Chapter 1

Several years from now:

Melvin Whitmore sprinted through the forest. Unfamiliar leaves, vines, thorns and branches whipped at his skin in his haste to flee. He hopped over a root that seemed to spring up from the ground at his feet. The first few had sent him sprawling, so he’d gotten adept at spotting and avoiding them. Pain is a fantastic teacher. The crashing, heavy-footed sound he made bursting from thicket to thicket in his desperate drive to escape was the only movement he could hear. His pursuers followed silently, to his untrained ears anyway, but their mocking, haunting laughter followed him. Reminded him of their presence.

A piercing burn lanced his calf, and his pumping legs slowed involuntarily. He limped to a halt, so he could examine his leg. The blunt end of a small, thin projectile stuck out of his leather pants. A small bloodstain surrounded the hole it had made, evidence that the sharp end stabbed deeply into his muscle. He grabbed the fuzzy, dandelion-like fletching that adorned the end and yanked the needle out. A terrible tearing sensation accompanied the spurt of blood that flowed when he removed it. He held it up to his eye.

The three-inch-long, quarter-inch-wide thorn, and it was natural, a wood-like dart, unnaturally straight, with evenly spaced barbs along its length. His breath caught when he realized it was bits of his own flesh clinging to the rough exterior. A numbness crept over his limbs, and his hand fell to his side. The trees, with trunks wider than a car, and leaves he’d never seen before all blurred as he struggled vainly to stay conscious.

It isn’t fair. No game should be this hard at the start. He complained to himself as oblivion took him.

A dash of cold water woke him some time later. A small message appeared at the corner of his vision.

You’ve been asleep for 8 hours. Reminder: learn all you can of whatever languages you hear.

That’s right, he had an objective to accomplish. They’d initially approached him in his office, just after a particularly difficult student departed, grumbling at the requirements for Professor Whitmore’s Introduction to Languages class.

“We want you to help us test out a simulation.” They’d offered.

“Me? Why?” He’d sputtered in response.

The only one who spoke, offering his name as ‘Mr. Johnson’ with a smirk, indicated the various swords, armor and other accouterments on Melvin’s office shelves and walls.

“The environment is primitive.” Johnson explained. He pointed at the picture of Melvin crossing a road-race finish-line, his one, and probably only marathon. “You stay in good shape, and are familiar with what it takes to travel around in the wild.”

That was true. Melvin often took hikes along the Appalachian trail. He much preferred that form of exercise over running, especially on the unforgiving hard surface of sidewalks and asphalt roads.

“I’m sure there are lots of people who have a much greater knowledge of the outdoors than I do.” Melvin protested. “Heck, I know several here on campus who are much better than I am.”

“True, but none have your skill with languages.” Johnson informed him.

“Languages?” Melvin was confused. “What kind of simulation is this?”

Turned out, it was a cutting edge simulation. A complete world, they told him, calling it First World. Separately evolved, with unknown creatures and plants. The only way to experience it was to pipe the sensory input directly into his brain. He had to undergo neurosurgery, to implant the connection in his skull. That alone had been frightening, but they’d also explained that the inhabitants of this world had their own languages. The world was self-contained, so they couldn’t just pull the information from the server. Someone had to go into it, and learn how they communicated, learn how they lived, by experiencing it first-hand.

Why they’d built a simulation they couldn’t access any other way was never answered to Melvin’s satisfaction. His only information about it was that it was still in a developmental state, and they didn’t have unrestricted access to the environment, and had to take what the game designers gave them.

“A game?” He asked. “Why would the government care about a game?”

Johnson’s smirk widened into a smile. “Who said we’re from the government?” He returned.

The fact that they wouldn’t tell him what was really going on meant they were unquestionably from the government. But they offered a not-insignificant bonus to undergo the surgery and commit to spending one month in the ‘game’. They’d bring him out once a day, of course. He needed to eat. But that was it. They wanted him to even sleep while hooked up. What they hoped to learn from that, he had no idea, but for the money they offered, he could easily afford to take a leave of absence from teaching for a semester.

A painful toe to the ribs showed just how real the simulation seemed. Everything looked, smelled, sounded, and felt like real life. Pain was just as uncomfortable as anything he felt outside of the game. And not for the first time, he wondered how they’d (whoever ‘they’ were) made such an amazing interactive environment. There were other companies trying, of course. But from everything Melvin had heard and seen, no one was anywhere near as advanced as what he was experiencing right now.

