I regained consciousness in agony. Everything hurt. That wasn’t the weirdest part though. Somebody was kissing me…? My eyes snapped open to see a man leaning over me, his mouth pressed against mine. I inhaled in surprise right as the man breathed into me, at which point I in turn gagged, struggled to pull away, and began a coughing fit.
“What… the fuck?!” I managed to get out between coughs, looking over at the other man’s tear stained face as I tried to comprehend the situation I’d suddenly found myself in.
“Thank the gods, you’re alive!” The man was now grinning ear to ear. He wiped the tears from his cheeks and stood, “We still need to run, but you’re in no condition. I’ll have to carry you.”
Before I could react the man had scooped me off the floor and into his arms. A fresh surge of pain accompanied this motion and I nearly blacked out again. Then I was looking down at the floor from over the man’s shoulder as we somehow rose off the ground.
I got my first real look at my surroundings then. I was in some sort of destroyed building, and was rapidly being lifted through a hole in its roof. The motion was jerky, and I winced at each hitch as spikes of pain blasted through my head and arm. I had just become aware that my peripheral vision was being obstructed by something when I was suddenly shifted into a seated position on the edge of the hole I’d just been lifted through.
I watched, impressed, as the man who’d been carrying me pulled himself up and over the edge. The guy was obviously quite strong, but didn’t have the build of a weightlifter or body builder, he was just solid for lack of a better word. He had black hair and olive skin, and shockingly violet eyes the likes of which I’d never seen before.
The man picked up a sack lying on the ground as he pulled himself to his feet, then placed it in my lap as he once again scooped me up into his arms. “Hold onto that and hang tight, I’ll get you to Narani and she’ll get you healed up.”
I instinctively grabbed onto the sack in my lap, feeling something hard and surprisingly heavy inside. I was trying to figure out why this guy was able to throw me around like a rag doll when I noticed that my hands gripping the bag had turned an unpleasant shade of yellow-green. Wait, was I missing fingers?
We were now racing over the rooftops of what looked like a pre-industrial city, but my attention had turned inward as I remembered what I’d agreed to when selecting my species. Hell, Valera had even warned me this was a possibility now that I thought about it. In a spectrum that ran the gamut from dragon to goblin, I’d managed to roll the goblin.
In the corner of my vision, I noticed a blinking icon trying to get my attention. Focusing my somewhat muddled brain on it caused words to appear in my mind.
> Concussion
>
> Physical Bane (Tier 1)
>
> Duration: 24 hours (23h 56m remaining)
>
> -50% Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception. While this bane is in effect you will be unable to read most text other than this description.
I did indeed feel concussed, but it was good to know its mechanical effects. Since this guy seemed to be willing to carry me around I started trying to figure out how to open my game menu. I needed to figure out how to turn down the sensory feedback as I was in entirely too much pain right now.
There were some common gestures and keywords used by most nVR systems for activating the menu system. I ran through them, starting by tapping two fingers against the back of my other hand three times, then when that failed I used a series of backup methods until I ran across one that worked.
“System!” I croaked in my new goblin voice.
The man carrying me tightened his hold, “We’re almost there, stay with me.” He said, apparently trying to comfort me.
I had what I wanted though, a floating blue window appeared in front of me and I forced my aching brain to read through the options. Weirdly, most of the words were completely illegible to me, and I couldn’t tell if they weren’t written in english or if the concussion effect was scrambling them. If it was, that felt like a bug, the menu system shouldn’t be affected by in-game debuffs.
If there was a “Settings” or “Options” menu here, I couldn’t make it out. I tried clicking a few things at random, looking around for any options I could understand, but nothing looked like a pain threshold slider and most options remained frustratingly scrambled.
This sucked, was I really supposed to operate with a concussion for a full day before I could even adjust my settings? How was I even supposed to log out? There were emergency logout procedures for all nVR systems so I wasn’t worried, but it was always better to do a standard logout when possible as the emergency one could leave you with a splitting headache and nausea… Not that this was any better.
Just then, my ride came to a halt and I dismissed the menu in time to get squeezed uncomfortably as my new friend bent over and used one hand to lift up a hidden panel on the roof we currently stood on. It was disguised to look like any other part of the roof, but lifted easily when tugged on from the right angle. Just inside a set of narrow stairs descended into a dimly lit attic space.
Another goblin stood just inside the space, brandishing a dagger in our direction and squinting against the light pouring in from the open hatch. “Move it Ryke, Tavi’s hurt, I need to get her to Narani right now.”
The goblin, Ryke apparently, jumped back as my loyal steed and I rushed down the stairs. He called after us though, “Did you even get it? I told you it wasn’t worth the risk. If she dies it’s on your head Lucus!”
“Wait, she…?” I had time to think, then the world lurched as the man carrying me, “Lucus?” took the steps down from the attic two at a time in his haste. The next thing I knew I was being laid out on some kind of table and a very large black and white furred face was looking down at me.
The appearance of this creature halted my attempts to push myself upright, in my current body the creature’s mouth was big enough to bite one of my arms clean off without effort. However I calmed down a bit as I realized that my former ride was talking to the creature, who seemed to be listening carefully.
“... came out of the sky, I didn’t see what it was but I thought it had hit her at first. The whole roof collapsed and she fell inside, but I was able to climb down and get her. She wasn’t breathing and I couldn’t feel a heartbeat so I did what you taught me and breathed for her and tried to get her heart beating again. I didn’t think it was working but then she started coughing and…”
The creature cut him off with a wave of her paw-like hand and spoke in a rumbly feminine voice. “I understand, go now, put water on the stove to boil, quickly now.”
