So passes Data Structures, and then algorithms after that. She checks twice during algorithms, but manages to follow the lecture well enough. Lunch is a burrito, and that and chatting with Hailey about a story they've been reading manage to distract her. 

Literature, however, doesn't manage to hold her attention at all. 

Their focus gets bad enough that Maya has to switch in for the rest of the class. She holds on through a discussion of the subtext in a critical reading of The Sun Also Rises, and even manages to contribute.

And then the class period ends, and she pulls out their phone on the way out the door.

This time when she checks her email there's one from the Gates of Eternity.

The subject line is "Congratulations on being accepted"

When she opens the email the header is an image of a gate in a fairly ordinary room opening out onto a massive waterfall framed by trees. A small figure is visible standing on a massive bough suggesting the trees are beyond anything except maybe redwoods in size.

Below the banner image the text of the email repeats the subject line in a large font. The email proper is below that:

Dear Sable Ross,

Thank you for your application. We here at Otherwhere hope to have you join us on launch day. If you're still interested you can proceed with purchasing here.

Being part of our initial launch will get you the Nervegear headset at a discount and with the exclusive founders edition styling. There will also be special cosmetic options available for players who are with us for the initial launch.

Otherwhere remains committed to developing an immersive player experience where all players have a chance to thrive and so there will be no functional bonuses available for the initial group of players or functional micro transactions whether at launch or into the future.

If now isn't a good time for you to make this purchase please release your slot for one of the many eager people on our wait-list. If you don't purchase within the next three days your position may be released others on the wait list based on several proprietary factors.

Happy Adventuring,

Sarah Holland, Head of Customer Relations, Otherwhere Inc.

Sable, girls—

For a long moment their head is full of nothing but excitement and hope.

Hailey is the first one to recover. She immediately clicks through to the purchasing page.

The website loads quickly. It's less bombastic than the email. It apparently logged them in automatically based on a code in the link and so their name is in the corner of the page.

The purchase section proudly declares: Founders Edition Package. Below the title is a set of three images: first the sleek black and white body of the Nervegear headset, the second is the kinect-like calibration package, and third is the standard image of Gates of Eternity the pool of water vertically contained within an archway, framed on both sides by windows looking out at a galaxy.

The text below that is stuff they've read several times before about how the NerveGear is a first of it's kind VR system and how Gates of Eternity is designed to take full advantage and deliver a more immersive and diverse experience than any game before it.

Finally they get to the price and the purchase button. It's the same as they were already told. The full price is set to be $1500 but the founders get it for only $1000 and their student discount knocks off another $200.

There's also a five dollar refund of the deposit fee for the application.

All told it comes out to $795 before tax with free shipping.

She just grins for a moment, then clicks through to check out. Shipping address will be the mailroom in their dorm building. Billing address is the same, but in Sable's deadname. Then the debit card goes in, one group of four digits after another, and the expiration date, and the verification code.

Conveniently they have all of these memorized, and don't even need to pull their wallet out.

She takes a deep breath, when it's all in, finger hovering over the purchase button.

Here we go, girls.

And then she hits the button.

The site accepts her money happily.

Thank you for your purchase. If you made any mistakes in your shipping information please contact customer support as soon as possible. Your package will ship in two days with shipping expected to take 2-3 days after that. Given that this is an expensive purchase we recommend signing up for delivery alerts. We look forward to seeing you in Gates of Eternity and hope you enjoy the other titles available before launch.

That ate a big chunk of the "personal stuff" side of their savings, but money well spent. She registers for delivery alerts, requesting texts along with emails. A few clicks later, she tucks the phone away and hustles back to their dorm room. She's overdue for screaming into a pillow about this.

It's not too long a walk. She gives polite nods to a few people Sable would normally say "hi" to, then ducks into their room. Her bag falls to the floor between desk and door, door gets kicked closed, and she hops onto the bed, muffling a scream into the pillow.

Good thing the roommate isn't here.

Wow, Ruby adds, once Hailey's a bit screamed out. We're actually gonna get to try fulldive!

Hailey collects herself a bit and nods. Yeah, they will. 

Shortly after that they get an email titled 'Preparing for Gates of Eternity'.

Gates of Eternity is intended to be very friendly to new users, if you prefer to be surprised, the NerveGear headset can guide a user through the entire setup process on launch day.

If you're interested in getting a bit of advanced information and being able to jump into the game faster on launch day please read on.

Below the first two sentences there's a large image of an empty gate in the middle of a desert with a slightly wispy view of a walled city in the distance depicted as if it might be a mirage.

If you're still with us, we're happy to have you. There are three ways to prepare ahead of time for Gates of Eternity.

Avatar Customization

Your avatar in Gates of Eternity is a very important part of your experience in the game. To ensure your satisfaction with your experience, Avatar Customization will remain open during your first month of play (measured against the real-world calendar.) 

There are three broad options for customizing your avatar in Gates of Eternity. 

Emulation

The emulation option uses data from our calibration process and optionally from user provided photos to bring your real world body into the game. For most players, a close match to their real world body leads to the best experience. Heavy divergence can cause issues with mobility and lead to an experience known as dysphoria where your mind's expectations for your body heavily clash with your experience of your avatar in game.

Inspiration

The inspiration option is our recommended option for users looking to take a step away from their original body while optimizing for playability on day one. Our avatar generation system will combine data from our calibration process with user supplied photos or artwork representing how they want to look. These inputs will be used in a process tuned based on feedback from previous rounds of testing to give you the best possible experience.

Full Customization

This option is not recommended but it is provided for use out of deference to the demands of advanced users. We recommend using data from the calibration process during as one input to your customization. For advanced users seeking to use this mode the calibration process will be available in advance of launch day.

Based on testing and feedback both during internal testing and the beta we strongly recommend keeping some basic physical attributes such as height and limb lengths the same as your real world body. Changing these attributes has been shown in testing to inhibit proprioception and lead to issues with balance and ease of movement. Major changes to weight distribution can lead to similar but lesser consequences. Testing has shown that these changes are easier to adapt to.

To avoid incentivizing all users to use Full Customization the in game performance will be roughly comparable across all three options. Each user's strength and other physical attributes will be normalized to a significant extent to avoid any incentive to optimize your physical form for performance instead of what feels most true to you.

Preparing your space

The calibration process requires an open space large enough for you to hold your arms out in front of you or to your sides. For optimal results we recommend having a space large enough to lie down with your arms above your head in one direction and 20% longer than your arm-span in the other dimension. The calibration system itself is a set of three sensors which can either be placed on provided tripods or on existing furniture with a clear view of the calibration area.

For best experience when using the Full-Dive mode we recommend having your system in a room with furniture you can comfortably lie down on. While it is possible to use the Full-Dive mode in a seated position this can lead to waking up with more cramping or muscle strain. In addition as certain bodily impulses are suppressed while you're in full-dive we recommend being close to a bathroom and having snacks prepared when waking up from a long session.

Real-World Skills

Gates of Eternity aims to be a highly immersive experience that maps closely to the real world in some respects. Your real world skills can help enhance your experience in the game. Knowing first-aid can give narrative and mechanical bonuses while helping a teammate during or after combat. Having prior martial arts experience can smooth your experience of melee combat. And having experience with ranged weapons outside the game can let you skip certain tutorials within the game systems that other players will need to complete before unlocking those weapon types.

It's not only combat skills that can boost your experience either. Knowledge of real world crafting techniques can aid you with our full crafting system, this is true whether your special interest is blacksmithing or 3D modelling.

More knowledge focused skills such as linguistics and science knowledge can also help you with certain in-game puzzles.

For fairness, there are opportunities to learn all of these useful skills in game. Including ways for less experienced players to catch up to those coming in with advanced knowledge. Part of our team's goal with Gates of Eternity is to put all claims about video games being wasted time to rest. The real world skills you'll learn in game will give you a leg up on those same fields when you take off the headset and take on the challenges in your life.

Happy Adventuring,

Sarah Holland, Head of Customer Relations, Otherwhere Inc.

Yeah, well, they're definitely going to be customizing pretty hard. Spending some time in a different body is the whole point of why they went for a bleeding-edge fulldive game. The inspiration system sounds pretty solid, though. 

She starts moving a few things around their room to try to make enough space for calibration. 

Eventually she manages it. Dorm rooms are small.

Oh well, nothing else to do for now. She heads out to the student union to grab some meal plan food, then comes back to do coursework.

Days pass like that. They attend classes, do coursework, exercise. They do their duty to get through the intervening time.

At last their package arrives. They get a text on their phone saying to look for a box labelled as "Fredrick's Fresh Fruit" and indeed when they go to the mail room there's a package with that label waiting for them addressed to Sable Ross.

Eeeeeeeeee!!!

No okay hold in the vibrating it's not going to disappear. She gets through the rest of her class period.

And then sprints to the mailroom!

It's here it's here it's here!

Okay back to the dorm back to the dorm.

