That's...

...alarming?

That's alarming. She's alarmed.

She tentatively pokes the translucent window, to see if it has any solidity to it, or can be disrupted by intersecting a solid object.

It's neither solid nor disrupted. The cursor merely continues to blink.

Okay but that's... not... a thing that happens?

She takes a picture of it with her phone, to see if her phone is also able to perceive it.

Yup, it's right there.

Okaaaaay.

She pokes it again. If the cursor is blinking she should be able to type. Unless it takes voice input...?

It doesn't take any inputs, it's not real, she's hallucinating.

No, that's dumb, this is not how hallucinations work, she's pretty sure. Maybe somebody is playing a... weirdly high-budget prank.

She waves her hand through the prompt again, examines it from all sides, tries to intercept all possible projection angles to confirm that it's not coming from anywhere, it's just there.

It does in fact seem to just be there, blinking cursor and all.

She crosses her arms and glares at it. Almost starts to tell it off for being so inexplicable, but if it is voice-activated and not particularly smart she doesn't want to be followed around for the rest of her life by little game windows addressing her as For Fuck's Sake—

She bites her lip, reminds herself that there's no one else here to see her foolishly taking the inexplicable game window seriously (or is there? no, that way lies madness—) and suppresses the urge to start googling interesting words the way she would if this were a computer game she'd decided to start playing. It isn't a computer game, it's some kind of bizarre and possibly hallucinatory computer-game-like phenomenon and if she dithers for three hours about what to tell it to call her it might go away and then she'd never know what it was.

So she gives herself thirty seconds to brainstorm and—after a quick check on her phone to confirm that it's a flower like she thought and not a trashy fantasy novel protagonist or a disease or a mushroom—faces the prompt and takes a deep breath and says as firmly as she can manage, "Amaryllis."

The screen updates appropriately with her name and a confirmation prompt:

Please input your character name: Amaryllis

Confirm choice? Y/N

Y

The confirmation screen disappears and is immediately replaced by something akin to a character sheet.

Amaryllis

"The Erogamer"

LVL: 1 (0 / 200)

 

Stats

DOM: 0 / 320

SUB: 0 / 470

 

BOD: 15 (+)

LST: 18 (+)

SED: 14 (+)

FUK: 18 (+)

PRV: 29 (+)

ERO: 10 (+)

 

Stat Points: 5

 

Status Effects: None

Description: Our heroine is a nineteen-year-old student at the University of Toronto who is smarter, prettier, kinder, and more charming than she thinks she is, not that that's a high bar. Her practicality, resourcefulness, impressively alarming romantic history, and ability to retain a sense of humour under pressure are among the reasons why she has been chosen by the Erogame.

 

Skills

Erogamer's Body (Lvl MAX): The biological ability to live your life as an erogame. Venereal disease doesn't exist for you, or periods or pregnancies or yeast infections. Arbitrarily large appendages can fit inside any of your orifices. You heal from all marks with a good night's sleep, ready for the next day's adventures. Other aspects of this skill depend on the BOD stat.

Erogamer's Soul (Lvl MAX): A different player might have received an Erogamer's Mind skill to unlock their potential and allow them to play the game as it is meant to be played. You really didn't want that, and didn't really need that. This core skill only prevents your mind from being fundamentally and permanently damaged by extreme sexual experiences, and allows you to make voluntary use of the FUK, SED, LST, and PRV stats.

Erogamer's World (Lvl MAX): The consent of reality to live your life as an erogame. People are never too preoccupied to consider sex or romance, not while you're around. Bystanders won't ignore what you do, but they're unlikely to actually stop you. Those who do decide to involve themselves are drawn into the logic of the Erogame. If you go far enough that an authority sees no choice but to intervene… they won't treat you as a simple criminal. Other aspects of this skill depend on the ERO stat.

 

Perks

Video Game Mechanics: It is impossible for you to ever die. Whenever you die, you will respawn at a nearby location after a small amount of time has passed in full health and recovered of any physical injuries. The location and time passed since you died become increasingly inconvenient in proportion to the number of deaths you've experienced recently, but the inconvenience decreases in proportion to the time since the last death.

 

Info // Character Stats

LVL / Level: The quantified totality of your potency as an erogame character. The effect of this characteristic goes beyond just the 5 extra stat points you get per level, and the additional perk point you receive every 5th level.

BOD / Body: Your physical attractiveness, and other biological capabilities. At higher levels, your body becomes able to enact more exotic erogame events.

LST / Lust: The intensity of your sexual urges, and how easy it is to get you going.

