*Cough Cough Cough hyack*
A series of coughs could be heard, erupting from a thin, broken shape, leaning against his desk as they took their toll on the poor child. The child had long silver hair and dark murky blue eyes, and as a result of years of the infliction, had been left with a slender body, beautiful in its own right. Richard had been approaching 19, but this day seemed to be his last. The curse seemed ready to finally finish him
. Richard had been abandoned on the front doorstep of a chapel when he was an infant, as the church of Isis was known for taking in abandoned children. It had been found that he had been cursed by a God, and through an oracle it was discovered that he had been of a noble family who had incurred the wrath of a God. The noble family clearly didn’t understand the idea of a curse upon a bloodline, nor did they understand appeasement as they had simply chosen to abandon the defective child instead. Knowing he wouldn’t live long, the church decided to take him in until the day he died.
And here he was, on the doorstep of death. His bones creaked and his heart swayed, as Richard managed to make it to his bed before he passed. He had regrets. Richard wanted to live longer, and cursed the family whom had doomed him to this fate. But all the same, he loved the life he had lived here, surrounded by people he could consider family, and enough books to fill the gap. And as he left this world, he swore he heard a whisper so soft, it felt as if it cradled him.
Darkness was all that Richard saw. It wasn’t what he’d heard of, sitting in his church. No angels, no god of judgement, no mysterious hippo-alligator-thing or famous heroes like Heracles seeing him at the gates at Elysium. Just peace and quiet, accompanied by nothing. Until it changed.
No longer was he in pure darkness. He couldn’t tell, but something had changed. No longer was the darkness intangible. He moved his hands and felt resistance. He could finally feel himself getting somewhere, and wondered if this was it, and he was going to see the truth of it all. His hand met something and yet saw nothing.
So he pushed.
And pushed.
And pushed once more.
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He started banging against this invisible wall harder and harder, with each blow growing in power. Richard felt energetic, and in fact, he felt stronger than before, better than before. Eventually the wall gave way and light came through the tiny crack, which Richard started digging into with his hands. What he thought were his hands of course. They felt different. Rougher. Sharp? Richard didn’t think that much about it as he felt elated, excitement growing within him as the light grew brighter. Until finally… he burst out! Erupting from the darkness, Richard found himself in a weird place. There was not a trace of anything he expected, not even the tiniest hint of humanity. He found himself in what appeared to be a tiny bed of flowers, each flickering with a tiny bit of light, and a nice little lake beside it. Richard would be inclined to believe himself in a meadow, were it not for the fact that the meadow ended in cavern walls, with only a tiny hole in the ceiling through which the sun flared through. There was even an entrance at the front that would allow him to squeeze through. While he was observing the beauty before him, something caught his attention that caused him to freeze.
His hands. They weren’t human.
What were once slender human fingers had become scaled and thick, ending in sharp claws. His arms had followed suit, as gleaming white scales embedded themselves down his arms. And that’s when he started noticing more. How uncomfortable he felt standing up, the weird sensation at his butt, the weird spasms in his back. When He tried looking backwards Richards marveled at this, before the marvel quickly changed to astonishment and horror as he now saw a tiny pair of wings protruding from his back, equally as white and scaly as his arms, and his tail!? He had a tail now?! With his mind whirling, Richard rushed to the little lake he saw earlier, hoping for confirmation, or more hopefully denial, of his current situation. Sadly, he would find no such comfort. What stared him down was a hatchling dragon, adorned in beautiful white scales with not a horn on its chubby reptilian head, two wings and four arms. The very picture of a dragon. The poor new hatchling however, would get no time to process this. A ringing would pop off in his head followed by a light screen and a flow of words, seemingly from a nice young lady emerged in his head.
[Hello player 15 and welcome to the newly established system as well as your second chance at life!]
Perhaps in a more modern world this would be seen with either concern or excitement, but in a world which was in a weird mix of the roman empire, the dark ages, and a slight pinch of the modern world, Richard hadn’t the slight idea of a video game, much less a system that had introduced itself to him. It merely left Richard with more questions.
[The Goddess Isis has seen your plight, and although she was unable to lighten the plight Nemesis had set upon you, hoped to give you a second chance at a better life]
Although this left Richard confused, it cleared any possible doubts of what had happened. One of the many thoughts that had flown through his head was that this was punishment by his Goddess, perhaps in addition to the curse he had already bore. Although he was still confused, Richard decided to enjoy himself. He ended up spending the next hour running around in circles, enjoying the divine gift he had been given. This would be the beginning of his troubles, and perhaps it was better that it began on a positive note.