I fell though what felt like an endless stream of air, my skin rippling as i hugged myself, before flipping over like a skydiver and trying to orient. My vision slowly cleared from a blinding array of white motes of light, to a murky greenish-blue void, specks of light whipping past my vision as I rocketed down through the aquamarine fog, before i suddenly slowed, my feet drifting below me, touching down softly as the greenish light around me gathered at my feet, coalescing into a murky teal gss that 'tinged' as I touched down, like a chime sounding in the drifting void.

  As soon as my second foot touched down on the gssy surface, it felt like gravity was fully asserting itself, and the fog rolled away, revealing a roughly circur space that seemed to appear as the fog condensed into physical material around me. Directly in front of me was a crystal mirror that seemed to grow naturally from a golden frame that spiraled and wound around the edges of the reflective surface, the entire ring of cyan gss trimmed with golden accents and lush scarlet cushions that decorated what appeared to be a lounging couch to one side. I turned, and a wardrobe space, and possibly some bookshelves, all empty, of course, appeared before me.

  I took a deep breath, and nearly coughed as I felt the chill air enter my lungs with a faint minty taste. I coughed, intentionally this time, and took several more breaths, staring in wonder as the motes of light drifted away from me in the air as I exhaled.

  "whoa..." I muttered. I jumped up and down, bouncing on the balls of my feet, stretching and turning. To my surprise, I felt... normal. completely and utterly normal. This was... my body. Every inch, muscle twitch, or ache of a joint felt exactly the way it was supposed to, and I ughed as I snapped my leg up into a chamber, snapping four quick roundhouse kicks before dropping into a sweep kick on the smooth gssy surface. I grinned, jumping up into a jumping roundhouse, nding lightly on my feet, hands raised in a guard.

  "Oh... this is going to be fun." I muttered to myself as I shook my hands out to try to diffuse the anticipation that was quickly building in my limbs.

  A second chime sounded in the strange demi-pne of crystal, and I spun, to see light coalescing in a vaguely humanoid form, that quickly resolved itself into the shape of an androgenous angelic figure stepping forward from the light into the space. They spread their winds, the feathers fluttering as if held aloft by an invisible current, and the figure drifted a few inches off of the floor, arms spread.

  "Welcome to the worlds beyond, traveler!" A chorus of voices sounded from the figure's direction as it's mouth moved, as if an entire choir was speaking at once. "I am your Archon - your personal angel meant to guide you into a full integration with this realm. I will instruct you on how to create a body capable of entering the worlds below, to interact with the denizens of that world."

  I gawked, at the figure. They were... slippery. They had features, but it was almost as if my mind was skating off of them, not able to pin down exactly what I was looking at.

  "Ah, yes." Character creation? I appreciated the fact that the immersion was maintained, immersion seemed to be far more important for virtual reality simutions. The uncanny valley hit hard when you were living in it.

  "Very well, tell me what do do."

  The Archon... ughed. It giggled, guffawed, and roared with ughter all at once, for a brief moment, before it stilled.

  "You will first need to choose my form, traveler. While I can appear to you as I am, most mortals find it easier to interact with my kind having a set face and voice with which to interact."

  "Ah, I understand."

  A ghostly menu appeared before me, with four options to select. Feminine, Masculine, androgenous (restative) , androgenous ( additive) I selected "Feminine" without too much thought, and light seemed to burst from the figure before they changed ever so slightly. The angelic being's wings were the only part of their body that had not undergone some kind of shift or other. Her hair now hung at roughly shoulder length, an intricately engraved golden halo suspended over her silver-white hair. She was shorter, than she had been, which in effect meant that she floated a little higher above the ground, and she had distinctly feminine curves now.

  "I see that you would prefer to interact with me in my female guise, very well, I look forward to serving you in your endeavors, traveler."

  Her voice had coalesced, now only holding echoes of a light alto voice, perhaps with echoes of some soprano tone thrown in, almost as a fading echo that preceded and followed her speech.

