Sapphire packed up her things and rushed to make it to her next class a few buildings away.

That evening after finishing classes and sharing dinner with a classmate she made it back to her apartment, hugged her brother and brought up the assignment details. She carefully read through all three pages making notes as she went.

This time there were four Cartwright traps, random sentences that asked you to do something silly just to make it clear you had actually read things. Of course a lot of students just searched specifically for the traps and ignored the real instructions. For a sociology professor Cartwright was remarkably naive sometimes. Or maybe he knew people would do that and figured they'd pick up more of the assignment incidentally during their search. There was probably some truth in that. She always read the assignment at least twice to make sure she caught them all and she probably wouldn't have done that otherwise. Not back to back anyway.

Feeling confident that she understood now she settled in to brainstorm a little. Cartwright had strongly recommended using a community you weren't currently part of. It was tied up in all the ethics provisions. About how to get people's consent to use your observations. About what sort of observations were close enough to public that you didn't need that kind of approval. About how people could still feel betrayed even if no IRB would reprimand you.

With all that there were really two ways to do things, either she'd join some smaller group being open from the start and carefully laying out her reasons for being there. Or she'd join a large group where people were expected to be strangers initially. She'd still need to be careful if she ended up having private conversations with people but in that sort of context a lot was fair game.

She let out a short breath, something on the verge of being a laugh. "A game, that would work well." And she had let Tom talk her into signing on for a chance to join Gates of Eternity, that huge VRMMO that was being marketed really heavily lately. Still, she didn't know if she'd get in. The results weren't being released until late next week. And Cartwright was a stickler for details like that.

She rolled her eyes, partially at Cartwright and partially at herself. "I'm really doing this, I'm going to write two proposals just to cover the possibility that I won't be able to follow through with the first one." This time she actually laughed. That did mean she'd need to come up with another idea though. And if she was really doing this she might as well make a point to impress Cartwright so her second proposal shouldn't just be a slight variation on her first.

Eventually she settled on an animal shelter as her backup plan. She expected that different shelters probably varied and so she opened some new tabs and got to doing so background research. By the time she went to bed she had four pages of notes on various animal shelters and another three on Gates of Eternity. There was still work to be done but it seemed eminently achievable.

She turned in her proposals on time of course and Cartwright replied with his comments before they had class again on Monday. There were a lot of quibbles about small details but what stuck out was Cartwright's introduction.

You might be interested to know that you were one of eight students out of your class of forty who proposed 'studying' Gates of Eternity. You are one of two who actually bothered to include a backup plan and mention that it wasn't certain whether they'd get access to the game and the other student just suggested that they could study a different MMO community instead. I'll admit on the face of things I'm more interested in your proposal about a comparative analysis of the volunteer cultures at various animal shelters but I also think that one might be a bit too ambitious for a freshman. Please keep me appraised as to whether you're selected for Gates of Eternity so we can make an informed decision about which path your project will take.

That had been several weeks ago now. She had been surprised to be selected for the game. Tom was a little jealous but as good natured as always. Cartwright had in fact agreed to let her use the game as the basis for her term project. And now she was standing in a sports bra and some athletics panties for the calibration process. She had considered skipping even that small amount of clothes but she wasn't quite willing to trust the supposed guarantees that the calibration data would stay on her device.

"This is it then. Launch day. Time to see if this game is worth the money. I really wish I was the one logging in. I hope you manage to enjoy yourself at least a little between all the notetaking." He steps in and gives her a hug before picking up the NerveGear headset and handing it to her.

She hugged back firmly and then took the headset. "I'll do my best, I don't think fighting is really my thing but as you said there's supposed to be a lot of other things to do. I'll log out after the launch event and tell you all about it."

She brought the headset up to her head and put it on. She'd done that before to test the fit and see what it would do before launch day. Even before today the NerveGear had been impressive. In its augmented reality mode it clearly outshone the predecessors. She'd used it to try out a rhythm game, a small story game and a guided workout program. Tom had used it for a few shooter games. He'd actually had to stop part way through the second one and turn down the realism settings. It had been too much for him.

Today though would be her first time going into the full dive mode. She felt the now familiar moment of discontinuity as the headset overrode her vision. This time though, instead of the usual blank lobby with game icons she saw a wireframe of her bedroom, complete with a wireframe of Tom standing near her. The lack of a body carried over from the lobby.

A swirl of color whirled into existence in front of her. "Hello, I'm Veria. I'm the virtual help system for Gates of Eternity and I'm here to help guide you through the setup process. Before we begin, would you prefer to be rendered as a wireframe or based on camera data during the calibration process?"

"I think I've seen something like the camera data mode when I tried a workout program so I'll try the wireframe, just for a change." With her words she saw a decently detailed avatar materialize. It didn't show her clothes or too much precision but she could see her arms, legs and torso and they were all about the right size. She could even see her fingers and toes. Everything was translucent and indeed had a similar wireframe effect to the other contents of her bedroom.

