The ceiling of the entrance hall swept above my head, buttressed by gothic arches. The room itself was lit by huge, medieval stained-glass windows. Looking around, though, I realized that this was no church. It was Notre Dame crossed with a greyhound station.
I was sitting in a row of benches facing what would have been the altar of the church. Every few minutes a character would materialize in one of the seats, look down at itself in surprise and eventually walk away and begin exploring. There were rows of what looked like small wooden lockers against the walls.
I looked down at myself again. My new body was built along classic elfin lines, with wiry limbs and smooth, pale skin. I was wearing loose black silk pants that gathered at the ankle by a pair of shoes that looked like slippers made of some tough material. My poison green shirt was sleeveless to expose the tattoos I would be accumulating, though now my only mark was a small black tendril that began by the tendon on the underside of my elbow and spiraled around to the back of my hand, forking into the three fingers I used to grasp my tools. I reached into one of the pouches of my shoulder bag and pulled out my mirror.
Everyone in Ether had a mirror, an interface. Mine looked like a cigarette case covered in wood-burned elfin luck runes and folded out into one large sheet of reflective material. Around the sides of the mirror were a ring of tiny symbols that could bring up options on the mirror face. Right now it was blank, giving me a clear view of my new face. The lack of facial hair, combined with my graceful bone structure, arched eyebrows and pointed ears made me look weirdly androgynous, if attractive. The time blinked at the top of the mirror. It was time to go if I wanted to find Suzie.
Snapping the mirror shut, I stepped outside the church to get my first look at Epic City.
