an early orientation

Im tired but my drive to type something instead of procrastinating on discord all evening will get me SOMEWHERE tonight. I don't know if i'll keep doing these lil blurbs, I might delete them whenever but I always like having some stream of consciousness stuff to use as a journaling device. they will have to go one day tho regardless, its a question of when u_u

Alright, it's been awhile of walking and dickin around with my menu, and i've learned a few things.

first the whole thing moved with me as I walked maintaining the same distance where I could see everything but still reach, in fact, when i'd move slower it would get closer and I didn't have to reach as far to interact, but if I got faster it would go further away and opaque, I guess so I could see my surroundings, real handy, I would imagine that'd save alot on the feedback emails.

Oh! Feedback! Can I report piggy?

I looked through social really quick to see if there was some kind of report button or something. Other then shivering when I passed over 'add friend', It was an uneventful pursuit.

Anyways, I learned other stuff too!  I learnt my bow went into secondary equipment in my inventory, which is summonable when you put your mainhand in some kind of sheeth or bag or the like, store it basically. Then it swaps out, guess mine auto equipped or something.

And most importantly, I found my stat page!

Health- 115/115
Stamina- 122/122
Mana- 14/14

Strength- 4 (0tp) (4dp)
Dexterity-22 (2tp) (2dp)
Vitality- 11 (1tp) (1dp)

Intelligence- 6 (0tp) (6dp)
Creativity- 8 (0tp) (8dp)
Focus- 18 (1tp) (8dp)

Reputation- 0
Alignment- Undecided

So I figure i'm something of a rogue or ranger with these stats. but who knows how far some DP and optimization aversion can get you to the scuffed heal slut class!

Jokes aside I don't mind playing a thief or rogue, if my past as a gamer has taught me anything it's that in games, the faster you can move is the more places you can be and the more places you can be the more chance to not miss the awesome moments, like when a location specific event starts, a world boss spawns, or you happily acquired accidentally picked up a rare sword someone happened to drop and refuse to surrender your favorable luck as the 2 speed potions in your hot bar clearly state it was yours now.

That being said I don't really fully understand these stats, but their fairly self-explanatory to an extent, I mean you know dexterity isn't gonna help me one shot a dragon... unless...

After a brief daydream about becoming a badass teenage dragon slayer, I pull myself back to reality.

Well I obviously didn't know enough to understand my stats yet, but I did customized my menu a bit.
Turns out, you can do a ton. You can change the size of your HP bar, the font of the text, separate fonts for number & letters & Damage calculation numbers! hell even the color of the numbers for what source of numbers Damage, Heals, Shields, poisons! It has everything!

So I made my HP bar red, my stamina green, and my mana purple, just cause I felt like it at the time. I also made my HP bar bigger and more translucent, I also maxed out "Transitionary translucence" which if I understood makes the setting, it made U.I stuff more see-through when events take place that it would be covering. there was also "Transitionary slide" which would move outta the way but I figured that would confuse me more then someone buying WinRAR.

There was so much I couldn't get through it all even with a written guide, granted eventually I just started skimming through it for words that caught my attention but it was like 20 pages! Okay... like half that but still! I need stimulus in this sphere of depression oppression!

...

Speaking of which, I was almost at my destination, the 'even bigger then I thought' cathedral with it's tall towering center piece holding a clock at the height of it's face, which I could now tell was easily more then 3 times my size in diameter.

And as I drew even closer I realized that half of the building was stuck in the dome as if the dome formed through the structure, slightly taking more off the top as the dome modestly inclined inwards to form it's massive spherical shape.

"Might look cooler like that."

"Right?" I heard a voice above me.

I turned to look immediately as if someone suddenly tapped on my shoulder.
Above and slightly behind and to the left was a floating collection of red robes that resembled being worn but lacked the person inside.

"I could have made the dome larger and included all of it, but this adds to the feel, right?" there was no face to hold a mouth but it spoke regardless, and with a almost childish satisfaction in it's voice.

"That being said, how'd you get here?" They shot my way, I supposed I should respond even if this is by far the scariest mundane question i've been asked, probably on the account of it being posed by this specter of the Blood Dome.

"Oh uhhhh... Someone beat me with a club..." I managed to wrestle some words out of my awkwardness.

The robes just quitely floated there, the hood aiming in my general direction, almost felt like like eye contact...

...

...

"Pfft, alright, Didn't actually think someone would initiate a duel with the pre-orientation restrictions but I guess that's why I set up the safety to be safe." He floated down in a gentle slow arch towards that only structure as he lowered to just above the floor. "Come with me, i'll give you some explanations as we wait."

I followed almost thoughtlessly behind, his attitude along with the unease of the setting allowed me to trust him almost completely, not without unease of course.

I had to walk a little briskly to keep up with his floating but nothing I couldn't handle.

Eventually I mustered up the confidence to break our short silence"So... How come i'm here?" was just slightly above 'Where am I?' in the list of questions.

"Hmm, well basically, to avoid a poor initial experience we made just about all sources of damage invalid, but we couldn't do that to players without removing a lot more, so the system probably detected your conflict and asked if you wanted to engage PVP, luckily as a second fail safe I gave everyone 2 items that ensures their HP doesn't drop below 1 and teleports you to this location if it hits 1. I mean I thought it might happen among 10million people but it was really just a precaution, I mean, you have to both wanna hurt the other and put in some effort to do so it to be detected."

"Have you ever met a gamer before?" I guess my world outlook decided now was the time to make me brave and I blurted out the thoughts off the top of my head that may not be on my shoulders for much longer.

"..."

He continued hovering forward, I couldn't gleam any emotions from floating robes so I became nervous wondering what exactly the repercussions would be.

"Ha, You're probably right, I guess there's a reason I put those there and all."  He didn't seem bothered, if anything he sounded slightly amused.

Guess i'm safe then.

And like that my inhibitions went away.

"So who are you?" I asked.

We were less then a minute away from our destination now as he answered.

"I don't know what exactly to call myself... I guess the operator of the game?"

 The shell of a bomb was thrown and I was once again nervous, staring bewildered at the back of his robes.

"I'm probably the entity that's had the second most to do with this whole project." He floated up the short staircase and turned around so the front was facing me "Definitely the first person."

I could finally pick up on a definitive expression, Boastful.