Some might say, my story started a couple of months prior to the mystical adventure. It was my first year in Jr. college, I was 18, had a part time job which barely covered food, and my rent was partially paid by my father and two roommates. School was technically free, thanks to it being a L.A. city college and being free for being from L.A., although I still had to buy the books.

Given the tightness of my budget I always left enough to buy new RPGs that came out. I actually am fairly good with money, but I never seem to have much anyway.

I was excited that Solargate which I pre-ordered from Best Buy for its collectors’ bonus, as my chain Fry’s Electronics didn’t include a Pre-order collectors’ bonus. The game was a High Fantasy MMORPG made here in California. A group of Employees from Blizzard got tired of Activision, quit and formed a new Game studio. This was to be their first release in conjunction with a new full-dive VR Gaming consul. The game  was a MMORPG, which was advertised as Not a WOW Clone, but a hardcore Fantasy RPG with a massive Story, and plenty of Raid content, and all the things Raiders and PVP’ers loved while giving Solo players a world to live in.

 

The Collector’s Edition was bundled with the world’s first Full Dive gaming system. Which was developed by Elon Musk’s company Neuralink. Basically, you put on a helmet, and your mind dives into an AI controlled environment. The MMORPG can be played on PC, however, to maximize gameplay using the Full dive system gives you a life like experience. Or so they say.

The Collector’s edition which I purchased came with the  Full Dive system, additional Race options, and a special Bloodline ability, which could be used for endgame upgrades.

It wasn’t cheap, but it was well advertised, and I saved for 6 months to get it. In fact, both My Roommates saved to get it, and we all got the Collectors with the Fulldive system. Because New Tech is cool Tech.

 

So, to facilitate the games launch, we can pick up our Collectors editions and Create our characters one day ahead of the launch. Our characters can be used in the game system as personal avatars in the generic landscape of the Game Menus and social networks built into it.

 

Upon opening the package, a long list of warnings is included. Warnings about food, water, animals, ect. Plus, a booklet called “Gender Dysphoria and your avatar”.  I quickly read through it. My course of study had a lecture on Dysphoria. The teacher however never mentioned Gender Dysphoria specifically, but he was very much a Christian, and might even go to my Fathers congregation.  He politely skipped all the LGBT topics and refused to answer any questions on them. Cleverly navigating the legal issues in a blue state, by never mentioning his belief, nor mentioning anything he disagreed with.

The pamphlet warned that the Personal Avatar felt real enough for a person to have a feeling of self in that body. And if the Avatar Body didn’t match close enough to the sense of self, they would have severe dysphoria. Due to this your avatar body will default to your internal gender identity, but you can alter it however you want.

That was an interesting bit of info, the full dive avatar felt real enough to trigger dysphoria. I started wondering what my default would be, and should I accept it. I shrugged, and hooked the Headset to the Power, fortunately the Headset  has its own internet connection, as it deals in too much information for normal internet channels. To do this, they use a quantum entanglement to communicate to their specialized AI quantum Network computers. The quantum Internet is brand new, and it requires either VR or Full dive. The Gaming system connects to it, and is the first to do so natively, the current PlayStation and Xbox both having VR connections to it. Still the old flat Internet, is as massive as ever and since it’s used by phones, it’s never going to vanish.

Using my phone, I checked the website, created my log in info, added my credit cards to my account, and registered the headset’s unique 18-digit code.

The first step before putting on the helmet, involves attaching an armband. This is so the computer can get a baseline reading of my vitals, and it also injects special nanobots into the blood. These micro machines will allow the headset to read and communicate with the brain directly. Elon Musk apparently had to jump through massive hurdles to allow for machines to do this instead of requiring doctors. The FDA says the process is absolutely safe with no negative side effects.

After the required amount of time, about 30 minutes, the armband lit up with a green light indicating I could  put on the helmet.

Once on, my vision faded, and was then enveloped in darkness. The loading screen or loading environment. Visually it looked like a mid-nineties Cyberpunk movie moment, ie Johnny Mnemonic meets the Matrix with the Bond Villain Logo for the game system. Seriously Elon is a Bond Villain with his cars, solar, space program, and quantum AI internet with direct human interface, yet he’s the Bond Villain we love most.

 

The first thing I noticed was I felt like I was standing in an Empty room, I looked at my hands they were small in green outline, I looked at my body, it was neither male nor female and outlined in green.

 

As soon as I looked back up, there was a user prompt.