He shook himself awake and looked around. He was bound, hand and foot, lying on the ground in a small clearing. Green-flamed torches dotted the perimeter, just inside the treeline. Three gray-cloaked people stood around him, while another sat on a pale, wood chair. The cloaked ones had their hoods up, so all Melvin could see were brown leather boots, and their outer garment. They hoisted him to his knees, with long-fingered, bony hands covered in slightly tanned skin. On what had to be a throne sat a fair-skinned man in dark leather armor. Long, black, braided hair hung down his back, and across his shoulders. A circlet of black, thorny material sat on his brow. Eyes the color of jade flashed as the man barked a question in a language Melvin didn’t know.

But did sound familiar, maybe.

Melvin shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

This seemed to make the man even angrier. He frowned, and with an expression of utter disgust asked another question in what Melvin felt sure was a totally different language.

We know this language. Appeared in what Melvin now thought of as his ‘message area’.

After a pause, Melvin heard a different voice in his ears:

“Why does a Changelyng not know our Tongue?”

Changeling! That was the race Melvin picked when he first logged into the game. They’d hung him in a harness, suspended from the ceiling. They told him that even though he wouldn’t feel it, own body would still receive all the same signals his ‘in-game’ one did. All the usual medical monitoring equipment, with wires leading to pads stuck to his skin, was set well back from where Melvin dangled. The leads all gathered at the anchor point on the ceiling, before tracing down the straps to his body. They stripped him naked, and directed him to wear an adult diaper after inserting a catheter. The room was actually slightly warm, so he didn’t balk at remaining mostly naked.

Once they hooked everything else up, they connected him to the simulation. The linoleum floor, pale walls, harness and machines all disappeared in a blink. They were replaced by an uniform blackness. Melvin found himself standing on a stone disc, about ten or twelve feet in diameter. A rock arch started at one side of the circle and went up over Melvin’s head, maybe eight or so feet at its apex, before descending to reconnect at the opposite side. A niche on each side, at shoulder height bore a small flame, only slightly larger than a candle. It was enough to dimly light the platform, but nothing beyond.

Welcome Visitor. He’d heard. This is your connection to the Network. As you have not completed any prerequisites, only the First World is available to you. As this world has many different inhabitant races with the same basic size and shape that you do, you may assume the form of one of them. Be aware, this decision is irrevocable, and will have consequences with regard to your interactions with other races. Would you like to hear your options?

Melvin blinked. This was similar to character creation in games he’d played when he was younger. He hadn’t done that in years, preferring the reality of the natural world over the cold visual of a game. Yes, they were beautiful, but you couldn’t really touch or smell, or taste anything. He knelt and felt the floor. It was gritty, like rock, but worn smooth. His fingertips came away slightly dusty. He could hear the flames crackle quietly. Even touching a finger to his tongue tasted like dirt. If the rest of the simulation was this realistic, he’d gladly spend whatever he needed to get the setup when they put it on the market.

“Uh, yes. What are my options?” He asked.

“I don’t even know what half of those things are!” Melvin protested.

When nothing happened, Melvin asked, “What is a Changeling?”

The offspring of the union between a normal human and a Fey.

“What is a, um Cambion?” Melvin asked.

The offspring of the union between a normal human and an Infernal.

“What is a Nord?” Melvin went down the list.

The offspring of the union between a battlefield hero and a Valkyrie.

“What is a Bee-di-yen?”

The offspring of the union between a normal human and a Djinn.

“What is an Islander?”

A human from the seagoing island population in Chaos Bay. They are of slightly larger stock than Plains humans.

“What is a Nomad?”

A human from the Shifting Sands Ocean. They are dark-skinned, but tolerant of uncomfortable climates.

“What is a war child?”

The offspring of the union between a normal human and an Orc.

Now things really didn’t make any sense. What would the government care for a fantasy world? And why would game designers make a game where nobody knew the languages?

None of his other questions resulted in an answer so Melvin picked Changeling because that sounded kinda cool. The inky blackness dissolved to a forest clearing, maybe fifty yards wide. The two flames on the arch changed to green, and he suddenly heard, and smelt the sounds of a forest. Creatures rustling nearby. Insects buzzing, though at different pitches than he was accustomed to. The scents of various plants blew in with the gentle breeze he felt against his face.

“Huh, short character creation.” Melvin muttered to himself.

He stepped off the stone platform and knelt to touch the grass. Some parts were dry, others alive. He reveled in wandering around the clearing, smelling flowers, and picking them to examine. None were anything he had ever seen before. The detail was amazing. The colors vibrant and the scent intoxicating in its freshness. The grass was about knee-high throughout most of the clearing, so he had to step carefully or he would trip. He eventually got to the treeline, staring in awe at the gigantic trees. Standing hundreds of feet tall, with trunks bigger than most cars at ground level, they dwarfed anything he’d ever walked by.