Prelude:
The Price of Doing Business
The world to Biprism Realm was finally available to me. A world filled with magic, portals, pocket realms, towers to eternity, monsters, and most importantly of all steampunk elements. Hordes and hordes of monsters constantly came surging through the world, destroying everything in their wake. Only the civilized societies and their technological marvels were capable of repelling monster waves. It was a world filled with memories of my past, present, and most of all my future.
I had finally reached the point of my life when I could either retire to live out a pain filled existence, until I finally succumbed to illness, disease, or just old age. Or I could restart in a world that I have only dreamed about existing in for my entire lifetime.
I knew the world of Biprism intimately, as it was a world I had grown up watching. It was the world my parents went to when it was their turn to retire. This was yet another selling point for me, as it meant I would gain legacy points. As I was not just a person going into the realm themselves, but one who would be joining others. This meant that I would gain additional starting points based on several factors. Most of which I intended to sell off for more starting points. Starting points were key to making it in Biprism, particularly if you wanted to delve into the deeper end content. The content that no one had even managed to view.
Starting points were everything in this world. Starting points let you start out with the ability to wield vast magics, or have innate abilities that defied all logic.
I planned on doing everything and then some to earn as many starting points as I could.
Life was short, in the game you started with up to seven restarts, but you could trade in your restarts for additional starting points. The idea was a bit of a give and take, trade away possible future retries, for a shot at having a better start.
As for me, I chose to put everything into one playthrough. One shot at living my best life, in my next life, or so the slogan went. In fact, the retirement board encouraged this, it both helped cut down on the number of retirees and made it so viewership was up on those who were part of the deeper retirement programs. No one wanted to see someone slave away at their second life in a factory. Everyone wanted to see people explore new or lost realms. People wanted to see the deeper parts of the game, as this was an ever-evolving game world that had yet to be fully explored. At least that was the rumor as the game world itself kept expanding like inflation at 5% per year. This meant larger and larger landmasses were added each year. As 5% of compounding interest was infinitely more than the initial starting points people began with.
Of course, to reach this 5% floating islands, immeasurable pocket dimensions, and never ending towers were constantly being added to both reward the bold and strike down the old. The world was a great equalizer in the way it rested for no one.
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By having an all-in person like myself, the server encouraged it, as I made for flash in the pan type character. People who would often shine brightly for a time, until a challenge came along that we eventually would not be able to adapt to. That was why I went for a generic build, one that was meant to be able to handle any condition.
Starting Points: 50
That was my starting retirement, fifty years of paid services and taxes to the government. All of which could be traded in for a shot at a better start on Biprism.
Legacy +2: for a total of 52 initial starting points.
Everything else would have to be bartered for, kind of sad. I was seventy-two and had terminal stage four cancer. If I took a break to try to treat the cancer, that treatment would come out of my 50 years of work. So, I could either fight and try to stay alive a bit longer in the real world with a dying body. Or I could join my parent’s legacy in Biprism World.
Of course, my parents were dead. All fourteen of their lives were wasted foolishly, but they seemed to have had fun while doing so. Each time they died, I noticed they lacked one key component. One minor piece that would have pushed them over the edge. Then all the bonuses they initially purchased were gone on their second lives on. Meaning they still had the flaws, but the bonuses that came from those flaws were no longer with them. This meant that each subsequent life after the first was increasingly harder and harder, until finally they succumbed to a monster infestation. Yet another reason I wanted to waste my retries on having my best life possible.
Selling in my 7 restarts netted me an additional 70 points for a total of 122 points.
After that, there were other flaws I could take as well.
Age was a common one and there were two ways one could go. The initial starting age was anything from 16 to 33. From there you could take a major deviation and gain additional starting points.
Recommended Age: Adult: 21.
Flaws: Old Man (>40) +2 - 7.
Flaws: Child (<12) +2 – 7.
The flaws associated with age were obvious to understand. You could start off at anywhere from forty all the way to forty-five. The reason this was a flaw was that forty-five was the absolute cut off age to learn magic or affinities. The trade off was you were considered a fully functioning adult and could instantly go on any dungeon delving crew. While going in as a child often let you stand out as a child prodigy, if you wanted to go the longer route of developing skills over powers.
Skills were everything to Biprism, as they helped you eek out a career in dungeon delving and other facets of life that revolved around the business of buying and recruiting the right type of people with the right sets of skills.
That was why if you chose the Child 7 flaw, you started off at seven years old. Just old enough to move around on your own, while not old enough to do anything worthwhile. Rather you could do a lot of things that were worthwhile, but most of which were ultimately going to get discarded by the system. You could not gain experience to level your classes. Instead, all experience gained would go towards your skills, which would then increase your attributes. Each skill was directly linked to a particular attribute, and the more you leveled a particular skill, the more the corresponding attribute would also increase.
The merits of course were just as good, with near godlike personal abilities called Traits that were near undetectable and unstoppable, the only pay off being that they were expensive and could only be purchased at character creation. These could allow people to do truly amazing things like Teleport, Fly, Breath Fire, or Walk Through Walls. The sky was the limit with what was available, nearly every spell imaginable had a Trait counterpart available for purchase.
It was these traits that I was going to spend the bulk of my starting points on. Traits and a mixture of long term and short term Merits to help me maximize my flaws.
Taking a deep breath, I focused my mind, and began the process of fully uploading myself into the world of my retirement. A world I have dreamed about joining since I first began starting my career as a corporate slug over fifty years ago. This was how I would spend my retirement, inside a new body, in a world of magic, mayhem, and monsters.
Smiling to myself, I was ready for the break a retirement would offer.