I sojourn now in the blessed lands of the Rawesan for a time, the birthplace of Her church. Many are the prophets who venture into the deep deserts in search of guidance, but few ever return with the divine scripture. Those who do are often blessed with the gift-spark and write on parchment, paper, or vellum the instruction of the divine that others may know greater communion with Her.
- The Fanciful Travels by Beron de Laney 376 AC.
As suddenly as my soul torture began, it stopped. I sensed a shift, and I was no longer there, but elsewhere. With a sudden sense of vertigo, I fell face forward into what felt like earth and grass. Curled in a fetal position, I whimpered as the aftershock of pain played across my mortal body.
Shadowy purple tendrils continued to whip across my consciousness, yet fainter now, slowly replaced by a plethora of error messages. I kept on begging for the agony and torment to end before exhaustion finally claimed me. I fell into a nightmare-fueled sleep filled with visions of the deaths of everyone I had ever loved or known.
*****
I awoke naked and gibbering nonsense to an uncaring universe. Dull sunlight mercilessly pounded my senses as I tried unsuccessfully to raise myself on fever-drunk feet. Failing pitifully, I instead retreated to curl on a soft bed of grass. Rocking back and forth to a rhythm known only to the mad, I chanted “Not real… not real,” to myself. Over and over, a litany to a world that did not care.
Looking across the sea of green I saw that it was a gray and dark day with clouds pregnant with rain on the distant horizon. At the edges of my vision, the hint of shadowy things scuttled back into the recesses of my mind. Across from me in the semi-distance, I saw a picture from what felt like a lifetime long past, the imposing tree on the hill. I was vulnerable, naked, and alone in a place known only to my madness.
Memories from another place smashed into my consciousness and I heard a high trilling of sound flooding my senses. Willing the world to go away, I wrapped my head in my hands and closed my eyes.
As inexorable as time itself, a message played across my inner eyes in a bold script.
CHOOSE YOUR CALLING.
Flustered I could not help but be drawn to the message, and as my awareness brushed against understanding, new text was shown to me.
INITIATE and below another choice STUDENT.
Just as I was musing on the incongruity of ‘Student,’ the text flashed static across my vision and there was a ringing in my ears. The ‘Student’ option had changed to display ‘Acolyte.’ Could I get any crazier? I felt in my bones that I had to choose quickly or there would be dire consequences.
I knew in my gut that the ‘Acolyte’ must be some sort of hidden class. Those were usually harder to play but tended to have some real endgame advantages if you could master their skills. With nothing else to go on, no wikis, guides, or even friends to explain the choices in front of me, I mentally chose Acolyte.
I heard a rumble from within as text blazed and imprinted across my mind. A rushing sense of power filled me, a feeling of completeness.
STATUS
Calling: $%^& Level 1 Acolyte (v@ri%
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 8
Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 8
Charisma: 8
Luck: 8
SKILLS & PROFICIENCIES
Pain Nullification (lvl.1)
SPELLS & MAGIC
-
GIFTS
-
Experience to next level: 0/100
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It looked like the user interface, or UI, of one of the many games that I would often play. What was this? Pain Nullification!? Shock and indignation rose to the fore of my mind with this notification of a skill. Before I could fully comprehend this, new numerical markers blossomed in the lower-left corner of my vision.
Health: 5/6
Stamina: 16/16
Mana: 2/6
Feeling vulnerable with my nakedness, I pinched myself to make sure this was no dream, then pinched again harder to draw a little blood. "This must be a game. This cannot be real..." I felt my mind teetering once again on the brink of insanity, sibilant whispers reassuring me that it was real, followed by a far-off scream of a distant divinity. At the edges of my vision, I could sense the impression of dark shadowy tendrils, ever moving and just out of sight.
The pain proved this was genuine, I must be here. Was this really the place of my dreams? An escape from the meaningless doldrums of a pedestrian life? The idea both disturbed and thrilled me. Looking at my hand, I curled my fingers into a fist before straightening them again. What power awaits me in such a world? Love? Immortality...?
As I contemplated the bewildering scale of my circumstance, the next message appeared.
New Quest: First Steps
I was once again struck by the importance of the message, causing a profound impact on my being. With earnest effort, I rose to my feet and trudged slowly towards the tree on the hill. Each step was heavy and painful, as I made my way barefoot to the place where the revelation had occurred. After what felt like an eternity, I finally arrived and took a deep breath, gazing upon the scene before me.
