Sparks drifted by in the blackness filling the sight of his headset. Buttons melted into view, solidifying into something readable.

                                                            SPIRE

                                           Play | Exit | Settings | Help

Selecting Play removed those bits of brightness, and a hollow wind echoed dismally through the headphones. Tan and gray blurred across the screen, gradually focusing into a barren landscape.

                                                        WELCOME

The words faded away, and he signaled the avatar forward, shifting randomly between walking and running and trotting as he experimented with the keyboard commands he memorized earlier.

                                                      BUT BE WARY...

He felt lower to the ground than he did in most games, but that was because he normally played as a human.

                                   FOR THIS PLACE WILL CHANGE YOU

He angled the character into a wide left turn and sprinted. Something flickered into his periphery as he darted by, and he immediately stopped, turning to investigate. It looked like another avatar.

Its fur was such a dark brown it was nearly black, with a spattering of golden tan. A black text box appeared above its head. Brindle_Fox244.

So this was his new ‘comrade’. He took an extra moment to ponder that. Female avatars had a smaller and more fox like form, which was what stood here now. He’d probably end up referring to this person as a she, then, even though people sometimes made avatars a different gender than they actually were in real life.

Aside from the black and tan coloring, she also had pure white markings mottling over her front half. Her tall pointed ears pricked forward, and her bushy tail wagged slowly as she turned and spotted him.

They stared for a moment before she finally bounded up.

Her head barely reached the bottom of his avatar’s shoulders.

|Brindle_Fox244| Hey!

Her greeting appeared in their Set’s chatbox, but not in the chatbox above her head.

Pulling up their Set chatbox took a moment.

Hey |SevenAteEight|

A pause.

|Brindle_Fox244| So...what now?

There didn't seem to be anything important close by, and the world was supposed to be sort of open.

Explore, I guess. |SevenAteEight|

Brindle moved away a bit and then stopped. He followed her, and they loped up a hill, halting at its crown.

Land sloped and dipped around them, mostly free of vegetation and instead covered with with the light dust beneath their feet.

Dead, scraggly trees stood here and there. Thin, jagged spires stabbed at the sky in the distance, some leaning over like half fallen trees.

|Brindle_Fox244| Everything looks the same.

Down among the hills, that would definitely be true. They would have to range all over the place in this game, if they wanted to progress. They'd have to figure out how to do that without getting lost.

Surely they wouldn't have to climb something every time they needed to know where to go?

The instructions said there was no map and we had to learn how to navigate on our own, right? |SevenAteEight|

|Brindle_Fox244| Yeah

Well, if the game was designed like this, that meant it probably wasn't impossible. Just inconvenient.

He took in the horizon, trying to decide which spire was the closest.

Two pinpricks of light swirled together in the cloudy, distant sky, their colors becoming more apparent as they neared. One was the same green he used for his character, and the other was amber.

He found himself squinting for a better look. Within moments, they were more distinguishable, zooming in on goldish bronze wings until one landed on each of them.

Birds. Metallic clockwork looking birds. And the green one perched on Brindle's head, making her turn around in all sorts of crazy ways to try and get a better look at this new entity.

The birds weren't attacking yet, or doing anything at all, for that matter. Brindle’s odd reaction was more interesting right now.

A new message appeared in the Set’s chat.

Clockwork Cuckoo :: Hello! I’m Clockwork Cuckoo, your minion from today onward. I can send messages to other players, answer questions about Spire, and learn useful skills! If you don’t like my name, you can always edit it in your settings.

A clone of those words sprang up, presumably for Brindle, who stilled long enough to read the note.

He smirked and began typing.

No fair. Why is yours the green one? |SevenAteEight|

It probably was hers, since it landed on her.

|Brindle_Fox244| Cause I’m awesomer than you I guess :P You're saying that because I took your fave color, I'm assuming?

A notification cropped up in the chat.

Brindle_Fox244 changed her Clockwork Cuckoo’s name to Greenie.

|Brindle_Fox244| What are you going to name yours?

I'm going to be original like you, and name mine Amber. |SevenAteEight|

Naming these things by their colors seemed fitting, anyway.  And he wasn't going to sit here all day trying to figure out something better.

|Brindle_Fox244| :P  Ha ha

A few setting changes later, and he followed through with his idea. The notification cropped up right after another message from Amber.

Amber :: Here’s your first quest offer: Find a Spire and a Craven, and have at least a ten minute conversation with them. Talking to them separately won't fulfill the quest, so you have to convince them to join the same conversation.

|Brindle_Fox244| I can play for about another hour.

Let's go, then. |SevenAteEight|