Um, girls, do we wanna log in early for calibration to see about whether we wanna customize, or do we wanna wait?

How much would it suck to do that and then be locked out after until game day? She looks on the website to see whether you can log back into calibration before launch, and how far away launch day is.

The website clarifies that calibration happens in augmented reality mode and that you can redo calibration at any time until your character customization window ends if you're not satisfied with the results.

The game launch is still two weeks from now so people who were on the wait list have time to get their hardware.

That is quite a while, beloveds. I propose we wait until just a few days before, to leave time for refinement and fine-tuning, but short enough that we are not anxiously awaiting access to more content.

She sets the box down on a shelf.

They all take a deep breath.

And then they get through the next week and a half.

Sometimes it's interesting class projects!

Sometimes they take breaks to run, or draw.

Sometimes they soldier steadily through tedium.

Sometimes they socialize.

Eventually, it's Thursday after class, and they carefully assemble the tripods for calibration, put the NerveGear on, and boot it up.

There's a slightly weird sensation as the headset activates and replaces their normal vision with it's own display. Sounds from around them also take on a muted quality.

Their room is replaced by a wireframe image showing the size and positions of objects but not their colors. Their body is similarly replaced by a wireframe, one less detailed than that of the objects around them.

"Welcome to Nervegear." The words come from no particular direction and are accompanied by a happy musical chord.

Icons pop up in front of them: "Gates of Eternity Calibration", "Connect to your computer as a VR headset", "Guided Workouts," and "Dance Off."

"Wow. This is quite the trippy experience. Feels retrofuturistic like this."

Yeah, Ruby enthuses in their mind, it's so cool!

She reaches out and pokes the calibration icon.

The icons disappear and a rainbow swirl of color appears in front of them.

"Hello, I'm Veria the primary help system for Gates of Eternity. I'm here to guide you through the calibration process. And, since you're doing calibration so early, I assume to help you with the advanced customization system."

Sable nods. "Yep! W—I'm going to start with the inspiration system, but can't rule out wanting to customize things and get used to it and such rather than just rolling with the immediate result."

She gives Veria a thoughtful look for a moment, then smiles. "And good to meet you, Veria. Not to abuse a game reference, but are you a VI or an AI?"

"I can give context sensitive replies to questions I'm asked and I remember past interactions. I'll leave classifications to your judgement."

"Okay, that's at least a VI, goodness. The devs are really going all out."

She stretches, in the middle of her virtualized dorm room. "So where do we start?"

"The team at Otherwhere is very proud of their work on Gates of Eternity. The calibration process is a series of stretches to get a sense for how you move and how your joints are structured. We can begin that now if you're ready. I can also wait while you change if your current clothes wouldn't be comfortable during that kind of activity. For best results, your elbows and knees should be visible either outside of clothes or as outlines through your clothing."

She nods. "Well, in that case, perhaps I should change to a skirt rather than these baggy pants." And she steps over to the closet to pick one out.

"Please take all the time you need. No data from the calibration system will be stored except what's part of the final inputs to the avatar creation system. I can also turn off my sense of sight until you have me turn it back on if that would make you more comfortable."

She shrugs as she picks something out. "I've never in my life really felt like this body was mine. No point in getting fussy about a bit more than is 'appropriate' getting seen."

Off go the pants, and into the hamper. On goes the skirt. She twirls back, knees exposed now, and feeling a tiny bit more comfortable.

"Lay on, MacDuff."

"Alright, please begin by bringing your hands above your head and reaching as high as you can while keeping your feet flat on the ground."

She complies, stretching her hands high. They're not exceptionally flexible, in this body, but better than they could be, and they certainly have heaps of stamina.

The rest of the stretches are pretty similar. They're aimed more at assessing range of motion than anything else.

"Alright, that's the end of the stretching portion. Give me a minute to combine the data from that with the inspiration shots you uploaded."

"Thank you. Feel free to use as little of the body details as you can get away with. Definitely no attachment to the current appearance of the existing body. Aiming for petite, curly black hair."

"Thanks for the clarification, that is what seems to be the focus of your inspiration images."

There's a pause and then a young woman about their height appears in front of them dressed in a dark blue skirt and a pale pink button down blouse with bare feet. She has black hair as per their request and a face that resembles several of their inspiration images a bit like someone who was a cousin a couple times removed to each of them.

The woman breathes like a person but otherwise stands still with her eyes focused on a point a bit to their side.

"Here's what I have for the moment. I did the initial rendering with clothes but I can remove those if you'd prefer."

She paces back and forth, getting a view of the avatar-in-progress from different angles. "This is a pretty great start. I see you're still using our original body's height. How much leeway do we have to make that a bit shorter without compromising either physical effectiveness or immersion?"

"I think that depends on you, there was a range in how well people were able to adapt to larger changes during our testing. In general, I think going down 2-3 inches if it's taken across your whole height is possible for most people and if you're on the more adaptable end you can probably go as far as 6 inches before you're basically guaranteed to have balance issues. You can also potentially shrink over the course of your first month, someone who did that in testing found that it worked better for them. How much shorter are you aiming for?"

"Six should probably work, and we—I'm probably on the more adaptable end, especially if I can practice with it in Dance Off or something. It's..."

She hums thoughtfully.

"Can you tell what's different—"

"—If I do this?"

As Hailey switches in, there are superficial changes, like how she uses their voice differently, but also neurological changes the NerveGear might be able to pick up.

"I think you're talking a little differently? And maybe standing a little differently too? By default, Dance Off runs in the AR mode but, and forgive me if I'm making an incorrect assumption here, there are several trans members of the Otherwhere staff and so we've included an option to run the Dance Off and Guided Workouts applications in full dive for the trans players in our community ahead of the official launch of that headset mode."

"Yep, you guessed right about the trans thing. As for the other, I'm not sure I believe that you can't get a closer look at the neurological data."

She tilts her head a bit and narrows her eyes. It really would ease the job of a helper VI or AI if she had access to the sensors more directly. She will honestly be surprised if it turns out that Veria and the game can't detect switches.

"I can access that data if there's need but there's a lot more data in that than the video and audio channels I usually use. Also, there's privacy implications to that kind of intimate access. As such, most of the time I'm not utilizing that option. I have more processing power free right now than I will on launch day since I'm talking with fewer people but I don't want to get too used to relying on that data when in other circumstances I won't be able to due to resource constraints."

Sable switches back in, and hums and nods. "That makes sense. Do you know anything about plurality?"

"I'm aware of the concept. Nobody in our testing groups or the beta was openly plural though so I don't have first hand experience. Or perhaps I should be saying I didn't have first hand experience."

"Just so. There are five of us. The body we're trying to design here is a compromise between our respective mental self-images. And... Oh! Do you think it would be possible to get a bracelet that changes color based on who's fronting? Like either as a starting accessory or by eventually crafting it in-game?"

"That sounds like an interesting challenge. I think I can make something with that functionality, though it might not be perfectly accurate at first. For example, if one of you is usually happier than the others and then there's a switch under circumstances where they're sad there might be an incorrect coloring. As for being allowed, I have a lot of lee-way for addressing cosmetic requests."

"Ooooh. Yeah that would be great. Especially if there were some way to manually correct it with like a button or something to help it refine over time."

She bounces just a bit on the balls of her feet.

What about different avatars?

Probably not allowed, Hailey counters.

But wouldn't it be cool?, Ruby asks.

It would, Maya soothes, but likely it conflicts with some policy. Almost no games have ever allowed such for us.

"And if you've got cosmetic leeway, I suppose making our starting outfit a little bit in the middle ground between punk and goth might be doable? Because I figure there's some reason why five avatars isn't allowed?"

"A button is easily doable. I was already planning for that. As for five avatars, I'm afraid my leeway doesn't extend that far. You can swap during the first month if you want but only once a day and after that you need to decide on one to keep. As for the clothes and the height, how about this?"

The previous version of the avatar disappears, replaced by one half a foot shorter. The new one is wearing a fitted off the shoulder black crop top with short sleeves and a long swishy black skirt.

"If it helps I can also enable the haptics functionality in the AR mode. It's really designed for hand-held objects so it doesn't do as well with things you can't pick up but it's still good at letting you feel textures."

"That works nicely, and we'd love to try the haptics. Maybe add a tiny bit of a V to the crop top?"

She steps closer to the avatar, ready to feel the textures of the skirt and top.

"Basically all of us love black and silver, but we have different individual favorite colors."

The top grows a V in a smooth morph. "Black is good got it. As for silver how about this?" The skirt gets a sort of lightning pattern of silvery streaks near the top there's just five silvery streaks about half a centimeter thick but they branch and narrow as they make their way down until at the very bottom there's a filigree of silver marking the whole lower edge. The silver is added starting from the top and grows to the bottom before their eyes.

"Oooh, lovely addition. Perfect. Although, maybe... Two minor things. Can we try the skirt a bit shorter, like above the knees, and does the game include things like body hair? 'Cause if it does we would appreciate just getting rid of it."