I immediately relaxed. I understood what was happening now. I didn’t know what this creature was, but I could recognize a grandmother when I saw one, so I lay back on the table and prepared to be fussed over.
The large striped face leaned over me, and I felt my head gently lifted while something soft was slid under it, giving me some relief and a slightly better view of the room. “Tavi, can you understand me, can you speak? Do not move your head.”
“Yeah, I can understand you.” I replied, wincing a bit at the unfamiliar sound of my own voice. It was weirdly high pitched, but also somehow gravely, like I’d just finished gargling rocks.
“Good, tell me what status effects you have, child.”
“Just one, Concussion.”
“Only that? No broken bones? No bleeding? Whose blood are you covered in then, girl?”
“Just that one, I guess the bleeding must have stopped. My arm hurts a lot but I guess it’s not broken?”
“Hrmph. Well, let's get that blood washed off you and see what we can do about that cracked skull of yours.” She turned to the other side of the room where Lucus had filled a pot with water from a nearby barrel, “Where is that water boy! Don’t just stand there, help it along.”
The matronly woman immediately rounded on another figure I hadn’t even noticed and barked out more instructions. “Maraci, make yourself useful and fetch rags for the cleaning and the bandaging.” The girl she’d spoken to jumped and ducked back behind the doorframe she’d been peeking through. I just barely caught a glimpse of her as she fled, but wasn’t able to make out any details from my current angle other than a flash of pink. I found myself wanting to look around the room and see what was going on, but I knew this would just make me the target of the grandmotherly ire so I refrained.
Returning her attention to me the beast woman asked. “What is your current health at dear? Have you recovered any since you got hurt?”
I practically rolled my eyeballs looking for a health indicator, and when I spotted it in the top left corner of my vision I realized immediately why I hadn’t noticed it previously - it was barely visible, just a sliver of red where there was once probably a full bar, and an ominous 1 / 100 hovering nearby.
“Uh, it’s at 1 out of 100 right now.” I told her. “I haven’t seen it go up yet.”
“By all the gods!” The beastial woman swore. “Rejuvenation!”
A green light sprang from Narani’s hands as she cast her spell. I immediately felt energy washing through me. As I watched my health bar began to refill slowly but surely. I also noticed that I now had two icons blinking in the upper right corner of my vision.
> Lesser Rejuvenation
>
> Physical Boon (Tier 2)
>
> Duration: 1 minute
>
> Recovers a small amount of health every second. Has a 1% chance to remove a negative physical status effect of equal or lower tier each tick.
Narani sighed, “Next time, mention that first, even if I don’t ask it. Lucus is a lucky fool that he didn’t kill you just bringing you here.” Then without missing a beat yelled out, “Mara! Where are those rags?”
A haggard looking girl ran into the room carrying an armful of cloth. She looked to be about 16 to me, and I belatedly realized that she wasn’t human either. Her skin was an odd shade of pink that almost looked sunburned, and a whiplike tail followed behind her as she ran into the room. She practically threw the rags at the larger woman in her haste to deliver them.
Narani scooped up the rags with one paw and turned to the now boiling pot of water. She pulled out several of the rags and tossed them into the boiling water, the rest she set aside. Leaving the rags to boil for a moment, she turned to Lucus, “Get something to pull those out and let them cool until I’m ready for them.” Then she walked back over and looked down at me.
“You still got that concussion? If so you don’t lift your head until it’s gone. That kind of bane can get worse if you don’t treat it right. I didn’t want to use Rejuvenation on you unless I had to since that kind of healing could leave scars, but it’s not worth the risk with your health so low. If you take it easy and don’t move about that’s less likely to be a worry.”
I glanced at my status effects and saw that the concussion was still present, even as the Rejuvenation effect expired. “It’s still there, Rejuvenation didn’t get it.”
Narani nodded and pulled at the blood soaked shirt I was wearing. “We need to get you out of that and see if you have any other wounds, Mara, go get more clothes for Tavi. I think these will be joining the rag pile.” Then she took one clawed finger and cut the shirt right off me with hardly any effort. The shirt was allowed to lay splayed open on either side of me, and I saw that I was wearing some sort of cloth wrapping around my chest as well, also soaked through with blood.
A moment later and Narani had sliced through these as well, peeling them off and revealing what I had already deduced even with my concussion. My new body was very definitely female. Small breasts poked out from my chest, leaving me feeling weirdly exposed in a way I’d never experienced before. This was going to be awkward, but I had other things to worry about for the moment so I set it aside to deal with later.
Narani looked me over appraisingly, but not finding any other obvious injuries she began applying a hot wet rag to my head and began gently washing away the blood covering my face and chest. I was absorbed in equal parts pain and pleasure as the hot cloth removed the gunk coating my face, but at the same time each touch sent a wave of pain and nausea through me as though the bones in my head had recently been liquified and weren’t quite done solidifying yet.
After a few moments of this and after going through a second cloth, Narani stopped what she was doing and made a strange noise I couldn’t interpret. My eyes opened, though I didn’t recall closing them, and I looked up to see a worried expression on her strange face.
“Child, you are very sure concussion is the only status effect you have, positive or negative?”
“Yeah, that’s it, why?”
“You have a shard of rock sticking out of your forehead. I thought it was bone or swelling at first, but now that I’ve cleaned it up it’s clearly a gemstone of some kind, red just like the blood it was hiding under.”
I gulped as a few more things clicked into place from my talk with Valera. This must be the soul gem she had mentioned, and it was supposed to be my real body. If it was removed I had to assume I’d be killed, or at least this body would be. These NPCs apparently knew the former owner of my body and were helping me because they’d mistaken me for her. Valera had told me this process cost a soul, so Tavi must have actually died, and Lucus had unknowingly saved me instead, probably with the help of some divine healing magic as part of the character creation process.
