Commense the Beta!

**Date Started:** August 6th, 2019
**Date Completed:** Ongoing
**Previous Role-Play:** N/A
**Users Involved:** User:EmperorSigma,
**Setting**: All Over the World,
**Characters Involved:**
* **Beta Testers:** Michael Davis, Tony J. Fernandes, Reuben Gardner, Ashrav Bhatta, Haru Kazama, Valen Sjöberg

## Dive In Link!

### Dive In: Michael

"We live?" Michael asked, looking to his elite gaming set up to the thousands of people he'd been streaming to. He opened up a separate chat tab to read and catch up with what people were saying. "Hey, hey, chill!" He shouted to the stream, jumping out of his chair and running out of the room only to return to it a couple of seconds later.

He fixed the Camera so that it had a good view of his face, doing what he could to capture his "good side". "Y'all wanna talk about what I expect, or y'all want me to jump straight in it? The server goes live for the beta testers in like four minutes. Ion' even wanna be the first in, imma' be lost as shit." He lifted a can of Red Bull and took a drink, a gift from his lovely sponsors.

Continuing to read the chat he tried to get a solid vote of who wanted him to do what and as he expected, the people wanted him to dive straight in. Reaching behind him, he lifted a long box that had an image of an outfit and helmet. "When you get the game, they give you a free dive suit it's like super basic, but in a couple of weeks, they should have like a more comfortable one. Imma' tell y'all now, I saw that price. It's gone run you at least two hundred."

He looked to his chat once more and the people had begun to bash the pricing of the new dive suit. "Bro, y'all complaining and shit, but this look like some in-depth shit, plus you get the basic one for free. Stop bitchin', my god. Game Bro's is giving me like, four of 'em to give away anyway. I'll match however many they give me and double it to give them away on stream." He tore through the box's board and pulled out the suit, holding it up to the camera. It was nothing more than a skin-tight suit black suit that Spider-Man wore in his movies.

"What is this three-letter word that starts with a "g" that I'm not allowed to say?" Michael shook his head left and right. While he didn't say the word, he could still get penalized for the way he intended to use it, however, he had loopholes around stuff like that. He wasted no time putting the stupid outfit on, but because of his body shape, he struggled to get in it.

"This shit looked way bigger on the damn paper thing they sent me, this shit tight as hell!" He placed his hand on his desk to take a look at chat once more. "You look like a square?" He read out loud, smiling at the screen. "Good," he began, placing his hand on his mouse and clicking on the user's name. "Say good-bye fuck ni\*ga!" He screamed, banning him from his stream.

Finishing placing the suit on, he reached for the helmet and pulled out a USB plug. "Most nerve-helmets, well none of the other nerve-helmets will have this USB attached. This is so that I can stream from like a third or first-person point of view, while also being able to see my chat in slow mode while I'm in-game. A whole bunch of nerd shit that I can not explain. Not even gone hold you."

He went on to plug the cord into his computer, then looked to his camera while holding the helmet in his hands. "Ight y'all, if this shit fry my head, call the police. Mods, BAN ANYONE TALKIN' THAT HOT SHIT. XYPHER SLANDER WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."

Without any further talking, Michael flung the helmet on and instantly met with the game start screen. It was a rather flashy, yet simple at the same time startup screen. It had the logo for "Xypher Online" spread across it, over an animated film of the massive world that was known as Xypher. The inside of his helmet had a microphone that allowed him to not only speak to the people within the game but with the people on his stream as well. However, he could not yet see his chat though they could hear him loud and clear. The microphone quality they used in his helmet was phenomenal and completely contradictory to what he expected it to be.

"Like I can hear the audio feedback, y'all. This mic kinda' crispy, imma' need one of these." Selecting the "Game Start" option, Michael met a brand new set of prompts to choose from. The first was "Dive In" which meant to start the game, the second was "Settings" which allow him to fiddle around with the settings and the last was "Exit" which would allow him to close the game.

He chose the setting options which brought him to another screen, giving him a number of things to choose from like "Volume", "Voice Audio", "Blood: On/Off", etc. He chose to turn voices to English and the blood on. "Aye, I know y'all probably on my ass right now, but I can't see chat. It ain't no way in hell I'm about to smack the shit out of a female character and hear that high pitched ass screech in japan, I refuse. By the way, this shit kinda smooth. It's like, it reacts to whatever you think. So like I said in my mind that I wanted to go to settings and the game chose it. This some high-tech nerd shit."

