Chapter Three - Create New Character?

Harold didn't immediately select . Instead he took a moment to stretch and move around the room to get a feel for his avatar. In the past he'd tried out several FIVR systems, he even owned a Gen 2 VR Helm back home. There had always been something off about them. Some didn't properly register the sense of taste, or perhaps every action had to be actively thought if you wanted to wave your arms or walk around.

He was rather impressed after moving around for a minute. He hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary compared to his normal life. He could even smell a faint sterile clean scent of the room he was standing in. If he didn't know he was in a FIVR system he wasn't sure if he could tell the difference between it and reality. 'Absolutely stunning,' Harold thought to himself, 'They're going to make a fortune off the pods alone.'

After a few more practice movements and throwing a couple experimental punches at the air, Harold made his way to standing back in front of the notification screen. It had remained stationary where it first appeared while he was moving around the room. Drawing himself before it he noticed a small timer counting down on the top right of the notification box.

Remaining: 56:37

It had taken his less than five minutes to satisfy his curiosity about how well designed the virtual reality was. He wasn't in any particular hurry, he had already planned through this first part days ago after he'd found the old forum thread. He took a moment to go over everything on his checklist one last time before delving in.

His plan was fairly straight forward:

* If he wanted to win he'd need a race that didn't cost too much to recruit new units. Cheaper units also meant it would be easier to recover after a fight.

* It also couldn't be too weak. If he came to blows with another player who picked a stronger race before he could build up his forces he had no confidence he could win. At least not according to the information he found.

* Finally, the race had to be evil.

Harold chuckled to himself about the last point. He was never much of a troublemaker growing up, and he couldn't recall even a single time of stealing or committing any sort of petty crime. His reasoning was as simple as the rest of his plan: People love bad guys. He'd be able to bump his stream numbers by playing the villain, or so he hoped.

'Well, here goes nothing,' Harold thought as he reached out and pressed .

New Character Confirmed.

Processing...

Please select race. Racial details will be revealed with confirmation of character creation.

Harold frowned at the last line as the notification box disappeared and was replaced with an alphabetical list of races he could scroll through. 'I won't be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of the race before it's locked? Talk about making things difficult, I could end up with a race that has incredibly weak units or bad traits. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear.' Harold concluded.

'At least they definitely delivered on the promise for plenty of races to pick from.' Harold thought as he started scrolling down the long list. He kept an eye out for anything that might fulfill his criteria, with only a few of the options holding his interest.

* Aasimir

* Angel

* Annubi

Scroll scroll scroll

* Cyclops

* Demon

* Devil

* Draugr

* Dragon

* Dryad

Scroll scroll scroll

"Wait. There's no fucking way." Harold stopped and went back to the 'D's. "Son of a bitch, they actually have Dragon as an option."

While he wasn't interested himself, he already knew of at least one person who'd be picking it as he remembered the guy from the beginning of Orientation Week.

'The recruitment costs most be insanely high if they're anything near as strong as classic fantasy dragons. I'll have to make sure to avoid anyone who selects dragons until I'm able to recruit some elite units myself.' Harold added another bullet point to his plan and made a mental note to keep an eye to the skies as he continued looking through his options.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

* Gnoll 'Tempting' Scroll scroll scroll

* Merfolk 'No' Scroll scroll scroll

After working his way nearly to the bottom, while there were a few interesting choices, nothing really stood out to Harold. He was considering taking another look at some of the previous races when about halfway through the 'S's he knew he had found the race he wanted to play.

Confirm Race: Skeleton

Harold reached out and pressed , locking in his choice with a grin. 'Perfect. Skeletons should be slightly weaker than Humans, which means they should be cheaper too. And who doesn't want to watch a guy commanding a legion of undead?'

The race list was replaced with a new prompt.

Character Creation

Please select your Primary

'Hmm, seems the Primary is your main focus? Personal might be nice but it'd probably be better if I was playing a stronger race, and I don't want to play as a support. Only one option then.'

Harold reached forward and selected . The screen changed and presented him with several new options.

Commander Primary Selected

Please select your class

*

*

*

*

*

* Skeleton Unique:

'Well that's interesting. Guardian is obviously some sort of tank class, Runepriest is probably some sort of mage. Avenger might be based off of how much damage you take, or maybe the people around you? But then why is it a option?' Harold glanced at the timer and saw he had less than fifteen minutes left to finish his choices.

'Crap, I spent too much time going through the races. I guess I don't have time to figured all this out. Might as well go with the unique option.'

Harold chose and the screen changed several times before the next prompt.

Wraith Lord Selected

Processing...

Class bonus attributes applied: +2 Strength, +2 Vitality, +4 Leadership

Please select Advisor Primary

'I'm already a Commander, better make the advisor a support class.' Harold clicked and was prompted with a different set of available classes.

Support Primary Selected

Please select Advisor class

*

*

*

*

*

Still not sure what any of the classes actually did, the only difference Harold could tell between his choices was that there was no Unique option like his . 'Wish I had more time to try to consider each one properly. doesn't sound bad, maybe they'll be able to make bombs or poisons.'

was chosen and Harold received more notifications from the New Character system.

Alchemist Selected

Processing...

Error: Alchemist incompatible with Race: Skeleton

Processing...

Class Necro-Alchemist successfully assigned

Advisor Class bonus attributes applied: +4 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +2 Luck

Select character name: <____>

'Huh, I wonder if that's some sort of bug. Maybe that's why there wasn't a unique option, it was hidden behind normal alchemist.' Harold pondered as he selected the option to enter his character's name. He was about to enter the same name he always used for RPGs and stopped as he realized this was the name he'd be using for the next year hopefully. He decided on something more poetic and named his character after the guardian of the dead in Greek mythology.

Confirmed, character name is now

Select Advisor name: <____>

Harold couldn't think of anything and selected .

Random name selected

Confirmed, advisor name is now

Select faction name: <____>

Harold chose to fill in the name again and entered his faction's name.

Confirmed, faction is now

Processing...

Time remaining for character creation: 3:34

Harold sighed in relief. Maybe it wasn't as smooth as he had anticipated but he had still been able to follow his plan. Now he had just three more minutes and the Beta Test would really get under way.