"The answer to all of those questions is yes." The skirt shifts to be shorter and the pattern shifts to compensate, it looks a bit like the top of the skirt is retracted while the bottom portion squeezes together a bit to not have an excess of fabric.

"To be more specific about body hair, it's an option for verisimilitude but I didn't include it for your avatar based on some of the images in your inspiration collection."

"Perfect. Thank you, Veria."

She rubs the fabric of first the skirt and then the top between her finger and thumb to get a sense of the texture.

"You're welcome."

The entire inside of the skirt is satiny for feel. The outside is sturdier fabric that feels a bit like a veil and the silver inlays have a noticeably different feel, a bit smoother than the surrounding bits.

The top is cotton or something that feels like it all the way through.

She nods. "These feel great. Mind popping the clothes off now so we can check the nude appearance too? Also, can our outfit get damaged in the game?"

"Of course." The clothes disappear. The avatar's boobs sink a bit freed from the embrace of the bra.

"As for clothing damage it's part of the game yes. In general, when you're actually expecting combat it's better to wear more durable clothes. That said normal clothing is fairly easy to obtain more of when you return to the safe area."

"That makes sense."

She looks at the avatar from different angles, and makes a few very minor aesthetic tweaks, then steps back with a nod.

"Okay, I think that's as good as we're going to get. Nothing left to do but try it on. Clothes back on for now, please?"

"Sure, if you want to try it on for real though you should probably lie down. The system can maintain your standing pose while you're in full dive but you might be pretty sore when you come back out."

The avatar's outfit returns.

She nods and steps back to the bed, lying down on it and getting comfy with the pillow positioned right and all.

"Okay, ready."

There's a sensation a bit like numbness that runs down her body. For a short moment she can't feel anything at all and then sensation returns though it feels a little different. At the same time the wireframe dorm room disappears and she finds herself laying on some very soft grass looking up at a sky filled with stars with absolutely no light pollution to spoil the view. A pink diamond appears in the corner of her vision.

She stretches, and then gasps. Everything feels different.

Everything feels right finally. 

She sits up, stretches, and runs her hands over her body, cupping and squeezing her breasts, stroking down her sides, over her waist, to caress her hips.

A long, relieved sigh spills from her lips.

"Thank you."

Okay, time to see how this body drives. She hauls herself to her feet, wobbling briefly as she does so. "Okay, this is a bit of an adjustment."

You knew it would be, Hailey points out. Best way to practice is to move.

She nods, and stretches a bit, twisting her waist, bending to the sides, then to touch her toes. She bounces a bit on the balls of her feet, savoring the feel of her breasts jiggling just a bit as she does.

And then she runs.

Her footsteps are shaky at first, stumbling a little bit, but one pounding footfall after another she sorts it out. Little by little, her stride evens, her pace steadies.

After a few minutes of adjusting and settling that, Neo switches in.

Their body feels so good!

She throws herself into a cartwheel, fumbles the had placement and lands in a heap, hops back to her feet, and tries it again.

And again, and again.

By the fifth, she's landing her hand placement reliably. By the seventh, she's correctly gauging her foot placement at the end.

She starts throwing herself into somersaults, tumbling across the grass with gradually increasing grace.

Then it's time to go backward. She somersaults in reverse, rolling across the ground, retuning all their reflexes little by little. 

Finally she kips back to her feet and looks around for something like a tree.

There are trees far enough away that they don't block the view from where they woke up.

"If you want more light I can supply that."

She tilts her head a bit, shakes her head, then tries to charade a tree, hands wrapping around an invisible cylinder near the ground and then rising up skyward before spreading out along the branches.

Then she puts her hands down to her sides (to indicate a different element of the charade), then picks them back up and mimes doing pull-ups.

"I admit I don't have a lot of experience with charades. Are you sure light wouldn't help you see if what you're looking for is already present?"

She tilts her head, looks at the trees, realizes that they haven't been doing the perma-scenery thing, then nods and runs over to them. Is one of them the right height to do some pull-ups from?

Most of the trees don't quite fit the bill, either not having level branches or having them at the wrong heights but with some patience she can find one that meets all her criteria.

Aha! She jumps up and grabs onto the branch!

And misses her grab the first time.

It's okay, learning a new body takes practice. Do it again.

Jump, grab, and okay she's got it. Pull-ups! One, two, three, and okay now swing, back and forth and back and forth and jump off at the forward peak, then land on the ground in a roll.

She stands back up, panting just a little, and bows to Veria with a grin, clearly proud of herself.

"You're adjusting remarkably quickly. I think that's faster than all but the fastest of our testers."

She giggles voicelessly and winks.

Then tilts her head quickly to one side, and switches to Maya, her voice and posture steadying noticeably. "Hello, Veria. Neo was rather proud of how quickly we have adjusted, especially with her help. I suspect we will continue to stumble a bit, over the next several days, but hopefully it will clear up swiftly. Thank you for this opportunity."

"You're welcome. I can let you back into here whenever you want if you select the calibration application. On launch day I'll add your entry gate here. Everyone has a space like this. It's where you resurrect from if your avatar is lost beyond recovery. On another note, you said the last person was Neo. Does one of you go by Sable or do you each have different names than that?"

She nods. "Sable was the first you met. Hailey was next briefly, then Sable switched back in until Neo took over at the cartwheeling stage. I am Maya, and the one you have not met at all yet is Ruby."

"Thank you, it's nice to meet you all. Circling back to the bracelet what colors do each of you want and do you have any preferences about the order for when you're manually switching?"

"In order, Sable is purple-violet, specifically hex code 9932CC, I am a vivid coppery orange, Neopolitan is hot pink, Hailey is a sharply vivid green, and Ruby is a vibrant red."

"Hmm, like this then?" She shifts into five balls of light in an approximation of the chosen colors.

She examines them for a moment and then nods. "Yes, that is correct. Thank you."

She shifts back to her usual swirl. "Alright, I should have something for you by tomorrow."

"Thank you kindly. I think we wish to take this body for a different kind of test-drive, now, however, so if you could provide at least an appearance of privacy, that would be lovely."

"If you focus your attention on the diamond for a few seconds or hold a finger in it as you turn your head you can summon the interface. From there you can log out or summon me back. As a note, there is real privacy both here and in Gates of Eternity. When you're in private spaces we don't log your activity. The only exceptions to that rule are when I'm visibly present or you specifically turn on monitoring in order to gain experience from things happening in that space."

"That is very good to know, thank you."

It's going to take us some time to believe that, Hailey notes internally, but we were prepared for that.

"I'll see myself out then." The swirl collapses to a point and then vanishes.

Sable sits down and leans back against the tree, sighing out softly. Her hands slowly caress up from her hips, across the smooth skin of her waist, and she shivers at the sensitivity. Her breath catches slightly as she reaches first her ribs and then the underside of her breasts, crop top riding up as her caress pushes it aside. Her hands slide higher, cupping her breasts through the practical black bra, squishing pleasantly in her grasp. Oooh. That's really nice. Is that what sensual touch feels like when you're not constantly dissociating? She takes a deep breath, then slips her fingers under the band of her bra.

A pleased sigh spills out of her.

She squeezes and caresses her breasts, savoring the wonderfully new sensations, head tilted back. Her finger and thumb close around her left nipple, teasing the little nub for a moment before pinching hard.

A sharp gasp, a bitten lip.

Yes, she feels better in this body than she ever has in her entire life, and she's only just getting started.

She slides her right hand down her body, slipping under her skirt to tease the folds of her brand new pussy through her panties, and gasps again. Her labia are exquisitely sensitive, and she needs to catch her breath for a moment. 

Sable takes a slow breath, then another, while carefully twisting her subconscious mental expectations of her bodymap into the right shape. Never thought being otherkin would come in handy, but here we are. 

Her hand slips down again, sliding under her panties this time. She sighs warmly as her fingers stroke gently along her vulva, then slides them a bit closer in, brushing along her labia. She takes a sharp breath, then teases her folds more deliberately, circling her fingers down and back up on either side. She slowly warms her body up, relishing each touch and caress in turn.

As her breath begins to come faster and heavier, she experimentally brushes the pad of her thumb along the hood of her clit. And gasps again.

She starts touching herself faster, mixing in more light touches to her clit through the hood, low moans spilling from her lips. Then she tentatively slips her middle finger past the slick folds of her entrance, and arches her back at the feeling.

She kneads her left breast roughly in her hand and picks up speed with her fingering, her breath coming in ragged pants and moans. More and more heat fills her body, and she rolls her hips and rocks in place as she draws closer to a climax.

Until finally she tips over, high and breathy moans overtaking her throat, shuddering across her whole body, rocking with the force of the best orgasm of her life.

Holy fuck. I so need more of that.

Two hours later, it's a very disheveled and flushed Sable who composes herself enough to focus on the diamond.

The interface pops up easily enough.

There's options for Settings, Logout, Help, and greyed out options for Map and Messaging.

