Tiara stared at the box her advisor had pulled out from behind her desk. She had gotten used to her advisor throwing curveballs and cake at her during their end-of-the-week debriefings, but the box was something completely foreign to her education and research. Her brain went into work mode trying to figure out its purpose. The title on the box made it clear what it was: Infinite Dendrogram, the first successful VRMMO Game, but it did not explain why it was sitting on Professor Dominguez’s desk.
After a couple seconds of silence, Dominguez was about to open her mouth when Tiara spoke up.
“Professor, I’ve heard there have been some studies on the physics and chemistry of that game’s world, but I don’t think they can be incorporated into my dissertation.”
“Oh, Tiara, please, call me Celeste; and this isn’t about your thesis. You’ve been working hard… a little too hard, and I think you should take advantage of Spring Break to relax a little.”
Tiara kept her expression neutral but she mentally sighed. As much as she revered her advisor on both a personal level and for her scientific accomplishments, her eccentricities sometimes vexed Tiara. “I already have my whole Spring Break mapped out.”
“I heard you gave a similar reply to Charlotte… she really was looking forward to having a party with you and the other students.” Tiara winced when Dominguez looked at her. “Tiara, take it from me, you can’t be working all the time. If you don't think of it as relaxing, think of it as a way to exercise a different part of your brain.”
She pushed the box a little closer to Tiara.
“Just give it a try. Have fun. You may even make some new friends!”
~~~
Back in her apartment, Tiara stared at the box’s components. With just a headset, a charging station, and an instruction book, the setup was much sparser than Tiara expected. Growing up, she had seen a multitude of VR systems come and go, and virtually all of them had had a bit more than this. There was not even a controller.
A dull green-eyed cocker spaniel-poodle mix with a purple collar tottered over to the headset and sniffed it. His eyes, gray with age, were not able to fully make out the unfamiliar object. With it not immediately being recognizable as food, he stuck his tongue out to lick it, but Tiara pulled it away. “No, Spike.”
Tiara looked at the bar on the back of the headset— it was fully green. It had been green for the past hour. While it had charged and past that point, Tiara had weighed the pros and cons.
Pro: Even if it was not part of her research and dissertation, the idea of a world with things like magic and fantasy creatures tickled her researcher side.
Cons: One, it’s a distraction. Two, who knows who could be online? Three, it could be addictive. Four, Tiara really wanted to emphasize in her mind that it was a distraction.
Ultimate Factor: Professor Dominguez also played. This had been a deciding factor in several ways.
~~~
As soon as Tiara had taken the box, Celeste had beamed, “Oh I’m so glad you’re going to play! You’re in luck. On Saturday, so three game days from now, there’s going to be a big festival in one of Legendaria’s towns—a local celebration to mark the defeat of a mythical UBM in ancient times. I always love attending.”
Tiara furrowed her brow. “Half of that made no sense.”
“That’s why I’m glad you’ll have a few days to get used to things. I know how thorough you are, Tiara, so I’m sure it won’t take much time to understand things.” Celeste’s smile thinned a bit. “That being said, I’d like you to learn about the game from inside it, at least at first. The forums can come later. I imagine the festival will already be over if you did research on the game before playing it.”
~~~
So, the pros and cons were limited to what Tiara currently knew.
And if I don’t play at all, she'll probably figure that out too probably, Tiara thought.
Taking a breath, she gave Spike a pet and then put him outside her room. He gave a little whine but a treat satisfied him.
Alone in the room, Tiara put on the headset. Her fingers reached up and pressed the power button.
The headset vanished and she found herself no longer sitting in her room but standing in what looked like an old library. Light emitted from bronze chandeliers above, but Tiara noticed they had neither bulbs nor candles— orbs of light just seemed to dot them and cast their illumination on the room.
Said room had a fine carpet, well-used but cared for so as not to be worn. Some of the books were in a similar state, but a few looked fairly or brand new. Tiara breathed in, enjoying the smell of the books.
