Wednesday, August 27th, 2042, Coal Harbour, Vancouver, Canada.
Sophie’s coffee mug, empty, sat next to the sink, rinsed and ready for tomorrow.
She settled into her chair, feeling the familiar click of the neural headset as it connected to the small port at the base of her neck. A brief shiver ran down her spine as the system calibrated, and the chair’s internal mechanisms hummed to life, scanning her biometric data to ensure everything was in order before initiating the dive.
She opened her virtual eyes to the sterile white room that served as the operating system interface for her FullDive device. Some people spent hours customising these virtual spaces to make them cosy or extravagant, but Sophie preferred the untextured default setting. It was simple, functional—a gateway to other places that did not need to be adorned with anything unnecessary. Around her, floating windows of various shapes and sizes hovered in the air. Some led to other areas, like her virtual workshop, while others displayed mundane information: her calendar, emails, instant messages, friend lists, and music playlists.
There were no mirrors or reflective surfaces here, but Sophie did not need them to know what her current avatar looked like. It was a perfect likeness of herself, if slightly more polished—her long black hair neatly in place, her brown eyes calm. The avatar stood at five foot six, slender and composed. Her body, like her real one, was not athletic, but also carried no extra weight. The FullDive rig would not turn her into an athlete without effort, but it would not let them turn fat either. That was not a limitation of the hardware—it could actually force a workout on your physical body while you were blissfully unaware, online. But the rule-makers had made the rules. Devices like this would make sure people who lived mostly in VR would get a body that is healthy, but nothing more. Those who wanted fit or athletic bodies had to work for them at the gym; anything else would feel like cheating.
A new window appeared, notifying her that the game files had finished downloading and the game was ready to launch. She gestured toward the window, and it slid smoothly into place in her virtual hub. Following its path, Sophie opened the window and launched the game.
The hub vanished, replaced by the login screen. The familiar interface hovered in her vision, greeting her like an old friend. Welcome back, it seemed to whisper. The logo looked similar to the one from years ago, but with subtle changes—reimagined, expanded, transformed into something old yet new. A smile tugged at her lips. Sophie felt a flicker of something she had not in weeks—excitement. In this world, she made the choices. No one else had a say. No Daniel, no expectations. Just freedom.
There was a single option on the screen: Create Character.
Sophie reached out to select it, but as her hand approached the option, she noticed something unusual. Her virtual arm was faint, translucent. It was her arm, no doubt, but ghostly. Still, it did not feel strange. There was no sense of disconnect, just a slight surprise at the effect. She shrugged it off and clicked the button.
“Choose your creator”, the interface prompted, both through a gentle voice and floating text.
Sixteen glyphs appeared in front of her—eight pairs, each sharing a colour but bearing unique designs. Pearl-white, charcoal-black, ruby-red, ochre-brown, sapphire-blue, jade-green, amethyst-purple, and light zircon-blue. At random, Sophie selected one of the two green glyphs, and a new window opened, revealing more details.
“Aer, the lord of wonders, god of freedom. Alignment: Wind.”
A detailed description of the deity’s lore scrolled across the screen. Aer, apparently, was the fourth child of the elder gods, Gaius and Terra, and the father of several other gods, including Zephyra, Aquarius, Hydra, Thorin, and Volta. According to the text, the Half-blood felinae revered him, and he was the patron deity of acrobats and blade singers. Most of his followers and clergy members acted as messengers, carrying news across vast lands.
Beyond the text, a physical representation of Aer appeared—he looked like a typical Japanese cat-boy, complete with ears and a tail, wearing travelling clothes in muted colours and carrying a mail carrier’s satchel slung over his shoulder. A walking stick rested in his hand, and his appearance gave off an easygoing, wanderer vibe, as if he was always on the move.
Sophie tapped the second green glyph.
“Zephyra, the lady of whims, goddess of change. Alignment: Wind.”
Another description followed. Zephyra, Aer’s daughter, was willed into existence by her father out of loneliness. She embodied his love for freedom but added her own twist—an endless desire for transformation. Her role was to ensure the world never stagnated, constantly shifting and evolving. Her priests guided people through moments of change and helped anyone in need of a fresh start. The Wind sylvani worshipped Zephyra. She was the patron deity of rangers, beast masters, and alchemists.
