Veria shifted to be more angular. "We can talk more if you'd like but we will have more opportunities and I imagine these surroundings aren't to your tastes."

Alice looked around at the wireframe surroundings. "That's certainly true, shall we get started then?"

"Do lets. The first choice and probably the least important is whether you'd like to do the calibration process as a wireframe or using an initial extrapolation of the camera data from the calibration sensors."

"Lets do the initial extrapolation. I'm planning to stay pretty close to my usual body anyway."

"Certainly."

An avatar manifested aligned with her previously invisible limbs and torso, letting her see her body and arms in her peripheral vision. Noticing the change she looked down. Her hair apparently wasn't included in this initial render and her clothes were lacking the small wrinkles that even exercise clothes tended to have but it looked broadly how she'd expect maybe a bit lower resolution. She nodded. "Okay, what's next?"

"Next are the stretches we use to make sure we have an accurate kinetic model of your limbs and joints. To start, please bend you head to the left as far as you can."

Alice bended her neck to the left and then to the right. Going back and forth with Veria in a sort of game trying to anticipate what exercises might be next. She probably ended up doing more stretches than the calibration process required but given that she was going to be lying in bed for the next few hours a little extra stretching was if anything a positive. With calibration complete she pulled off the headset for a quick bathroom break before lying down and initiating full immersion.

The wireframe copy of her bedroom and the makeshift avatar melted away in tandem with a slight chill spreading over her body as the NerveGear headset hijacked her sensory apparatus. She shuddered a little at the thought. She was putting a lot of trust in whoever made this game. Still, there were a hundred thousand players. If the company was really screwing them over there would be hell to pay.

She pushed those thoughts away and brought her attention back to the present. She was lying on a couch in an avatar that felt indistinguishable from her real body with the exception of a bit of tenderness in her shoulders that had been bugging her the past few days. She pushed herself up and looked around. Immediately, she did a bit of a double take as she saw a clay copy of her body in simple underwear. A set of sculpting tools were on the small table next to it.

"You said you wanted to make some changes. Sculpting is one possible way to do that. I can also make changes based on verbal instructions."

"I don't think I'm much of a sculptor but thanks. Can you just make some small changes so I'm not immediately recognizable? I saw the bit about footage of players in public areas being used in marketing materials and I'd rather not have that impact my career."

"I think I can oblige." The clay statue transformed into a more photorealistic copy if one standing unnaturally still. Then an invisible brush made some small tweaks to her nose, her cheeks and her forehead. Then the double's hair got a bit curlier and it's skintone got just a touch darker.

She stood up and walked around the model. "Alright, I think that works."

"I'm glad, shall I apply those changes to your avatar then?"

"Yeah, let's get it over with." She felt a rippling in her flesh, no pain just a sensation of movement. She brought her hands up to her face but it was already over. Her doppleganger disappeared to be replaced with a mirror. "Thanks."

Her face felt a little weird beneath her hands but she supposed that was to be expected. She ran a finger through her hair felt how the added curliness changed the springiness and the weight to it. She could get used to it she decided.

"Alright what's next?"

"Next is setting up your stat points." Veria brought up the standard display on the mirror. Alice had tens across the board except for an eleven in range of motion.

"Alright, some of these are pretty straight forward I don't think I really need an explanation for strength or endurance or range of motion but can you explain the rest of these? I'm not sure how a video game could tweak any of this."

"A full explanation would get into things I'm not supposed to explain. It would be pretty immersion breaking to tell you how the game cheats. I can try to provide definitions though in case things are unclear.

"Proprioception deals with your sense of where your body is in the world. In practice it means you're more likely to keep your balance and more able to move your body and the things you're holding to where you intend them to be.

"Quickness especially early on is about improving your response time. When you boost your quickness your body will literally start moving sooner in response to signals from your brain and the signals from things like getting your fingers near a hot stove will in turn reach your brain sooner too.

"Acuity is about your senses, especially sight and sound, you'll see and hear things more clearly and from farther away.

"Retention is about your memory, it will help you with memorizing things and recalling them when you need them.

"Focus is about being able to filter out extraneous inputs and keep your attention where you want it to be."

"I think I have guesses for most of them now based on those descriptions. The biggest outlier would be retention but maybe you do some sort of prompting or take advantage of smells or something. Focus I guess could literally blur some peripheral vision or something. I guess it could also use brain stimulation to simulate Adderall but that doesn't seem like something that would pass health and safety standards."

Veria shifted briefly into a mix of purples. "I can neither confirm nor deny the correctness of any of those guesses. That's the only workable policy on these things."

"Fair enough, I've written enough responses like that for class exercises and work to know that's all I'll get."

With the coyness she didn't quite feel comfortable with touching focus and retention so she left those as they were instead bringing most of the others up to twelve with the exception of acuity which she left at eleven. With that done she pressed the finalize button.

"I hope you enjoy your time here in the Gates of Eternity. You can summon me at any time by saying 'Veria help please' or by accessing the menu." The mirror ripples, the metal surface transmuting into something that looks a bit like the surface of a rippling pool only vertical instead of horizontal. "You can step through the gate whenever you're ready."

"Thanks you. I'll look forward to future conversations." She played a bit with the feeling of the portal and sounds it made as she swished her hand through before taking a firm step and taking her first ride on the rainbow roller coaster.