, Mind Move is a Tier Two skill that can level to Tier Four, where it can then be exchanged for Telekinesis, a powerful Tier Three skill that can be leveled up and evolved into Ether Meld. So make sure you Tier up your skills!

“Now, remember how I said the Ether has many worlds? Well, each world has many areas. And each area has a suggested Tier and a BRR, Babel Restriction Rating. Green areas are ‘restricted’, so be on your best behavior and don’t cause trouble even for the natives; these areas are safest for newcomers like you. Yellow means you can cause a bit of trouble without getting into trouble. Orange is the same, but even less restrictive than yellow.”

A large hand waved on the screen and pointed a finger right at me, making me wonder if it actually saw me or just pointed at the same seat every time. “Now red means danger. Even Player Killing -PKing- is allowed there, so don’t go unless you’re prepared.” It switched to a thumbs up, “But don’t worry! Death in Babel is just a temporary inconvenience, as you respawn back at the city of Babel with only a respawn cost. So no worries! Though the psychological trauma of death is your own problem, haha!”

I shivered at that, not sure how to respond.

“Soon you will choose your avatar for your adventures throughout the Ether. Choose and customize however you like! Then you’ll be assigned your first quest. Just be mindful of the suggested Tier and the BRR. Succeed, grow, join a guild, open a business, form a party, become overpowered and you can even own a world someday! That’s right, you can buy a world if you want!”

Intriguing...

“Ask your Moderator anything. They are there to help and to see you succeed, just like Babel Inc. Babel Inc, making every Player count.” With that, the short video vanished, leaving the auditorium dark save for the low lights.

I wanted to laugh at that, as they had coerced me into this in the first place. Still, one question floated to the top of the heap amongst the billions of others waiting for answers. “That BRR thing… what’s the color black like?”

“It is more often called a shadow domain in the current Player vernacular. The area has no restrictions on player behavior. I would highly suggest you do not venture into a shadow domain.”

“Ever?” I asked.

“Ever.”

I gulped a bit at that. If this really was like a game as real as this theatre, then I could only imagine what horrors people would do in there. “Do people live in those areas?”

“Not for long.”