The image of Zephyra showed an ethereal, petite elven figure with long blonde hair, pointy ears, and green eyes. She wore a green tunic, brown boots, and gloves, and carried a bow and quiver. Sophie noticed something almost imperceptible about Zephyra’s appearance—it seemed to shift slightly, her form always on the verge of suddenly changing to something else.
Curiosity got the better of her, and Sophie continued to explore the other deities. There were fourteen more, each with their own lore and visual representation. She skimmed through them, but her attention kept drifting back to Zephyra. The idea of a goddess of change appealed to her, though Cryonix, the lord of time and ice god of stasis, also caught her eye. It was not so much his values that intrigued her, but his appearance—a tall, lean figure standing at six foot six, with fluffy bunny ears and the looks that reminded Sophie of K-pop stars.
It did not take long for Sophie to decide. Zephyra’s ethos of freedom and change aligned with what she was looking for. With a confident tap, Sophie selected the goddess of wind as her character’s creator. A soft chime echoed around her, and the glyphs dissolved into a swirling mist of green and silver. As the game’s interface faded, an odd sensation washed over her, something unfamiliar but not unpleasant.
Glancing down, she noticed Zephyra’s brown leather gloves now covering her hands. They were smaller than her own, more delicate. Her tunic was green, and strands of blonde hair fell into her vision, a stark contrast to the black she was used to. Curious, she reached up, feeling the pointed tips of elvish ears and the soft cascade of long, flowing hair.
It seemed she would be literally creating her character while embodying the goddess she had chosen as her creator. The sensations of this new form surprised her at first, but they did not feel wrong—once again, more of a surprise at the sudden shift. For a moment, she was hyper-aware of the changes, but soon, the strangeness faded, leaving her with a sense of ease. Different, yes, but not unpleasant at all.
After a few moments of acclimating to the feel of Zephyra’s body—its proportions, muscles, and delicate intricacies—a new prompt appeared, accompanied once again by the familiar voice: “Choose your species.”
Now, the real fun would begin.
A line of six large icons appeared before her, side by side, each with two smaller icons underneath them. The icons did not resemble any letters or symbols she recognised. No, they looked like the deity symbols from earlier—unique marks or logos, reminiscent of brand emblems. Using Zephyra’s hands, she selected the leftmost of the six large icons. The word “homini” appeared above it, and the icon shrank, moving to the top-right of her field of vision—neatly tucked away, just out of sight. The two smaller icons expanded and slid away from each other, obviously expecting a further decision.
She selected the leftmost one once again. “City dwellers”, it informed her, as both the icon and text slipped away, tucking itself underneath the previous pair in the same corner. Two figures appeared on screen, a man and a woman, dressed in clothes that felt comfortable and hinted at prosperity: nice embroidered sleeves, gold bracelets, buttons, chains, necklaces. The shoes appeared comfortable, and none of it gave the impression of rugged adventuring gear. Both the men and the women wore loose pants held up by thick sashes, slightly tanned skin and dark brown hair.
Lore about the species appeared, summarising their origin and specialties. “City dwellers are the latest arrivals in the Realms, having sailed across vast seas in massive vessels before founding the magnificent port-metropolis of Luminara. Its cliff-side castles and towering spires reach high into the sky, grander than anything else on the continent—a true testament to their ingenuity, resourcefulness, mastery of magic, and indomitable spirit.”
“Too much like the current me”, Sophie said. But it was in an unfamiliar voice. Zephyra’s. She should have expected that detail. It amused her how the game almost bragged about its ability to shift your avatar’s form and voice while you were still creating your own character. If you have the technology, might as well flaunt it? Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
Looking back at the interface before her, she swiped left—now the universally recognised gesture for “reject” or “back”—and selected the second of the smaller icons. As she expected, the game presented her with a slightly different take on the homini: the Northerners. Two taller and broader humans appeared, wearing animal skins and leathers, their long red hair braided and faces freckled. The lore described how Frostine’s children were born in these lands and survived as nomadic tribes in the harsh northern regions of the continent. Sophie noticed the two figures had less of a height gap between the men and women than the city dweller cousins. “Looking better, but still a little too close to home,” she said out loud.
Having seen the two variants of humans, Sophie established a theory about the different available species: each species would have two different variations, likely a small or thin version contrasted with a tall, muscular one.