SED / Seduction: Your ability to seduce others, to pique their interest and arouse their desire.

FUK / Fucking: Your ability to perform in bed and give others pleasure… or other sensations.

PRV / Perversion: Your descent into the world of naughtiness, fetish, deviance, and corruption.

ERO / Erogame Logic: The extent to which the world will bend---or can be bent by you---to create romantic and sexual situations in defiance of probability. Or at higher levels, physics.

DOM / Dominant Energy: Based off SED and FUK, fueling skills that invoke your dominance, sadism, or mastery.

SUB / Submissive Energy: Based off LST and PRV, fueling skills that invoke your submission, masochism, or service.

 

Info // Character Stats // Level

At LVL 1, and 0% progress toward the next level, you're at the very start of your new life, a world of untapped possibilities lying ahead of you.

You can increase your level by completing the quests the Erogame offers you, or by causing romantic and sexual events to happen to you or around you. The more difficult the challenge, the greater the rewards.

 

Info // Character Stats // Body

At a BOD of 15, you'll draw plenty of looks. You're pretty, and you seem to be the only one who hasn't noticed!

You can increase this stat through exhibitionism, and other acts that invoke the pure beauty and power of your physical form.

 

Info // Character Stats // Lust

A LST of 18 is pretty noteworthy, and a great number of partners would really appreciate that. Yet for some unfathomable reason, you seem not to. But the world is your oyster, and whatever anyone says there's nothing shameful about tickling your pearl.

You gain in this stat while experiencing sexual urges that are unusually intense or that go on unusually long.

 

Info // Character Stats // Seduction

Your SED of 14 represents seduction skills that are definitely above average. You're a cute, funny, interesting girl, so long as you don't trip over your tongue and overthink it. But the game can definitely help with that, and with time and maybe a few pointers you will find yourself much more comfortable in your skin and your self.

You can increase this stat by arousing the romantic interest or sexual desire of others, and successfully pursuing them or being caught.

 

Info // Character Stats // Fucking

Your previous relationships were perhaps not ideal in a number of ways, but you've definitely at least gotten experience from them. Your FUK of 18 attests that in most places, you're one of the best in bed around, provided no professionals are present. As the Erogamer, you will have many chances to get even better at it and you will be given your pick of opportunities to choose from, so that you can completely do away with that qualifier.

How do you increase this stat? Take a fucking guess.

 

Info // Character Stats // Perversion

A PRV of 29 is definitely unusual. You're turned on by things most people can scarcely contemplate, and your future looks bright with potential for perversion. This potential has been so far unexplored, blocked by a mixture of society and yourself. There is nothing to be embarrassed by; you can take things at your own pace, and you will learn to explore the full depth of all the many, many diverse ways humankind has devised to create pleasure. And who knows, maybe someday you will start pushing the barrier of the impossible and invent new things altogether, yourself.

You can increase this stat by looking for opportunities to get even kinkier. 

 

Info // Character Stats // Erogame Logic 

At an ERO of 10, your life has become an erogame taking place in a mostly realistic setting. What happens to you might seem unlikely to others, but it won't break their belief in a sane universe… yet. Witnesses will reach for explanations other than the Erogame, but they'll still notice the unusual events.

If you keep pushing probability to its limits, then probability will learn to be a bit more flexible down there, relax and take it in and not protest so much.

 

Info // Character Stats // Dominant and Submissive Energy

If this were a different game, you'd have mana and hit points.

 

And they'd refill just from you sitting around on your ass doing nothing.

 

 

 

 

Lol

She reads...

...and reads...

—and gets to the description of Video Game Mechanics and takes a startled step back.

Then she reads that part over again.

She is not at all sure this is a good thing.

It could definitely be worse - imagine if it didn't decrease over time, and her life became a literally neverending parade of increasingly inconvenient post-death shenanigans - but... the 'literally neverending' part is pretty bad all by itself.

Except that she probably shouldn't be taking the mysterious holographic game windows at their word. There's no guarantee they're telling her anything remotely resembling the truth.

...she reads the rest.

Okay. That's... that's something. That's... really something, huh.

She takes a Before picture and assembles a makeshift camera stand for her phone out of an end table and a stack of miscellaneous books so she can record video of the process. Then she spends her five free stat points on BOD. It's the most verifiable stat available and she is very keen on verification at the moment.

Oh it's verified. It's verified alright. Her eyes get slightly more symmetrical, her hair gets a little bit more shine, her breasts get rounder and perkier, her ass gets fuller and curvier, her body fat gets more proportionally distributed, her hips get more balanced. She's prettier, and she's sexier.