She blinked and then brought a hand to her nose.
“Ah, always so much fun to see how a new Master reacts when they first get here,” came a voice from behind Tiara.
Tiara spun and was met with a woman floating right behind her. She stepped back and confirmed the woman was indeed floating a good foot off the ground in some sort of translucent oval structure. While the room had been so grounded in reality that it gave Tiara pause, this woman made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
The woman grinned. “I’m the Control A.I., Humpty Dumpty. So, shall we get you started on your character creation?”
“Oh… um, yes.”
“First, your name.”
While Tiara wanted to conceal her identity, she still valued her family name, so she used its Yiddish base root and translated it to English. As for her first name, she went with her favorite time of day, one of the few points where she gave herself a break.
“Next, let’s get your avatar set up.:
A mannequin appeared before Tiara. Hmm, I’ll start with myself as a base and work from there.
Tiara got to work and Humpty observed. About an hour and a half in, she remarked, “Ah, a thorough one, eh?”
“I want to protect my identity. Can’t be too careful. And all these options…” Tiara paused on her work and reflected on the complexity in just designing her avatar. The game was already living up to its name as, while there were basic sliders like many other games to deal with weight, height, hair hue, and skin tone, that was just the tip of an infinite iceberg. Body hair length could also be determined. Every single muscle could be altered. Birthmarks, moles, scars, and even diseased lesions could be added. Limbs, eyes, ears, nose, and tongue could be removed, and there were countless options on how they were removed, giving Tiara a rough idea of what it may have felt like to be an inquisitor or other historical torturer.
Skin could be stripped away, leaving only bone. That option had prompted Tiara to ask how her avatar would be able to move around without muscles, and Humpty had responded that it was possible since undead existed in the game and Masters could play as them. The idea of experiencing and documenting a force animating bone, exposed muscles, or dead flesh did strike Tiara’s curiosity, but the realism she was currently experiencing held her back. If it was in line with what the actual game offered, just the thought of having to deal with her own rotting smell as an undead steered Tiara away. One cadaver had been enough to quash a med school pursuit. “There isn’t a time limit, is there?”
“None at all. It’s just been a while since I’ve seen someone so involved. Still, you’re a long way from the record.”
Tiara continued building her avatar. There seemed to be no end to the options, so at a certain point, she stopped exploring them. Thirty minutes later, Tiara’s avatar was complete. She had been quite impressed by the level of customization available. The automatic randomization in some areas also comforted her like how fingerprints and the standard teeth (she could have gone with missing, crooked and even fanged versions) did not match her IRL identification. It also gave her a sense she would not just be controlling an avatar but an actual body.
That was why she had stuck with her gender but had changed other aspects of the avatar from height and weight to shoulder length and knee size. She definitely did not add a cup size. Totally did not. That would have just been a trick of the light if someone had been watching the character creation.
While she was not a fan of contacts in real life, she cast off her glasses for the virtual world and colored her eyes violet.
There was already so much customization using just her own body, that of an adult human female, as a base, that going beyond that was too much for a game she was not even intent on playing after this weekend. So, she had decided to just add a skin tone that could not exist in reality, without being too gaudy in her view. A slight tinge of mulberry was acceptable for her along with adding a point to her ears.
Seeing the array of color available for hair had reminded her of the anime her brother watched. She ultimately settled on a ponytail hairstyle with sapphire blue as its main hue and stripes of violet and rose running through it.
“Fan of purple, eh?” Humpty remarked.
“It’s just a color I like.” Tiara blushed and hastily changed the subject. “Okay, I’m good to go on looks, now for starting equipment, right?”
“Right you are.”
After taking another half-hour picking out what seemed appropriate (and quietly thanking her brother for never shutting up when he was in the boy scouts), there was a flash. The avatar model was gone and Tiara found herself a little higher off the floor. Yet, her balance was not thrown off. Raising an arm, she found it was more tanned than her schedule would have ever allowed and mulberry with a little bit of muscle on it.