Backing out of the settings, Michael hopped right into the Dive-In which took him to character creation screen. There he was met with the option between a male and female character and suddenly he could see his chat again. The two models of the characters were just as the screenshots showed, heavily inspired by an anime MMO and Michael wasted no time making his character, but engaged with his chat while he did.

"I'm not listening to y'all and letting y'all choose my build. Y'all gone have me all kinda fucked up. He moved the maturity slider up and down which allowed him to choose the height of his character and in turn, the starting "Age". He placed it a little above the middle, getting the result of "21". He then moved to the race options: Elf, Human, Orc, Half-Giant, Dwarf and Gnome. "All of you beta males and no I do not mean in the way that I am, are going to choose Elf. Must fuckin' suck." He stated, choosing the option of Human instead.

He then moved to the next customization option, body, which he played around with a bit but not too deep because he didn't care. "Imma' make him black and give him a lil six-pack, allat extra shit y'all can keep. But it is in-depth though, I gotta' give it that. Like you can have any body shape you want, for you bad-built mofo's." He did just as he claimed he would and moved to the next customization option: face customization. "I should be a nerd and give myself some sort of scar. Nah, it's gonna be too many." He chose a set of typical anime eyes and made them dark brown. "At least they don't make you choose from roygbiv and instead give you a hue slider. This ain't bad."

Next was the option to select hair. He scrolled through the many options and only saw one that really caught his hair and it was the one he sported in real life. "Man, oh my god, DLC for hairstyles ASAP. I'll pay fifty dollars for anything that's not this shit. GG Game Bros, you had one job, at *least* make my hairstyle right." He clocked through the options a few times until finally deciding on a slick but messy look. "I look, generic, as, fuck."

Looking to the second to the last option, "Features?" he asked, his voice filled with confusion. "What the hell is this?" He asked, clicking on it. "YOOOOOOOOO HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He burst out into laughter, looking at the sliders for the section. "I shoulda' fuckin' made a female. They actually added a fuckin' bust slider. Game Bros, I take what I said back earlier. This give y'all plus a hundred points. The traps in this game about to be real."

Finally, he landed upon the option to select his class; they were all there. The exact ones that were mentioned in the interview and the information they leaked, all of them were there. But he took not a word nor hesitating second to select his class: "Lancer". Once he did, he stood naked with only a pair of underwear on and a lance resting on his back.

Selecting the "Finished" options, Michael was brought to the final screen. "Please select a username and character name?" He said out loud, "What the fuck is the point for these?"

He looked to his chat and they'd already flooded it with plenty of options he should go with for his name. "Nah, y'all shut the fuck up. I know what I'm going with," In the window, he inserted "Schlong Gawd". Attempting to carry on, he was met with a prompt that forced him to choose a different name. "What the absolute fuck, Game Bros. Shaking my head, I'm taking fifty of those points back." Erasing the input, he put in "**DaGawd**" for his username and all that was left was his character name. Once he selected the option, a test popped up. "Character name, is what the other avatars and NPCs in the game will call you in-game. Your username is what will appear on leaderboards, dungeons, and other company-related things. Choose this wisely as you can not change your username or character name.

"Aye chat, give me nameeeeeeeees Something to compliment the last name, Vader! Don't give me nothing stupid, or I'll ban you." Michael waited a while and kept his eye on chat. He looked for another that would catch his eye. "AYE HurtKing124, Rhys, I'm using that shit!" In the prompt, he inputted "Rhys Vader".

After he confirmed, he was met with a screen that asked for the complete confirmation while also showing him the character in a set of run-down brown cloths that seemed as though it could be torn by the first monsters he ran into. There was a small animation which turned his view into a spirit and inserted it into the model. Moving the character around mentally, Michael--no Rhys--pulled the lance from his back and twirled it around in his hand. A final prompt appeared, "Say "Dive In if you are finished with the character creation.

"Chat, chat, chat. I'm not even finna play around I'm jumping right into this. Dive In!" He shouted, body shaking before turning back into a spirit orb and flying into the sky.

