Author's Notes: I do not own ½ Prince. I have created and inserted my own characters into the story. Expect some hilarity, drama and maybe a touch of romance. Might be slightly Shoujo-Ai (lesbian pairing) but I haven't decided yet. If you don't like it don't read it.
I'm not so clear on everyone's (the canon characters) names, so I will stick to the ones I like from the translation I was able to read. I'm not that good with Chinese (names, language, history etc etc...) so to any English able ½ Prince fans from China please pardon my ignorance. I'm not even sure if the name I gave for my heroine is good enough to pass as a real Chinese name, but I think it sounds good enough without hindering my target audience the English readers.
½ Prince: PK
Prologue: Birth of the Black Elf Witch.
::Online::
GM Ran sat on the chair in a dark and clearly virtual digital room. She smiled happily to herself as she was the one of the first GMs Chosen to welcome New Players. Though saying that they were few would be the understatement of the century, as they were expecting to welcome over three thousand players just for the first hours. To remedy the situation they had to recruit about a quarter of the company's employees to help out with the player's character creation for the next few days.
There was a total of two thousand temporary GMs and Official GMs to accommodate the high number of players. Though it would be a long night, she too was excited… as GMs and Hidden GMs they were given the privilege of creating their character a day before the servers were opened to the public.
She looked over to the countdown timer before her, just a minute before her first player came online. She took a deep breath and readied herself to welcome her first player.
As the timer reached zero it become an update of how much login traffic their servers received. She wasn't surprised that it jumped from zero to hundreds in seconds. It also showed her numbers of player tickets, aka the account numbers, and to which GM it became assigned to. A beep alerted her that a player had been selected for her to handle, though unimportant she looked at the player's account number.
"00000008…" she absently muttered, quite surprised that she'd see one of the very first account holders. This player must have been really watched out for their newsletters.
The room darkened in preparation for the player's arrival. There was a small sound, but nothing else to alert her of anyone's presence. She pressed a button on her console that turned on the lighting once again. She was surprised to find a young woman looking at her with her arms cross. The young woman looked rather slim and a bit pale but it was easy to see that she was quite pretty even while she was dressed in plain white pajamas.
"Ahem…" she cleared her nervousness and gave the player the most thrilled greeting she could muster right then. "Hi! And Welcome to Second Life!"
All the player did was nod lightly once in acknowledgment, which puzzled and irritated her a little bit, but she had to remain professional. Whatever feelings she might experience because of a player must be disregarded while performing GM duties. And she's expected to handle at most a hundred players before her first shift was over, so she dared not to waste any time.
"I will be scanning you… Please wait moment." Again the player just nodded much to her dismay.
"Please note that from now on you will be immediately redirected to the game whenever you put on your client. Also let me remind you that you may only create one character. Once created, your name, race and appearance cannot be changed." She added. But yet again the player just nodded in response. With a bit of annoyance and disappointment she continued her job, "Scanning is complete. Please begin creating your character."
A multitude of characters sprang up from the digital oblivion, each in random genders and introductory appearance. A Human, Elf, Night Creature, Beast, midgets, demons, holymans, and so on and so on of races and respective sub-races. Each one was unique in their own special way.
"Please select your ra-"
"Human." The young lady said monotonously without waiting for the GM to finish her sentence.
Ran was a bit surprised when the player gave her choice verbally, because honestly she was expecting her to point at her choice at this point.
"Okay!" Ran tried not to sound happy that the player finally talked, especially since she cut her off so rudely. She entered a command that selected her choice which made all the characters vanish and a copy of the young lady to appear in front of them.
"…" She watched as the young lady stared at her virtual replica.
"Change for the eyes." ordered the player.
"What would you like to change?"
"I would like the white part to be black and the Iris to be red."
"Okay." Ran applied the changes all the while keeping her growing irritation spawned by the young lady's bossiness bottled up.
The player then took a longer look at her character's body.
"Increase the length of my hair by about two feet."
"Okay." Ran applied the changes to her character's already long hair.
"Are there tattoos or paint marks in this game?" asked the young lady.
Ran was quick to recall relevant information thanks to all those days they were forced to learn and memorize as much of Second Life's features as they could and answered. "There are tattoos that you can get here, but they are also available in game, but they cannot be removed. Paint marks or War paints are temporary buff items that can be bought or procured with the right materials."
"I see. Never mind then. And I've changed my mind, turn my character to an Elf."
"Would it hurt you to say please?!" was what Ran wished she could say. But thankfully she managed to keep enough of her composure and professionalism to just say "No problem." before she entered the commands that initiated the alteration of the player's character.
The player's character was bathed in light and reemerged as an Elf.
"… Turn the skin color to the color of my hair."
Ran looked at the young lady with a bewildered look as she processed in her mind the result of her request. She was asked to turn the color of the character's skin to black, and it wasn't the African skin color black, it was Black "Black". "Are you sure?" she asked before she could even think of stopping herself.