“I fear that Rejuvenation may have closed the wound around the stone.” Narani told me. “It looks deep enough to have cracked your skull and may now be fused with it. You’ll need to get it removed, but this sort of healing is beyond me. We’ll need to take you to the house of healing to get it removed.”
I started to sit up before a twinge of pain reminded me that I shouldn't be moving. “No! That’s fine, I’ll be alright.” I searched for an explanation they might accept. “When I was unconscious, dead maybe, I saw a vision. A goddess told me I had to keep what I’d been given or I’d die, and she touched me right on the forehead. Just heal me up as best you can and I’ll be fine.”
Suddenly Lucus was standing next to the table, “A goddess? Which one? Are you sure?”
Maraci chose that moment to walk back in as well, carrying yet another bundle of cloth. She stared at me wide-eyed and unconsciously touched her own forehead, where I suddenly noticed two small horns poking out from under her bangs. The girl must be a Devilkin, a member of The Adversary’s unique species.
Maraci noticed me looking at her and suddenly became angry for some reason. She tossed her wad of clothes at me and turned on her heel, marching out of the room. As she did she called back, “Here, put some clothes on so Lucus can stop ogling you and do something useful. You shouldn’t tease him like that!”
I tried to catch the garment but failed miserably as it spread out and draped across my legs. Narani plucked it up with her dexterous paws but set it aside instead of giving it to me. I found myself blushing furiously as I realized the situation I was in for the first time and what it must have looked like to the girl. Lucus for his part went white as a sheet and spun to face the stove again, fumbling to pull more boiled rags out of the pot, and from the sound of it burning himself in the process.
Narani shook her head sadly as she turned back to me. “She always knows what to say to cause trouble, that one. Come, you aren’t putting that on until we have you cleaned up. If you’re sure you want to keep that thing in your head then let me try and get that concussion off you again.”
It took two more castings of Rejuvenation before the concussion was finally removed. While we waited Narani continued to clean the wound around the gemstone with hot water and a little salve she pulled out from somewhere in her apron’s many pockets. It reminded me of aloe and it tingled slightly on my skin. When the concussion finally faded I sat up and Narani wrapped a bandage around my head several times to hold the salve in place.
Then without warning she unceremoniously picked up the barrel of water by the stove and dumped half its contents on my head, moving the large barrel as though it weighed nothing. Water splashed everywhere, but quickly ran down a drain set in the stone floor apparently for this purpose. I sat on the table in shock, the sudden onslaught of cold water having given me a new status effect to look at.
> Stunned
>
> Physical Bane (Tier 1)
>
> Duration: 3 seconds
>
> You are unable to move nor act, and may only speak haltingly and with great difficulty.
I tried to say something, but ended up just blowing wet hair out of my mouth as I sputtered.
Narani calmly set down the barrel and turned to Lucus, “We’ll be needing more drinking water. Go down to the well and fetch it.” Then she rounded on me and was immediately in lecture mode. “And you girl, this is the third time this month you’ve nearly got yourself killed. What is wrong with you? Do you have a death wish?” She paused long enough to pluck up some of the dry rags she’d set aside earlier and began forcibly drying me with them as I struggled to free myself.
Belatedly I realized that now that Narani was fairly sure I’d be ok, it was time for the other thing grandmas were known for: Scolding.
The garment I’d been given was a large shirt that was big enough to be a full length dress on this body. Narani pulled it down over my head without pausing her scolding. By this point she had moved on to scolding me about “teasing the boys” and I did my best not to curl up in a ball and die while she continued to berate me. In the end she had me take off the other clothes I’d been wearing as well so that they could be washed. While not nearly as blood stained they had been covered in brick dust from the collapsed building, and had suffered some damage in the fall that would need to be mended.
I ended up shoving a wadded up pile of clothing into Narani’s arms and just barely managed to remember to thank her for healing me, despite how appalled I was becoming with my situation. Lucus was long gone by this point and I figured he was smart enough not to find his way back until things had settled down around here. That was good. I needed to find a quiet place to sit and look over my character sheet and figure out what I was going to do next, and I didn’t want to answer any questions yet.
I hopped down off the table, finding myself barely able to see over it with my feet on the floor with my new much shorter stature. I started to make my way out of the room, but Narani caught me by the shoulder and turned me around before I could escape. Her large face was suddenly solemn and she got down on one slightly creaky knee so that she was only twice as tall as me, then leaned down and hugged me almost tight enough to do damage.
“Remember, I only scold because I love you. We all love you, and you’ll always have a place here with us as long as you want it. I know you’re not a child anymore, but I just don’t want to see you hurt. Now take this thing you and Lucus got and hide it somewhere so they won’t find it if they come looking for it.” She gave me the bag I’d been carrying earlier while Lucus carried me around. Then she turned around and yelled for Maraci to come help make dinner like nothing had happened.
I bemusedly walked out of the kitchen, I’d had a lot to absorb in the past hour or so and I’d had a concussion for part of it, but one thing I knew for sure was that even if these people were just NPCs I could never let them know I’d accidentally killed their adoptive daughter, sister, girlfriend, or whatever Tavi had been to these people. Not only couldn’t I stand the thought of hurting them like that after all their efforts to save me, but I was pretty sure Narani would tear me apart if she ever found out.
“Time to fake amnesia…” I thought, climbing the stairs back up to the top floor of the house. I was pretty sure I’d seen some rooms up here as I flew past in Lucus’s arms, and figured I’d be able to work out which one was mine if I had to.
