Drifting down the River...

Tyler wakes up to the feeling of water under him, buoying him up, and of sun beating down on his exposed chest. Slowly, he cracks one eye open a fraction, then the other. The light sears his eyes, almost forcing them shut, but eventually he adjusts to the light enough to open his eyes properly and look around.

He's lying in the centre of a slow-moving river, his weight supported by the water under him. To either side lie high cliff walls, with the occasional statue of ancient origin carved into them. Overhead, the noonday sun is glaring down on him.

Words flash in front of him, temporarily blocking out the sun.

Welcome to Icarus.

Your health is displayed by a red bar in the upper right-hand corner.

You can access the game menu by saying “game menu” at any time.

Looking up to his right, he saw a thin red bar, hovering just at the edge of view, close enough in to be visible at will, but far enough out to not distract him. He nodded at the careful game design, cleared his throat with a hacking cough, and said: "Game menu".

A slightly translucent screen appeared in front of him. A good chunk of it was taken up by a picture of himself as he appeared now - a drake, naked, with a rather detailed cock lying flaccid between his legs. The rest of the screen had a few numbers and notifications:

Health: 75.00/75.00

Carry Weight: 0.00/40.00 (0%)

Status: None

As well as that, it also had two large buttons: "Options" and "Skill Trees". He brought his hand up, in the portrait at least, and tapped on "Skill Trees". A dizzying array of options popped up, almost all of them greyed out. Narrowing the search range down to open skills only brought up a handful of skills, of which only one was being learned:Swimming: The fine art of moving through water with a minimum of drowning. Skill level effects maximum speed and duration. (Modifiers: Vit, Agi)

Level: 1

Progress: 0.10%

__Alright. So the only skill he’d used was the only one that showed. Maybe trying other things would fill in the other gaps? The 0.10% was probably from the small amount of "swimming" he'd done so far... maybe he'd pick up a few more percentage points by the time he drifted to somewhere interesting.He waved his hand in an idle fashion. "...Close menu." He said, and the boxes in front of him disappeared. As soon as they were gone, more words appeared in front of him:

Human generations have been born and died before the dragon was awoken.

It is written that the dragon-mark pose a grave danger to the humans. Such cursed individuals, marked by darkness, are thrown of a tower.

The tower is vast. Its breadth was made great, and its height must be still greater.

Powerful magic course through the tower, remnants of the passing dragons, their artifacts and guardians, their essence forged into the walls and rocks. Magic unchecked gives rise to things both great and terrible. For magic is the power of change, and change begets change.

And change...well. Change can be good, and it can be bad.

The text vanished, letting the sun shine right into Tyler's eyes once more, making him wince. Once his eyes had adjusted once more, he leant up slightly, careful to keep from overbalancing and starting to drown.There was nothing ahead of him except for his own body, the endless river, the sky, and the cliff edges, occasionally broken up by an ancient statue. He groaned. This was going to be a long trip...