### Dive In: Tony

Suit ready, tight around his body, Tony J. Fernandes continued to ready himself, looking at the many equipments laid out in his resting room. Technology, a lot of technology, why was he being given this again? His wife was drowned in her job again, piles and piles of documents to analyze and pass along.

She helped set up some food to be frozen, then eaten later on, since he would be alone for a while. Her smile lingered in his mind, *"Have fun."* Such motivation.

The starting screen flared into existence, filling all of his vision, the logo "Xypher Online" floated over what seemed to be some sort of landscape. Probably the very world he was set to explore. No music came along it, rather, there was something much like a wind breeze, the fluttering of leaves, the sea.

Tony selected the "Game Start" with nothing but a thought. Other options came afterwards, "Dive In", "Settings", and "Exit". He instantly went into the second, checking up the resolutions, the volumes, nothing out of the ordinary there, a few tweaks and he was set. Back to the starting screen.

"Dive In". The logo vanished out of Tony's sight, what seemed to be the ocean, the land, everything spiralled into the middle of the screen. He was faced with the "Character Creator".

Last time, Tony had created a female main, now, he would be back to being a male. For a moment, he brought a hand to his chin, letting some thoughts flood his mind entirely. *"Something like a bare-handed fighter... flamboyant...? Strong-looking, but very crazy."*

More options surged once he chose, alteration of the age, of the character's build, Tony set it to about 25, prompting the character model to expand lightly. Race, *"The simplest."* He quickly chose human. The editor moved into the "Body Editor", way more options appeared before Tony: Skin, Shape, Face, Hair. *"Exoticness."*

Tony just had to remind himself, characteristics to complement his idea. A fair skin, the shape he had set up before, hair blond and wild. Yet again, Tony rubbed his chin, was it bad he was already choosing the class of his character? For that one to fit in, he decided to greatly lengthen the hair, down until it reached the character's middle back.

Then, there was the face, Tony adjusted it swiftly with a masculine look. The eyes were even easier, a green color. What came next were Features, nothing too important. However, the next one certainly was, the very class.

Monk, Warrior.

Tony thought on the "Finish" command, all the elements from before spiralled from the middle and outwards. "Select Username, select Charactername," He said out aloud, not even noticing it. And again his hand rubbed his chin, Tony linged into his thoughts for a few minutes, analyzing the background he set up for the character.

Username inputted, "**DeathKing**." Charactername inputted, "**Ozma**."

The whole character zoomed out of his vision, acquiring clothes characteristic to his very class. Suddenly, his mind meshed with the very character, Ozma's, his vision his own. With another thought, everything flashed white.

### Dive In: Reuben

Reuben Gardner was genuinely surprised, but he was surprised by a lot of things. He was surprised by how the box containing all of the Xypher Online gear weighed like ten pounds. He was surprised by how easy it was to set up, and how the user manual was legitimately helpful. He was even surprised by how his computer could run it, but that was something he had at least expected considering he had spent an absurd amount of money on it. However, above all, Reuben was most surprised by the fact that he was home before night.

Just as any newcomer or fresh-face, Reuben desired to prove his worth to the people around him. Whenever someone called out, it was Reuben who volunteered to take an extra, eight hour shift, or to come in on his day off. There were days where he worked sixteen hours, and other days where he worked ten hours, but there were very few days where he worked just eight hours. He was left exhausted most of the time; when he got a day off, he used it for sleeping, resting, and the casual video game. It wasn't like he exactly *liked* working that much, but after the two week cycle was up, Reuben couldn't help but feel it worth it.

Still, what good does money do when you can't spend it? He was split between playing video games and sleeping, which left very little time for other things such as things like romance. Though, at the moment, Reuben wasn't trying to settle down. Not until he could get where he wanted to get. So, when he had heard there was a game coming out where he could, sleep, rest and play simultaneously, Reuben was the first person on it. What was better? Well, his job paid for it too.

He pitched the idea to them that the game was an innovative piece of technology that could threaten the people of the United States. It was his job to protect them, and thus he valiantly offered to test this potentially dangerous venture. There was no way his supervisors weren't aware of the utter bullshit that Reuben had pitched, but he was a hard worker. They thought he deserved it, and, frankly, without them there was no way he was going to be selected as a beta tester.