I tried the first door I came to, and found the room already occupied. The goblin we’d met earlier was laying down on the smaller of two beds in the room, apparently reading something. He put it down as I opened the door, then grunted in acknowledgement when he saw who it was. “So you’re not dead huh? What do you want? Also ever heard of knocking?”
Fuck. Five seconds on my own and I was already in trouble. I thought fast, trying to come up with an appropriate response. The girl I’d replaced had obviously been something of a flirt considering how many times I’d been scolded about it in the brief time I’d been here, but I didn’t know if I could play that part. Not only did I lack the experience, I also lacked the inclination. I also didn’t know who this guy was beyond his name, or what his relationship was to me. He was a goblin too, so maybe he was my brother? He didn’t seem overly worried about me, but siblings could be weird about that.
I decided to keep things generic for the moment. Maybe I could find out more about him as we talked. “I just wanted to let you know I was alive, oh and I heard you ask if we got the loot - I have it right here, want to see it?”
The other goblin looked sour for a moment before his curiosity got the better of him and he rolled off the bed and came over to look at what I had in the sack. I pulled back the cloth covering the object, revealing a solid gold statuette of a figure I recognized all too well.
It was Valera, the goddess of trials herself, looking at me with a solemn expression just as she had when I’d last seen her in the Forge of Souls. For a moment I was sure that this wasn’t what Lucus and Tavi had stolen, and that it was somehow related to my entry into the game - but Ryke’s reaction reassured me that I hadn’t just made a huge mistake.
“Wow, you really did get it.” The goblin said, raising his hand to feel the cool metal. “You know we’re never going to be able to sell this right? That crazy merchant couldn’t even sell it and he had it by right.”
I just shrugged, “We’ll worry about that later. For now I have to hide it - any ideas on where?”
“Why not just use the usual space under your floor?” Ryke asked, confused.
Fuck, I’d screwed up again. “I… I was thinking that it might be a good idea to keep this somewhere else, you know - separate, and where less people know about it.”
Ryke narrowed his eyes, “Who else knows about it besides us?”
I sensed it was time to go in a different direction with this and decided now was as good a time as any to start setting up my cover story. I put on what I hoped was an uncertain expression and channeled all my roleplaying experience into conveying tightly controlled anxiety. “I’m… I’m having trouble with… things. You know. Remembering things. I didn’t want to tell Narani - I thought it’d just make her more worried. I remember your names and faces or I’d probably be panicking right now, but a lot of other stuff is foggy. I’m hoping it will come back when I fully heal and rest a bit.”
Ryke looked skeptical, “Did you hit your head or something? Are you saying you don’t remember us beyond our names?”
“Oh, right, you didn’t see.” I lifted the bandage wrapped around my head like a bandana and showed Ryke the gemstone embedded in my forehead. “That rock hit me in the head so hard it nearly killed me, now it’s stuck in there.”
Ryke leaned in to take a closer look. “Damn Tavi, I thought the guards stabbed you or something, how in Jira did that happen?”
“Jira?” I wondered, shaking my head. Then I winced as the movement triggered some lingering pain. “I don’t know, I don’t remember it, I’m going to ask Lucus when he gets back.”
He reached up and lightly tapped the soul gem with one clawed finger, examining it. “It’s in there good, huh? That looks expensive, you should definitely keep that under wraps or somebody might try to pry it out and sell it. Too bad though, it looks good on you.” He gave me a lecherous grin to punctuate his point, then he tucked a stray strand of hair behind one of my ears in a motion that I found far too familiar for my liking.
I suddenly became very uncomfortable with how close we were standing now. Especially while I had nothing on but an oversized shirt. Had I misread the signs? Were these two a couple? He’d been acting so cold a minute ago, why the sudden change? I started to pull away, but paused when I saw his confused expression.
“What’s wrong?” He asked. “You look sick. Are you sure you’re feeling ok?” The hand he’d been using to mess with my hair now held my arm in an apparent attempt to steady me. He actually looked concerned, which made me re-evaluate him a bit. I didn’t understand why he’d suddenly become more friendly towards me, but maybe I’d missed something?
“I… I just need to lay down for a bit I think.” I told him, pulling away again. “I’ll be fine.”
Ryke let me go with little resistance, but still seemed concerned. Then he grinned again and said “Want some company?” and wiggled his ears at me.
I responded by rolling my eyes at him, then I turned and walked out the door without answering, letting it close behind me. As soon as the door was between us I visibly sagged in relief. I hoped I’d played that right. I’d only been a girl for what, an hour? I wasn’t ready for this shit. I had no idea what kind of signals I was sending. Hell, I didn’t even know what signals I was receiving. That entire interaction had made no sense. Had he really just responded to me telling him I’d almost died with an offer to sleep with me?
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Suddenly I understood complaints I’d heard from women in my life much better. I’d always wondered why they didn’t always just tell guys that were obviously making them uncomfortable to fuck off, but now here I was in a situation where I couldn’t do exactly that. I’d never needed to think about this stuff from this perspective before and it was already exhausting. The worst part was I wasn’t sure exactly how mad I should be at him, since I didn’t know what his and Tavi’s relationship had been like before I entered the picture.
I opened the door across the hallway and found myself looking at another small room with two beds, one about the size Ryke had been using and another more normal sized one. There were also two chests at the foot of each bed, a wardrobe, and a small desk or vanity sitting across from it. A curtain hung between the two beds, attached to the ceiling.
I deduced that this was the girls room, but to be sure I opened the chest at the foot of the smaller bed and found a disorderly pile of clothing similar to what I’d been wearing earlier. I wasn’t pleased to find I was sharing a room with someone, probably Maraci, but for the moment I was alone and that’s what I needed.