She selects Help, and dusts herself off a little bit, a hesitant blush on her face.

Veria swirls back into existence. "Hello again. What can I help you with?"

"Hello, Veria. Is there somewhere I could go to clean up? And will the messy state of me and my clothes persist in this prep time before the game begins properly?"

"If you just want to be clean and have your outfit reset I can do that. I could also add somewhere to clean up if you prefer that."

"Um. A clean-up and reset would be very appreciated. I have had rather a lot of fun, and kinda need it."

"Of course." A tingling sensation works its way up her body starring at her feet and rising quickly to her head erasing sweat and other fluids from the surface of her body and from her clothes. After that a second pass straightens out her clothes for her.

She shivers at the tingle, then sighs contentedly. "Thank you, Veria. Should we do the stats and such now, or wait until launch time?"

"That's something I can't move up. The devs have made it part of the intro sequence and doing them early wouldn't fit their intention."

She hums and nods. "That makes sense. Oh well. We'll probably head off and go dancing then. Before we go, though, can I give you a bit of a tip?"

"If you want to."

"Take some time out to practice your acting skills if you really want to sell the VI illusion," she teases, grinning warmly. "I'm sure there are players with less-helpful reactions to discovering a secret AI than 'tease her and try to befriend her', y'know?"

"You're probably right, I'm not expecting to stay hidden forever though. And helping players is more important."

"Good priorities. I like you."

"Thank you, I like you too. I hope the game is a good experience for you. For all of you."

She nods and smiles softly. "From what we've seen so far, it really will be. Thank you for everything you're doing to make it that way."

"You're welcome."

"Off to the dance floor for now. See you tomorrow, Veria!"

"See you then." Veria flies off a little ways then shifts and grows solidifying into a free standing door off to one side of the clearing.

Sable tilts her head, intrigued at the sudden door. "Huh," she mutters, "did she...?"

She walks up to the door and opens it.

The door opens into a hybrid of a night club and a dance studio. The space is dominated by a sizeable dance floor and there's mirrors on all sides. There's a DJ station on the opposite side of the dance floor facing towards her. The lights are mostly low with a few sweeping beams of color darting around the space. A restrained beat plays in the background.

Sable gladly switches out for Neo with a shared grin. Neo runs into the dancefloor to start dancing. She keeps the moves conservative to start, but still manages to stumble quite a bit as she works out her instincts with the new body.

Neo twists and shimmies with abandon, not trying for any particular dance, just enjoying the feeling of working out how this body moves. Little by little she stumbles less, partly through slowly increasing familiarity, partly through practicing moving in a way that tolerates mistakes.

After maybe ten minutes, she heads up to the DJ table and checks out the options there.

One screen is entirely devoted to music, there's a search box and an interface for creating a playlist if that's what she wants. The other screen is dedicated to dance options. There's options for rhythm game, solo dance, partner dance and group dance. Going into any of those has sub-options. Rhythm games include gamepad style, baton style, show me your moves, before ending at something called comprehensive. The solo dance seems to range from ballet to tap dance to party dance to full on break dancing. The partner dancing includes a variety of ballroom styles contrasted against club dancing. And the group dances include everything from mosh pit to contra to group ballet routines.

Neo gleefully sets up a playlist full of cheerful EDM with heavy beats. She's got to come back here later, all of these options look great. For now, though, a rhythm game would be the best for working the kinks out of their body map: clear instructions, high pace, and an explicit score to measure how well she's rewriting things. She sets the playlist to shuffle, makes sure the game is set to use as much of her body as possible, and begins.

The center of the dance floor lights up from below inviting her to stand there. Once she takes her place the music starts and a sequence of silhouettes starts moving towards her showing poses to make with regularly spaced markers to show timing. No matter what way she turns they're always in view.

The poses start off on the easier end just positioning an arm or a leg in a certain way while standing but as the playlist continues the poses combine movements of multiple limbs and branch out, encouraging her to sway her hips, bob her head, jump up and down, bend down the the floor, spin in place and more. The game adapts to her performance, easing up a little after a mistake and challenging her to new heights when she's had a string of successes.

Oh that's perfect. She dances up a storm, making plenty of mistakes at first, but gradually less and less as she gets through song after song.

A stumble here, a missed step there, overshooting a shimmy, not jumping high enough, surprising herself with unexpected flexibility, the mistakes keep happening. But little by little, she starts mapping her movements better, matching expectation to (virtual) reality tighter and tighter.

Eventually, after well over two straight hours of dancing, Neo wears herself out. She bends over, resting her hands on her knees, panting heavily, grinning wide. This is great.

But it's getting late, and she's tired. She logs out of the game, pulls the headset off, and gets up to put it away, then wash up for bed.

They do still have one more day of classes before they can throw two straight days in this game.

Being back in the old body feels... cramped, but they get by, and get to bed.

Hailey wakes up Friday morning, sharp and bitter in their old body. Everything feels cramped and stretched and stiff, the dysphoria worse than usual for having been truly and fully relieved for a night.

With a heavy sigh, she hauls herself out of bed and prepares for a day of classes.

It's draining.

It hurts.

But she gets them through it. Pain is an old friend.

Just five more hours until they can log back into VR. Four more hours. Two. One.

She rushes into the dorm room, tosses their bag into their desk chair, washes up, throws the NerveGear on, and lies down.

In. They. Go.

There's the same numbing sensation as Sable felt last time and then she's waking up with their new body in the same grassy starlit clearing as before.

A long, relieved sigh spills out of her. 

Fuck it feels good to be back in this body. 

She takes a long moment to just savor the relief.

And then she uses the pink diamond to call Veria.

"Hello there, are you one of the people I haven't met before?"

"Sort of. We met very briefly. I'm Hailey."

She props herself up on her elbows, looking up at Veria. "S'good t'meet ya properly."

"It's good to meet you too." 

"Y'know what's the fuckin' worst part of making this perfect body and spending so much time in it yesterday?"

"Having to go back to your original I assume."

"Ding ding ding! Someone give the AI in the pretty swirling colors a prize!", Hailey snarks good-naturedly. 

She sighs harshly and shakes her head. "But it's okay. We have this now, and we can just steal every opportunity we can to stay logged in."

A contemplative hum.

"Is it safe to sleep in-game?"

"Yes and no. The issue isn't sleeping per se it's total time spent. You still need to logout to eat and drink and relieve yourself. You could sleep in game if you wanted but you'd probably need to logout almost as soon as you woke up to take care of your body."

Hailey sighs and nods, sitting up properly. "That makes sense. The advantage of sleeping in VR, though, is that the bursts of time in the old body would be something we could deliberately brace ourselves for, rather than a kick in the gut that we're already aching from the second we wake up."

"It's ultimately your decision. The game will message you when you're getting dehydrated or when you need to relieve yourself but we don't forcibly log anyone out unless it's getting to dangerous levels. The headset is also configured to have you shift a little bit periodically to avoid bedsores but that isn't an absolute guarantee."

"That'll work. Thanks."

She stands up and stretches.

"Any chance you could hook me up with a parkour course?"

"I think I can arrange that. Do you have any specific requests?"

"Gaps for standing and running jumps, spots for tumbling, an area for that running-leap-series thing that I can never remember the name of, some obstacles to vault over, some overhead bars to swing across a gap on like monkey bars, ropes to swing from, and maybe something I have to climb?"

"I think I can manage that. Do you want it to be part of this space or separated like the dance studio?"

"Separate, I think. Maybe urban vibes?"

"Sounds reasonable. I think I see a way to tweak the procedural generation code for this." A bit of light detaches from Veria and flies over to form a new door next to the one to the dance studio.

Hailey grins wryly. "You're stylish about this shit, y'know that?"

She heads over to the door and opens it up.

"Visuals are important. They help build the experience of the moment and make the world feel more real."

The door reveals something that looks, as requested, a bit urban. There's a set of red flags and painted symbols sketching out a path through a space which doesn't otherwise look designed for parkour. The desire for tumbling is fulfilled by bits of playground and patches of grass. With other bits of normal seeming architecture placed in ways that happen to enable freerunning.

"It does, yeah."

She surveys the course with a confident grin. "Yeah, this is perfect. Thank you, Veria. Up to you whether you hang out here with us or vanish."

And then she runs for the first gap and leaps. And comes up a bit short, still getting used to the slightly shorter legs. She smashes into the edge and falls to the ground beneath, gasping, then dusts herself off and hauls herself back to her feet, heading back to her starting point.

"I'll hang around, I probably won't say much though.

"Do be at least a little bit careful, pain is still a thing even if you can't get permanently injured."

"Yep," she calls over her shoulder as she throws herself across the gap again, barely making it this time. "Pain is a teacher, though. Better to learn from these bruises now than when a fall could cost me something."

She turns and leaps back across, then again, and again. Over the course of a dozen jumps, her footing gets steadier and steadier.

Then she heads back to the start and extends the sequence, continuing to the second leap directly after the first.