"Certainly. If you're ready we can start the calibration process. If you have questions feel free to interrupt at any time."

"Thank you. I think I'm ready to get started."

"Alright, please begin by turning at the waist as far to the left as you can." Naturally the next stretch was to do the same turn to the right. The process continued like that for easily twenty minutes. Until the last stretch of "Please push bring your palms and fingers together with firm pressure and then move them so your thumbs are touching your sternum." Once Sapphire had finished that stretch. It had been time for "With that, calibration is complete. Please lie down in a comfortable position and let me know when you're ready to begin fulldive mode.

"Before I do, I have a question actually. Is there a way for me to take notes in game and then bring those out with me? I want to write about my experiences."

"Yes, there's a way to copy notes from something in game onto your NerveGear's local storage when you logout. Paper notebooks are freely available in the starting area to help people do theory crafting and planning and more sophisticated materials can also be obtained. If you summon me when you're about to logout I'll walk you through the process."

"That makes sense, how do I summon you?"

"By default the way to summon me is by saying 'Veria please help.' You can customize that if you want, though I think the default works for most people's needs. I'm generally not able to help in situations where you need to worry about attracting attention or when there's a lot of time pressure."

"Why's that? Actually, on second thought I'll lie down so I can ask you somewhere I can write things down." She walked over to her bed and lay down. She adjusted herself a bit to get comfortable, then signed to Tom "I love you, see you later."

The wireframe wasn't quite detailed enough for her to grasp his response but she took it as a sentiment along the lines of me too.

"Alright I'm ready." She felt a brief sensation of numbness pass over her body. Simultaneously the wireframe of the room dissolved leaving her in a small study lying on a couch. Looking down at herself her wireframe avatar had been replaced by an avatar wearing similar underwear to what she'd had on in the real world.

She also took note of the pink unreality indicator. She was glad to see it just as a signal that the developers were keeping to their promises. She looked around a little more before running her fingers through her hair. If she didn't know better she would have thought it was all real. She gave a small nod. "Well. The fidelity is definitely living up to the hype." She shuddered a little.

She took another look around the room and noticed a closet filled with clothes, a table with a notebook pen and pencil, a chair at the table, and a large mirror. There were also several bookcases with no clear organization schema or shared topic. Partially to calm her nerves and partially to follow up on her own requests she took a seat at the table. "If you don't mind I'm going to write down some notes before we keep going."

"Of course, take all the time you need. Patience is one of my strongsuits."

"I appreciate that." Given permission she did take her time, doing her best to note down her conversation thus far, describe the experience of the calibration process and to write out her thoughts and feelings about waking up an an unreal world that felt indistinguishable. It wasn't quite the done thing for a sociology notebook but she signed and dated the pages just like she would for a science lab class.

"So, I think I was about to ask about your comment regarding being unable to help in high-pressure situations. Could you elaborate on that?"

"Certainly, I was designed to help players with some of the more gamified elements of this world. That means I help them with things like level-up screens, navigating menus where applicable, and providing content warnings when crossing an arbitrary boundary will expose players to new types of experiences they might find upsetting.

"The classic example of a high-stress situation would be during a combat encounter, generally though people aren't trying to mess around with the complexities of the game UI during situations like that. If they are there's probably a problem with the UI that should have been corrected ahead of time."

Sapphire wrote that down. "Interesting, in some of the games I've played before I spent a lot of time in menus during fights. I guess that was generally when opening a menu paused time which probably doesn't apply here."

"Exactly, the designers weren't too fond of that sort of game experience so there was a lot of effort put into making everything a player would need to focus on in a moment of stress diegetic and immersive."

"That makes sense as a goal. There's been a lot of marketing put into how real everything feels. I am curious if the designers thought about the possibility of making things too immersive. Real world combat can be pretty traumatic and I don't think most people want to be traumatized by a video game."

"That was definitely something acknowledged by the design team. That's why the game has a tiered system of content warnings and why the developers wrote a number of filters and other mechanisms to remove realism in certain situations with a high risk of traumatizing players. Those mechanisms exist so players can control their experience and turn down or turn off things like the gore simulation. And those filters are all in place by default in the starting area to give players a smooth transition into the game."

"Well... that's good. I don't think I really want to experience being sprayed with guts and blood." For a moment, Sapphire contemplated logging out then and there. Cartwright would probably let her switch to her other idea. But no Veria said there were filters, she could just keep the filters on. And studying the reactions of the people who thought they were brave and turned the filters off would actually be some pretty important work. She refocused on her notes and continued with her transcription.

"I apologize if I upset you. That was not my intention."

"It's okay, I'm just not looking forward to the combat parts of the game very much. The mentions of a gore system, and especially a fully realistic one... it's an upsetting thought."

