Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

2 Create-A-Character

The title screen faded to black then the screen showed a panoramic view of a thickly canopied forest that was mostly shrouded in shadows, but had some open paths bathed in beautiful moonlight. The trees were various shades of grey with leaves ranging from dark green and deep purple. It all looked both enchanting and deadly. Sam tried to take in every detail of the forest as he waited for the next phase of the game. The camera stopped in a small clearing, visible by moonlight. A single empty textbox dropped down, asking for the player's name. A two dimensional, nearly transparent keyboard appeared in front of Sam and he was forced to wonder how the heck he was supposed to use the thing. He didn't seem to have hands at this point. Fulton's voice seemed to come from the very shadows.

"You can summon and dismiss a keyboard with a thought while immersed in the Miyabi Full Dive. You can also choose your text with nothing but a thought. With no barriers between your thoughts and the keyboard, you'll be able to communicate much more quickly with our developers and other players. Menus function in the same manner. Voice functions between players are disabled, as we like to maintain a certain atmosphere within the game. You'll only be able to vocally communicate with the developer you report your progress to. I've begrudgingly allowed this with the advisement of my most trusted designers. Now, I'd like you to choose a player character username, one that suits you. Just remember, make it cool."

Sam laughed at this ridiculous man, Milner. Truth be told, the guy was already starting to grow on him with his strange personality. He decided to take Milner's advice to heart and start with a cool character name. He wanted a name that was dark and mysterious. He also wanted it to be timeless and unique. He came up with it on the spot, Sarem the Sanguine. His thoughts manifested as text on screen. Ideas flooded his head about a cool character to match such a dark name. He hoped that the game had a robust character creation feature so that his ideas may come to life. Milner's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Good, now you'll be able to create your character."

"Yes!" Sam couldn't help but to scream.

"You'll start with your physical features such as skin color, height, weight, and body type. I'll let you create your perfect virtual body in peace. Just say 'help', if you need anything."

Good, Sam thought and then he focused on what his new body would look like. He scrolled through the genders and skin colors. He thought about a female character, but his hunch was that the game had a first person viewpoint instead of third person viewpoint. He wouldn't be able to stare at the virtual babe's ass the whole time if it was first person so there was no point in gender bending, he figured. He also wanted an experience completely different from his everyday existence. So instead of transferring two hundred and eighty pounds of his five foot eight Asian self into the game, he made himself into a tall, broad, and superbly muscular man with a deep black skin tone. He wrestled with whether to make the character bald or not and settled for a dark haired close shaved caesar haircut which was actually what he had in real life. He went for a full-on black goatee along with creepy silver eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight. He kept his character's main sword hand on the right. That completed the character's physical appearance and he moved on before he got lost in the minutia of all the other tweaking options.

Now came the fun stuff. As he read the text on this current menu, his excitement started to build again.

Choose your class:

Warrior

All around combatant. Best at close range. High STR and DEX. Good VIT and DEF.

Starting Gear: Burnt Iron Helm, Burnt Leather Cuirass, Burnt Leather Gauntlets, Burnt Leather Leggings, Burnt Leather Boots, Longsword, Heater-Shaped Shield