Reuben stretched his body, being careful not to rip, what he described as, *the tight ass suit*. Although the manual said that the suit could stretch to like five times the length of the human body, Reuben didn't trust it. That's what they said about other things, like condoms. But, those things ripped all the time. Well, more like .001% of the time, but shit, the point still stood.

He laid down on his bed, and put the helmet on his head. It was pure black, and for a moment, Reuben was scared shitless.

"Oh, I gotta turn it on," Reuben deduced quickly, pressing the on button as an interface came up that prompted him to start the game. He exhaled deeply, allowing whatever remaining nerves to leave his body, and he started the game.

"WOAHHHHH!!!!!!!" was all that could escape Reuben's mouth before he realized that he was simply in the game; he was completely immersed into a separate reality. Thing was, he had known that it was going to be a virtual, reality based game, but it was way more virtual reality than he expected. So, add that to this list of things that he was surprised about.

The first question was never the hardest. In fact, Reuben thought it was the easiest. Why would you ever want to be a female in a video game? People always were trying to hit on you, making dumbass lewd jokes, trying to smash and shit. Reuben knew this for a fact, because *he* was always the one making dumbass lewd jokes, hitting on people, and trying to smash and shit. However, there came the sudden realization that this was virtual reality. How real was it? Could he really have breast? Could he really....Oh, the options! But then, he realized that people were watching him.

Part of the requirement for him to use this for "work" purposes was that he had to record his gameplay and upload it to a specialized, federal server. No live streaming allowed, which was good, because he didn't want to live stream. He didn't even know how. So, he flipped the male sign, and designed his character.

Unfortunately, Reuben was conceited. Why would he not want to be immersed into the gameplay? He was a hero in real life. Why not be one in the game? So, he designed the character as close to his likeness as possible.

Reuben chuckled as he thought of putting black, which for some reason activated the sliders and made his current character black. It startled him, but was good. He wanted to do that anyway. But, what race did he want to be? He read through the options, and his eyes lit up in excitement with one. He nodded in agreement.

Then, the second question came along: Race and Class to which he chose Orc and Guardian.

The rest of his options matched closely to what he looked like in real life.

The last was his name. This was easy.

"MeatyReubenDeluxe."

Reuben smiled and pressed the option: *Dive*.

### Dive In: Ashrav

It was a strange time for the Australian resident as he looked around his room. Of all things, he did not expect a large assortment of visual reality technology to be set up in his room. He had told his parents that he would not be able to work for a couple of weeks because he was chosen to take part in the opening beta of Xypher Online, a Visual Reality game that would pioneer future technology in the field.

Of course, what he stated was not *entirely* accurate, but nevertheless convinced his parents to grant him those days away from work. To be completely honest, he was surprised that the points he had accumulated from purchasing console games would eventually turn out like this. After all, Ashrav Bhatta was the son of a gold trader. For him to be granted this opportunity, out of all the other hardcore gamers that existed...it was very strange.

Nonetheless, Ashrav had put on the tight suit and, after reading the instructions, plugged in the headset to the necessary device. Everything proceeded as normal. The start screen of the game appeared, with the game's logo, and then three options soon after. Before Ashrav could even think of immersing himself in the game, the game's detail had astonished him. All of his senses were being blown away. It truly felt like he was placed in a new reality. He had heard stories, but never had the opportunity to witness it for himself.

"Amazing..."

Ashrav was starstruck for a moment before he came back into reality. He was here for a reason, and he shouldn't dawdle. He pressed the option to Dive In, and was placed at the character creation screen. Immediately, Ashrav's sense of paranoia came into play. If Ashrav made an avatar too similar to his own, would he be traced back to his business? Even outside of work's restrictions, he thought this way. In true, they were somewhat toxic thoughts, but he had to keep them aside.

"Uhh...I'll go for a look completely different to mine. That should work..." In the parameters, Ashrav chose the option of a youthful man, fair skin and bright orange hair. He kept the same physical build that Ashrav had in real life, because Ashrav didn't feel like changing *everything* about him.