"There are many non-combat tasks and roles. Players are strongly recommended to have a certain level of combat ability before moving out of the starting area but there are ways to bypass that requirement if you're committed to the path of a pacifist. Success among the Gates of Eternity will take quite the variety of skills."

"Thanks, I don't know if I'm quite a committed pacifist but it's good to know that's an option. I think that was my main questions answered. What's the next step in the setup process?"

"The next step is finalizing your avatar. Would you like to make any changes before we proceed? You don't have to fully commit now, your avatar can be freely revised any time in the first two weeks after launch and there will be additional opportunities to make certain specific changes going forwards. Including a bonus cosmetic pack that will be unlocked during the launch kickoff event."

Sapphire turned her attention to inspecting herself. It looked like between her somewhat minimal attire and the calibration stretches the system had gotten a pretty good view of her body so even her scattering of freckles matched what she was used to. She thought about checking under her underwear and trying to get that right too but honestly she wasn't that attached to small details like that and she wasn't currently planning to have sex with anyone in the game.

"I think I'm happy with things as is. I guess I should probably grab an outfit though."

"It is by no means required. You meet the minimum modesty standards enforced in the starting area, that said I expect most individuals will be wearing more clothing than that."

The mention of minimum modesty standards did bring up a small desire to see how far she could push things but no, she was here to study the culture of this game not to try to push it's boundaries as part of her own pet agenda.

Still she wasn't ashamed of her body and the Beta testers had said the first area was one big training zone so athletic attire wouldn't be too far out of place. She walked over to the closet and perused the options before selecting a forest green crop top and some black exercise shorts. She pulled them on and inspected herself in the mirror. She nodded to herself. "Looks good."

Then she turned back to Veria. "Alright, I think that's that. What's next?"

"Next up is setting up your stats. Based on your avatar's shape and size we have derived starting values for your stats. You may assign a starting points budget to gradually apply over your first week in game. You have ten points to start and you can assign a maximum of 4 points to each stat." A screen pops up on the surface of the mirror.

Strength: 9 + / -

Endurance: 10 + / -

Range of motion: 10 + / -

Proprioception: 10 + / -

Quickness: 10 + / -

Acuity: 10 + / -

Retention: 10 + / -

Focus: 10 + / -

Available points: 10 [Reset]

"Advanced mode and fractional points become available at later levels. Mental stats begin at 10 for all players. Stats may not reflect all discrepancies between players and should not be relied on for precise comparisons."

Sapphire nodded, happy to be on somewhat more familiar ground. "Could you tell me more about what these stats mean and how they work in game?"

"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. Still I can give you a basic rundown.

"Strength impacts how much force you can put behind your actions with your muscles. It impacts how much weight you can carry, how much hard you can swing your arms, how high you can jump, and whether you can manage the raw oomph required for gymnastics or climbing. It's a bit of an abstraction across all your muscles and until you unlock advanced mode strength will tend to simulate the effects of a balanced workout not favoring any one body part or muscle group.

"Endurance is a measure of how long you can keep going. It includes factors like how much food and water you need to sustain yourself, how long it takes you to recover from exertion and how much you can push yourself when you have to.

"Range of motion is about flexibility, having a high range of motion lets you reach past your toes, do full splits and at the very high end do the sorts of things you see from escape artists or contortionists.

"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 understood all of that, thanks for explaining." She brought up all her points to 11, just so she can experience what increasing each stat is like and then threw the remaining point into endurance before tapping the finalize button that came up.

"You're welcome," Veria said before going silent as Sapphire allocated her points.

Then after Sapphire tapped finalize she started again. "You've now completed the setup process." 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."

"Thank you." Sapphire experimented with the surface a bit and wrote down her observations. It probably wasn't important but she was finding it very grounding to be more thorough than she needed to be. "Are most of the gates like this?"

"The mirror transmutation effect is quite rare, usually the liquid surface will appear in an empty frame instead, but the behavior of the Gate surface is consistent with the other Gates in the world. The transit time for this initial gate is also shorter than it is for any major gate, and minor gates aren't common until later parts of the game."

"Good to know." Sapphire looked at the gate for another few moments before tucking her pen into the front of her notebook and holding the both of them at her side. "I'll summon you again when I have more questions. Thanks again for all the answers."

"Answering questions is what I'm here for. I hope you enjoy your time in Gates of Eternity."

Sapphire smiled, steeled herself for another moment and then stepped forward through the surface. The bodiless rainbow rollercoaster was a bit discomfiting but honestly she liked the element of unreality. It was nice to have another sign that this was just a game not something real.

She stumbled a bit upon exiting the portal but managed to avoid falling.

The area around her was a similar element of reassurance, there might be places with four story tall adult sized jungle gyms in the real world but if there were she personally had never seen one. And she hadn't been to many ropes courses either. It was all bracingly alien. She confirmed that her notebook was still with her and added some notes about the gate trip her her initial impressions of the training area.

Whatever the downsides she had to admit, this was going to be one hell of a term project.