Alex woke up hanging in the void, burning letters hanging in front of her and sick to her stomach. She still remembered, as she was sure everyone else did, the elves and the dragonborn, the dwarves and the orcs sitting in their vast chamber, all marble columns racing towards a perfect silver dome.
Through the windows, an endless starry night glowed - a beautiful celestial vista. It was warped and reflected by the dome above, as the so called High Races decided that humans, well... were monstrous.
They marched out the human 'Tutorial-Users', or at least the ones that had survived, narcissists with hero complexes, sociopaths who had 'done what was necessary to win', and shell-shocked angry men and women who might have been good ones.
The protestations of humanity fell on deaf ears, as from high tables humans were declared fit only to be monsters in the Last World.
Now, Alex hung in the void. In front of her, like angry rents in reality, were words that she could feel resonating with the depths of her soul.
Alexandra Johnson
Faction: Monster
Species: Human
Blood: 0
Bone: 0
Flesh:0
AP: ??
Human, a species condemned for their violent barbarism by the Council of the High Races (how she hated that designation), a plague and a trial upon the Last World.
This is a female of the species, of average might.
Beneath that again were... different words. Soothing was not quite the word to describe the shimmering white flames, but instead of the agonising branding that the Council had inflicted on Alex (and presumably every other human), they seemed somehow... fair.
It is the Decree of Justice that even Monsters should know the workings of the system, and to choose their own Ways within it.
Thus, you [Alexandra Johnson] (like a form... for all its claims, it seemed justice here was still a heartless bitch) may choose your Way:
Core-Bound Monster
Gain Special Quality [Immortal] while the Core you are Bound to exists.
Access to [Community] Features.
Access to [Research].
50% of AP tithes to Bound Core.
Cannot leave Extended Dungeon Territory except for [Special Event: Dungeon Break], [Special Event: Grand Festival] or [Special Event: Royal(+) Invitation]
The casual offer of condition immortality caught Alexandra off guard, and she wondered how many people would take it even with the extensive price that it carried. Perhaps it wasn't so bad, but Alexandra had spent enough of her short life stuck on a one-way road to corporate slavery.
She wasn't about to engage in what looked like a Fantasy version of the same.
Itinerant Monster
You may go where you will.
+10 Starting AP.
Freedom, it seemed, came without safety, with only a small measure of strength to compensate for the lack of the limited immortality that came with being a Dungeon Monster.
Alex chose it anyway. At least it would let her go places.
There was yet more text, blocky and informative. Albeit, minimally as far as she could see.
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BLOOD: GOVERNS INHERENT STRENGTH, ENDURANCE, AND BLOODLINE.
SPECIES BONUS: +.3% Endurance
BONE: GOVERNS MYSTERY AND INHERENT CREATIVE CAPABILITIES.
SPECIES BONUS: +.3% Tool Use
FLESH: GOVERNS LEARNED TECHNIQUES AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT.
SPECIES BONUS: +.3% Technique Efficiency.
New letters flared into existence a moment later: Rolling Personal Stat Bonuses...
Blood: +1% Bloodline
Bone: +1% Aura
Flesh: +1% Regeneration.
Bloodline: First Serpent
The fires surged forward and flowed over her, burning through her in an instant. It was agony beyond even the initial nightmare that had been Integration. When they passed, Alex felt... different. Her body felt heavier, more substantial and at the same time inexplicably more confining.
Please allocate AP. Available AP: 30.
3 attributes. 30 points. Alex shrugged and with a flicker of thought, her sheet changed:
Alexandra Johnson
Faction: Monster
Subfaction: Itinerant
Species: Human
Blood: 10(+3% Endurance, +10% Bloodline)
Bone: 10(+3% Tool Use, +10% Aura)
Flesh:10(+3% Tech. Efficiency, +10% Regeneration)
Blessings: [Identify(Justice)]
Techniques: None
Equipment Slots: [Weapon][Offhand]
Bloodline: First Serpent
There were a few new things, summaries, a subfaction, whatever equipment slots were... and Blessings.
Unlike the rest of them, she could feel that sitting in her mind like a smooth and cool marble. It was, she thought, a thoroughly odd consideration.
The void fractured, suddenly, and she found herself sitting at a fire next to a man in black plate armour. Blood leaked from every joint, and behind his helmet, she could see whispering flames.
"Greetings, mortal." The man's voice was like steel rasping over steel. "I am the Challenger."
Alex rubbed her temples. "Do you have to sound like that?" She grumbled. Then she was spinning through the air. She crashed down, awkwardly sprawling on the seat next to the fire.
"Monster, I am to teach you your technique because Lady Justice decreed it. Do. Not. Test. Me." The words pounded into her mind like nails, and she felt the stirrings of terror in her guts.
Before it could render her mute, she forced out the first thought that came into her mind: "Can you teach me how to speak like that then?"
The Challenger's gaze felt almost physical. "No. Divinity cannot be taught."
Alex used the time to push down the burgeoning fear. "What can you teach me then?" She asked forcing her voice to be, if not entirely polite, steady.
"Pick a weapon." The Challenger commanded. The fire suddenly rushed skywards, illuminating their surroundings. On the grey and dusty plane around them, crimson spectres of armaments stuck out from the ground.
Alex obediently got up and started wandering through the field. It was an odd experience, not only because of the otherworldly vista, but also because the fire never got much further than 50 paces away, such that it seemed like the world was moving around her and the fire rather than she through it.
Eventually, a spear caught her attention. The moment she grasped it, pain filled her head.
[Technique: Spear-Fishing] Gained.
"Spear-Fishing?" She said incredulously, turning to look at the Challenger who merely laughed. The world crumbled to dust around them. "Think of it this way" The God rasped, an edge of merriment to his awful voice. "You're less likely to starve."
He vanished along the grey world around her. A moment later she smashed into leafy undergrowth, spear in hand, and her knees buckled under her. Air rushed into her lungs, setting off a coughing fit that left her shaking.
A few meters in front of her was the edge of a cliff, beyond which a forest stretched away as far as her eye could see. Rivers of thick mist poured off an unnaturally dark mountain that rose unnaturally from its surroundings off to her left. They wound through the forest below the cliff in slow, graceful swirls, beneath an impossibly starry sky at the heart of which a crystalline sphere cast a soft light over everything.