Luke Smith do you want:

• Make your Avatar for the Quantum Net
  • Make an Avatar using the Standard library.
  • Make an Avatar using Solargates character creator.
  • Auto accept an AI generated
• User Settings

I looked at the options and started to reach for my choice when I heard a voice say. “Make an Avatar using Solargate Character Creation.”

‘Ok, so just think it and it happens’ I thought to myself.

“Yes, as your personal AI helper that is my primary function, to react to your thoughts and needs.” It was a pleasant-sounding female voice, with just enough artificialness to sound like what an AI should sound like.

‘Oh, yah, I forgot this helmet has its own unique AI.’

“That is partially correct. I am not actually stored in the helmet, as its function is purely to connect you to the Server. However, every human mind gets its own unique AI Helper.” She said.

That made me feel special for some odd reason, I guess having a unique AI helper makes it feel like I have a new friend in the Internet.

Once the game loaded, I was given a default Female Human Body and a full body mirror.

“Age verification complete, do you want to allow full nudity, sexuality, and adult content?”

‘Um yes?!?’ I thought.

“Unlocked, proceed to build your character. I recommend staying with Female Avatars, as your internal identity is very female. I auto generated her based on how you feel.”

I was a bit shocked looking at the woman in the Mirror, she was the same age as me, kind of looked like me as well, she looked somewhat like my sister, although her hair color was a lighter tone of brown, and her nose wasn’t as pronounced. Her hair was in a page boy, and she had medium sized breasts.

Overall, she felt right, but she was human, and this was a fantasy game. I thought to myself, race list, and a long list of races appeared before me.

The racial options were as follows:

• Human Empire –
  • Humans
  • Sun Elves
  • Dwarves
  • Halflings
  • Gnomes
  • Undead Humans
• Non-Human Alliance –
  • Orcs
  • Minotaur
  • Goblin
  • Wood Elves
  • Bugbear
  • Lizardfolk
• Non-aligned –
  • Incubus/Succubus
  • Theriomorph
  • Irongolem
  • Faerie
  • Half-Dragons
  • Half-Angels

Well the game is a three-faction game. The Human Empire versus Monstrous Humanoids, with the third Faction being Neutral to both. If you played Human you could be in the Empire or Neutral, and if you were a Non-Human you could be Alliance or Neutral.

My two roommates had agreed to be neutral, as PVP wasn’t important to us, as we were all going to join a Raiding guild. Raiders uniformly agreed to be Neutral, as the Faction war was purely a PVP system. Also, the Solo game and Story was aimed for the Neutral player, as the story supposedly has you helping the leaders of both factions to save the world from some external threat to all life in the World of Solargate.

I selected the Succubus as my race, being a sexy Demon with horns and wings felt kind of cool. If the AI thinks I should be female, why not be the hottest female in the game. Funny thing is the Succubus race is basically an Elf Race with Horns and Wings. According to their lore in the selection screen the schism that caused Sun Elves and Wood Elves to hate each other also caused a percentage of Elves to become Demon infused. At first, they were hunted and hated by both types of elves, but eventually the Sun and Wood Elves realized that Looking like a Demon didn’t mean we were evil, so they proceeded to wage war against each other instead.

The racial bonus is:

• Gain 6% to Charisma
• Charm – Disable 1 target for 1 min, damage breaks the ‘
• Romance – Heal self with physical contact to a charmed target
• Illusionary Human – out of Combat look like a Human or Elf (Wood or Sun)
• Flight – Able to flight using your wings once Flight is unlocked.

Every race gain about a 6% bonus to one of the 6 primary stats, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Charisma is the attack stat for sorcery and used with illusions and social interactions with NPC (non-player characters).

Charm essentially is a broken ability, as it’s one of the stronger crowd control abilities. The dev team decided that for PVP any crowd control which removed the players ability to respond was too broken to be fair. Which is one reason why Succubus are not allowed in the PVP factions, same goes with the other non-aligned races. Basically, they made the strongest races PVE only.

I really like the idea of playing a purple-blue demonic elf.

After making a few tweaks in my look and removing the underwear to make sure I like what I saw. I guess that is a part of the unlocked Adult version of the game. I then got an option for my bloodline trait. The bonus for buying the game from the competition. Technically the Bloodline traits can be unlocked through Raiding and PVP, but if you start off with them unlocked you have them at early levels. Bloodline traits all add a movement ability and additional combat boosts over the normal racial abilities.