I plopped down onto the bed, still carrying the bag containing the statuette of Valera. I still needed to stash the thing and figured just sticking it into my inventory might work… As soon as I figured out how to open it. First though, I needed a moment to decompress. That conversation with Ryke had been unexpectedly stressful, and I could feel blood rushing through my veins as I started to come down off my adrenaline high.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but that proved to be a mistake. I was too worked up over the interaction, and found myself replaying it in my head the moment my eyes were closed. To take my mind off it I opened my menu system and started looking around. I was hoping that now that I didn’t have a concussion I’d be able to make sense of things.
Fortunately, this time I had no difficulty reading it, but I was still a little confused. Some of the options I expected to be here weren’t, and some I didn’t recognize were.
System Menu
1. Character
2. Skills
3. Associations
4. Messages (5)
5. Notes
6. Help
7. Petition
I noted that I had five unread messages, and I mentally selected that option first. A new window appeared, and I saw that this was less of a messaging system and more of a notifications center. There was also a way here to access my chat and combat logs, and I noticed with interest that both were already populated with information. To my great surprise I found that both logs went back before I took control of this body, and I even had a log of Tavi’s untimely death at my own oblivious hands.
Valerian Soulgem deals ERROR raw damage to you.
You have been afflicted with “Concussion” (Bane: Tier 1)
You have died.
You have been affected by “Soul Infusion”
You have been revived.
More importantly though, the chat log contained all the conversations Tavi had been a part of or overheard for some indeterminate amount of time in the past - I tried to scroll up to see where it ended but it just kept going, and none of it was timestamped. Still, this was going to be extremely useful while I needed to pretend to be her, as I’d be able to mine this log for “memories” and help sell my story. NPCs must not have access to this, or Ryke would have mentioned it. Regardless I wasn’t going to mention it to any of my new friends unless they brought it up first.
I looked at the waiting messages next.
> System Alert
>
> Divine Message from The Adversary
>
> “Infinity, thank you for your contribution to our bug bounty program. Your responsible disclosure of an exploit has earned you a reward. Because you provided a proof of concept to me personally, I have increased your reward tier by one stage. The more exploits you report, the higher your reward tier, so keep an eye out for more bugs and feel free to contact me through the Petition menu if you need anything. If you happen to find another bug, please report it via the Help menu..
>
> I hope to do business with you again in the near future.
>
> - The Adversary”
>
> Rewards Earned:
> Title Unlocked (“Rule-Breaker”)
> 1x Scarab Token
The second message was in the same vein.
> System Alert
>
> Divine Message from The Adversary
>
> “Infinity, thank you for your continuing contributions to our bug bounty program, and so quickly as well! Your responsible disclosure of an exploit has earned you a reward. Because of the potential severity of this bug I’ve added a little extra to the standard reward, hopefully it will help you track down even more errors. Keep up the good work!
>
> - The Adversary”
>
> Rewards Earned:
> Unlocked Skill: “Devil in the Details”
> Blessing of The Adversary (Minor)
> 2x Scarab Token
The next message was a bit different.
> New Achievement
>
> Fast Learner
>
> Congratulations! You are the first Traveler to unlock a previously unknown skill. All newly discovered skills grant a free rank in that skill, but as you are the first Traveler to discover a skill an additional reward has been added.
>
>
> Rewards Earned:
> A free rank in discovered skill
> +10pp (Universal)
Apparently the game system stuck all sorts of notifications in here from when I was still in character creation. They must have been suppressed until I actually got into the game.
I didn’t believe for a second that The Adversary didn’t know he was handing me an achievement in addition to the normal rewards. I was becoming increasingly convinced the devilish god was stacking things in my favor for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out why.
I turned to the next message and opened it, already pretty sure I was getting a few more achievements. I wasn’t disappointed.
> New Achievement
>
> Chosen of the Gods (Valera)
>
> You have become a chosen champion of the goddess Valera, and have access to her unique path options. As one of the chosen you may be called upon to work your goddess’ will in the world.
>
> Rewards Earned:
> Blessing of Valera (Greater)
> Unlocked Species option (Valerian)
> Unlocked Class option (Trailblazer)
> New Achievement
>
> A Mile In Their Shoes
>
> You are the first Traveler to choose the hidden Valerian species option.
>
> Rewards Earned:
> +10pp (Valerian)
> Title Unlocked (“Skinwalker”)
> New Achievement
>
> First Pioneer
>
> You are the first Traveler to choose the hidden Trailblazer class option.
>
> Rewards Earned:
> +10pp (Trailblazer)
> Title Unlocked (“Adventurer”)
I wasn’t sure what all these things meant yet, but I was now holding a small pile of golden beetle shaped tokens in my lap, each about the size of one of my goblin hands. It was rapidly becoming a problem and I really needed to figure out how my inventory worked.
Hoping to find something about it under the Character menu, I selected that option next and was suddenly greeted with an almost life-sized image of my new body looking back at me from between two sets of stats. The vanity didn’t have a mirror, and I realized now that they were probably useless in this world.
Being forced to confront my new appearance for the first time was a bit unsettling. I was still very uncomfortable with the whole situation and had intentionally been putting off any self-examination… But now I was almost forced to look. I knew it was silly, but I felt like the less I acknowledged it the less it would matter. That was stupid and I knew it. Ignoring a problem didn’t make it go away. I needed to take a step back from this and look at it objectively so I could control the situation. For lack of a better term, I needed to man the fuck up.
