Chapter 1: Cinematics

At first there was nothing but an endless void of artificial black. It was unsettling to say the least, seeing as this was my first foray into the world of VRMMORPGs, virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing games. I am what my friends called a console peasant with a taste for old console games rather than the highly immersive vrmmos that dominate the gaming scene these days. Hell, I still had my grandfather's ancient PS4; complete with copies of Cybermon, Monster Farmer and the like. That's how my friends had gotten me here, into this unsettling expanse of discomfortingly black, concordat allowed you to raise and interact with monsters, something that my console and hand held games could not offer. It isn’t long before a small spinning icon appears muted lettering informing me that the game was preparing for its first launch. I watch the slowly spinning circle, glad to have something to distract me from the endless gulf surrounding me in, now that I think about it currently bodiless state. Don’t think about it, just focus on the hypnotic cycle of the icon.

I wince as brilliant gold letter flare into existence like a series of stars all going super nova at once, I try to look away but I can't the damned lettering pans to forever be smack, dead center in the middle of my vision. It reads, in all it gaudy, gilded glory: Welcome to Concordat Online. It fades then suddenly only to be replaced by more searing lights, as a world fades in around me and a narrative begins in a cool, somewhat detached female voice.

"Argaria, a land steeped in magic." Somewhere below me a planet blossoms into being immense in size, glowing in the light of its star, greens seemingly too verdant, water so sparklingly blue tinted with purples and aqua so surreal it was breath taking , alien and somewhat familiar, like the pictures of Earth before the second industrial revolution sometime in the 22nd century. " The scripture tells" the voice continues " that the Gods first breathed life into their mightiest of creations: Titans, primal forces of nature let loose to shape the early world. After these mighty beings swept across the face of Argaria, they began to slumber and became one with the creation they helped shape. Not content with their paradise, the gods created those that would become the civilized races; Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and Orcs."

As my seemingly omniscient narrator named each race, they appeared to be in there, or so I was assuming, natural habitats.

Elves looked a lot like a human aside from their pointed ears, delicate features, canted eyes and on each hand three elegantly long fingers and a thumb, their hair came in a myriad of frankly alien colors from moss greens to sky blues or deep near black purples.  They were shown in forests, frolicking gayly, communing with nature.

Humans were a lot like me in appearance but had more than just our universal skin tone, some were as white as snow, others dark as coal and every shade in between. They moved in teeming masses in large cities, chalk full of spires and stone buildings, something I had never seen before. They were stockier, broader in shoulder and chest than what I was used to seeing, I guess this is what humans looked like back when we had to deal with the home world's gravity, for all I knew my distant kin still looked this way.  Some had hair the color of bright gold like some of the elves I had been shown, some hair the color of fire not the muddy brown or black that was familiar to me.

Dwarves were shorter and stockier than humans, with a wild tangle of hairs in earthy colors and large braded beards, they were shown mining and smiting presumably in the dark places beneath Angaria, a conclusion I arrived as my view zoomed towards a massive door hewn into a mountain range. They were burlier than humans too, I noted as they hauled carts of ore and other shiny things to and fro.

Gnomes, were short creatures, shorter even than the dwarves, they had round childlike faces and large expressive eyes. Their ears slightly tapered like that of the elves just not to the same extent. They didn’t seem to sport as much facial hair as dwarves, maybe the occasional extravagant mustache. Their domain was much like that of the dwarves but with more above ground dwellings  of strange and fantastical design, moving parts could be seen exposed to the open air as the diminutive yet nimble handed people went about their work, or partied amongst glaring lights and music with a deep heavy bass wearing attire of ever increasing flamboyance.

Finally, the orcs, creatures as tall as the elves and broader than humans. Two to four small fangs, tusks maybe, jutted from their lower jaws. Their bodies ranged from a deep moss green to murky browns or earthy tones red like the sands I could see from my hab unit window.  They seemed to be universal bald only body shape denoting their genders, some were pierced in various places with hoops or large spikes, their eyes ranging from red to orange and into yellow pushing towards the faintest of greens but this was not common. The Orcs seemed to favor arid desert regions and unlike the other races were portrayed hunting or battling across the vast flats. Their towns little better than small animal hide huts dotted around a communal drinking well.

"However," my narrator continued as the scene changed to show a woman neither old nor young moving through the shifting shadows of the cosmos. "one god was not invited to take part in the creation of our world, Lil. Feeling spurned by her siblings Lil decided she too would add to the creation of her peers. Reaching out with a long boney finger she touched the world of Argaria, leaving a single dark mark upon the land. At first, the young races found themselves fascinated by this mark and rejoiced believing it was a blessing from a so far unknown and unheralded god as powerful magical energies pooled in this spot. The, her herald arrived."

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I watched as various emissaries of the represented races gather in the region viewing the flowing, writhing kaleidoscopic energies that I guess were meant to be manifestations magic or something similar.