  "Now we must prepare you for the world below." The angelic being gestured to the mirror before me, and it's surface rippled once, distorting the reflection of everything around me, even though my image remained entirely pristine in it's warped surface. "In this mirror, you will be able to prepare any changes you would like to make to your physical form. As a traveler, every aspect of your person may be changed as you see fit."

  The angel swiped her arm to the left.

  "Gender." A female version of myself stood in the mirror, although I physically remained unchanged. Then two other variants I didn't immediately recognize any differences to, but were visually distinct, before returning to my actual reflection.

  "Species." I was an elf, then I had horns, then a tail, then wings, then talons, I was a dwarf, then a goblin, and countless other races and species I had never heard of, before returning to my normal human self.

  "Hair color, or skin color." The pigments of my skin and hair flickered wildly between countless shades, possible and fantastical, before returning to my standard appearance.

  "Of course, it is at this point where you will need to select the more... metaphysical, aspects of your being as well." The angel turned to me with a smile.

  "What do you mean, Archon?"

  She giggled, her ethereal voice clear in the crystalline space.

  "You will select the level of pain you will be able to experience whilst traversing the mortal realms. You will also select how aware you are of... details."

  "Details?"

  "If you cleave a man in twain, will you care to be aware of the blood? The severed limbs? the organs spilled across the battlefield? Of would you prefer such sights to be filtered, cleaned, and made more patable by the divine nature of the Gate?"

  "Ah. I choose the realism of my experience?"

  "Precisely, traveler. Be aware, some csses, experiences, and pyer interactions will require certain levels of fidelity to true reality. There will be beings which may not be injured unless you can feel true pain. There are moments of-" the angle shuddered as she bit her lip, "pleasure, which will require high fidelity settings in order to experience. The choice is, entirely, yours to decide."

  I nodded, tapping my lip as the archon waited patiently at my side. More realism, more pain, perhaps more mental trauma if I was susceptible to that, but also directly more opportunities, more that could be experienced. I thought about the reasons I had wanted the game in the first pce. I had trained for nearly two decades now. My rank was high, my technical execution had received about as much refinement as could be attained in that time. I had broken bricks, boards, had been taught how to fight with all maner of hand to hand weapons, how to break bones...

  But there was a rge difference between knowing theoretically how do do something, and actually doing it. It was the biggest challenge of my style. We didn't really spar, that often, because as we gained skill, as we got stronger... the things we learned could only be used once on some one, before that someone stopped being a person, and became a corpse. It made putting my training into practice difficult. I had a chance here to simute actual fights, to actually go all out with no hesitation or need to limit my strikes, no need to pull punches, or to avoid breaking bones.

  Just what was I actually capable of?

  I had to know.

  I set my pain settings to just below reality- I did want to enjoy myself without dealing with pain for too long, mainly tailoring the falloff, setting my pain to fade quickly, so that I wouldn't have to worry about sting pain from brief injuries. I set my realism settings for blood, and internal organs, to the maximum. Base damage... wasn't what I was here to experience. I knew from watching streams that If I chose, I could set the game to show me red glowing sshes, or spurts of blood for a moment, or to show only the blood, but I needed the joints of my opponent, I needed to know exactly what damage I had done, to refine my skills outside the game.

  the Archon nodded as I finalized my settings.

  "Will I be able to change this?"

  "You will be able to change your pain settings and your realism settings any time you pass through the divine gate, and log into the worlds beyond. Bear in mind, if you choose the maximum settings, then your character will be deleted upon death, forcing your to make a new body here, in this pce, before you may re-enter the Worlds Beyond. Loosing a character this way will lose all states, levels, and all but a single item of equipment from your previous character, so be forewarned, choosing true simution does come with additional consequences, not just benefits."

  I had seen the option for "full immersion", i assumed that was what she was talking about.

  "I appreciate the warning, Archon."

  I stepped up to the mirror, eager to begin the creation of my character itself.