"Alright, that should work. Next is the class option..." Ashrav scrolled through the classes quickly. Most of these felt like they would require intense decision making, or a lot of grinding which he might have not the time for. He peered onto the Cleric class, and realized its diverse specialties would suit him. He chose the class, and another set of options popped up: User Name and Character Name.

"Ah? Ah, I forgot I have to come up with those. Hmmm, I can't use anything that'd give my name away...but I'm very bad at coming up with creative stuff...Ah, this should do!" Ashrav inputted specific characters, and for his User Name, ended up choosing **"AshenOne"**, and for his character name, **"Ragnald Dravolos"**. He thought about the name for a moment, and after inputting in, realized that he sounded more like a Dragoon than a Cleric.

"Ah well, too late for regrets." Ashrav sighed, looking at the new announcement. It told him to speak the words "Dive In" if he was ready.

"Dive In!" Ashrav, in the body of Ragnald, rejoiced. Ragnald disfigured into an orb of light, before plunging into the game without delay.

### Dive In: Haru

Within the room of a teenager, Haru Kazama was currently fiddling around with several pieces of high-tech equipment as several boxes were littered across the floor. It was quite clear the technology he was handling was beyond the budget of a high school student, even if they saved for several months.

In the case of Haru, he had managed to win a raffle at the mall hosted by Xypher Online. It had been a stroke of luck for Haru, especially considering the fact he was technically the "second chosen". The person who had the first number apparently ate some expired sushi and retreated to the bathroom. By the time he had "relieved" himself, the event was in the midst of being packed up.

Haru couldn't help but grin in excitement as he plugged in the cord into the helmet. "There, that should be everything." Taking a final look at the instructions for confirmation, he was satisfied to see he had done everything correctly. It would be a shame, and embarrassing, if he ended up being unable to play the game due to damaging the headset. Having already put on the required skin-tight suit earlier, Haru laid down on his bed before putting on the helmet.

Immediately, he staring at the start screen for the game. It was rather simplistic in nature but acted as a preview to what he would expect. There was the logo of "Xypher Online" floating across an open forest, the gentle sound of a breeze could be heard followed by the rustling of the trees. The amount of detail was astonishing and this was just the title screen. Nevertheless, he pressed the "Game Start" button and saw there were several new buttons: "Dive In", "Settings", and "Exit". Seeing as he had no idea of how the game functioned at the moment, he figured he would play first and then adjust the setting to his desire. Without a second thought, Haru pressed the button to "Dive In" and found himself at the character creation screen with the option to choose between a male and female.

"Well, I'm usually don't like playing as a girl when it comes to games where I can create a character and I won't start now." With that said, he selected the male option and saw the menu display several options such as race, height, weight, and age. Thinking for a moment, Haru elected to play a little close to him as he selected the human race and placed his age at 19 before adjusting his height and weight to be 180 centimeters and 75 kilograms respectively. "There, perfect."

He quickly moved on to features and began to adjust the sliders to meet his personal preference. After several minutes of tinkering, he found himself staring at a near carbon copy of himself. If it were for the eye color and hairstyle, he would have believed he was looking in a mirror. "Well, that was fun. I was gonna give him green hair but it just looks awful on you for some reason." Shrugging at the minor plight, Haru went to the classes and inspected them one at a time. Eventually, he selected the Guardian class as its playstyle sounded like a fit for him and hit the "Finished" option, being brought to the final screen.

"Please select a username and character name?"

Haru pondered for a moment before he input the name. "**Ruka**" as his username and "**Arashi**" for the name of his character. Hitting the button to confirm his choice, he suddenly saw his character in their entirety, brandishing a generic longsword and shield. A prompt appeared before him, telling him to say the words "Dive In" if he was ready.

With barely contained excitement, Haru exclaimed loudly, "Dive In!" He was immediately transformed into a orb of light before soaring like a shooting star, ready for the fun to be had within this game.

### Dive In: Darren

A humming sound could be heard throughout an apartment in Chicago, as Darren Codsworth made a light meal. He'd be in the game for a while, so he figured that he should at least get something to eat before playing.

