“Jeremiah Riggs, welcome to the colonist body creation module. Here you will create your new you(how stupid does it sound). Be very keen on the details since it will be the body you will live in till the end. If an intuitive interface won’t be enough, just pronounce “Wizard, help.” and helping wizard will appear.”
I appeared in some other room. Well, maybe not a room, since neither walls nor ceiling were visible in a dark fog around, and no matter how far I would go in any direction, ‘intuitive interface’ was following me. Being the experimenter type, I took off my shirt, threw it on the floor, and went away, changing direction every other minute. In ten minutes, I was standing there in my shirt, back on, feeling stupid. Moebius space - trendy VR puzzle setting migrated into a colonization mission - hilarious stuff. If the existing pattern made it from real VR games - there was no exit from here - so I just stopped bothering.
‘Intuitive interface’ consisted of sections and tabs and… yeah. If you have seen one of those, you have seen them all.
Appearance: I just selected a checkbox indicating to copy my current appearance and modify it to be compliant with the chosen race, class, and any other relevant parameters.
The next chapter represented character bezels. There were three of them: Characteristics, Skills, and Traits. I wanted to move to the Characteristics tab, but the ‘intuitive interface’ would not let me. The tab was marked as not active. I started clicking everywhere else. Truth be told, there were not too many places to click - other bezels tabs, appearance randomization(I tried it, and the results looked ridiculous), starting gears and loot, etc. Almost everything was not active, but a brute force in the only experiment method that cannot fail. Eventually, I found the reason everything was blocked. I should have figured it out myself, but my mind worked not very well at the time.
Race and class choosing is mandatory and has priority over almost all the other customizations.
As a special snowflake, I was given a limited choice - four races and four classes - sixteen possible builds. Each combination had its own experience gaining coefficient. It varied from zero points five to one point nine. Fast search in the ‘help’ section and I knew that one of the present combinations is earning almost twice as much experience as the usual player and one more than double less. Only six combinations had their own quenta, their own background.
Interestingly, the term ‘quenta’ was used here either, instead of actual words from existing languages. It looked like it was used here specifically to annoy me. As a confirmation of this theory, there was a peculiar combination of a race and a class here: an elf ranger named El Egolasariel. Nice starting gear and traits, positive reputation with several cities, coefficient 1.1. It looked like someone, or something, was pushing me toward this option, and I don’t like being pushed. Thus not the elf.
I’ve already decided not to consider combinations without prehistory - starting background traits and skills could be crucial in the world where everything is calculated. So one out of five.
I was a hardcore player, so obviously, my first consideration was a combination with the coefficient 0.5. Rattling scientist with literally exploding set of skills and traits: intermediate chemistry, mining and Rattling medicine, advanced explosives and demolition, natural willpower as skills and night vision, perception, ranger, kill streak, stainless steel rat traits. This archetype’s starting point was in the center of the rattling city built under the gnome city, founded under the Harpia city. I wondered why it had only a coefficient of 0.5? Somewhere between 0.3-0.2 would be more suitable for a character with such powers at the beginning of the game. I decided to pass on this - I fucking hate rats - they remind me of squirrels.
I was also a maximalist, so my second option was a combination with a 1.9 coefficient. The game’s biggest possible experience coefficient was 2, making this archetype almost the hardest to pla... live.. you understood me.
So the race was named Archeo - an anthropomorphic descendant of a flying dinosaur but without wings and tail. The feathers remained, though, as well as light bones. There were race traits - [Light as a feather] - +100% to agility and - 100% to toughness and strength. Thus, each point spent on agility increased it by two, but I needed two points to increase both strength and toughness. Tough choice. The second trait was [Son of the sky] - +1% experience gained per one meter above the 10 meters threshold above the current surface. If there were rockets on this planet - I would sign for an astronaut job right away. And the last trait was [Vulture] - you can eat raw and spoiled meat, bones, and intestines without penalty. Despite the doubtful aesthetics of this trait, it may be beneficial considering the game phase setting.
Based on my expanded description of the race, you may have already understood that I've chosen this combination. I will describe it more, though, just for you to understand some further events.
Interesting that Archeo had no racial skills. What was even more fascinating - they had their reputation neutral with all the world’s intelligent races, thus making them perfect diplomats. Yep - you’ve guessed right - my class is Diplomat. It appeared to be some kind of a buffer class. Starting skills included elementary levels of [Intention control(w)] - could decrease mobs' aggression or taunt them, [The voice of a reason(w,c)] - inspire friends or dull enemies and advanced level [Barter(c)]. Apparently, those letters after the skill name meant characteristics responsible for the skill. Interesting. The class also had pretty neat traits [Polyglot] - all languages skills start at the intermediate level and [Prince charming] - plus 2 to charisma, reputation with ogres and dough golems - eternal hate. That last one was kind of unexpected. Dough golems? The game phase is as realistic as real colonization, my ass.
Moving forward. Quenta of this combination had its own specific skills and traits.