“Dammit,” I said after a moment’s contemplation of my character sheet. “I’m cute.”
I’d been doing my best to not think about a lot of the differences between this body and my normal human one, but looking in a virtual mirror made it pretty clear. I had green skin obviously, but that wasn’t a big deal. My ears were weirdly long and pointed, and I found myself reaching up and feeling their shape even as I looked at them. Actually, all my facial features were weirdly big, except my nose which looked pretty normal.
My eyes were almost twice as big as they should have been, and I found that I could intentionally dilate and contract my pupils, giving me much more control over the brightness of my vision than I was used to. Meanwhile my mouth was very strange, it was a little bigger when closed than looked right for my face, but I found that if I tried I could pull off a literal ear-to-ear grin as my lips virtually disappeared and all you could see were my serrated teeth sticking out of my gum line. I hadn’t even noticed the teeth until now, and counted myself lucky I hadn’t bitten off my tongue yet - those things were sharp.
The effect of my way too stretchy mouth and anime-style eyes let me change my expression from adorable to horrifying in the blink of an eye. I put on a few faces to get an idea of what I could do, finding that I could even move my ears and control my eyes independently on either side of my head. This allowed me to pull off some truly crazed faces, but also some adorable droopy eared puppy-dog expressions. It was quite the range.
My hair was long and black. While standing it ran almost half way down my back in a loose ponytail, which was far longer than I’d ever worn my hair in real life. It was currently still wet from the soaking Narani had given it earlier, even though the rest of my body had dried off quickly. My skin was weirdly rubbery and had shed the water easily. It also seemed to be completely devoid of hair other than on my head, I didn’t even have eyebrows, just a bony ridge that served a similar purpose but didn’t have the same range of expression I was used to..
My nails were also odd, and while looking at them I noticed again that I was missing a finger on each hand. My goblin hands ended in three fingers and a thumb, all a bit thicker than looked natural to my eye, and I noticed my arms were longer than they should be for my size. Each digit also featured a hardened black nail that was similar to a claw, but I noted that Tavi had apparently filed these down so they were short and smooth, except for on the last finger of each hand, which if anything looked like it had been sharpened. Possibly a mix of convenience and utility?
I brought one leg up to take a look at my feet to see if something similar was going on there, forgetting for a moment that I had a model of myself hovering a few feet away. Still, it was an interesting experience as I immediately noticed how much more flexible my legs were than what I was used to. Part of that was the lack of certain parts of my anatomy to get in the way, but more than that I just had greater range of motion in all my joints in this body. I was easily able to pull a foot up to eye level and indeed, I saw that I only had four toes. Additionally, my toes had claws just like my hands, and while these looked somewhat worn by use they weren’t filed down at all.
Looking at myself in the character screen I experienced a weird sensation. Even though I’d just cataloged all these things which were wrong with my new body, they didn’t feel wrong. I hadn’t even noticed many of them until I went looking. I wasn’t having any issues walking around with a different center of gravity, and my weirdly long arms weren’t throwing off my hand-eye coordination.
This wasn’t exactly unexpected, as nVR games had to have this sort of interface. Some nVR games didn’t even have you playing as a humanoid character, and so you might have a totally alien arrangement of limbs to work with. The game’s AI would handle translating your instinctive brain patterns into valid controls for your character, and also handle translating the feedback you got from your virtual body into something your brain could understand. What was remarkable about this was how seamless the experience was. This was by far the smoothest and most immersive translation interface I’d ever experienced.
I felt like I should be more disturbed by this than I was, but it honestly felt like I’d had this body all my life. My mind knew otherwise, but I felt like if I got into a fight right this moment I’d have been able to move as easily as Tavi would have. My muscle memory felt like it had been completely replaced, and the various changes to my biology felt totally natural. That made it all the weirder.
Developers of nVR games had years ago figured out that it was generally more disturbing for people to not have anatomically correct bodies. There was an uncanny valley effect that missing parts of yourself created which was similar to how transgender people described their dysphoria. Anything humanoid tended to be modeled accurately in order to reduce that feeling, though to my knowledge most people who tried playing opposite sex characters would experience that same sort of dysphoria.
I knew that everyone experienced this a bit differently, and to different degrees, and that it could vary based on a multitude of different factors. It was just strange that I wasn’t feeling it at all right now. With the prevalence of nVR tech, nearly every adult at least tried on an opposite sex body once, developers collected statistics on that sort of thing and the rates were nearly 100%. Even if you were perfectly happy in your own skin it was hard not to be curious. I’d done so myself years ago, but had found the dysphoria so unpleasant that I hadn’t ever tried again. From what I’d read my experience was fairly typical.
Either the nVR systems had gotten much better at handling this situation, or I’d gotten better at dealing with it - perhaps both. What I was feeling now was strange and somewhat unpleasant, but it wasn’t anything like what I remembered from my first experience in a simulated female body. That time had felt deeply wrong, and I’d nearly used the emergency stop protocols instead of logging out the slower but safer way. It had disturbed me in the same way certain images would trigger trypophobia. Now I just felt vaguely off, and part of that was a feedback loop from not feeling how I expected to feel.
Whatever the reason, I was extremely glad this wasn’t affecting me as much as it had last time. It was still going to be awkward as hell, but at least I wasn’t having to suppress an urge to vomit.
There was a whole lot to unpack here, and I decided now wasn’t the time to deal with it. I still needed to figure out how my inventory worked, preferably before someone walked in to check on me and found me sitting in a pile of gold tokens. So I mentally gathered up everything I’d just been thinking about and stuffed it in a room labeled “Tavi Problems” then shut the door on it. I’d have plenty of time later to figure out how I wanted to deal with this.
