Utopic Domain, Basilisk's Basin.
Catlen had no idea why she had appeared in a world of magic and whimsy when all she wanted was to play a new game.
It was called Endless World Quest, and it was an MMORPG with storyline elements. Like most ORPG's, Endless World Quest had multiple worlds called domes, and they were like parallel dimensions that existed inside of one big central world. One could access those worlds by using portals.
As a professional gamer, Catlen loved playing games like she loved her life. Any game, no matter how bad the reviews were, she had to play it at least once before deciding whether she liked it or not. The same thing had happened with this game.
The new Envysion ProLux Bud virtual reality gaming console had just been released to the public for purchasing, and Catlen was amongst the first batch of people who ordered the console through the website of the creators.
Endless World Quest was a game that was preloaded into the console, so when she stuck the little electronic nub between her eyebrows, the first thing she saw was that.
Curious, Catlen decided to play it, but she had only just chosen which character to play when she felt dizzy and fainted. When she opened her eyes again, the sky was blue, the clouds were drifting, and the breeze was pleasant.
She was lying in a pool of crystalline water with a long, beautiful tail, and luscious hair that fell to her waist. Her reflection in the water was gorgeous, with shimmering, bluish-purplish scale patterns on her cheekbones that refracted rainbows in the light. Catlen fell in love with herself instantly!
There were also giant reptiles that called her 'master' all over the place. They looked like snakes, but they had shimmering scales that looked a lot like hers, and razor sharp claws on their six enormous chicken feet. Their mouths were actually chicken beaks, but they could somehow roar like lions and communicate with her.
When she looked at them, she could see the character tags over their heads.
[Basilisk]
And when she tapped on the tag, a further profile would open up before her eyes.
[A rare creature, basilisks only live within the confines of Basilisk's Basin deep in the hidden crevices of the world. The lesser land companions of the ocean's leviathan, they're born from the egg of a legendary serpent and hatched by the heat of a phoenix. Basilisks have high attack and defence power. They're minions who do the bidding of their nefarious master, the Siren Queen, to dominate the land.]
"…" Putting together context clues, it wasn't hard for Catlen to figure out that she was now the siren queen.
The character tags also helped her figure out that she was somehow playing the game, but she couldn't figure out how the developers could make the graphics look so amazing.
Many virtual reality gaming consoles had come out before, but Envysion had long dominated the gaming market ever since their first VR glasses came out forty years earlier in 2030.
They looked just like regular glasses and came in different styles, but their thin frames packed the power of a computer. It was expected that they were expensive, but still, people used them so much that they started replacing cellphones for those who could afford them.
Catlen hadn't even been born at that point, but she had grown up hearing about how sensational that reveal had been.
After that, they released gaming glasses made specifically for playing games, which looked like a sleek band that went over the eyes and ears for an uninterrupted experience. They were lightweight and could be held with one hand.
Year after year, Envysion released different gaming headgears, all of which got smaller and thinner until they finally released, the Bud.
It was the size of a button, and had a sticky gel strip on one side. People would press it against their foreheads and be immersed in the experience of a virtual world. The graphics weren't very good at first, but every generation was better and better until it reached Catlen's turn to buy one.
Envysion had said that their new Bud's graphics were very realistic, to the point where it didn't differ from real life. That was why Catlen had eagerly bought one, and that was also why she simply assumed that she was playing the game.
Even though she wasn't playing the character she originally wanted. There hadn't been any settings for a villainous character in the roster when she was choosing. It was an MMORPG in the first place, so she had assumed that all of the bosses and villagers and things would be NPC's, just like always.
"Could it be a glitch?" She wondered, opening the game interface so she could restart it. "Oh that's weird. Did they move the exit button?"
There was no exit button.
Thirty minutes later, Catlen was staring blankly at the surface of the water and struggling to accept that she was trapped.
She was trapped in the game.
Since there was no exit button, she tried to physically remove the bud from her forehead to activate manual disengagement, but her hands ended up touching nothing.
There was no bud on her forehead.
So did that mean that she wasn't in her physical body?
She twisted the skin on her arm. "Ouch!"
Uh-oh, things were bad. Yeah. It was very bad. It was terrible.
Game players weren't supposed to feel pain while in character! The bud only stimulated visual reception, not all neural activity!
Then what did this mean? Was she really pulled into the game? Would she ever be able to see her loved ones again? Was she doomed to be inside the game forever?
And she was a villain! So was she supposed to just be in the game and die?!
Catlen's head hurt. She sank into the water and cried miserably, pushing air bubbles up to the surface of the pool. When she wanted to wipe the tears from her eyes, a few round, hard things were sticking to her cheeks. She wiped them off and saw a string of pearls on her hands.
"…!" She cried even more sadly. She was so beautiful, she even cried pearls, but she was destined to die by the game's script. Nobody could understand her despair and misery.
She had finally gotten rich enough to use pearls as props but she had to pay for it with her life. Sure enough, nothing good was free, but everything unlucky was always gratuitous in bulk!
Ah, what was she going to do? She didn't want to die!
No, no, she had to be calm. Surely she could figure out a solution. How many games hadn't she played before? She was a professional gamer, it was her passion. All she had to do was learn the rules of the game and pass all the levels, and then she'd be fine.
Everything was going to be alright.
A seed of hope ignited in her heart. Endless World Quest was a fantasy adventure MMORPG. There were levels in every dome in the game, and the progression of those levels was set as a storyline.
So, the characters would receive a mission, do small side quests to level up along the way, and finally complete the mission, typically with a boss battle.
Although she wasn't sure if she was the only person trapped in the game, and if she wasn't, she didn't know how the boss battles would proceed, she felt that the rules should be about the same.
As a boss, all she had to do was be stronger than her opponent and send them running in shame! Wasn't that very easy?
Catlen stopped crying and opened the game interface again to take a look at her profile settings. Unexpectedly, she really did have a profile setting.
{NAME: Catlen Devicast
AGE: 20 (!)
RACE: //
SPECIES: Siren
LEVEL: 0
XP: 0/100 (!)
HP: 100/100}
Aside from using her real name and age, the rest of her stats were just like those of regular game characters. The race bar was empty and greyed out, so she couldn't be sure if she was a mermaid or another type of humanoid sea creature. Fantasy games usually had a broad range of selection about that stuff.
She tapped on the exclamation mark beside her age.
{As a member of a long-lasting species, you're still just a baby! Time breeds maturity, so don't be impatient for quick success! This is an official warning.}
"Huh, weird." She tapped on the exclamation mark beside her XP points.
{As an inexperienced boss, you haven't had the chance to see the world yet! Being surrounded by your minions all day won't bring in any rewards, so make sure to face the appropriate challenges to hone your skills!}
Catlen was already surprised to see that she had an XP bar, and that it was set at zero. Wasn't she a boss? She was supposed to be an NPC, so shouldn't her experience points already be preset?
It seemed that the game was really recognising her as a player instead of an NPC. Then in that case, her experience points were too miserable. Even a chicken could peck her to death.
She had speculated that she'd have to clear the levels to finish and leave the game, and if the game was really treating her as a player, then she was right. She would have to leave Basilisk's Basin and complete quests!
Final objective: defeat the final boss!