“it would only bring disaster, the Gods watched on as the taint left upon their world by their sister spready, corrupting all with its reach. In their desperation, nearly driven mad by the desperate pleas of the races below, the Gods treated with Lil. Lil, despite having dominion of death and the realm beyond was not the cold, uncaring monster one might think. She created the First Stone.”

The images swam, a pale woman stood upon the surface of Argaria, both maiden and crone. Clad in diaphanous black and grey shawls that left little to imagination, beautiful and terrible, an unremarkable stone in hand.

“By taking up a single stone, that which is both of life yet unliving, she poured her concentrated power into the stone, a prayer and a bidding that which she had created would be bound and held.”

Lil, her pale yellowish hair whipped into a frenzy by an unseen force as she brandished the stone at her creation. If my breath could have caught in my current bodiless state it would have. The cold light emanating from the stone held aloft in bony fingers, drawing the shapeless black mass toward it.

“However, the creature known later as Lil’s Regret was stronger than she or her siblings ever could have anticipated. Indeed, much of the surface of Argaria had succumbed to the taint, the amount of life the creature consumed was incalculable to all but the most intelligent of the Gods and as such, in a way, Lil failed that day.”

An explosion of the same pale light dazzled me for a moment, the game seemingly having given up on any sort of sound after the low rumbling that built with the narrator’s words. The camera, my vision? Panned back revealing the size of the explosion, an energy mass like a solar flare radiated from the dwindling world.

“Many centuries after these events, Argaria healed and resettled, two phenomena would become common place. First was the arrival of Monsters and the second the discovery of Lilite, a stone with the ability to affect these. Now, as one of Lil’s chosen you have the chance to shape the world of Argaria as you see fit. Will you be the hero, or the new villain?”

With that the area surrounding me lightened to a formless grey, a text window popping open in front of me. As I was indeed, very much back to being myself. My virtunet avatar of myself anyway. While I hate to admit it, I’m a fairly plain example of a human raised on Mars. Standing at just over six-foot-tall I was considered short by the standards of Mars born humans. My skin tone was the same as everyone else’s, there was very few genetic variances unless someone married an off worlder. My hair was dark and curly, eyes a dark brown. After reassuring myself that I once again had a digital form I turned my attention to the text window. After one hundred years of settlement, the language we spoke had since drifted from the standard earth languages of which there were many, some still widely practiced even here on mars. I scowled at the standard Earth language not terribly familiar with it, eventually after scanning the document carefully, I found the option to read it in my native language. I had suspected it to be a contract of some sort for playing the game and I was right on the chits. The only thing that gave me pause were two of the items towards the end of it.

By agreeing to our terms and conditions you give the Concordat Online team permission to broadcast your game time to the virtual community and also grant access to your social data to better place you with in the game.

Or something like that. I scratched my head and thought about what my friends had told me about this game. The broadcast was standard, life on Mars is really boring and as such there is a near constant demand for entertainment. The personal data they had explained would help the game place me on a server with people I knew if there was space available.

With a shrug I hit accept and the window pops out of existence briefly only for another to replace it.

Would you like to create your character or would you like the AI to assign stats and race to you in game avatar?

I thought about it, I sort of knew what I might be doing on the monster raising front, after all I had played them all, even the old, old ones. But for my avatar? I had no idea what I was doing. Unlike some of the people I knew, likely already playing the game at this very moment, I did not have experience with stat weights or builds, or whatever the hell else hardcore mmo players do. Shrugging again I selected the AI created option. The window vanished and my vision darkened again.

“Welcome to Concordant online, what would you like your user name to be?”

I smiled to myself, I had some ideas but would I really use a name that was directly from an old earth series of games, tv shows and movies? One that likely no one was going to understand or appreciate. Oh, yes, yes, I would.

“Can you check the availability of the name Blue?”

“Blue has yet to be used on the projected server for you gaming experience.” The voice Informed me, there was a momentary pause. “Would you like to include a family name?”

“Are there any recommendations?” I asked aloud to myself even as my mind raced with the possibilities.

“Several, as you have chosen an AI created character, perhaps an auto generated clan name is fitting for your character, so best to fit your new environment.” The voice suggested “Admittedly, were I to be candid player, it upsets the non-player characters less.”

So, the game AI had a sense of humor, I liked that. Indeed, part of the reason I had never previously indulged in virtunet games like this was down to how unsettling I found AI. Though my friends had assured me that CO, as they called it, was totally immersive the only thing that really gave players away was their monsters. I felt more comfortable now that their claims seemed founded.

“All right then, that settles it, you pick the last name but if you can could you try to make the name fit the avatar, or vice versa in this case.”

“Of course, the design process is quite fluid and I have made changes I feel you will like. Are you ready to being Blue?”

I couldn’t help it, an excited grin split my face.

“I am, initiate log in, password.”