But the Player nodded and as much as it irked her she obeyed, it was her job after all. The character was once again bathed in light only this time a black light. When the change was done, what was left was a standing shadow with red eyes. To her opinion it wasn't very good… and from the disappointed look of the player she guessed that they shared the same view.
"What else do you think I should change to make her look better?" the player surprised her.
"Eh?" Ran uttered without really thinking.
"I said 'What else do you think I should change to make her look better?'." She repeated.
"You want my opinion?" Although she expected the answer, she was still rather surprised when the player nodded her head.
"Well…" She paused as she turned to the character. "Taking into account the changes you have set, I think she might look better if we lighten the hair color into something brighter, like white, silver or gold."
"Show me how it looks with gold."
"Sure." She entered a few commands which caused the character's hair to flash and slowly toned into gold.
"Hmm…" the young lady thought about it a little before asking "Show me silver."
"Okay." Once again, Ran inputted a few commands and the character's hair flashed again this time into silver.
The player smiled and said, "That will do. What else?"
"Well we could give a lighter tone of silver as the default lip color."
The player nodded and Ran automatically made the changes. Ran made a few more suggestions after that; a slight change in the blackness in the eyes so that it was a bit easier recognize which part was her eyes, an alteration of her hairstyle from a plain falling hair to a long pony tail with stylish side locks, increase in body mass because the character looked a little too thin and weak if they copied her physique and finally a choice of beginner's white robes, shoes, gloves and black belts for clothes that went well with the character's unique appearance.
"Now then, what would you like to name your character?"
"Um…?" The player hesitated, which perplexed Ran. After all that bossing around and rudeness earlier isn't it a little too late for her to go shy on her like this?
"Yes?"
"Can a player have a symbol for a name?"
"I'm not sure. Please wait I shall contact my superiors…"
::Offline::
Ran stood from her seat and walked towards one of her bosses where sitting in front of a few computer screens monitoring the system data for any abnormalities. "Sir, may I have a minute?"
"Sure Ran, what's the problem?"
"A player asked if it's possible for her to have a symbol for a name."
"There are some allowed, but only a few. Type HMN09XXXX in the name and it will immediately open a window that only you will see, ask the player what symbol she wants and if she chooses one that's in the list then select it for her. If she asks what are available tell her that she's supposed to guess."
"Thank you sir!"
"Wait! Tell her beforehand that if she chooses to have a symbol for a name it will become a tattoo on a selected part of her body, her choice of course."
"Okay. I will. Thank you again sir." With that Ran returned to her seat and wore the GM console again and was returned online.
::Online::
"Some Symbols can be used as a name, but you will have to guess the ones that are available."
"Why?"
Ran didn't really know but couldn't help but give her own speculation as to why. "It is probably to allow everyone a fair chance of getting them… more or less. Oh and might I add that if you successfully choose an available symbol it will be tattooed on somewhere on your character's body of your choice."
"Well there's only one symbol I want anyway. Is the infinity symbol available?"
Typed in the code into the player's name data and was able to access the window showing the available symbol names. It didn't take her long to find the symbol that the young lady wanted.
"It is. Do you wish to proceed with this name?"
"Yes."
"Okay." Ran selected the symbol and it reopened the character modification. "Where would you like to have this placed?"
The player thought about it as she looked at her character. "Can you make it small and place it just bellow my left eye?"
"No Problem." Ran inputted the commands as fast as she could, the sooner she's done the sooner this rude person is out of her hair and into the game where they'll probably never meet… it is a pretty big game world after all.
"The system has just informed me that people can opt to register you as a friend if they touch your symbol, it's that or you become the leader yourself."
"It's not a problem." said the young lady.
Ran noted that it looked like she wanted to say something more but held her tongue.
"Okay! With that please select your birth place; Central, North, South, East or West Continent."
"Send me to the North."
"Alright! Now you're good to go and start your journey!"
Ran was about to type in a command when the player said, "Wait."
"Yes?" Ran looked at the young lady, who turned her back at her.
To her surprise the young lady said in the most honest of tones, "Thank you..."
"uh… um… It's not a problem." Ran on the other hand sounded rather surprised, puzzled and not quite as honest.
The young lady turned her head towards her and flashed her the briefest of smiles before she turned away once again.
Ran didn't know why, but she felt like blushing. "Well… umm… Ahem." She cleared her throat again. "Well then. Good luck on your journey."
The player nodded as she slowly disappeared when she and her character was pulled together and out of the digital room.
"…" Ran then pressed a key that alerted the system that she was ready for the next player.
She barely thought about her first player until her shift was over. It was coincidence that they were in the same continent, but that doesn't assure that they'd meet each other. But it did make her curious. Will they meet again?
[End of Prologue]