The Desktop
Lance's eyes awoke in a dreary half-dream-like state before settling his eyes into the expansive pure white view that stretched as far as he could see and up and down.
As Lance was getting used to his newfound environment a smooth orb with shiny blue eyes materialized itself from the empty whiteness of the desktop.
"Hi! I'm Mrvin, your personal assistant, right now we are in 'desktop mode', would you like to look at the features of this space?
A welcoming smile appeared on Mrvins... Face? if you could call it that, it looks more like a white star floating around the empty white abyss.
"Uhm.. Yeah, I'll look at the desktop's features."
As Lance responds to Mrvin's question, a large screen appeared before suddenly scrolling down to a list of buttons.
-Welcome to the Desktop :
- Environment Controls
- Launcher: The Ashes of Verra
- Character Customization
- System Information
"Oh Thank God"
Finally seeing a way to escape from the tormentation of his eyes, Lance pressed the 'Environment Controls' Button.
To the right emerged a pop-up window listing the varied methods of creating his Desktop Environment.
-Make it Yourself
-Source from Verra
-Search the Internet.
Lance was lazy, not wanting to go through the effort of making it himself or trying to find a good location in the many planes of Verra, he decided to scour the internet and find an easy way out. What Lance hadn't realized was that he was the first person to receive his capsule, meaning there was nothing on the internet for him to base his desktop on. He had only figured this out after spending over an hour scouring the internet for a way to import a 3d environment into his capsule.
"Aghh, what time is it right now Mrvin?" Lance released an exasperated sigh from the hour taken off his life.
"It is 3:27 PM, Sir!" Mrvin cheerfully answered as he was doing a loop around Lance's head, clearly not noticing his disgruntled attitude.
"Ooh, we have three minutes until the launch of the game, can you put me into the launcher Mrvin?"
"Sure thing, Sir!"
After Mrvin responded, the white started to fade to black, before the horizon started to turn red, and lava incrested stone appeared below the feet of Lance, before spreading like a spiderweb, and from the firey cracks rose a shadowy figure gyrating inside flames
"CAW"
The Phoenix made its presence known as it started to fly around the firey landscape, an ear-piercing screech happening every few seconds or so before it flew in front of Lance and made a pose with its wings to the side as it morphed into the background.
-The Ashes of Verra-
-Launch
-Quit to Desktop
The 'Launch' button was pressed almost as quickly as it appeared, Lance was already on a copium-high after hearing about the release of a VRMMORPG version of Verra, and still delirious from suddenly having access to a mind-breaking piece of advanced technology in the form of the capsule
"Not this shit again!"
A 3d model of Lance appeared as he was cursing the developers for putting him into a snow-white void for the second time.
"Woah, that's kinda freaky"
Seeing your body shape and face on something that was distinctly not you was extremely uncanny.
"hmm?"
Lance noticed a menu next to the statuette of himself
-Race Selection-
-Aelan Humans-
[Kaelar] ~ [Vaelune]
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-Dünzenkell Dwarves-
[Dünir] ~ [Niküa]
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-Kaivek Orcs-
[Ren'Kai] ~ [Vek]
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-Pyrian Elves-
[Empyrean] ~ [Py'Rai]
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-Tulnar
There were 4 Parent Races with 2 Sub-Races, with the 5th beast race added at the end
The Aelan humans were split into 2 races based on real-world culture, the Kaelar, based on European race identities, and sharing their love of imperial colonization the Kaelar have the largest of the 4 empires. While the Vaelune, based on Middle-Eastern roots, pride themselves in their web of complex relationships and savvy negotiating skills, the Vaelune built the wealthiest of the 4 empires.
The Dünzenkell Dwarves similar to the Aela were based on Real Culture, the Dünir, stubby and hairy creatures that live deep in the Dünzenkell mountains and pride themselves on their impeccable skills in a smithy, and are loosely based on Norse mythos, while the Niküa are less hairy but still somewhat stumpy, they left the mountains behind, viewing them as suffocating prisons instead vying voyage out and hunt the beasts of the wild, and are based on Polynesian wave-faring culture
The Kaivek Orcs stray from the norm of following cultures of Earth, faring Red or Green skin the ruthless Ren'Kai are the tallest and broadest race in Verra, they believe in honing their immense power through physical skill while the more goblin-esque purple Vek, are a race of astrologers, always looking towards the stars, prophesizing is their way of life, they gain boosts towards navigation on the open sea
The Pyrian Elves take a return to our Terran Culture, with dark beige colored skin, the Empyrean following Greco-Roman roots, they pride themselves in their structured government and highly trained militia. The Pyrai have Skin that follows the colors of the forest, and large antlers that show their status in the tribe, the Pyrai have a strong Navajo Native American influence
The Tulnar is a combination of the 4 major races and many minor races that were left in Verra after the apocalypse, the Tulnar are the most bestial of the races, varying from tall lizardfolk to small dogs with large eyes, they have the most distinct customization options available.
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