A majestic tree that looked like some sort of acacia but with bladed green leaves. Its branches rose from its great trunk like an accusation against the heavens. The air around it was saturated with a strong pine scent mixed with the sweet fragrance of lemon blossoms. Beneath its generous boughs, a crude stone altar stood. At its foot, fallen from its place, lay a stone carving of a female figure, a crude facsimile of the goddess.
“Avaria...” I croaked, somewhere between desperation and joy.
There was no answer. Yet, I thought I heard again the screaming of a distant female voice. Shaking my head I wondered what madness on top of madness was possessing me.
There, an echo. A tinkling echo of joyful laughter.
“Who are you?” I asked in a quiet hopeful voice to no one.
“I am Power Strike.”
Impressions of a female voice tickled my mind, a resonance close to my ear that left me shivering in excitement. Renderings of war and conflict, the press of the melee, an image of a peasant bringing down a cruel warlord, and an unsung hero alone atop the battlements unleashing savage blows against unspeakable horrors. All played across my inner vision.
A solemn note entered my mindscape. A soft choir of angels. A cry of anguish and salvation. The music built up to a crescendo until there was a new voice.
“I am Heal,” spoke a gentle authoritative voice, with all the kindness of a mother.
New images were brought to my mind. A man bleeding by the road only to be saved by a blue light, a dying man coughing blood only to rise again. A wish to rectify a little of the pain and hurt of the world.
I felt the budding feeling of real, earnest hope. Like a game I was being given my initial class skills, I enthused to myself, feeling my heart grow a little lighter. With these powers, I could grow to be a mighty paladin, slaying all who stood before me, advancing in strength, and making the world a better place.
Then something very wrong invaded the last remnants of tranquility. A sense of uncaring, of unbridled change and hunger that knew no bounds. Shadowy tendrils began to play against the edges of my mind once again, demanding attention as they pressed firmly against my consciousness.
“I am Rust...” a voice uttered in a sibilant gravelly tone behind me.
I turned around finding nothing, met only with dark hollow laughter. Images assaulted my senses, violating my sense of self. A sword forlorn, rusting as a grave marker to a forgotten soldier. Its serrated blade was marked with red rust the color of dried blood. So corroded that it had failed to cut through the hide of a majestic beast.
Then a pause, pregnant with all the future of a dead promise.
Shaken but undaunted, I optimistically chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth. This was just another skill that had appeared before me, albeit a little darker and edgier. Applying my gamer logic, I thought to myself that it was probably a debuff that reduced the damage of enemy weapons.
“But first...you must look...must look!” thundered the voice, now sounding a thousand strong. The shadowy tendrils forced my attention to the places at the edges of my vision.
Curse of En^r* -20% all starting attributes. Gilt in black was an error message, the name of my curse. “What is my name?” demanded the voices, insistent and wheedling. I coughed blood as I was struck by a blow as sharp as any saber. "What is my name?" the legion cried out again in savage demand. They had grown increasingly unrelenting, with a wrath that spoke of the last death throes of a supernova and echoed with the silence of the grave. Visions of decaying flesh and the slow decline of alien civilizations flooded my consciousness. “I don’t know!” I wailed to the uncaring voices, my voice harsh as I screamed with all my might. "What is my name? What is my name? What is my name?" The numberless horde demanded. The question rang out again and again, and each utterance was a hammer blow to my psyche. New visions flooded my mind of the cosmos, explosions of light, the scattering of stars, and the cruel end of all things. I saw the heat death of the universe. In the bottom left of my vision, I saw that my Health was plummeting. A flash of inspiration struck me then, fueled by utter desperation. “...An endless spiral of lost energy to chaos,” a fragment of a half-remembered communion with the ultimate end of all things. “Entropy...you are Entropy!” I cried in a last gasp bid to live. Impressions of a smile that was a tear in reality, a galaxy-wide, as the true name of my curse was revealed. Curse of Entropy -20% all starting attributes. A myriad of new system messages then flashed across my vision with the cessation of the pain. Finally, I saw a simple line of text at the end that made me smile in satisfaction as darkness once again claimed one of its own. Quest Complete