Skills were not so spectacular: elementary [Polygraph(w,c)] - you will have some chance to uncover direct lies, and elementary [Master(w,c)] - targets of level, lower than yours, will have decreased aggression.
The first quenta trait was [Featherless] - +30% diplomatic skills effect on every target except dinosaurs, -50% diplomatic skills effect on dinosaurs, +10% damage from cold and gravity caused events. I could not understand its pros and cons yet - the only obvious conclusion - I should stay away from dinosaurs and cold.
The second quenta trait is called [Tabula Rasa] - you lose four random characteristics points, three random race or class traits, and two random race or class skills, you gain three free characteristics points, two free traits, and one free skill you may spend whatever you like. Your character will have partial memory loss(your memory will remain intact. Your character will have a main chain quest. Each finished part of the chain gives you 20% of your current experience. Each failed part of the chain reduces your current experience by 30%. Even for an uneducated swine I was, it was clear that this trait may be a key to massive success or a road to an abyss, depending on my gaming process. I almost didn't want to check which random traits and skills got lost due to the Tabula Rasa. I conquered my desire, not to disappoint myself. The choice was made, and there was no turning back.
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There were no more race, class, and quenta specifics. Thus, at last, I was able to switch to the Characteristics tab. As advertised, I had four free points - one for the first level and three from the Tabula Rasa trait. Strength - 3, Agility - 6, Toughness - 2, Stamina - 4, Wisdom - 4, Charisma - 6. Not bad, considering four random points were gone. Based on the skills, my main characteristics are wisdom and charisma and considering the race trait - agility. I was not a great strategic genius, so I spent two points on agility, making it 10 and 2 points into wisdom, making it equal with charisma. So my character, my future body, was fragile and agile. It appeared to be fixable, though. As I recall from the several hours-long terms and conditions - I could raise my characteristics in several ways - spending points from level-ups, finding some gear, loot, and other in-game tools that can raise desired characteristics and exercise. Yep - I could just do regular pushups and heavy lifting and gain strength, running - for stamina, reading - for wisdom. A similar approach worked for charisma and agility also - talk with peop… other characters and do some acrobatics. The latter was quite hard, so it turned out pretty handy having double points for agility as a race trait. A toughness, though, was a bit tricky to develop - every damage made to my body would raise this characteristic by a tiny bit, thus to become tough, I would have to be beaten up, and I did not like that. Each characteristic had a scale to it depicting progress to the next point. Currently, all scales were zeroed out.
Skills and traits gave me nothing new - all the same descriptions and numbers. I could spend my free skill point on whatever skill I wanted, so I decided not to spend it yet. Maybe I will find some skill that is very hard to train and spend the point raising it. It was interesting that I could devote trait points either - all I needed to do is enter the name of the trait I wanted to obtain. Without any confirmation window, message, or any other type of making me rethink. How do I know that? Well, I spent one point. Not mindlessly, no… Not entirely. I recalled all the traits I know and entered the first one to come up - a kill streak. And it worked - now I had a new trait - [Kill streak] - each killed opponent will give you +1% more experience for the subsequent killing. The sum of extra percentages is unlimited and becomes zero after your death. Accountable targets are inhabitants and colonists. Yeah… Now I had one battle-oriented trait. Very fucking useful. It was not an immense tragedy - traits as skills can be obtained during the game process, but there are some, I am sure of it, quite hard to get. And I just lost one of those possibilities to a bloody kill streak…
I reviewed all the available traits in all the combinations, except for an Archeo race and Diplomat class - not to feel sorry afterward, remembered the most useful of them, and moved along with a character process creation.
There was not much left - only a name for a character and my future life. I composed a name long before, so I was ready. Himera Er Jiggs.
The editor threw me out into my room. Not me, though. It was Himera Er Jiggs already. Featherless Archeo Diplomat with fucking kill streak trait. The mirror reflected almost me - a bit taller, a bit thinner, with a bluish skin where feathers or hair should be. My current face looked like a scary story version of the old one - a wide mouth with three sets of fangs up and down, flat, thick nose with almost vertical nostrils and big, widely planted, lite gray, almost white, eyes with tiny dots of pupils. I look almost human - even smiling. The only thing very obviously pointing to my unhuman heritage was my state, the stare of a predator - attentive and unmerciful. While looking at my face, the overall impression had this animalistic appealing factor, quite hard for me to explain why, though.
I had short pointy claws on both palms and feet. The peculiar thing about my feet was that they were palm-like - kinda like monkeys have, but with more massive and flexible ankle joint. The big toes or, rather, leg thumbs had much more levels of freedom, allowing me to scratch my shin solely with it. All the other stuff regarding my anatomy remained practically the same, at least from the outside. It was very unusual to feel myself in a body like that. Walking was difficult at first due to the more developed ankle joints, but in half an hour, I figured a way to make my posture and walk almost human-like.