She bounced through the different options to inventory them all. Hominis, sylvanis, minnerets, dracans, burrovians, and felinaes—or, more simply, humans, elves, small folk, dragons, bunnies, and cats. Her guess of small and tall variants turned out to be on the money, but not quite. For most species, there was another nuance: dragons, bunnies and cats came in two distinct flavours. One was basically a human (or rather, “homini”) with some visible traits from the species they were based on, such as cat ears and tail or scales and dragon fins. The other subspecies were always a more distinct humanoid variation of their ancestral species: dragon-men, cat-folk, and small, furry bunny people. Minnerets served as a portmanteau name for the dwarves and halflings, and the Sylvani offered a choice between Tolkienesque tall, angular elves with pointy ears and anime-inspired small elves with long, impish-looking ears. Sophie concluded that the designers’ goal with the two different sub-species was to appeal globally, having choices for both western and eastern sensibilities.
She quickly rejected most options—the minnerets did not hold her attention at all. Felinaes were too cutesy or too furry for her taste. Sovereign dracans looked too mean, while the smaller Kindred dracans had leaned too heavily into the fragile, moe aesthetic for her liking. The Shadow sylvani definitely held her attention, but why settle for “handsome human with pointy ears”? It was just a little too safe. She could do better. Sophie ultimately chose a Noble burrovian—tall, elegant, and a far cry from the knee-high, furry Pint burrovians straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Ever since she saw how Cryonix appeared, the Noble burrovians had attracted her attention, but she could not be sure it was a playable race.
She thought back on the ice god. Tall and lean, proud and irresistible, eternally young, unchanging. He was the very image of a model, acutely aware of how beautiful he was and the effect he had on his adoring fans. That idea, the feeling of having everyone’s eyes on her, as she safely and confidently walked around the world as that character, was incredibly appealing. It would be a far cry from navigating the world as her current self, and she longed for that.
After confirming her choice of Noble burrovian, the game showed both the male and female avatars, side by side, the latter a mere two inches shorter than the former, and both regally tall. Out of habit, Zephyra’s gloved hand was about to select the female avatar, but Sophie stopped herself. Even a tall warrior princess like Xena, with big fluffy rabbit ears, would not draw the same attention Cryonix—or Daniel, she reluctantly admitted—did. There was that whole Playboy pin-up image that was almost universally recognised.
“No,” she said in a whisper, softer than the wind. The voice was higher, more delicate than her own—a soft, almost ethereal tone that did not quite sit right with her. She paused, turning the word over in her head, wondering if she would ever fully get used to it.
“That’s not the image I want to project.”
With a smile, she selected the male avatar, watching as it smoothly centred itself in her field of vision while the female form faded away. Oh, yes… I’m going to make you into the hottest Burrovian out there, she thought playfully. A smile filled with mischief appeared on Zephyra’s face.
A sudden, playful realisation came to Sophie’s mind. This body… This isn’t me right now—Zephyra’s the creator of this character, right? This is all her doing and I’m just here witnessing it?
Right on cue, many character sliders and options showed up on screen. Emboldened by the earlier thought, she started with the first. Well, if I’m going to do this, might as well go all in. Who am I to argue with the wishes of a goddess?
Methodically, Sophie experimented with the full range of customisation available to her in each option. For height, she saw that the character started at exactly six feet tall. After trying the entire range, she kept the slider at max, having him end up six foot four—that was before the ears. A whole ten inches taller than she was in real life—but was that not the point? Go for bold, impossible choices? Why stop now? The height difference was even more pronounced right now as she looked at her creation, as Zephyra stood only four feet eight tall—a whole twenty inches shorter!
Happy with her last choice, Sophie continued and played with the muscle definition until the character’s abs were impossible to miss, especially thanks to the belly-shirt the character’s starter-gear was wearing. She whistled appreciatively at the sight. “Bold choice of clothes too, bunny boy,” she said between giggles. “Seriously, who thought bunnies would fight in belly-shirts? It’s like they want you to show off, boy.”
With the body mostly settled, Sophie moved on to the finer details. Skin tone was next. She picked a nice, honey-bronze skin tone, fitting for someone spending many hours under the sun, as an adventurer or wanderer would. She then started tweaking his facial structure. The sliders moved almost instinctively, settling on features that felt both familiar and foreign. Softer, sharper, otherworldly—was that her choice, or Zephyra’s subtle touch? It did not matter where they came from; she loved the result. The character floating in front of her ended up with delicate facial structure options, making his face edge very close to feminine. Beautiful, dark brown, mysterious almond-shaped eyes with large iris and narrow eyebrows sealed the deal. “His eyes remind me of my own,” she said with sudden realisation, “and so does his face. Just an idealised version of it with all the confidence and none of the weakness.”
