White, white everywhere. It was as if my eyes had been packed with freshly fallen snow, or I had been transported to a midwestern Catholic church. I was floating in a void of pure and featureless blankness. Wondering whether or not the game had glitched I began to fly around, it was then that I realised that my body was gone. It was a weird and unpleasant sensation to be disembodied, a consciousness devoid of a vessel. I wasn't sure how I should feel, on one hand, it was freeing, like skinny dipping, I felt light and fast. On the other, I found myself craving stability in a way I had never before. And when the time came I was happy to be placed back in my body.
Standing on a floor that was indistinguishable from the sky I found myself back in my lanky body, complete with track pants and the hoodie I had worn for the past 4 days, Pleasant. The white room seemed had changed since my transformation most notably it was now populated with a plain wooden door, a sign on which indicating that this was the entrance to 'Legend Has It,' I shrugged and walked through briskly. After doing this I would find myself falling and regretting my choices quite vehemently as it appeared the doorway had no floor on the other side of it and I was quite disorientingly falling through a white void, identical in appearance to the previous room.
"Shit fuck, piece of shit game!" I yelled in abject terror and rage. What kind of game does this, it has to be a lawsuit waiting to happen right, like what if some kid freaks the fuck out and dies of shock. Fuck that what if I die of shock.
The wind, however, was taken out of me as my fall was suddenly arrested, much like a person of colour in a midwestern church. I was left wondering what the fuck was going on while restrained in a limbo. Soon after I was let go and resumed falling for about 50cm before landing on the ground in a heap. Scrambling to my feet I began to brush myself off and square my shoulders to the distance in a futile attempt to appear larger and tougher than I was.
"Greeting being of the Aether. It appears you want to enter into the mortal realm. If this is so you must first answer, the questions." A booming voice spoke from an undisclosed or discernable location. I chuckled internally for a moment, the questions it sounded so cliche that it was hard to take the guy seriously even after the fall, it was only a game after all.
"Lay them on me then oh disembodied one," I spoke grandiosely whilst performing a mock bow. I wasn't entirely sure why I acted the way I did, in hindsight, I supposed it may have been some sought of inherent defence mechanism. That, however, was beside the point, as after I answered the being three pillars rose from the featureless white mass that passed for ground, each around one and a half metres in height and with an object resting upon them.
The first pillar was covered in a layer of spongy moss and was layered in a series of motley mushrooms and vines that grew from somewhere within the mass of nature, resting upon the top, however, was a small, emerald cartouche. The second pillar was crafted out of a roiling mass of shadow and creeping darkness. it looked to be bleeding in an odd, unnatural way, more of an oozing tar. Resting upon it was an eye, it looked around the room frantically, blinking rapidly in abject panic. The third and final pillar looked to be crafted out of pure and unmarred light, radiant in its holiness and resting upon its surface was a small flame, it wasn't burning from any obvious source of fuel and seemed to survive through sheer willpower.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I stared at the pillars for almost a minute in silence waiting for the disembodied voice. I cleared my throat and shifted my weight from foot to foot. Staring at the pillars. It was then that I realised I was meant to choose between them.
"Fucking idiot," I mumbled under my breath as I trudged toward the pillars. This had to be some kind of abstract character creation, choose an object that corresponds to the character you want to play, they were making the player work for it a plus in my book, it helped create a form of mystery. Standing before the pillars I raised my arm above the objects, my fingers dancing as I puzzled as to their hidden meaning. After several moments I came to a tentative conclusion.
Light, absolute and unyielding, it perseveres and stays for as long as it needs to, to overcome its enemies. Dark, corrupting and oozing, it doesn't rush because it doesn't have to, it knows that eventually all things will return to darkness and so it waits, oozing and spreading influence, placing and moving pieces across the board until the night comes.
it was the first pillar that actually had me stuck. In passing, I saw it as a sure thing, nature. Plants, trees and elves, all things basic bitch fantasy game players love, I mean they had to appeal to the casual player who wants to be a beautiful elf, using flower magic and controlling their haram of nature peoples. Except, the cartouche didn't fit with that. The cartouche represents power, royalty and legitimacy. Not very akin with a mushroom or moss. Unless.
"Life," I mumbled as the cogs began to turn in my head. Similiar to nature but not entirely. Life wasn't pure nor was it evil and corrupting, it just was. Life was noble and it was powerful. It was there before concepts such as good and evil light and dark and it would be thereafter. My hand unconsciously wrapped its fingers around the small carved gem, gripping it with white-knuckle intensity. I didn't notice it until it finally shattered in my hand producing a thin, green tinted mist that began to expand and swirl around me.
"Good choice, today you are a creature of the Aether no longer, take your place primal spirit of the world heart. Take your place with a sword or with magic but no matter the means people will remember you, they will tell your story and when they do they will say. Legend has it that today. A god was born."
I smiled, I was starting to like this game.