The character sheet goes away and is replaced by a new screen:

Quest available: Exhibitionism 101

Share risqué pictures of your New And Improved™ body with the internet in a space that gets you at least 25 compliments.

Success: +250xp
Failure: "Ashamed" status, 2 days
Bonus Objective #1: Include your face in the pictures. +100xp.
Bonus Objective #2: Be naked or in a similarly sexually provocative state of undress. +400xp, +1 BOD.
Bonus Objective #3: ???. +1,000xp, +1 BOD, +1 LST.
Time limit: Four hours from quest acceptance.
Accept: Y/N

"—what!" she says, blushing furiously. "What—you—you could at least tell me what the third bonus objective is—! I don't even know where I'd—"

And yet here she is, picking up her phone and googling for suitable websites. There's Tumblr but Tumblr will not give her sufficient exposure in four hours she's pretty sure—and she is not posting this shit to her actual existing Tumblr—and anyway Tumblr's going to be banning porn in like a week—

The internet works through mysterious means, and through mysterious means Amaryllis finds a website called "Garden of Flowers" that focuses on girls sharing pictures and/or videos of themselves. The levels of modesty (or lack thereof) shown on the front page are many and varied, with some pictures being merely face pictures with elaborate makeup and some being much more explicit than that. The body types vary from extremely thin to curvy to supermodel to rather full to fat, and there are girls of many different ethnicities there. It seems pretty active, with new activity recorded as little as four minutes ago, and the registration process seems extremely simple and friendly to boot.

...okay. She's doing this. She guesses.

Completionist tendencies war with shyness; shyness wins. She goes through the whole registration process and gets to the point where the next step is uploading an image—then accepts the quest—and does not go for any bonus objectives. It's the game's fault for not telling her what the third one even was (she tells herself, petulantly).

The internet does not get to see her face, or any sexually provocative parts. But it does get to see her in a lacy black corset she bought once in a short-lived fit of vanity. She has some understanding of how to take a good picture, and if she focuses on lighting and composition and image quality maybe she won't think about what she's doing until it's too late to stop herself.

The first comment appears a couple of minutes later:

Nice!

And she gets a new screen:

Quest updated: Exhibitionism 101

Progress: 1 / 25 compliments.

It goes away on its own after a while.

That's........ good? She guesses???

More comments start appearing. The next one is from another girl with pictures on the website:

Welcome, sapling! Hope you blossom to a beautiful flower here. This is a great start xoxo

The lighting is so pretty! I love it. Welcome!

Nice tits.

that looks really great with your body, I gave my girlfriend one like that and we love it

welcome, hon! love the style, can't wait to see more of you

Quest updated: Exhibitionism 101

Progress: 6 / 25 compliments.

This feels so weird.

But... maybe... not a bad kind of weird...???

Gosh. Is she going to succeed at a quest? It's probably unreasonable to be excited about succeeding at a quest in the magical reality-bending video game which may or may not be an elaborate hallucination, but dammit, at heart she is the sort of person who just really likes having a quest list full of satisfying checkmarks. Also, it's kind of nice having strangers compliment her body on the internet.

Before the next comment appears, though, she gets another Erogame window:

Someone had an orgasm because of your picture! See Info // Online Presence.

She squeaks. "What—?!"

...is that a link, can she poke it?

Poking it works!

Info // Online Presence:

You earn 10XP each time somebody orgasms:

—While looking at a non-retouched picture or video of you.
—While listening and paying attention to your recorded voice.
—While reading an erotic story you wrote that is entirely based on true events.
—While reading fiction at least mostly written by you.
—While reading fiction largely based on you.
—While reading nonfiction about you.
—While looking at an erotic drawing that you personally drew.
—While watching a hentai for which you provided at least one of script, storyboards, or voice acting.
—While playing a VR game whose models and motions were captured from you.
—While interacting with an AI that was programmed by you or trained on data you generated.
—While playing an eroge whose character routes feature you and your companions.

Only one orgasm per session will be counted. Repeated edging or ruined orgasms may qualify at the Erogame's discretion. Forcing or incentivizing orgasms (e.g. as mandatory supervised daily sessions within a territory you rule) reduces per-orgasm XP gains, but does not eliminate them. Promoting or advertising your online presence carries no penalty.

For details of how you are currently doing online, check Info // Online Presence // My Metrics.

She gives the window an extremely dubious look.

...but pokes the Metrics link.