For the ears, she settled on an option where the base of both ears were closer to each other and spread apart in a V-shape. She made the ears about as long as his face. What’s the point in fluffy bunny ears if you keep them short or folded away? She justified her choice as she pushed the slider almost to the maximum value.
Sophie then started looking at the plethora of hairstyles available to her. This was clearly the option where the developers put the most effort. Most of the styles available were appealing to her, riding heavily on the bishōnen aesthetics. Beautiful youth, it meant. An appearance style sported by many young men of androgynous beauty, often found in Asian products. But once she saw it, she just knew which one was right for her. It was a middle-part, curtain bangs with slightly curly hair. She chose a dark brown colour with some blonde highlights balayage towards the ends.
It took her a minute after picking the style and colour, but it finally hit her: this was exactly Jae-Min Lee’s haircut. He was the lead singer of one of Sophie’s favourite K-pop bands, Neo Pulse, and now she had modelled her future character partly over one of her favourite singers. “Well, I am making a gorgeous bunny, it’s not unusual to see me drawing inspiration from people I find beautiful…” That realisation made choosing a voice easier for Sophie. She simply went through the different sliders until she landed on something that felt like a perfect match for Jae-Min’s.
When she clicked to confirm, the avatar’s lips parted and a smooth voice, eerily close to Jae-Min’s, greeted her. She smirked. “Perfect. Zephyra? You’ve really outdone yourself here.”
Next came the name, and it came unbidden, like a whisper from some distant place. “Leoric Stargaze,” she said aloud, testing the way it sounded. Where had that come from? She thought for a moment. The connection to the name “Lee” almost felt obvious—but Stargaze? Had that been her, or Zephyra’s doing? She smiled, dismissing the inquiry. Maybe it had been from a little of both, but it did not matter. It sounded perfect for the lone wolf character she had in mind, someone who answered to no one but the stars, wandering by day and star-gazing in the wilderness by night. No expectations, no one waiting for her to settle down. Just freedom.
As she went back over all the options, tweaking the sliders to make sure everything was just right, Sophie realized she was not just creating the perfect avatar—she was shaping something aspirational. Leoric projected confidence. He was tall and strong, everything she had always wanted to be, but somehow felt just out of reach. Maybe Zephyra had seen that from the start.
When it came time to pick the starting class, which would determine her starting location, Sophie did not hesitate. She did not want to heal—that felt way too much like the life that Daniel wanted for her. No tanking, either. The expectations to lead and watch out for everyone were too much. No, she was going for a damage dealer, and she would take the least party-focused one she could find. This limited her to three choices: mage, elementalist or ranger. Given his looks, there was simply no need to think it over: Leoric would be a ranger.
Rangers wandered alone and relied on stealth, perception and traps. It was the perfect class for someone who wanted no attachments. She could roam freely, fight—or avoid conflict altogether—at her own pace, and never have to carry the weight of others’ expectations on her shoulders. Rangers thrived on their own terms—just like she wanted to.
Given her choice of class, it meant Leoric would start in Zephyrdale, the homeland of the Wind sylvani, Zephyra’s children—where the winds of change never stopped blowing. It felt fitting. A place where people, like the wind, drifted from one corner of the world to the next. Maybe Leoric was not just a messenger or wanderer—he was a symbol of that same boundless freedom.
Though most Noble burrovians came from the city of Altansuun, hidden deep in the mountains, they frequently wandered far and wide, often as ambassadors and messengers. Leoric would be no different. His starting point may be Zephyrdale, but it would not be long before he would pick up his pack and drift across the lands, letting fate decide where the winds would carry him next.
As she completed her choices, Sophie smiled. Zephyra would have approved—freedom, beauty, and a touch of chaos. Leoric was ready to set out into the world and forge his own path, just as Sophie was trying to find hers. The interface displayed: “On Umber’s First Darksday of Harvestfall, 1442, Leoric Stargaze was born. May the sixteen watch over him as he wanders the world.”
Then, her vision faded to black. The avatar, interface, and text all dissolved into fine dust. When everything went dark, a new text appeared in glowing white: “Welcome back, Sophie. Now it’s time for Leoric to wake up.”