Zalin regained his senses slowly. His head was swimming, throbbing from the residual pains from the poison. He'd have to remember the effects and attempt to duplicate them later. A poison like that could come in handy, he thought to himself through grit teeth.
As the numbness slowly drained from his body he was finally able to open his eyes. Absolute darkness surrounded, as if he had been bathed in shadows.
Shadows.
The words echoed around him, but he could've sworn he had only though it. His body still felt like gel, his muscles quivering beneath the skin. He couldn't stand yet, but he could feel again, so it was just a matter of time. He needed to be patient, he seemed safe for the moment, and unharmed except for the stab wound and the temporary paralysis.
The stab wound.
It had just occured to him that he no longer felt it, but he surely had gotten stabbed very deeply before he ended up here. The pain of feeling the dagger push into him to the hilt was almost unbearable, had it not been for the paralyzing effect of the poison he would've fell unconscious due to the pain alone. he managed to reach down very slowly, and to his surprise the wound was no longer there. Even in games like this, where you couldn't actually get wounded, the pain levels were set to almost maximum, replicating real pain, and severe wounds had a twenty-four hour heal time with debuff effects.
Alrisia was programmed to be ultra realistic. The DreamGear copied your senses and body image through neurosensory technology and transmitted them into the game. However, depending on the race and class you started with, some of your features will be adjusted by the system. The World of Alrisia was meant to feel just like it sounds, a true living breathing world, flourishing with life and troubled by war.
He had to find a way out of this place, wherever 'this place' was. Strength slowly returning he climbed to his knees, but even that still seemed harder than it should have. He checked his statistical screen, but nothing. The poison and its effects had already worn off minutes ago and his vitality was at one hundred percent. This didn't make any sense. It just be this room, he thought to himself.
"I have to have an ability that will help me out of this situation," Zalin mumbled to himself as he opened his ability menu to learn what each ability does and how to use them.
He scrolled through racial abilities briefly, then brushed through elemental and class abilities finding nothing of relevant interest. His eyes drew to the menu option at the bottom of the screen that read special abilities. He had forgotten about that in his earlier excitement. The unlocked ability that was granted to him when first started. Shadowform.
The same voice from the introduction echoed around him.
"So you wish to learn about the Ancient Celestial Art of Shadowform, do you?, he chuckled darkly. "Shadowform is the ability to manipulate the shadows within and without rendering you a shadow yourself. Not cloaked, but a true, sentient shadow. Develop this power wisely and you will be able to make even greater use of this ability."
The voice faded, leaving him staring the ability's description of how to activate this power. It seemed he just had to close is eyes, focus, and say the word "Shadowform" to activate and use this ability. Sounded simple enough. Though he still wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Well, no time like the present to find out right?
Zalin struggled up to his hands and knees and closed his eyes. Head facing down he focused, trying to find even a moment of peace. Breathing deeply he felt it, deep inside of him and yelled out, "Shadowform!"