(001) Welcome to Starfall

A text bubble popped into existence before Electa.

She looked up and inhaled sharply. It was amazing, it was as if she was floating in the midst of a nebula. The colors made up an almost aurora with galaxies within reach of her finger tips.

She carefully reached out to touch one with her index finger.

"A-ah, no, thank you," she quickly retracted her hand. It must be a server choice. Good to know but first things first after all. "Commands?"

"Menu," she stated. Her eyes widened in shock, slightly intimidated by the enormity of the thing.

"...no, thank you," Electa cleared her throat awkwardly, "Uh, name change?"

Electa furrowed her eyebrows. "Pardon?"

<[Player 498440] currently can change USERNAME : [Player 498440], LEADERBOARD-NAME : [Player 498440], NICKNAME : [Player 498440], and SYSTEM-AI-NAME : [AI 498440].>

Electa thought for a moment before nodding, "Username change to Electra. Leaderboard name change to Electra. Nickname change to... Ellie. System AI name change to Starfall."

"Alright, um, how about character design?"

"Yes, please," Electa couldn't help the little clap and bouncing on the balls of her feet. A strange action considering there wasn't much of a floor beneath her, but this was always one of her favorite parts about new games; and if she acted a little childish in the face of it, who was to judge her?

"Ooh," she murmured to herself. There was quite a bit of versatility to this. It encouraged players to be involved with the game and not simply spam their account with low leveled avatars. This was something of a downfall in past games that let the players make as many pseudonyms as they pleased.

Naturally one of them would be her usual mage with lightning affinity, or whatever the equivalent was. The other three called for some exploring. "Let's customize slot 1."

Before her stood a semi-transparent genderless humanoid like mannequin. The faces always kind of creeped her out... or the lack of face. There was something off-putting about avatars before you molded them.

It was a familiar process of creating "Electra the Lightning Goddess". A bit of concentration to create familiar features of her own face in her youth, silver eyes, a sleek white ponytail that sparked... familiar.

Maybe it was strange to have a form almost more familiar than her actual body, but in a way it wasn't surprising. That body didn't change or age, it didn't scar or break... there was a fondness she held for it.

She gently tweaked the avatar with the manual slider bars. There was only so much the brain could conjure on a dime without working through creating something slowly. It made for better avatars, in her opinion, when the player put a little more time into it. It also showed in the details when someone didn't. People tended to forget how teeth worked or that a tongue is attached to the throat, she saw some weird things from noob or rushing players.

Electa in particular had a difficult time with her nose. She didn't mind the shape of her own, in fact she quite liked the high bridge. But she rarely saw her profile and so when tasked with imagining what it was supposed to look like, it always came out a bit... odd.

She took a step back from her creation with a sigh. "Well, I think that's about it as far as I'll take it. Hm, should I fiddle with iris pattern?"

"Hm, maybe?"

"I feel like I should be offended by the banshee one, but I guess I can see the similarities..."

"Uh, no no. What about like, a witch or mage? A Valkyrie?"

Electa pinched her nose, "that would ideal, yes. Though, maybe also ones with minimal changes to my avatar's appearance?"

The list went on... and on... and on.... finally Electa had to cut in. "How about we stick to top five?"

"Lightning affinity, sorcery, please..."

'Man, you can be just about anything in this game.'

"Huh, well..." She trailed off, thinking over the options. It was kind of a difficult choice since she wasn't sure which would work best for her as a far as classes went. Valkyrie was probably off the table since it was less of a sorceress's position. She wanted to fry her enemies, dang it.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Could I see what I'd look like as one?" she asked, turning her focus to her avatar.

The face got sharper and body sinewy. The ears pointed and lengthened. Contrary to what she expected with a dark elf, the skin's shade didn't change overly much. The hues turned a bit more on the blue side and saturation weakened.

It was difficult to describe but for all it's similarities with "elves" or the classic idea of what a high elf would be it was decidedly not. In some respects it could almost be considered beautiful, but there was something not quite.... "It's dangerous looking."

"What does a... what does the other one look like?"

The avatar again changed into something rather... grotesque.

"...change it back."

"Yeah, I could tell."

"Yeah that's all I needed to hear, it looks like I'll murderer you in your sleep so I'm going to go with it."

"Confirm!"

"Proceed to game!"

"Enter," oh she was so excited.

The world around Electa shifted and rippled. She gasped.

"Happy to be here..." she murmured.