Humpty produced a mirror and the reflection Tiara saw was her avatar. Only now, it had a spark of life in its eyes. When she moved, it moved. When she blinked, it blinked. “Fascinating.”
The word tumbled out before Tiara could really think about it.
Humpty purred, “Good, good. With how you’ve acted, I’m curious what Embryo you’ll get.”
As if summoned by her words, there was a spark from above. It zoomed down and crashed into Tiara’s hand. When Tiara’s vision cleared there was a blue shimmering gem embedded on the back of her left hand, yet it did not cause any pain or really feel like anything. She touched it out of curiosity and its shimmer seemed to shift.
“Would you like an explanation of how Embryos work?”
“The box said it’s some kind of unique item or AI mechanic? It wasn’t really clear.” Tiara’s lips tightened. One thing that she could not stand was not having enough info on something. “All those types too…”
Humpty grinned. “An Embryo will be your partner in Infinite Dendrogram. For a time after you start, it will grow within you, taking in you and your experiences before it hatches. Shall it be your sword or shield as Type:Arms? Your protector as Type:Guardian? Your ride as Type:Chariot? Perhaps a refuge as Type:Castle? Or, your own little world as Type:Territory? Or maybe even…”
Humpty paused seeing Tiara’s eyes had glazed over and smoke appeared poised to steam out of her ears. “Thinking hard about it already?”
Tiara shook her head and then looked down at the gem. “It’s a lot to take in for a game.”
Humpty maintained a grin, but Tiara sensed something shift behind it. “Even my descriptions of Embryos could not convey all the ways yours could develop. I could go on, but I get the feeling that experiencing things will get you up to speed much faster.”
Before Tiara could respond, a globe appeared above Humpty and Tiara. Humpty asked, “Now, where will it be? I have explanations for each place if you’d like?”
“Legendaria.”
“Oh, you must have heard about the Summer Sun Celebration. Funny how Altar has a similar festival on a different day, eh?”
Sounds like a way to explain events happening without overloading the servers, Tiara thought.
“Well, with that done, let’s get you on the way.” The globe and the room were whisked away like morning fog. Tiara found herself and Humpty floating above what looked like Earth, but the continents matched those of the globe that had been there just a second ago.
“Oh, one thing before you go,” said Humpty. “Maybe you know it and maybe you don’t but I’m the Control AI in charge of Embryos. A bit of an open secret. Every now and then I like to ask what made a Master want to play.”
Tiara looked at the world below her. “Well… my advisor said it would be good for relaxing and I don’t want to disappoint her… and the experience so far is intriguing with all its detail. I’m not really sure what I want to do though.”
“Don’t focus too much on it, or maybe focus on it all you want. Maybe you’ll quit after just a few hours or become known across the world.” Humpty pointed a finger to Tiara’s left hand. “That Embryo has infinite possibilities as do you in Infinite Dendrogram. So, I welcome you, Twilight Sparkle.”
Tiara reflected on the use of her player name before Humpty vanished in a blink. She stared down at the world for a second and admired a sight usually only astronauts or the incredibly rich could enjoy.
And then she fell. A few seconds after the shock wore off, she screamed at the top of her lungs.
This is how the Master, Twilight Sparkle, entered the world of Infinite Dendrogram
~~~
“Hmm? Feels like I should log in a little early. I’ve got a good feeling today!”
~~~
“So, she actually took it. Color me surprised.”
“She’s a good girl at heart. Just needs to experience the world outside the lab a little.”
“Even if it’s not our world? Oh well, either way, this will make things a lot more interesting. I can’t wait to see everyone’s faces.”
“Promise me you won’t go overboard?”
“If there’s an issue with that, I guess Celestia can try and stop me.”
“What am I going to do with you?”