I turned my attention back to the character sheet. The character avatar had boxes all around it, and I noticed that the shirt I was wearing was represented as an icon in one of them. I mentally selected it, and the item’s properties became visible.
> Plain White Shirt
>
> Chest Armor (Tier 0, Equipped, Oversized)
>
> Armor: 0
>
> A plain white shirt, sized for a human.
I seemed to recall I had a skill for learning more about an item. I wasn’t sure if it would tell me anything new here, but it was a good experiment. Activating the skill took some trial and error, but in the end simply thinking the name of the skill and willing it proved sufficient.
You have used Identify on Plain White Shirt.
> Plain White Shirt
>
> Chest Armor (Tier 0, Equipped, Oversized)
>
> Armor: 0 (Base 1, -1 from Oversized)
>
> Quality: Poor
>
> A plain white shirt, sized for a human. It was handmade with love by Narani for Lucus, who has long since outgrown it.
Interesting, so Identify could reveal extra information even on a mundane item I could already see the properties of. I was going to have to try it on other things to see what all it could do. I glanced up to my health bar and saw that there were also blue and green bars representing my mana and stamina. Both were out of a maximum of 100, and I began to suspect that these were percentages.
Turning my attention to the various numbers listed on the character sheet I began to read.
> Tavi / Infinity
>
> Level 17 Female Goblin Thief
>
> Species: Goblin (Level 10) / Valerian (Level 1)
>
> Class: Thief (Level 5) / Trailblazer (Level 1)
>
> Resources
>
> Health: 100 / 100
>
> Mana: 99 / 100
>
> Stamina: 100 / 100
>
> Defenses
>
> Armor: 10
>
> Resistance: 10
>
> Dodge: 11
>
> Attributes
>
> Strength: 8
>
> Agility: 13
>
> Dexterity: 13
>
> Fortitude: 8
>
> Toughness: 8
>
> Intelligence: 10
>
> Wisdom: 8
>
> Charisma: 8
>
> Willpower: 10
>
> Perception: 12
>
> Luck: 10
>
> Progression Points
>
> Universal: 10
>
> Valerian: 20
>
> Goblin: 0
>
> Trailblazer: 20
>
> Thief: 7
I wasn’t sure what most of this meant yet, and I wasn’t quite ready to dig into it yet. I still wanted to locate my inventory and get all this gold stuff stored away safely.
I backed out of the character sheet and opened up Skills, thinking that maybe there was a skill for opening and closing my inventory window. I was also keeping my eye out for any sort of tutorial system, but hadn’t seen anything that looked like that yet. Perhaps I’d find it as something I could turn on under the Help menu - I’d check there next.
The skills menu was subdivided into 4 separate tabs, labeled Active Skills, Passive Skills, Penalties, and Unlocked Skills. The active skills listing was almost depressingly short. In addition to Identify, I only had access to three other active skills.
> Hide
>
> Active Skill (Tier 1)
>
> Source: Goblin, Thief
>
> Rank: 6 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 2
>
> Activation Cost: Stamina (Low)
>
> Activation Type: Sustained
>
> Cooldown: N/A
>
> Remain still and conceal yourself using any available cover. Reduces the effectiveness of perception in detecting you by 5% per rank of this skill so long as you remain concealed.
> Snatch
>
> Active Skill (Tier 1)
>
> Source: Thief
>
> Rank: 1 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 2
>
> Activation Cost: Stamina (Medium)
>
> Activation Type: Instant
>
> Cooldown: 30s
>
> Attempts to steal an item carried by another creature or otherwise physically secured. Success is based on your Strength, Agility, or Dexterity depending on how the item is secured. You get a bonus to appropriate stat equal to 10% per rank of this skill. If you are hidden when using this skill you can remain hidden, but your concealment bonus from Hide is reduced by 50% for 5 seconds after using this skill.
> Shank
>
> Active Skill (Tier 1)
>
> Source: Thief
>
> Rank: 2 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 2
>
> Activation Cost: Stamina (Low)
>
> Activation Type: Instant
>
> Cooldown: N/A
>
> Quickly stab an enemy with a piercing weapon such as a dagger, doing normal damage. When you use Shank, your chance to critically hit from Luck is increased by 10% per rank of this skill.
At least I had access to at least one combat skill. I’d been seriously worried that would be an issue. Still, on paper Shank didn’t seem that great, every activation would cost me stamina, and it wasn’t a flat 10% increase to crit chance - instead it made my Luck stat 10% better on that hit, which I was guessing was a lot less than a flat 10% chance to crit. It looked like Tavi had invested some progression points in it already though, so maybe it was better than it looked.
I couldn’t help but notice that no exact costs were listed for my active skills, it was just “stamina” or “mana” without any numerical values, only a rough designation. Likewise I was noticing that my skills all seemed to scale with various stats, but none listed a flat number that wasn’t a percentage or a duration. It seemed that some aspects of the system were intentionally obscured. That would make theorycrafting harder, but nowhere near impossible.
I also wasn’t happy about the fact that someone else had gotten to control part of my character progression, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I flipped over to the passive skills list and had a look through that. This list was much bigger, and contained the Innovator and Explorer passives I already knew about.
> Dual Nature
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 5)
>
> Source: Valerian
>
> Rank: 1 / 5
>
> PP: 0 / 10
>
> As a Valerian your true body is a gemstone infused with a spark of divine energy. You may possess a secondary body which has its own species and class, along with any skills associated with those options. You share your attributes with your host body, but also gain their species bonuses and penalties. Each rank in this skill above the first provides a 10% bonus to all of your host body's attributes. Additionally, detection and identification effects of a tier equal or less than your ranks in this skill automatically fail to reveal anything about your true nature.
