Spark(12)

The letters deepened to crimson, then scattered into ashy fragments, whirling away as the music rose. For a split second, a pair of eyes glowed from the shadows. Nice touch, giving the opening sequence just a hint of creepiness.
The screen changed, showing a character-creation interface. He skimmed over the possibilities. Even though he wanted to linger, to carefully read the descriptions of the various classes and their abilities, he didn’t have the time. Right now, his job was to get in-game and start poking at the edges of the programming. The best way to do that was to choose a heavy-combat character in order to minimize time lost to dying.
He scrolled past the lightly armored magic users. He wouldn’t be playing a Spellcaster or Healing Priest this time around. Partway through the medium combat classes, his eye was caught by a jaunty-looking avatar classified as a Saboteur. Aran paused, then shook his head and continued on to the heavily armored melee fighters. The limited choices of Knight, Mercenary, and Warrior seemed boring. He glanced back up at the rapier-wielding character dressed in dark blue and burgundy.
Saboteur, now… wasn’t that his specialty?
Before he could second-guess his impulse, he lifted his finger and chose the character class. The Saboteur expanded to fill his vision.
SABOTEUR: A tricky character, the Saboteur’s loyalties are not always easy to define. Skilled in use of the rapier and knives, this class has a range of stealth and misdirection skills.
Perfect.
Aran quickly modified the basic avatar, giving him a slender build—all the better for sneaking around—and skin a shade darker than his own. Too bad there wasn’t an option to add an indigo streak to his character’s hair.
At the naming prompt, he entered his standard onscreen name of Ebon.
Character complete. Enter game?
It only took a flick of his fingers to signal yes, and Aran paused a second to admire the smooth response of the gaming gloves. The real test would be in-game, but so far he had to admit the FullD system impressed him.
A brassy blare of trumpets filled his ears, and the visor screen flared with golden light. For a moment he felt as though he was falling through space, complete with a dizzy, disorienting clutch in his stomach.
He willed his senses to settle, and squeezed his eyes tight. When he opened them again, his character stood in the center of a clearing surrounded by white-barked trees, a summer-blue sky overhead. Velvety mosses cushioned his feet, and he was encircled by a ring of mushrooms, their scarlet caps dotted with white. A narrow path led from the clearing into the trees, their trunks graceful columns, their leaves shimmering silver in the faint breeze.
A breeze he could feel against his cheek. Wondering, Aran tilted his face up. Yes, he really felt the brush of air against his skin. It was almost as if he were standing there in person, instead of his digitally-created avatar. Even though he’d seen the demo last night—and Spark had been great—it hadn’t prepared him for the actual feel of the game. VirtuMax had seriously outdone themselves.
Still, he had work to do. He was a Saboteur, after all. With a wry smile, Aran brought up the keyboard and typed in his most reliable hacker script. About half the games he cracked ran on an old-style operating system with more holes than a pierced-out goth.
No luck this time; the game scene remained unchanged, the graphics a solid wall between him and the programming. Good thing he had more than a few ways to pick apart the bytes.
The minutes ticked by, and each command he entered proved useless. Aran’s chest tightened. This was his one chance to slide behind the programming before the game released, and he was skewing badly toward failure.
Okay, then. Maybe he’d get some insight into what else to try by playing forward. The path through the trees beckoned. Was it the only option?
Aran turned and picked a different part of the woods. He stepped out of the mushroom circle and strode forward—
Only to find himself back in the middle of the ring again. Another try in the opposite direction earned him the same result. VirtuMax had plugged any holes in the opening sequence code. If he had more time he’d try to unravel the edges, but not now.
Senses primed, he left the circle again, this time heading down the path. Fallen leaves softened his footsteps, and dappled light slanted between the trees. It was peaceful, and Aran didn’t trust it one bit.#p#分页标题#e#
Still, no creatures leaped out at him with weapons bared, or charged through the underbrush, growling. The forest thinned and he stepped out from under the trees into a green meadow. The path curved, leading toward a storybook cottage; the kind of place where either a kindly woman or a wicked hag lived. Sometimes both, in the same person.