Tales of Raeligard

Legend has it, that when a great darkness rises and threatens to bring despair to the land, fated souls will awaken in a radiant light and fight to vanquish such evil.

The gates of The Great Abyss, the prison of an ancient terror, has been opened, and hell has been let loose upon the lands of Raeligard! Monsters flood the world, wreaking havoc upon anything and everything they come upon.

The world is in chaos. Civilizations are rapidly crumbling, and Raeligard's inhabitants are being driven to a corner - one which they cannot escape from. The end of all, is slowly approaching, as the voice of an ancient terror shakes the land.

But is is not yet too late!

With the return of the ancient horror, the flames of hope are reawakened in the fated souls. Though they have yet to reach the peak, these select individuals are the hope to save the world!

The question is, will the fire in their hearts remain lit?
Or will they, too, succumb to the shadows?

---

That was the synopsis located at the back cover of the game "Tales of Raeligard" - whose disc you just plugged in to your console.

And due to the recent events, (Something about some bat virus? You didn't really pay much attention to the news.) that led to you spending a lot of time, actually scratch that, all of your time indoors, you seemingly have nothing better to do than try out this untouched game you found in your stash.

Fancy visuals, decent soundtracks, and an animated intro - seems pretty alright for a classic RPG.

But then, you pressed start.

---

After almost getting blinded by a sudden burst of light from the TV screen, you open your eyes and witness a sight that made you think twice before dismissing the situation as daydreaming, being high, or just forgetting to realize you were playing an extremely immersive VR game.

Only that it didn't fall into any of those.

You actually jumped into the game. No idea how or why, but you're here.

The fact that a classic robotic voice welcomed you is only supporting that idea.

A prompt appeared before you, accompanied by a blank field you could fill in.

You look around and see that there's no way out, not even an option to exit the game.

A soft breath leaves your mouth as you shrug your shoulders.

Might as well. You've got pretty much nothing to do anyway. You could just wake up at any moment if it was a dream anyway.

And so...

You decide to fill in the first prompt.

What is your name?
[] Default name. (Randomly generated)
[] Write-in.

Once you filled in the field, a new one popped up in it's place.

Are you a boy or a girl?
[] Boy.
[] Girl.

After you've filled in both fields with your responses, you felt a gust of wind from behind you - which slightly made you hop forward. It didn't really take you by surprise, but it did get a reaction out of you.

But as soon as the wind dissipated, you heard a loud strange noise - like a several gears whirring in a rapid motion, accelerating over and over again until the noise was just incomprehensible. Along with this noise, you felt a tug - an invisible force pulling you in, deeper and deeper. Faster, and faster - it felt like riding a bullet train with your center of gravity being displaced every second.

Fortunately, the pulling and the noise stopped before you felt the urge to puke.

On the location that you were now in, you found a strange humanoid standing before you - no hair, no face, no features, but you were certain that it was a girl. And as you tried to look around and closely observe it, it follow your every movement - from your head to your fingertips, down to the smallest movements.

At first you were confused, as it was like staring at an eerie mirror, until you saw the words "Customize" flash above the humanoid in a vibrant color. It was pretty obvious what it was after seeing that. The only problem was you didn't know how to do it - to create and customize what would be your character.

First you tried to touch it, but to no avail - there was a strange, invisible barrier that didn't allow you to get close enough. Then you tapped around the sides, but nothing happened.

Until you spoke out loud, assuming that it would fall under voice command.

"Hair!", you shouted.

The same robotic voice from earlier repeated your words, as you saw hair grow on the humanoid, and several boxes with images of different hairstyles appearing besides you - to which you tapped to test if they would change the humanoid's hair, and as expected, they did.

---

Hair
[] Short
[] Medium
[] Long

Eye Color
[] Default (Gray)
[] Custom Color

Height
[] Short
[] Average
[] Tall

Build
[] Thin
[] Average
[] Bulky

Voice
[] Low-pitched
[] Standard
[] High-pitched

Once you've finished toying with your character, and you were finally satisfied with what you saw, you shouted out loud that you were done, which the same robotic voice acknowledged by replying with "Confirmed."

Then, yet another burst of light nearly blinded you, and yet another force began to pull you in - a lot deeper and faster than earlier. You felt yourself collide with a body, presumably the character you've made, and slowly sink from what was nothing but an empty space.

And the moment you dared to look beneath your feet, what you saw and felt was a large and vast world waiting for your descent.

It didn't take you a while to realize that you were falling and you had no control over it. You were left at the mercy of this world's gravity, in which case was clearly pulling down a bit too fast - you felt like you would go splat the very moment you hit the ground.

So, you close your eyes and hope for that you'll wake up from this really weird dream.

---

The feeling of falling stopped, and the next moment that you open your eyes, you find yourself...

[] Lying upon a cold, and stained mattress, inside a room that reeks of medicinal herbs.
[] Sitting on a slightly messy straw bed, inside a room in what appears to be a wooden shack.
[] Kneeling before a large, stone statue of a woman holding a scale latched onto a staff, in the middle of a vast open field.
[] Standing on top of a cliff, overlooking a barren wasteland.