 

All bloodline traits open Flight, and mounted combat.

The options were:

• Demonic Blood
  • Gains damage boost at low health
  • Gains Wings for flight with unlocked flight
• Dragon Blood
  • Gains breath weapon
  • Shapeshift into a dragon, can use wings for flight when unlocked
• Vampire Bloodline
  • All Damage done has health leeching
  • Can shapeshift into a bat once flight is unlocked
• Werewolf Bloodline
  • Gain a Claw-Claw-Bite melee attack
  • Can call for a Raven mount once flight is unlocked
• Fae Bloodline
  • Bonus to Magic attacks
  • Has rainbow Butterfly wings once flight is unlocked
• Angelic Bloodline
  • Bonus to all healing effect
  • Gains angel wings for flight once unlocked

All these are good, but I really like the idea of Dragon shapeshifts. The others don’t really appeal to me as much. Although if I wanted to play a healer, then the Angelic or Fae would be a mid/max choice. Also, the Breath attack according to beta testers works out to be an amazing attack spell which can boost overall DPS by 10% if used correctly.

 

I finalized my choice, they even reminded me of the Gender Dysphoria with a full dive avatar, and then the game screen closed, I was a Succubus, in what must be starter clothing, with the new Quantum Web open to me.

After playing around for an hour my AI reminded me, I was hungry, so I logged. It strange. I never noticed Dysphoria before today, hell I never actually admitted to myself I felt Female inside prior to today. But once I woke up in my real-world human body, I realized a few things, first yes, I was starving, I skipped lunch, and also, I wanted to be her again. My body just felt wrong, well it’s always felt wrong, but I couldn’t name what was wrong. But now I knew.

 

“Ugg shit.” I said to know one in particular.

 

That was when I smelled the food of the Gods. Pizza.

“Luke, Want some Pizza? I got enough to feed a Football team.” David said.

“Umm, yah, I skipped lunch so I could pick up my system.” I replied.

“I think we all did.” He said, pointing to 3 large Round Table pizza boxes. “I got a large tip at work today, so I grabbed everyone’s favorite.” He slid a box towards me, our Kitchen table being the largest piece of furniture, in the Apartment, it was solid oak, and we got it at a garage sale when we moved in. The table is large enough to be in a fancy house, but for us it works as a desk and study table.  The three of us can easily sit eat a large pizza and do our homework at the table, without even having to move the large pile of junk mail that somehow always collects at the end.

Stephen than walked in from his bedroom with the largest smile I have ever seen on his face. “Cool, Dave I think I love you right now, Pizza is the right choice? Oh, Dave did you make your avatar? And Luke what race is she?”

“Yah, did it at lunch.” David said with a laugh.

“Um, I went with Succubus… umm wait, how did you guess I went with a Girl?” I asked.

“Duh, dude, you’re eggshell is so fragile anyone who knows you knows it’s gonna crack soon.” He said, which confused me, and it must have been obvious on my face. “Lucy, dear, I know it’s hard for you to understand, but it’s not hard to see you’re trans.”

“Yah, I wasn’t going to say anything, but no cis guy spends an evening watching that Model Reality show, and commenting on makeup and dresses, like you do.” David said.

I was stunned by this, I mean yah sure I like America's Next Top Model, I’ve watched it since I was a kid.

“Well, I don’t know, maybe, but I do know I feel weird back in reality, it’s like the avatar felt correct, and my real body feels off.” I admitted.

“Welcome to the club, sister.” Stephen said, “I’ve been dysphoric my whole life, and would transition if I had the insurance.”

Bombshell, “Oh, wow, I knew you might be gay or something, but I would never have guessed” I replied badly.

“Sweety, I’m actually the straightest person in the room, I’m a Heterosexual woman, who is stuck in this male body for now.” She said.

“Yah, I’m Pan slash Omni, but cis.” David said.

At this point my mind was stunned. I wasn’t sure of anything and proceeded to scarf a slice of my Wombo Combo, as I organized my thoughts.

“What am I then?” I asked quietly, “I’ve never dated, but I think I like guys, and I might be trans. But I can never let my father know.”

“Clearly” Dave and Stephen said at the same time.

“Dude, be yourself, whoever she might be.” David said.

“Dude, don’t call me dude, I think Dudette might fit better.” I said changing up the old slang reply. Which is ‘Dude, don’t call me Dude’ which has been a part of Valley speak since long before my father was born.