There were no direct coordinates of my initial dislocation, but I figured it should be somewhere where dinosaurs live so I decided to focus on that part of the Continent. Why the Continent, you will ask? Because the world had only one giant continent. It was covered in ice on the north and south, and all the major life was situated near its center. Humanoid races and dinosaur races were able to coexist only due to the relief of the continent. I assumed there were two continents some time ago, which collided in creating one gigantic continent and an almost unapproachable mountain range in a junction. The average height was about ten kilometers peeking at an unbelievable thirty-six kilometers. These mountains in the middle of the land and endless ocean around it completely separated two parts of, now, a single continent, making peaceful coexistence possible. Peaceful only due to the absence of a way to start a war. There were contacts, though. Some enthusiasts from both sides were finding a way over the mountains or through the ocean. This information was known by the majority of rulers but not by the general population. It was not a significant problem for the colonists, though - there were minor races even weirder on each part of the Continent. To distinguish those parts, somehow, I have named them - Midland and Jurrland. I won’t explain my choice of names - whatever you may think, all similarities with real-life terms are coincidental.
I’ve memorized what I could regarding the Jurassic land and look through Midland’s general geography - just to check it out of the necessities list.
Surprisingly there was not too much information about mobs. As I’ve understood, this information was restricted to the area of initial character location. There were only a few weird lizards of ambiguous colors, several types of birds and insects. Nothing even slightly resemblant to fierce predators. Well - it might be a lucky place.
Generally, being at a point in my life when little reflection is not harmful, I indeed did it. I reflected. I’ve understood one, not very interesting, but a quite relevant thing - I’ve never tried hard to get something. Money, girls, adventures - it all came naturally to me. Not the biggest money, not the prettiest girls, and sure not the most exciting adventures(till today), but still - I have never tried to overcome, overdo, to jump higher than I could. If you think that by sitting and doing this little reflection, I have finally understood that I needed to put my whole self in it, go above and beyond, you are wrong. Why the fuck? I intentionally lived with an easier and faster life setting, and I don’t want to stop. That is what I have understood. Even my current character will earn a lot more experience than all the competitors, even if it means that it must be harder to pla...damn..live with it. I’ve never looked for a hard way. Neither I have looked for an easy way. I won’t look for anything this time also. I’ll try just to live. My way. My way on the highway.
These thoughts had cheered me up a bit to the point that I started to make plans and consider possibilities. Obviously, I stopped. Handle problems in a queued manner. First in, first out. I had only one problem now - the inactive login button.
Was I telling you I would not go above and beyond? Well, I lied. That time I went above and beyond to find the reason that blocks my game start. Eventually, I found it and sat down a bit to reflect a bit more. As it turned out, I was stupid, or this space did something with my logical thinking, or the stone my SOUL runs on is very slow, like a Qintel Qore on 4 nanometers slow.
Either way… During my last occupation, I’ve earned some money, and since they could not find any of my living relatives, they figured they could take my money to themselves obviously. I would have done the same.
They turned out to be more generous than I was because they kind of converted that money to some virtual currency of this pre-game-phase-space so that I could spend them on loot boxes. Clever - certainly. Illegal - indeed. Who gives a damn about some lost SOULs and their rights - right?
As soon as I pressed the “I Agree” button in the simplistic PC interface, a real one-armed bandit appeared instead of my bed. I’ve never seen one in real life, only in some old movies regarding some ancient city called Last Vegans or something. It was like I remembered it - a complicated curvy box with dozens of buttons and joysticks. Everything was blinking and squeaking as if a giant pack of squirrels sat there. Fucking squirrels. My mood decreased to the point of “screw you, I’m going home,” but I was home, so.. yeah. I was offered to buy one platinum box, one golden box, and two copper boxes. The current currency amount was not enough to buy a silver one which was a bummer since there would be no moral satisfaction because of the correct metals sequence. I thought,” To hell with it” and bought them all. A little popup with an explanation appeared that those boxes are safe with me dying till the point of opening. As soon as I open boxes and transform them into real..um.. real virtual live objects, they should be tied to prevent them from being left on my dead body.
Being a curious young Archeo, I decided to wait with most of the boxes until some safe place and time and open only one of them. I’ve decided to go with a golden one. If I had silver, I would have gone with it.
Death Favourite, ring, +1% experience after each death. An object from a Death Bestows Set(1/13), Equipped objects (0/13). Set bonus -. Limitations: life count should be 100 when equipped - automatically tied.
Fuuuuuuck. It sure looks like a nice ring. Even its description gave me more information regarding the game. First - it turns out there are ways to increase the initial life count - which is nice. Second - there are sets in the game. And final third - why the fuck there are thirteen objects in a set if one could have only ten tied objects - one bizarre thing, from the creators of a game. However, if there are in-game ways to increase the amount of possible tied objects - even this information may be quite valuable. Cool. Cool-cool-cool.
Now the most straightforward part - not to die till increasing lives count to 100. Wish me luck.
Login.
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