> Crystalline Memories
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 5)
>
> Source: Valerian
>
> Rank: 1 / 3
>
> PP: 0 / 10
>
> Your memories are writ in stone. Your chat and combat logs have no maximum age restrictions, allowing you to review anything that has happened to you in the past, no matter how long ago. Rank 2 in this skill adds timestamps to all entries, and rank 3 adds the ability to search your logs.
> Soulspace
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 3)
>
> Source: Valerian
>
> Rank: 1 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 6
>
> You can store objects in a timeless conceptual space within your soul crystal. At first rank you can store a single object, but each rank in this skill increases your storage space by one additional slot. Adding or removing an object from your soul-space takes 10 seconds, during which you must remain in contact with the object. Soulspace storage is conceptual, so you may not store an object if you do not sufficiently understand its nature, however multiple objects of the same type may be stored using a single slot so long as they are conceptually identical.
> Darkvision
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 2)
>
> Source: Goblin
>
> Rank: 1 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 4
>
> Your eyes are adapted to seeing in unlit caves and deep forests. You need no light to see as much as 10m away, but you are unable to discern finer details (such as writing) and most colors without a light source. The range of your vision increases by 10m per level of this perk above 1.
> Stealth
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 2)
>
> Source: Thief
>
> Rank: 3 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 4
>
> Allows you to retain 5% of your concealment bonus from Hide while moving. While hiding you can move for up to 5 seconds at a time and retain some of the effect. The amount of concealment you retain goes up by 5% and the amount of time you retain the benefit goes up by 5 seconds per-rank in this skill. If you stop moving your amount of concealment will slowly rise until you are once again fully hidden from anything not already observing you.
> Windows
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 2)
>
> Source: Thief
>
> Rank: 2 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 4
>
> You are proficient in second story work. 10% of your Dexterity score per rank in this skill contributes to your ability to climb surfaces, with or without tools.
> Streets
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 2)
>
> Source: Thief
>
> Rank: 2 / 10
>
> PP: 0 / 4
>
> You are proficient in working the streets in broad daylight. Other people can count as concealment for you for the purposes of hiding and stealth. The amount of people you need around you to blend into a crowd is reduced by 5% per rank of this skill.
When I saw the Soulspace skill my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. My inventory was a skill, and to my shock it was one of my unique species skills. There were lots of things about this game subverting my expectations - inventories were such a crucial part of any game that I was incredulous that they’d lock it behind a hidden species option. On second thought though, it occurred to me that there were probably other methods of getting an inventory system like mine - something the equivalent of a bag of holding perhaps, or even other species or class skills. Nothing said the functionality of a skill couldn’t be replicated by another skill.
I decided to test out Soulspace before putting anything valuable in it. I also wanted to know to what extent I could store things - was there a size limitation? I started by storing the only piece of equipment I had - the Plain White Shirt I’d identified earlier. I ducked under the bed sheets just in case someone came into the room, then concentrated on the shirt and willed it to enter my soul-space.
Almost immediately it began to turn transparent, then fade away to nothing over the course of ten seconds. When it was gone, I felt it take up residence in my mind like something I was visualizing in my imagination but much more vivid. It was sort of like being able to lucid dream the shirt while still awake.
Now it was time to try the process in reverse. I imagined the shirt exiting my soul-space and appearing on my body the same way it had been a moment ago. Almost immediately the shirt started to fade back into view, as if it had momentarily become invisible rather than having temporarily ceased to exist.
I inspected the shirt to see if anything had changed about it, but it appeared to be fine. Identify showed it as having all the same stats and had no mention of damage. Based on that I was satisfied that my soul-space wasn’t likely to damage any of my shiny trinkets, but before I tried to store them I wanted to see if I could store something more substantial.
I hopped off the bed I was sitting on, and turned around to put my hand on it. I knew it was an object consisting of several other objects, but then so was nearly everything. I wanted to know if my soul-space would store the entire bed if I thought of it as conceptually a single object. Imagining the whole bed mind I willed it into my soul-space.
Instead of the bed fading away, I got an alert.
> System Message
>
> Soulspace storage failed
>
> You do not understand this object well enough to store it within your soul-space.
Downstairs someone banged on the front door, and after a moment I faintly heard Narani’s voice speaking to someone else, but I was busy trying to figure out how I was failing to understand a bed. What was hard to understand about a bed?
I pushed down on the mattress trying to get a sense of what filled it - maybe that was the problem. It wasn’t a spring mattress, but I wasn’t sure what it was made out of. Suddenly I remembered I had a way to find this out. I activated Identify while touching the bed, continuing to picture the entire bed in my mind - not just the mattress, and I was rewarded with the information I was looking for.
> Plain Single Bed
>
> Furniture (Tier 0, Small)
>
> Quality: Poor
>
> A simple bed with plain linen sheets and a mattress stuffed with hay. The pillow is stuffed with down feathers and its frame is built from solid but unpolished wood.
With this knowledge in mind I tried once more to move the entire bed into my soul-space. This time, the bed immediately began to fade from view and after a few moments appeared in my mind, sheets and all. There was now an empty corner of the room where my bed had been and I noted that it hadn’t been swept under in a while given all the dust.
From downstairs there came a shout and the sound of raised voices, followed by a crash that shook the floor beneath me. Then I heard Maraci scream, and a voice I hadn’t heard before spoke in a commanding tone, clear enough that I could make out the words. “Spread out and find it, they have it here somewhere.”
I looked down at the golden statuette and scarab tokens I still had in my hands, “Oh fuck."