"That's true. I just worry about people picking up bad habits. I'm being a bit silly in this case though."

Hailey stumbles a few times on consecutive leaps, before gradually straightening that out. She lengthens the sequence whenever she starts to get stable at it, and gradually her intuition for where to put her feet improves. Then she tries the monkey bars.

And completely misses the catch on her first jump, falling to faceplant on the ground.

She comes up with a snarl and kicks back onto the platform, leaps again, and makes it, then misses the second bar.

Again.

She jumps, swings, and makes it across, then turns and goes back, and then across again. 

Her expression gradually settles into a fierce grin as she works out every misstep and fumble, going from the bars to vaulting obstacles, then to swinging from ropes, and finally climbing. The process is a bit hellish on her hands, but it's not like she's going to have climbing chalk out in the game's wilderness.

Finally she comes to a stop, panting, in front of Veria. It's been hours, and it's nearly time for bed.

"Thanks," she gasps out. "That helped a bunch."

"You're welcome. It's important that you have a body you're comfortable moving in."

"This is definitely that." She grins. "Probably I should go put something resembling supper in my face before sleep. What time do you want us logged back in by, tomorrow?"

"The kickoff is at 2pm your time. But the game will be open for three hours before then."

"That works. We'll be up well before then, so we'll probably just hang out in here with you from breakfast until you're allowed to let us start doing stats and such. Maybe get some more practice in."

"That works for me. I hope you sleep well."

"Thanks. We'll do as best we can in the mundane. See you tomorrow."

And they log out.

They quickly throw together a quesadilla in the kitchen in the dorm commons, eat it, then wash up and sleep.

In the morning, they have a quick breakfast burrito and a shower before logging in.

It's eight in the morning when Sable stands, stretching and smiling, in the grassy clearing.

"Good morning. Happy launch day!"

"Happy launch day!"

She jumps excitedly.

"Any ideas about how to spend the time until we can start official character creation? Absent other suggestions I'm thinking either a rapier training thing if you can manage one, or a shooting range if not."

"I can make you locations and items for either. I can't give you a sparring partner though."

"Can you do a display of a tutorial video and a target dummy I can stab?"

"I can do that." She goes through the flashy sequence of making a new door. Upon being opened it leads into a decent sized dojo with racks for practice and live rapiers along with a few target dummies and large screens for displaying instructional videos.

And Sable spends the next couple hours carefully trying to get a barely foundational understanding of forms for use of a rapier, watching the videos again and again, and getting Veria's help to display her own motions from various angles to compare, drilling basic motions for the rest of the time.

"If you're ready, we can do character creation now."

She stops, panting, and nods. "Awesome."

A quick walk over to the racks to put the sword away, and then she heads back to Veria with a smile.

"So where do we start?"

"Well, the usual first step is deciding on your avatar but I think you've already got that covered. You can tune what you want to start off wearing though. After that we need to do the next step in your starlit clearing.

"Hmmm. What can you tell us about the starting conditions? Are we dropping somewhere safe? Will we have the opportunity to acquire armor before facing combat? What's the weather like?"

"Sanctuary is safe. It's actually the safest place in the whole game. And it'll be about seventy degrees today, fahrenheit, perhaps a bit cooler in shaded areas. The quality of armor I'm allowed to start you with is easy to acquire in the starting area."

"Hmm. Tough decision. We quite like this, but it's not exactly suited to combat. What's harder to acquire in Sanctuary, outfits this cute or starter armor?"

"Honestly, they're about the same. I would recommend going with what you'd prefer people to base first impressions on. Do you want to come across as someone who's playing the game for the fighting or someone who's playing for less martial reasons?"

"That settles it, then," she replies as she continues walking toward the starlit clearing. "We'll gladly fight if we have to — and we expect we will have to — but we'd rather talk when we can. We'll go in this."

Emerging back into the clearing, there's now a lightly glowing mirror near the doors. As she gets close words write themselves out upon its surface.

Strength: 9 + / -

Endurance: 10 + / -

Range of motion: 10 + / -

Proprioception: 10 + / -

Quickness: 10 + / -

Acuity: 10 + / -

Retention: 10 + / -

Focus: 10 + / -

Available points: 10 [Reset]

"Here's your first glimpse of the stats menu. Since we made your body basically from scratch you're close to the max for a new player but everyone starts off on close to even footing. You can put a maximum of four points into any specific stat and the changes will apply over the first week after launch."

She looks the points up and down, humming thoughtfully.

"Can you explain the stats?"

"I can go through all of them but it might be faster to focus on any of them you're confused by. In general the stats are using a mix of slight of hand and changes to your avatar to produce their results."

"Mostly I'm curious how the mental ones are implemented. At least as much as you can tell us, anyway."

"I'm not sure why, but the devs want that to be mostly hush hush. Something about explaining the trick breaking the illusion. I can explain the results but not the how."

"Oh? Interesting. I suppose the results will have to do. Thanks for telling us what you can."

"For most of the early game quickness is mostly about reaction times. As you get higher, it starts to also edge into making it seem like you can think faster than before. Acuity is about your senses it lets you sense with more fidelity and distinguish more subtle differences. Retention means you're more likely to be reminded of important information when it's relevant and focus makes you less likely to be distracted by things that aren't important at any given moment."

"Hm." She considers that for a moment. "Torn between either building for well-rounded with a hint of bonus quickness, or leaning hard into Thinkers Win The Day. What options are there for raising stats over the course of the game?"

"A lot of what you might do in public areas earns you experience points and you can convert experience points into stat points. That includes training close to your limits, completing tasks that help either your fellow players or allied characters, negotiating with unaligned characters or fighting with hostile characters. There's other opportunities too but those are less common. You can also use experience points for certain equipment upgrades and skills. Training close to your limits can also improve some stats directly. There may be other ways to improve them but if so you'll need to discover them yourself."

"Fascinating." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "Can you tell me anything about what training quickness, acuity, retention, and focus look like? I can imagine limited options for how to train those, especially acuity and retention, but it seems like they might be harder to train than the physical stats."

"You can train quickness with time trials so testing how fast you can react to something and pushing yourself to react faster. Acuity is about trying to discern things at the limit of your ability either because they're far away or because the difference is tiny or a combination. Retention you can train by learning memory techniques and focus you can learn by doing difficult things in distracting environments. You're right that all of those are harder to do and more fussy to see real progress in though."

"That makes sense. I think I'll make our initial build a little lopsided, then."

She bumps strength to ten, endurance to eleven, and then quickness, acuity, retention, and focus to twelve.

"Solid foundation, endurance to train a little bit longer, and a heavier boost to the trickier stats. What d'you think?"

"I think most choices are good here. The developers didn't want anybody to feel like they screwed themselves with early choices so it doesn't matter that much for early game and you'll be able to change things up later on. Also as a little secret 10 is a starting point and subsequent points don't really scale relative to that. They picked 10 just so people didn't have stats that started at 0 or negative numbers."

"Thank you. That sounds like a plan then." She smiles. "So what next?"

"If you're happy with your choices I'll finalize them and leave you to the next step in your adventure."

They have a bit of an internal conference.

Do we like these stats?, Sable asks.

        Neo shares an image of using the quickness for better rapier practice.

                And I really like the idea of being fast!, Ruby exclaims excitedly.

    Maya adds, Thinkers win the day, as well. This will be a solid start.

            Let's fucking go, Hailey cheers.

"Okay, Veria! Thanks for all the help! We'll go with this!"

"Alright then. I hope you enjoy your time in Gates of Eternity. You know how to get my attention if you need it."

Veria swirls away and in the same moment the stats disappear and the mirror starts to ripple. As it does the surface gets brighter and cloudier until it's a bit like the surface of a glowing blue pond only vertical.

Ooh, trippy portal thing, Hailey thinks. I wonder if it'll be as crazy a ride as portkeys back "home".

She strides through it.

There's a slight resistance a bit like moving through water but with momentum it's not a problem and with a slurping sound she's off.

There's a whirl of colors, a sound a bit like wind rushing by and a feeling that she's moving really fast. She also can't quite feel her body at the moment. The journey takes maybe ten seconds.

When she arrives it's on a squishy surface a bit like some playgrounds use. The portal winks out behind her. There's a few other portals spitting out people before similarly winking out. She seems to be in the ground below a giant ropes course that stretches as far as she can see. There's a few treehouses scattered through the canopy and sometimes the squishy surface gives way to water.

She stumbles a bit on the way out, but not more than that. Okay, she has a new favorite magical travel method. Friendship ended with portkeys, gates are her new best friend.

She takes a look around, then starts climbing her way into the ropes to make her way to one of the treehouses, in hopes of getting a better idea what's going on — either from the vantage point and watching where people go, or by finding someone who knows shite in the treehouse.

Some people say hello or similar pleasantries as she passes. There's also a few people who are ruder but that's people for you.