"I can't wait to see all the hard work we put into the game firsthand." He smiled to himself as he turned off the burner. A homemade Rueben sandwich to enjoy before the official start of the beta. While normally Darren would be disqualified for something like this as an employee of Gamebros, the company had held a company-wide lottery for a single slot in the beta. And Darren had won. Now he got to be one of the first people in the world to try out virtual reality gaming in earnest, and oh boy was he excited.

Finishing his sandwich, he wheeled his way over to his bedroom, where a few boxes lay opened around the frankly kind of messy room. But he'd clean up later when he had time. After all, there were games afoot.

Darren grabbed the suit as he hopped onto the bed, struggling for several minutes to get the suit on before he finally managed to seal his body inside of it. "Tight fit... I forgot how uncomfortable these things looked. But oh well, that's the price you pay for the latest technology. I'll just have to pick up a better version when they come on the market normally." He said as he looked down his body at the skintight suit. Dragging himself up to the front of the bed, he laid down, upper torso propped up by a large number of pillows.

"Now to just make sure everything is set."

"Alexis." Darren stated loudly, "Lock the doors, set the lights to night mode, and disconnect the smart tv." He ordered his home assistance, a VI named Alexis. The house quickly came into line, the lights dimming to save electricity as the doors were locked and the various devices he had hooked up were disconnected to make certain there was the available bandwidth.

"Now let's see what diving is like." Darren chuckled to himself as he settled the helmet on, body propped up at a forty-five-degree angle by the pillows.

He did a quick check of the settings, making sure everything was acceptable. It was, so he hit the game start.

Immediately the first time login screen came up, allowing him to choose a male or female character. Darren picked male, he had nondesire to be a trap.

"Next up is class... I was considering going Enchanter, I do love support classes, but how can I pass up this opportunity to move?" He said as he picked Swashbuckler, locking in his class.

"Now, what should I make this guy look like..." He asked himself. Not having any ideas, he just started hitting the randomize button to scramble the characters looks over and over until he found something that he thought looked decent. It took about twenty tries, but eventually he ended up with a rather androgenous figure with long green hair. "This looks nice enough, now to just adjust how tall it is." He said as he scaled up the Avatar's height to match his own.

Now for a name. "D-A-R-I-0." He said as he typed in Dari0. "Character name... Darius Derringer." He continued as he set up the remaining account details. "And now, to dive in." He announced to himself as he pressed the submit button, his consciousness collapsing into a ball of light as he shot off into the game.

### Dive In: Valen

Meanwhile, it was deathly late in Sweden and deathly cold too. Valen moved like a ghost between his house as he finished up his snack. He glanced at his phone before giving off a laugh as texts came rolling in. It had been hard talking in his group chat the last few days knowing he would be a beta tester for the game they were excited for but letting it out felt good. Putting his phone in his pocket, Valen ran up the stairs two steps at a time.

His sister had the most curious expression on her face as Valen went to his room. "You going to bed?" she spoke to him with a bit of a slur, still waking up for school. It wasn't odd for her brother to be up this late, in fact this was usually the time he head off to bed to sleep and make dinner before he went into his room, disappearing for hours on end. Sometimes you could hear odd screams in English while angry and disheartening swears in Swedish.

"I just woke up half an hour ago," he replied before motioning downstairs. "Food is ready, there's also mail for you. Have a good day at school." The wave he gave off was naturally but Sofia Sjöberg was left blinking a couple of times, checking her watch and then staring at the hallway.

"Weirdo," she muttered, leaving Valen to have peace in his room. She had other things to worry about seeing as she couldn't just teleport to school, Sofia could only dream of it being that simple.

The box was larger than he expected and staring at the expensive equipment worried him. His entire allowance for the month was riding on this, last thing he wanted was to break it... but first he posed in front of the Xypher Online logo and sent it to the group chat. He ignored the instant floods as the beta testing was no longer a joke but a reality. Plugging his phone on charge he got himself ready for the new world ahead.

Valen's lanky body caused some problems here and there, it was like a fight at one point, but he stood with a little pride with the suit on. He sat down on his bed and fixed himself up, ensuring everything was working and nothing was broken. It was time for his 'secret weapon'. It wasn't much, but a rather small device, almost square like, was hooked up to the mic inside the helmet. This would change his voice, just like he always did. He fiddled with it a little, trying to change settings but he felt rushed for time. Then, with a satisfying grin, he entered the first screen of Xypher Online.

