Chapter 2

[Welcome (New User) to Aetherscape. Please select a name.]

"Jayladon Typhoon," I said. I'd worked hard to come up with an aquatic-sounding fantasy name, although it made me feel foolish to say it aloud. I really preferred just 'Jay'.

After filling out the rest of my bio, a new screen appeared where I could pick my class and race.

"Sage," I said without hesitation. My selection highlighted itself and the selection panel shifted to the side. I turned my attention to the races next. There were a lot more races than I expected after my research—nearly a hundred when I'd thought there were only twenty.

"Can you show me the aquatic races?" I asked, keeping in mind what Sheynan had told me about it being the newest addition. Newest meant the most recently updated, which should mean they weren't lacking anything mainstream players considered necessary for survival.

Three character models appeared in front of me. All three were predominantly humanoid. The Chrondriks possessed pointed teeth and naturally armored skin. They gained bonuses to their Strength and Constitution. The Estuarians had patterned luminescent tattoos on their slyphid bodies and they came with a natural improvement to their magic casting abilities. The started with raised Intelligence and Wisdom. The last one, the Atlanteans, were something of a cross between human and warrior elves in appearance. They didn't get an overall bonus like the other two, but they had the Eyes of the Sea King, giving them inherent night sight, and a passive skill called 'Psychic Sonar', which directly improved their danger perception.

"Atlantean," I decided. The inherent night sight was too good to pass up and, for a solo player, sensing danger was even more important than a few extra attribute points.

[Atlantean Sage selected. Confirm?"]

"Confirm."

[You will now be transferred to the Cerulean Lagoon.]

A light appeared ahead of me in the distance. A hard wind pushed me toward it. I tumbled weightlessly toward it. I lost sense of up and down, left and right. As the wind shoved me through the opening, I quickly grasped it wasn't wind at all. It was an invisible current and I was completely submerged underwater.

Once the wind pushed me out of the tunnel entrance, I glimpsed light rippling far overhead and I automatically began swimming toward it, afraid of what would happen if I ran out of breath before I reached the surface.

A hand grabbed my ankle before I could get too far and yanked me back down. "Calm down, spawnling," my captor said. He was a tall, burly merman with hair braided into thick tails. His only clothing was a billowing set of silk trousers and a thick belly wrap covered in polished fish scales. He grabbed my shoulders to hold me still and said, "Quit panicking and give your gills a chance to open."

His words reminded me this was a game. Even though I could feel there was water surrounding me, it was no different than air for my current body. I took a leap of faith and slowly inhaled. I wanted to fall over in relief when it felt no different than breathing on land.

"Well done," he praised. "You're doing better than most of the other spawnlings."

I looked around and found I wasn't alone. A handful of other aquatic players appeared, tumbling end over end as the currents shoved them out of tunnels buried in the surrounding reef walls. I was surprised to see very few were Atlanteans. The predominant race seemed to be the luminescent Estuarians.

NPC guards like the one who grabbed me chased after them, keeping the players from swimming away in instinctive fear. A few people panicked so badly their avatars disappeared. I watched as one person grabbed his throat like he was drowning, only to explode into pixels because he choked himself to death.

It was surprisingly quiet for how many people were gathered. I could hear the guards shouting after players and the players themselves shouting at each other for help, but that was it. There was no sound of insects and birdsong in the background, creating an odd sense of isolation.

At the same time, the underwater world was surprisingly noisy in its own way. My Atlantean ears didn't pick up sound the way I normally would, but I could still hear somehow. I could hear the currents brushing against the surrounding reef's bright coral and I could hear the schools of fish swimming in the distance. Each and every disturbance in the water created ripples I could hear. The sounds grew stronger as I continued to grow more attuned to my environment. They clashed and harmonized in turn, creating a background symphony a land-based humanoid wouldn't have been able to perceive.

Even my own movements added to the sea's song. I tested it out, moving my hands around me while I listened to the tune I conducted. Broader motions created loud gushing noises while smaller ones created a pleasant hum.

The guard watched me without saying anything, his expression slowly filling with surprise. Once I was satisfied I could recognize the frequency of my own sound, I turned to him to see if he had any kind of tutorial for me.

"You can already sense the micro-currents?" the guard asked.

"If you mean the sound the ripples make, then yes. I can hear it."

[Quest complete: The Ocean's Song

Reward: Cerulean Regional Fame +1, Ancient Coin +10]

"Finally, a spawnling with some talent," the guard replied with a laugh. His amused smile quickly turned sly. "However, just because you can hear the ocean doesn't mean you can embrace it. Let's see how talented you are at swimming. Give me a lap around the top of the reef. When you can make it all the way around in under a minute, I'll introduce you to a skill trainer."

As the guard turned away to go help another newly spawned player, I didn't rush to start the laps. I already knew there had to be some kind of trick to moving around as a merman. The players were freely floating, but the guards walked like they were on land.

I opened my inventory with a thought. Inside, I found I was dressed in a [Novice Sage Set: Atlantean]. It came with a short seasilk robe and a embroidered seasilk loincloth. It didn't come with shoes. Instead, the footwear slot had been filled with a pair of smooth stone anklets. When I inspected them, a tooltip appeared.

[Novice Anchors

On use: anchor feet on ground

Cooldown: None

Restrictions: Must be submerged to activate

SoulBound]

As soon as I thought about activating them, my feet were dragged down to the ground, allowing me to walk around like I was on land. When I thought about turning them off, I went back to floating along with the current.

Once I knew how the trick worked, I swam to the top of the reef, using the uneven wall as a touchstone to keep me from floating away. Along the way, I familiarized myself with moving my body in the water. The longer I spent as a merman, the less I sensed the water pressure against my skin. The result was very similar to how I imagined zero gravity would work.

I could move with total freedom, but it wasn't all fun and games. I regularly needed to contract my muscles to keep from being swept away by a passing current, which meant the control I'd gained with my abs by doing sit-ups was particularly helpful.

The top of the reef had been paved with sea glass pebbles in a myriad of bright colors, although it wasn't a straight path. There were places where the terrain abruptly changed, creating steps as large as a person. In other places, the path disappeared, leaving large gaps.

A handful of players had already started their laps. I watched closely, paying attention to their timing in turning their anklets on and off so they could soar over the hurdles and canyons. One poor guy tried to jump without turning his anklet off and the result was pitiful. He fell, tumbling down a seaweed-filled channel leading back to the main floor.

Closer to the end, I saw there was another type of obstacle—and invisible one caused by abrupt changes in the currents. The effect was similar to a sudden wind gale. More than half the players were knocked back into the reef interior because they didn't listen for the sound incoming gusts and adapt for it.

Once I saw the formula for success, I ran the course in an absent-minded way, using most of my concentration on scanning the environment beyond the reef. It was flat and featureless like a desert with only an occasional seashell or sand-crab to break up the monotony. There was no sign of a starter village or the standard shipwreck I expected to see. It made me very curious on how the game developers expected players to enjoy such a barren map.

[Quest Complete: Walk like a Merman

Reward: Cerulean Regional Fame +1, Ancient Coin +10]

Seeing the quest was finished, I jumped off the path and triggered my anklets to allow me to sink toward the reef's inner basin.

It was time to see what else this underwater world was hiding.