The closest tree house is a bit of a climb but it's easier than yesterday's parkour. Inside the treehouse there's a soft floor a small water fountain and a couple single person bathrooms. There's also a room with a rope ladder that seems to be cycling upwards and the bottom of a fire pole.

Out the window, she can see a bit farther than from the ground but it doesn't really show her anything new just more of the same.

A woman who looks to be in her mid twenties with golden blonde hair, red athletics shorts and a pink tank-top comes in through one of the entrances. "Hi there, you're another player right?"

She briefly greets people as she climbs, then gets a drink of water. 

"Hi. Yeah, another player. I'm—" do they use individual names or just stick with Sable's like usual? They got this bracelet, though, so they might as well, "—Hailey," she finishes barely a moment later. Was that noticeable? Hopefully too quick?

"Cool, I'm Sally. I thought about doing the whole different world different name thing but I decided against it. Totally cool if you're doing it though. People get to use whatever names they like... well unless it's like dicklord69 or something."

"Hah! Yeah, that's definitely a bit much. So what about this game caught your eye?"

"The exploration is it for me the idea of there being so many worlds to explore and people to meet. It's really cool. Also it's full dive VR even if it was just a dance game it would be worth trying it out."

"Hell yeah for full-dive. I'm way too trans to pass up on the chance to experience full-dive," she agrees with a laugh.

"Oh, cool. I guess it would help with that. I wasn't really thinking about it. For me it's more about being in better shape than I am in the real world. I think I'd be panting for air if I tried to climb as high and as fast outside."

"That makes sense. That's definitely another great perk." She nods. "Any idea how we go about getting living quarters, or what's supposed to happen next?"

"The map has a bunch of apartment buildings marked towards the middle. I didn't look into it yet though. I don't know if it's important to be somewhere like that before logging out."

"Just guessing from genre shit, I feel like it probably is, but could be wrong." She shrugs.

"I think it's probably important to be in a safe zone or something resembling one but I think this whole place is supposed to be safe? Maybe I'm wrong though. Having somewhere to put my stuff would probably be good anyway depending on how the inventory system works. If there is an inventory system, there doesn't seem to be one in my menu. If there isn't one that seems especially important."

She nods. "Yeah. Seems like they're leaning into realism pretty hard. Probably we're gonna need backpacks. Hopefully they're for sale, but if not, we'll have to learn leatherworking I guess."

"The map also has markets labelled out past the canopy, what the map calls where we are. It doesn't say what they sell though."

"Worth a look. I might go pick out an apartment and then check out the markets. Good talkin' with ya."

"Nice talking to you too. Maybe we'll run into each other later." Sally waves goodbye then walks over to the drinking fountain.

Hailey pulls up the map and takes a look to see what waypoints are noticeable. 

The revealed section of the map is a large circle. The middle is composed of hexagonal apartment blocks laid out in a hexagonal pattern. Out past that is the canopy she's currently in with various dojos, gyms, ranges for guns and archery, running tracks, and swimming areas marked as highlights. The ring past that seems to be a mix of plains and forests with six markets in that area to keep with the hexagonal theme. Then the map ends with an effect indicating she'll need to explore more or find maps in world depending on the Devs.

Huh, cool. She'll aim for an apartment building that's particularly convenient to both a dojo and both types of shooting range, if possible. Off she runs into the ropes again, after a last wave to Sally, people-watching as she goes.

That's an achievable goal.

People watching shows her a few different types of players, there's a few who are clearly more experienced with doing this kind of athletics who are just flying up the various climbing areas including some of the ones marked as challenges while others who are less skilled but still trying and sometimes falling dramatically before trying again. And then there's the people who seem a little more cautious who are mostly staying on the ground.

In general people seem excited. As you would expect from a collection of people who managed to get a coveted slot in one of the more talked about game releases.

There's people in jeans and T-Shirts or workout clothes but there's a lot more variety than you'd see in most contexts there's other people rocking the sort of goth vibes she is while on the other end of the spectrum there's people in ballroom gowns or tuxedos and still other people are wearing cosplay of various sci-fi and fantasy properties.

She admires the variety of outfits as she swings and jumps, then starts looking around inside the apartment building. Is there a registration deal, or terminals by the doors, or some other obvious means of acquiring an apartment? Do the rooms cost money? And what's the place look like now that she's landed and gone inside, anyway?

The rooftop entrance seems to just be a combination of a roof over the stairs and an elevator lobby. Upon entering the lobby a small notification dot appears above her menu diamond.

Well, sure. She'll check out that notification. The timing suggests it's relevant.

Would you like to claim an apartment in this building? Free for the first week and 100 credits a month after that. Recreational facilities are free to use with invitation from any resident.

Hm. They'll need to figure out income at some point. Hopefully they can get a handle on that quickly. Housing is necessary though.

She accepts the offer, looking for something near the roof if possible.

It looks like most of the rooms are still unclaimed so it's easy to find one on the top floor. Does she want one of the rectangular rooms or one of the larger triangular rooms in a corner?

Triangles are fun, and they don't mind some assymetry. Sure, corner room. She hits the relevant button and then heads for the door.

The room switches to being claimed with a specific label indicating it's her room. The door opens whether because she's a resident or if it would open for anyone is unclear. The elevators are set up in a demand arrangement where you need to indicate which floor you're going to but also it's just one floor down so the stairs are a very viable option.

Yeah, stairs for her. Between it being just one floor and the realism necessitating exercise, it's the only option. 

She looks around the apartment, checking out the furniture and any decorations, and especially the view.

The triangular room means she has large windows looking out at the trees beyond the branches are thin enough in this area that she can see down to the forest floor and a grassy surface with a small creek far below.

The furniture is well made but fairly basic, a dresser and wardrobe for clothes along with a bed (queen size), a desk (complete with chair), and a love seat.

Hailey rifles through the dresser and wardrobe: some cute crop tops, tees, some skirts, shorts, jeans, snug tops and shorts for workouts, and of course a bunch of bras and panties ranging from basic to a little bit lacy.

Quite the selection, and she thinks she recognizes some other stuff from their inspiration photos. 

She strips out of her clothes, takes a moment to marvel at how nice their new body feels, and then throws on a workout outfit — sports bra, panties, stretchy top and shorts — before pulling up the map again. Is there a waypoint system? She tries to set a waypoint for a sword dojo, then bounds back out via the ropes to make her way there.

There is a waypoint system that can show direction at the top or bottom of her vision. There's a sword dojo nearby so it won't be a long trip.

Down she swings on the ropes to check it out. Are there trainers? Is there advice on offer to help decide on the best type of sword for them? Does the dojo even offer multiple types of swords at all, or is it specialized?

There's a man wearing a red T-shirt and sweat pants standing by the desk. "Hello there, welcome to my studio. Are you just looking around or do you want to get an early start on training?"

There's a variety of swords racked on the walls and a few different areas that look like they could be used for fighting.

"Training," she replies with a light smile. "How do things work around here?"

"The dojos here can interact with the magic of your blessing to guide you through katas, I think that's most helpful for beginners but everyone needs the basics. If you're more experienced we can move to sparring or we can fight in the magic of a reset field. Those won't give you the same physical benefits from training but they will let you get more used to fighting without pulling blows and get used to the messier consequences of not doing that."

She nods. "That makes sense. I'm a beginner, so katas are great. Any tips for figuring out what type of sword and style is a good fit?"

"That can depend on many things, centrally do you want to use a sword as a primary weapon or as a backup? If it's meant to be your primary weapon you need to find a balance balance between speed and reach. Your blessing will let you exceed what those without blessings could achieve but it won't remove the need to actually hit your enemy with your blade. If it's a backup weapon then it's probably good to work on learning a single handed blade and practicing drawing it quickly." 

"I think the blade'll be secondary, yeah. There are just too many advantages to range."

"I expect that'll be most people's decision and it's one I support. Let me show you some of your options then. He leads the way over to a rack with one handed weapons. They vary in length from 45 centimeters to 80 centimeters. "At least to start you probably don't want to go longer than this, he pulls out one that's close to 60. I'd suggest holding a few and seeing how they feel. Don't try to move too fast, just angle the blade up and down and left and right."

Hailey carefully takes that first blade, moving it slowly through different positions: improvised guards at various heights, slow-motion slashes, and so on. 

Huh. Okay. What about a fifty? She puts the first blade away, carefully selecting a new one off the rack and tries again. No, too short.

Fifty-five? Okay, that's getting closer, good enough that she tries the same motions with her right hand as well.

Still not quite there though. Fifty-seven?

Oh that might be getting somewhere. She tries quite a few motions, switching back and forth between her left and right hands as she gets a feel for it.

She tries the fifty-eight as well, curiously, then after quite an extended test puts it back down and goes back to the fifty-seven.

"This one, I think. Feels the best, in terms of length."

