Chapter 2

As I went to bed so early last night I was up before Grim for a change. Ad they say revenge is a dish best served cold. So I dumped a bucket of cold water over him to wake him up.

Grim woke up screaming and yelling, and very naked. I quickly ran out the door and just as I turned the corner in the hallway outside the room I ran into Missy and Sissy.

The gorgon sisters were twins and the only way to keep them apart was the fact that Missy had green-blue scales and Sissy blue-green scales. As a gorgon, they were mostly human apart from patches of scales on the outside of the arms and legs, snakelike eyes and of course having hair made out of snakes.

The big green guy behind me pulled up short when he saw the girls and quickly tried to cover himself.

Missy, the more outgoing one of the gorgon sisters, laughed and said “Why Grim I didn't know you were part snake.”

Grim blushed and scooted backwards around the corner and made his way back to the room.

“Sorry about that girls, I kinda woke him up with a cold shower.” And made my way back to the room.

With my good hearing, I heard Missy whisper to her sister “Wow if that was him after a cold shower I wouldn’t mind being bitten by that snake.”

When I got back to the room Grim had calmed down and chuckled, “well your the one who can explain to the guild-mistress why the mattress is wet.”

After a bit more joking around I got changed into some good walking gear and packed a small bag with a blanket and some food. When you do your awakening it works best if you can find a quiet meaningful place to meditate. I decided I would make my way up to the cliffs near the lighthouse and meditate watching the ocean.

It took me a few hours to make my way around the road on the rim of the crater. Mostly because I was getting good luck wishes from people along the way.

When I got to the spot I picked out I spread out the blanket on the ground and had some food first as I skipped breakfast. With the sun behind me, I sat down and looked out over the ocean to meditate. Just as I was about to fall asleep, as I was never the best at meditation.

WELCOME TO THE SYSTEM. Prepare for your consciousness to be transported.

With that I suddenly found myself sitting in a big brown leather chair at a thick wooden table with around me nothing but white space. The walls ceiling and floor were all bright white with no sign of a light source, and no sign of any shadows either. It was impossible to make out any corners or edges in the room.

Just as suddenly another chair appeared on the other side of the table. In that chair was a hooded figure, I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman and I couldn't see into the hood. It was just blackness.

With a voice that somehow seemed to be like a choir of voices, both male and female, and coming not from the figure but from all around the room. “Hello, Drakon. Welcome to your awakening.”

“Who are you?” I was getting a little bit freaked out. At that question, laughter filled the chamber and the figure reached up and slowly pulled back the hood.

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I saw my own face staring back at me. “Well, I am you of course.” The figure said in a voice now resembling my own.

“Or to be more accurate I am the system AI that will be your constant companion from now on. As I am now a part of your subconscious I figured you would like the creepy prank.” And the figure smiled at me.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I replied. “But yeah that sounds like a prank that I would pull on someone. So how does this awakening thing work?”

“Well, first things first I will show you your character sheet. There are multiple pages but you can configure them how you want later. For now ill just show you it with the default settings. And as long as you are in a quiet place, so not in combat or doing anything else. You can stop time and come back here to look at it.”

And on the wall, there was now a wall of text. I quickly customised it to just be normal black and white text, leaving the blue boxes for important system information.

Name: Drakon

Species: Half-elf Half-human

Subspecies: Dhampir

Class: TBD

Paths: TBD

Stats: TBD

Skills: TBD

Traits and perks: TBD

Titles: None

Milestones: TBD

“So looking at this I have a few questions. Let’s start at the top. Dhampir?”

“Yes, your birth-mother was bitten by a vampire just after you were conceived. I don’t know the specifics but that is the only way to become a Dhampir. You have some of the abilities of a vampire and very little of the drawbacks.” The AI clicked on a button that appeared on the desk

There was a change in the text on the wall.

Traits and perks:

Fast regeneration: +1 HP and +1 stamina regen per character level

Immortality: If you get killed you will reappear in your designated place of rest after 1 day. Timer double after each death. The timer resets back to 1 day after a year alive without death. Will not visually or physically age past the age of 30.

Dark-vision: Can see in total darkness as far as in daylight. Colours in total darkness are in black and white.

Light sensitivity: Takes you longer to adjust to sudden changes in light level.

“So I won't age, am harder to kill, and when I do get killed I get teleported back to safety after a few days.”

“That’s correct. But mind you if anyone who wishes you harm knows where you end up. Without any items, by the way, you will reappear naked. They will easily be able to kill you over and over again. More than one vampire's lair has been buried under tons of rock or has a magical pool of magma placed in it. To name but a few possibilities. So make sure your sanctuary is in a safe and hidden place.”

“I don’t see that many downsides at the moment.” I pondered.

“Yes, that is mostly because the not ageing part of immortal also comes from the elf side of your heritage. The biggest downside is that as you see more and more of your friends die of old age it becomes very depressing. Most elves get tired of living after a couple of centuries and will eventually get major penalties to a lot of their stats until they just slowly fade away. Don't worry though you being a Dhampir will probably not suffer the same penalties, or if you do it will be millennia instead of centuries.”

So nothing that I would need to worry about for a while at least. “So now what about all these other sections that say To Be Determined.”

“All of those are connected. Class determines what paths you have available. And Paths give you stat boosts and determine what your max skill rank can be.”

“Max skill rank?” I interrupted.

“Yeah, skills are capped at five or you class level whichever is lowest. But if you gain access to certain paths, or sometimes traits, you can increase the cap. So say for instance you get a +1 sword skill cap from a path, the calculation would be a max skill rank of six or character level whichever is lower. This does not train you in that skill or immediately make you any better. You still have to practise and get up to that rank. It just increases your potential.”

All I could do for now was just nod and hope that it would make sense in the end.

“Now probably easiest to now start with class selection. The way this works is I show you the class the system determines suits you best. If you do not like that class, you can choose to permanently discard it. At that point, I will show you two classes of a lower potential that you can choose from. Don't like those, you can choose from 4 of an even lower rank, and so on. Almost everyone goes with the first pick.”

This would be one of the defining points in my life, the day I found out what my class was.