New Game

Chapter 2: The Tutorial

Sebastian opened his eyes. All he could see was white. He felt around with his hands; he was lying on something cold. Sebastian quickly pushed himself up and looked around. White. White. White. Everywhere he looked. Suddenly he noticed something that stood out as a different colour to the white floor, walls and sky. A light blue ghost-like figure hovered before him; as Sebastian inspected the figure a little more carefully, he began to make out different features of what now looked like a blue transparent hologram. A beard, a nose, feint arms and legs, and a cloak with the cowl obscuring the top half of its face. The figure almost resembled a man. It spoke quite abruptly.

'Hello.'

Sebastian jumped back half a meter in freight. The figure continued to speak.

'It is time for you to begin playing; you have been asleep for a while.'

Sebastian moved his hand forward with his finger out; trying to touch the figure – however his hand phased straight through the phantom's face, as though Sebastian was trying to touch light itself.

'Who...Who are you?' Sebastian asked. Sebastian looked around again frantically, expecting to see someone or something else. But there was nothing around him except white space.

'I am your game guide,' said the blue figure.

'Game guide...is this the game?'

Sebastian tried to cast his mind back – the last thing he remembered was walking through an odd laboratory with his friends Alister, and Sophia. The three of them had each gotten into a very mysterious pod. A helmet had dropped over his face and then...nothing.

'Where am I? Where have you taken me?' Sebastian asked gently, surprised at how calm he was.

'This is the game tutorial. Once you've finished the tutorial, you'll be transported to the actual game; a vast world, with magic and monsters and secrets to be discovered.'

Sebastian looked around again.

'Is this what was meant by a step above virtual reality. I bet these white screens are super advanced monitors.'

'Before you begin, you must choose a username.'

A holographic window then popped up in front of him. It had one thing written on it.

Username.

'What the...'

Sebastian moved his head around. Wherever he looked, the white window stayed visible in the corner of his eye.

'How do I get rid of this thing?'

'You can usually close windows by simply telling them to close, or manually pushing the 'x' button on the corner of the window. But you must choose your username, so there is no way to close this window until you do.'

'Are you a real person? Are you the creator of this game?'

'No,' the figure said, 'I'm not a real person. I'm an AI designed to help you learn the mechanics of the game. Before we can move onto other, more important things, you must choose your username. Go ahead.'

'How do I...ahh...type,' Sebastian asked.

'You don't need to type, you can simply speak. But if you prefer to type, simply double the screen. It might be quite a bit slower though. Whatever method you fancy; I'm not here to judge you.'

Sebastian couldn't deny, this game was already looking pretty cool.

'So I can choose any name I like?'