It took 2 minutes and 37 seconds for me to realize I was transported to Aeons of Fate.
In those two minutes and a half, I had:
-Ran around buck naked in the wild
-Screamed at the top of my lungs
-Tried to grab a hypothetical phone from my hypothetical pocket to call the cops
-Karate chopped a tree
-Realized my hand was green
-Realized the tree was thoroughly chopped from my karate chop
-Slapped myself
-Ran and screamed even more
It was a very productive time, to say the least.
Now, after calming down, I sat down on the stump of the chopped tree.
First thing's first, I wanted to see if I could use the {Status Screen}.
It was the most logical step.
In every single roleplaying game ever created, the first thing you did after getting the tutorial or starting a new game was check your stats.
I closed my eyes, focused, and muttered.
"Status."
Nothing.
"Status screen."
Nothing.
I opened my eyes, looked around at the serene, wonderful forest, and tried again.
"Menu."
Still nothing.
Okay, maybe it wasn't a voice command.
That was usually a feature for the premium VR headsets, which I definitely didn't own since I was an average office worker.
Maybe it's a mental command.
I focused on the concept of 'Status Screen' with the intensity of a thousand suns, imagining a window snapping into existence right in front of my face.
I even scrunched my brows and Orcish nose and placed my index and middle fingers on my temple like I was trying to telekinetically make a pizza enter my mouth.
Crickets & birds.
"Come on, you piece of garbage code!"
I groaned, slapping my forehead with a large, green hand that felt less like my own and more like a mecha I was controlling.
I was getting desperate.
I tried every single keybind I could possibly remember, vocalizing them out of sheer desperation.
"Esc?"
Nothing.
"Tab?"
Zilch.
"M for menu?"
…
"X? Z?"
Only the overwhelming sense of I am lost in the woods.
"I for inventory?"
I tried to reach out in front of me to check if the status screen was invisible, but my hand only felt air.
Maybe being an 'Orc' means it changed the commands into something…Orcish?
"Zug-zug?!"
I yelled, attempting to use the Orcish dialogue I had accidentally said right after getting sent here.
I sighed, collapsing back onto the tree stump.
This was just like the six hours of walking I had to endure in the vanilla game—pointless, time-consuming effort which yielded zero results.
Frustrated, I threw my arms up in a gesture of absolute defeat.
'Show me my damn character sheet!'
…Wait.
As my hands flailed around, a faint, transparent rectangle flickered into existence in front of me.
It was mostly opaque, like a cloudy bathroom window, but it was there.
I froze, my arms still awkwardly in the air, resembling a large, muscular green child asking to be picked up.
The rectangle followed my arms…
I slowly brought my arms down to eye level, and the rectangle became solid, snapping into a perfectly rendered window of my character.
It seemed the command was a physical gesture.
Maybe a simple wrist flick?
Or perhaps the game devs just thought it was hilarious to only show the menu after the player gains existential despair.
Whatever it was, I didn't care.
It was beautiful.
I leaned in, ignoring the fact that my ugly orc face was being reflected in the screen's surface, and started reading.
+====================================+
// STATUS SCREEN //
+====================================+
|NAME: Grul
|RACE: Orc
|CLASS: None
|LEVEL: 1
|XP: 0/100
+------------------------------------+
|HEALTH: [█████████] 100% |
|STAMINA: [██████████] 100% |
|MANA: [----------] 0/0 |
+------------------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTES:
|STRENGTH: 15 (+8 Racial) |
|DEXTERITY: 5 |
|VITALITY: 16 (+9 Racial) |
|INTELLIGENCE: 7 |
|WISDOM: 6 |
+------------------------------------+
|SKILLS:
|- Unarmed Combat (E) (Passive) (New!)
| ↳"Everybody was kung-fu fighting!" - Carl Douglas … Increases effectivity of unarmed combat
|- Sprinting (E) (New!)
| ↳ Drastically increases movement speed at the cost of stamina
|- Regeneration (B) (Passive)
| ↳ Increases speed at which wounds heal
|- Orcish Blood (A) (Passive)
| ↳"Orkz is made for fightin' and winnin'!" - Ghazghkull Thraka … Bestows a formidable constitution and innate combat prowess. Provides a significant bonus to physical attributes and combat effectiveness. Also changes your diction when talking to others.
+====================================+
Okay, that was…disappointing.
Level 1.
I thought the character I was playing as was one of my high level characters that were already made before when I was playing the game.
I guess I'm starting off as a new character with completely different traits from the ones I knew.
The 'Class' slot being empty made sense; I wasn't a pre-made character, I was just some nobody newbie right now.
I momentarily thought about how I was going to acquire a class now that I was stuck inside the game world, but that's something to think about after I get stronger.
The real kicker here were the numbers.
15 strength.
Holy hell.
Orc stats, apparently, were not messing around.
Even compared to the stats I had when I was playing the game, these numbers were outstanding for a new character.
Does this mean this body of mine was shaped by the Gods themselves?
Then I saw 7 Intelligence and 6 Wisdom.
"Are you kidding me?"
I have a college degree!
I can navigate 9-to-5 office work every week!
I should have at least some wisdom and intelligence!
The screen, naturally, didn't answer.
It just stared back, confirming that in the eyes of the devs, I was just a big, dumb, strong green idiot.
It's gonna be a long time before I get anywhere with this kind of beginning.
I decided to hunt for some food and make a tent for the night, and then maybe find out where I am the next day.
…Actually, finding some clothes first would be nice.