(time-line -- Several months before Andrew had played the fated game, another had been unfortunate enough to become drawn into this world as well.)
This arcade was pretty large, filled with many flashing, new and exciting games. It was just down the street from the theater Matt and his friends had decided to go to. The furry convention didn't officially start until the next day so they had decided to get something to eat and kill some time at this place until their movie started.
Matt drifted through the chirpy arcade, seeing several titles that looked interesting but wanting to scope out the place first. After traversing the main area he came to a few backrooms and decided to poke his head in. Sometimes they had cool games that were a bit older in those.
In one of the rooms Matt spotted what looked like an rpg game of some kind, advertising that it saved progress as you played. That's unusual he thought as most arcade games did not. Rolling up his sleeve and glancing at his watch he knew he had about twenty minutes or so to kill. Matt fumbled through his baggy shorts, pawing out two quarters and popped them in, accompanied by a series of chimes and popped the player 1 button to start, not even bothering to watch the demo movie at the title screen.
A moment went by and nothing happened, irritated Matt thumped the button again, frustrated that the machine just ate his coins. Crossing his fingers he pressed the player 2 button, knowing a few machines would let a single player start from that side. He sighed with relief as the game fired to life, cutting off the demo movie which had been playing, showing a cave and a dragon or something built and powerful.
The golden character select screen was pretty advanced for an older title, asking first what gender he'd prefer, naturally pressing male and then panning to class and race.
The choices were nearly limitless, all the while accompanied by a heroic score getting him pumped up now. "hmm, maybe this wont be so bad," he muttered quietly to himself.
Matt quietly scrolled through the choices, finally settling on a rogue, having always enjoyed the wide array of skills they employed. Next he scanned through races, slowing to glance at the visage of a handsome vulpine-like one. Fine tuning this he selected the swiftfox breed, with stats based on the actual animal, very slight but very nimble and fast in short bursts. This seemed appropriate to the class really, granting a high dexterity bonus and lowering the strength, which wasn't really needed anyway.
Finally was a shop menu. Matt didn't really have much money so he selected some basic clothes, a small satchel and a lock-picking set.
A final menu appeared asking Matt to confirm his choices and, impatient to start the game already pressed the 'yes' button. Almost immediately following this was a brilliant flash of golden light, blinding him and knocking him to the floor.
Sitting up, hands pressed to the cold floor, Matt stared but could see nothing at first, then his eyes adjusted to a dim light down (rather quickly which was unusual) what he assumed was still the room, possibly the door leading out. Damn he thought, was there a power failure? What the hell is going on, shouldn't there be an emergency exit light or something.
Matt stood up and right away knew something was off but couldn't tell exactly what was different exactly. He just felt much lighter than before and his whole body had and odd, tight and warm feel to it, like his clothes had been changed or something. He didn't know what to make of it but the walk outside should clarify a few things.
Reaching the entrance of the room, he realized it was really a cave of some sort, exiting out into a dense forest. He screamed, but not because of his altered surroundings but rather the shiny black nose at the end of his vision, frantically reaching up and pawing at it with his... erm hands.. oh what is going on here he thought panicked now.
Calming down he looking at his hands which were a cross between a foxe's and his own, with a dark brown fur and soft black pads on each tip and on his palm. Reaching behind he felt his new tail as well, wagging it experimentally, wondering why he hadn't noticed that sooner.
"Well, this is great.." he bemused, scanning his surroundings. I wonder if this is real or a dream.. feels pretty real though he thought idly while checking his equipment out, inventorying everything. He had on a travel-worn black leather vest, pants and modified boots to accompany his paw-like feet. He also had his satchel still, with only 3 small gold pieces with an old Insignia scrawled on them and his lock-pick sit in a little tin box. Well, at least I had enough sense to buy that he thought.
It was still early morning, with the sun cracking brightly over the horizon, and Matt was pretty hungry so he set out to locate the nearest village. He didn't fancy the idea really as he had read under a quick description for the vulpine race stating that they were wanderers without a homeland, known as notorious thieves and gamblers and generally not well received in many parts of this world.