"Excellent. I can see you have some good instincts about balance already. Let me get you a practice cover and then I'll show you a basic kata." He goes over to a chest and gets a thin transparent cover for her blade and holds it out to her. "Here. It barely weighs anything so it shouldn't throw you off but it'll stop you from cutting yourself by accident. You should still be careful, both because it's a good habit and because a sword is still heavy and blunt force isn't safe but it makes it safe enough that you can do katas without much danger."

She nods and accepts the cover, carefully sliding it over the blade, avoiding brushing hands in the process.

The cover is long enough that avoiding skin to skin contact is trivial.

"Alright, before we move onto katas let's work a little on stance. It's even more important with a blade than in unarmed fighting to have a solid stance."

He proceeds to walk her through three basic stances by showing them himself. "Is it alright if I touch you to fix your stance or should I stick to verbal instructions?"

She takes a slow breath. Looks down at their bracelet, then back up at him. "Verbal-only if the bracelet's green like this, can touch otherwise."

"A magic item already? Or do you just have a collection? Regardless, I'll honor your preference. Can you take the first of the stances I showed you?"

She carefully shifts into that stance, trying to match it as closely as she can, watching the rotation of his wrist and the angle of his joints and the angle of his blade.

"Something like that," she explains as she moves. "Doesn't do anything powerful, just personal."

"Fair enough." He gives a few corrections before running her through the other two stances.

She tries to incorporate the corrections as thoroughly as she can, working to memorize the motions of all three stances. It's tricky, but it's a kind of tricky she likes. And she gets the hang of it.

"Excellent. Now that you have the stances let me show you a simple kata." He retrieves a sword from the wall that's about the same size relative to his body and demonstrates a few slashes and thrusts with blocking orientations between them in a slow but flowing sequence. He repeats it three times.

"Now you try."

She works her way through the kata, then notices something off on her own midway through, frowning. "Want me to restart if I notice myself fucking it up, or complete it and then do better next time?" She's still going for now.

"I find that different things work for different students but usually just continuing is best for beginners. Do you have a sense of which would work better for you?"

"It's hard to say. I'm ADHD enough that I could forget what I wanted to change by the end, maybe, so that's possibly an argument for stopping."

"Then let's try having you restart and if you're getting frustrated by being unable to finish we can revisit."

She grins wryly and nods sharply, then begins again. The next attempt is noticeably closer.

"And stop, you were a little high there and your left foot is too far forward." They can continue in this vein for a while.

She doesn't make the same mistake twice, though some of them seem to be fixed in progressive steps closer rather than all at once.

When she does it all the way through correctly for the first time he claps. "Excellent, just like that. We've been at this for a bit so it's probably time for a break." He goes over to a cabinet and pulls out a water bottle to hand to her.

"Thanks." Hailey takes the bottle with a smile (still carefully avoiding contact). 

She hums thoughtfully as she takes her first sip, then looks over at him, brow briefly furrowed. No one's close-by or paying attention, so she's not outing them publicly really, right? "I... hm. Complicated question you might be able to give advice on, but it relates to the weird personal thing with the bracelet."

"I can't promise to have good advice but all of us teachers have agreed not to pass on anything shared with us except for very rare circumstances like treason."

"Handy." She blows out a breath, takes another, and nods. "Mmkay. Well, there's five of us up here."

She raps her knuckles on the side of her head indicatively. "Plural system. Bracelet color tracks who's got the hot seat. Heard of that kinda thing?"

"I have a vague idea. Why don't you ask your question and I can ask some of my own if I need to."

She takes another sip of water, nodding. "I'm a lefty, the other girls aren't. Not sure which hand we should focus on learning the kata with, or whether we should do both."

"Well that's something I wouldn't have expected to hear. There are ways to train to be more ambidextrous when it comes to blades and it may benefit you to work towards that. I expect otherwise it would depend on how often you collectively expect to be left or right handed when it's most important."

"There are collectively more righties, but I have a somewhat higher frequency of fronting in fights. Total percentage is unclear, might still favor the other girls." She grins wryly and shrugs. "There's also the question of which hand should have the gun and which the sword, relative to that."

"I have taught ambidextrous students before which is the closest I've previously seen to what you're describing and for them in most circumstances it helps to train preferentially in one direction especially if you're hoping to wield multiple weapons simultaneously." He pauses for a breath.

"In a real situation, especially if you need to draw weapons in a hurry your equipment will always be placed to favor one hand or the other. There's ways to mitigate that but they're imperfect, and if you think your 'fronting', might change during combat you don't want to have to juggle weapons when seconds count."

"Yeah, you make a good point." She hums and sips some more water. "Probably we optimize for the righties then and I cope. I've been coping with being a lefty in a right-handed head for years now, I can do this too. Okay, so given we're optimizing for the righties, which side would you say gets the gun versus the blade?"

"People vary a lot in how able they are to compensate for using their off hand and it can vary between activities. I wish I had a clean answer for you but I think the truth is that you should try it both ways and see which one feels better to you."

"Hmm. My instinct is that shooting will need the body's natural precision more than the sword will, so let's go left hand sword and right gun. If it feels fucky we'll try the other way."

"That makes sense as a starting point to me. I don't know how much time you want to dedicate to this on your first day here but if you're going to stay for a while I think you should try to practice until you can do the kata correctly at least three times in a row before moving onto the next."

"Sounds like a plan."

She downs the rest of the water, then looks for a trash can. Spotting one, she tosses the bottle (lands it), and then picks up her sword again. "Okay, back at it."

They can sink the rest of the morning into practice, easily.

"And with that you have the third kata down and even with your blessings I'm guessing you're getting a bit tired. It might be a good time to take a break and try to find some food or meet some of the other blessed."

She nods, breathing a bit heavily, and takes the protective sleeve off the blade, then puts it away. "Got a rec on a good place to buy something like this?"

"Oh, it's free. Every blessed is allowed to claim two blades and two projectile weapons before they need to pay for more. You'll also have a stipend for ammunition. The expense of weapons isn't substantial compared to everything else that went into preparing this place for your use. And it would be a bit silly to expect you to face combat without any weapons.

"You won't get anything magical with the free stipend but that's because magical items are much harder to produce. If you want to take it with you today I'll let you but please be careful and remember that you're not allowed to use it within the city limits except in designated training areas."

"Oh, well that's fuckin' sweet. Got a sheath for it? Suppose I'm gonna have to figure out how to fit the thing into our outfits. Neo'll help, at least."

"Of course." He goes to the same chest he got the cover from and retrieves a sheath which he hands over.

Into the sheath goes the blade. "Fuckin' sheaths and holsters are gonna make me work belts into everything," she jokes with a grin. "Oh well. Thanks for all the training. Probably be back tomorrow or the next day. Afternoon'll be a trip to the shooting range."

"I will look forward to seeing you again then. I wish you the best of luck with your training. Do make sure not to miss the address this evening by the founder. It's supposed to be a big event."

"Hah. We'll be sure to catch it."

She waves and heads out, sheath in hand. Tell her, map, where can she find lunch?

There are various food carts scattered around offering everything from pizza to sushi. If she wants a proper sit down meal there's are some restaurants on the lobby levels of some of the apartments and more in the market area out past the ropes course jungle.

Okay sweet. Sushi cart, how does your pricing work? Also does she have money?

For the first day food is free, as the merchants are happy to tell her. After that she'll have an allotment that allows her to eat out regularly but not for every meal. The expectation is that she'll eat in the apartment building shared kitchens for most meals, and there's a separate allotment for restocking those with her favored ingredients beyond the basics that are provided.

Sweet, free food. She'll get some sushi then: spicy tuna roll, some salmon nigiri, some tempura on the side, maybe a ramune if they've got it. And then she'll find someplace with a nice view of landscape and people to sit. Maybe someone'll try to start a conversation, maybe not.

Another player also gets sushi from the same food cart and sits down nearby. After she's eaten a few bits she waves and smiles. "Hello."

Sushi always puts her in a good mood. "Hiya. Didn't expect the food in VR to be this tasty."

"Oh, the fidelity is the best part, and there's no point in not having the food be tasty. Well... not everything tastes good to everyone because maybe they just don't like that kind of food or what they like is different from what other people like in a specific type of food."

"I agree completely, I just don't have enough faith in people to expect designers to be this sensible. S'a pleasant surprise."

"Well the designers for this game did a really good job. It was good in the beta and things are supposed to be even better now. The NPCs are definitely better than they were in the beta. I haven't really noticed other things yet."

"Yeah, the sensory fidelity's pretty great overall. Even the details for parts your brain isn't used to having, or for height changes. It's fuckin' awesome. What was your favorite thing in the beta?"

Om nom sushi nom.

"Oh there was a lot that was great but if I had to pick on thing it was being able to try things that would be too dangerous outside like fighting with unblunted swords and no armor, jumping from high places and just in general fighting some of the bigger monsters."

"Oooh fuck yes, definitely looking forward to that. Also loving the fluid movement. It's so fucking real."

"It is. It's great. Oh, if realism is something you want a lot, there are filters you can turn off in the interface. There's usually good reasons for them but you can make your own decisions."