It had took him a minute to release he had left reality and had entered the loading screen, not that the loading was there for long. The logo popped up and he felt lost. He went straight to settings to sort out his microphone and his rather unique play style he would try and adopt in all games. Lucky for him, the settings were both rather basic but also in depth, unlucky for him, he had no idea what half the controls did or what they were. Not having a physical controller or keyboard to press was weird. All that seemed to exist in controls was asking the dominant hand.

*I mean, it makes sense I suppose. I will have to learn what anything does first before I can change controls,* he thought as he moved on to character creation. This was when Valen felt at home the most. Valen was designing his character for nearly twenty minutes as he went into depth in making the best Elven girl he could play. As he naturally did, she appeared rather young, her lore would have her older of course, and for that reason she wouldn't be called anything but cute.

First thing he focused on was the hair which he felt rather upset to find majority of the hairs weren't as long as he hoped for. He decided on a busy ponytail, deciding it was the longest out of all the selection and from there his choices were rather basic. He went into detail in the face, the cheeks and ears but they didn't seem out of place. Valen had done this kind of design often and had even planned a few ideas of characters ahead of time. The only thing he had spent a lot of time thinking was the colours of her eyes and hair. He decided to go with a very light green for the hair and a lilac colour for the eyes. After another check to ensure everything was in proportions and to his likes he admired his project.

Then came the harder question, a username. Entering a name for her was easy, he had a name he went by most of the time and so he inputted **"Vall Xioscient**" but the username... Valen hovered over it for a solid five minutes before giving up. He knew he had spent enough time on Vall as it was, so he went with the most basic name he could think of: **"Vall\_Xioscient"**.

With a character in check, a name to go under and a voice changer in the works. Valen dived into the new world of Xypher Online with no more hesitation.

## The World of Xypher Online

A bright light flash, blinding Michael--no--Rhys before taking him through some super-duper disco high speed traveling function. In what seemed to be just a few seconds Rhys found himself standing in the center of a town. A display appeared over his head and it read; "Welcome to Brail Town".

"Chat," he began, walking up to the sign that had been shrouded by other users beta testers across the globe. "This is the starting town. Y'all want me to read this dumb ass sign?" The word "yes" filled his chat and he simply shook his heads and proceeded to call them the "nerds" that they truly were.

"Brail Town is the town where every Avatar begins his or her journey. It is the town that will birth the path you will choose to take on your journey. Brail has many shops, a large hotel, and quests to help you start off your journey. Remember, Xypher Online is an Open World VRMMORPG, what you choose to do within this game is entirely based on your own decisions as there is no true story mode, only quests to help you reach the top. Don't forget: If you plan on stepping out on the field, stop by a shop and get some beginner gear with the Pel you've been awarded."

Michael looked to the chat too see just what everyone had been saying. Some had negative opinions about the game having no true story and suggesting that it didn't, while others simply had been complimenting the beautiful anime-inspired environment he was in.

"Bro, y'all are complaining for noooo reason. It's an Open World game which means it has no ending, you could play in it forever. Like this about it for real, before y'all start to judge. Yeah, they said there's a story, but it's not intended to be the end of the game you retards. You can make a family, live in this world as though it's real life, all of the above. I hate y'all. But complain all you want, I'm boutta go hit up this shop and get me some gear."

Rhys pulled on the ragtag brown clothing they started him in, "Cause this right here ain't gone cut it." Opening the map, he set a waypoint on the nearby shop and began to head there. As he moved, he noticed the lucky beta testers interacting with the NPCs, exploring the town, and others simply just stood around sightseeing. "Yeah, I gotta go grind some levels."

"Hmmm..." Ragnald looked around him. There was a surprising number of people around, though he figured most of them were NPCs. He heard that there was no story mode and sighed slightly, "It's admittedly a lot easier to follow a plan...but that's okay, I guess." Ragnald saw the clothes he was in, and considering the class he was aiming for, these wouldn't cut it.

"The A.I is right, it's probably best to shop before moving out and doing anything." Ragnald looked around anxiously, "Uhh...I'd guess it's closer to the town square?" Ragnald moved forward, hoping he was going the right way.