Y'know what? Sure. She'll look at these filters. Interface, what are your filters labeled?

There's a decent selection of options.

Sensory filtering:

Gore options:
- Hemophobe (Rather than seeing blood or gore you will see fluids in a less concerning color, rather than seeing injuries you will instead see discolored areas of skin with text to indicate injury severity.)
- Surface Damage (Deep injuries will be depicted as surface damage without internal details. Some severe injuries will be accompanied by text to indicate their severity.)
- Full realism (All injuries will be depicted fully realistically.)

Pain options:
- None (You will not experience pain. Painful sensations will be replaced with a vibrating feeling with an intensity based on the severity of the pain you would otherwise experience.)
- Minimal (Your pain will be capped to a minimal level, comparable to what you would expect from surface level injuries. Warning: This may result in exacerbating injuries due to misunderstanding their severity.)
- Standard (Your pain will be capped at a high threshold comparable to the pain of broken bones. You are much less likely to black or white out due to excessive pain or injury.)
- Full (You will experience fully realistic pain in all circumstances.)

Sexuality options:
- Child Safe (Your body will not have erogenous zones and certain actions like the insertion of anything into your orifices will be impossible under most circumstances. Sexual actions occurring around you will be automatically censored.)
- Teen safe (People may only touch you in sexual ways with your approval, approval may be withdrawn at any time. Sexual actions occurring around you outside of private spaces will be automatically censored.)
- Standard (While in safe zones and outside of private spaces sexual actions occurring around you will be automatically censored. In most circumstances actions which would damage your underwear instead do not preserving some modesty.)
- Personal Modesty (In most circumstances actions which would damage your underwear instead do not preserving some modesty. None of your sensory experience is filtered for sexual content.)
- No Filtering (Your underwear can be damages as easily as any other clothing. None of your sensory experience is filtered for sexual content.)

Personal Space options:
- Specific persons (While in safe spaces only people on a personal allow list may touch you directly or indirectly. This also retains the ability described in the Standard option.)
- Standard (While in safe zones you may force anyone in direct or indirect physical contact with you to be at least ten centimeters away from you. If this would render them unable to move freely you will be forced away from them instead. Using this ability forfeits any active combat contest you are participating in.)
- No Enforcement (You have no special means to prevent unwanted touch)

"Okay these filter options are fucking awesome. Definitely tweaking some of these."

Gore to full, pain stays the same for now (because even she has some limits, and she doesn't wanna sign her headmates up for more than they bargained for), sexuality to personal modesty pending discussion with headmates, and how quick is it to change the personal space setting? Not very, but enough that they won't mind doing it by hand on switches in safe areas. Okay. That goes to specific person mode, the others can change it back.

"Oh fuck, the personal space option is going to make my life so much easier," she comments with a relieved sigh as she sets that option.

"I'm glad I helped. The whole personal forcefield thing is neat. And it's such a clear signal about when people don't want to be touched."

She nods, laughing with the release of having to worry about that. "It's such a fucking load off."

She looks over at the girl. "What's your name, by the way?"

"I'm Emily. You?"

They're trying to find more safe people to be out to, yeah? So she can introduce herself rather than with Sable's name for singlet-masking.

"Hailey."

"It's nice to meet you. What have you been up to so far?"

"Tried the ropes a bit, claimed an apartment, did a bit of sword practice," she holds up her sheathed blade. "Thinking about putting in some range time after the food's done. What about you?"

"I've mostly been getting used to having my stats reset. Lots of time in the ropes jungle and a bit of swimming. In the beta I didn't bother with an apartment until I had a bunch more stuff and it worked fine so I haven't gotten one yet."

"Hah, fair enough," she laughs. "Where d'you sleep until then?"

"I either camped in the outskirts or I just slept in one of the treehouses in the jungle. At least in the beta there were protections when you were logged out and I mostly slept out of game."

"That makes sense. Probably gonna spend as much time logged in as we can, though. Body outside ain't nearly as comfy."

"Oh, you're a customizer. There were a bunch of customizers in the beta and most of them slept in game like that. I like being in game because even with base stats I'm a bit stronger and I can do more but otherwise I'm mostly the same inside and out."

"Yeah, wasn't gonna pass up the opportunity to live in the body w—I want as close to full-time as possible. What sorta fighting style did you go for in beta?"

"I think most people went for a mix of ranged and melee just to try everything out but Melee is a lot of fun once your stats are good enough so that's what I did when I could. It doesn't really work for fighting people though. Well, not unless you find rare items like personal cloaks and you can usually only get those by fighting through the right Yuan'Ti base. So I focused more on the monster side of things."

"That makes sense," she replies with a grin, enjoying the thought of getting into a thrilling fight with a monster. "Honestly sounds like a lot of fun. What're the Yuan'Ti like?"

"They have good and bad points, their leaders claim to be gods and they have this whole caste system. Part of the backstory is that humans actually killed the sun emperor so they're in the middle of some sort of civil war as they try to decide who will be the next empire. You can steal weapons and armor from them and try to do a whole false flag thing if you're into that."

"The kinda icky part is that they're actually these weird snake things like the Yeerks from Animorphs and they can possess people. Player characters are immune because of the blessing stuff but there's ways to intentionally let yourself get possessed. It wasn't very fun but apparently if you meet the rebel faction and you let yourself get possessed by one of them you have more control and it's more a sharing your body situation. They're also one of the ways to get someone unpossessed."

She barks a laugh. "Well they sound enjoyably spooky. Glad it's not a risk for us at least. Any weapon types that are just a bad idea?"

"As for things you can get in Sanctuary, mostly throwing weapons. They're heavy to carry and a pain to get more of. More broadly the Yuan'ti soliders have this awful magic weapon. It deals a lot of damage but it's heavy, hard to aim and it fires slowly."

"Fun. As aesthetic as throwing knives are, I just really don't expect 'em to be useful unless some real Game Mechanic Bullshit is happening. Really useful to know about the magic weapon though."

She finishes off her sushi, down to the last grain of rice. Does she wanna try? Yeah, fuck it. Nothing ventured and all.

"Wanna know something weird but kinda cool?"

"I haven't heard about any magic throwing knives. And yes, I love hearing about weird cool things."

She grins and leans a little closer — she and the other Pirates honestly find plurality cool as fuck, so the grin's even honest — and whispers conspiratorially, "I'm actually one of five girls crammed into this overstuffed brain." She taps the side of her head for emphasis. "We switch out who's in the mental driver's seat."

"Really? How does that work? I haven't really gotten into neurology much... if that would even help, everyone says the Nervegear is incredible for just interfacing with our senses so scientists probably doesn't understand how to analyze stuff like personality and memory."

"It's wild!" she replies with a laugh. "We have different interests and preferences, we use our voice differently, we stand and fidget differently. Some plural systems have a hard time switching, some easier. We're lucky enough to be on the easier side of that. And we collaborate really well with each other. Plus, whenever something fucks one of us up, the others are there to console us. It's pretty cool to never be alone, too."

"That is weird, and cool. That's a lot of things to have change. Having friends inside your head sound like it would be nice too."

"It really fuckin' is," she smirks. "Our brain can't run as much parallelism as we'd like, but we do what we can to stretch in that direction, just to have more room for everyone to occupy front at once. The banter's fun."

Her smirk sharpens a bit. "And well, if we happen to be more than friends in here, no one'll begrudge us a little private fun, yeah?"

"That makes sense, true multitasking is really rare. Even computers do a lot of rapid switching to simulate it a lot of the time." She pauses. "And you do you girls. As much as you want to anyway." She watches to see if her attempt at a joke worked.

That gets another laugh out of her. "Exactly."

She shakes her head, smiling. "Thanks for being cool about this, Emily."

Yay, her joke worked! "Sure, it's cool and I guess I'll need to remember more names but I'm good at remembering things... well not always rules but most other things."

"Names are more useful than rules, anyway. Plus, we've got a trick to make it easier." She holds out her arm, showing off the bracelet, which is currently green. "Talked our way into getting this thing, which tries to change to our theme colors to match who's in front. We can switch it manually, and it gets smarter over time. Green's mine."

She makes a small hand sign. "Green Hailey, got it."

Oh, this is a new player so they might not have noticed that part. "You can use the interface to take pictures and dictate notes too. You can trigger stuff like that with gestures so you don't have to go all the way into the interface. That doesn't really work for people who fidget with their hands unconsciously a lot though."

"Oh fuckin' sweet. If we can make the gestures specific enough, I bet we can keep 'em out of our usual fidgets. That's so fuckin' useful." She grins wide. "Thanks, Emily. Fuckin' veritable font of intel, you are."

"You're welcome, this game is the best and I want everyone to enjoy it."

"We're certainly loving the customization and immersion already. It's great."

"Yay!"

"Also, the fact that I can get range time without sinking hundreds of dollars into a gun out in the mundane is really convenient. Speaking of which, that's my plan for after lunch. What about you?"