Pride of craft - Prologue
She stared at the capsule, wondering why someone would willingly enter that thing, or worse, stay there for hours on end without any awareness of the outside world.
She would, she reminded herself, wryly.
Well, it had taken a few months for her to be convinced… And a good deal of studying the capsule’s technology and the nature of the game…
Ok, maybe she a little paranoid, but really, could you blame her?
Connect to Royal Road?
Yes | No
She hesitated for a second, but it was already too late to go back on her word.
“Yes”
— The scan on your iris and vein has determined that you are an unregistered user. Do you want to create a new account? —
“Yes”
— Select the name of your avatar —
“Amariss”
— Select your gender from male, female or neutral —
“What the hell does neutral mean?”
— Royal Road has forty nine races. You may select your race from —
“Wait! Go back! Female! Female!”
— You may alter your appearance —
“Back! Esc! Exit! Return! Abort! What else must I say for you to listen to me you stupid machine?!?”
— … —
She caught her breath, preparing herself for a good deal of cursing.
— Well, that was amusing. Female selected. Royal Road has forty nine races. You may select your race from the primary twenty-nine or try your luck with the random option for one of the locked races —
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“I was just trolled by a computer?”
— You’d be surprised by what a programmer can sneak into such a complex game —
“I wha-! Never mind! I don’t want to know! Do I have a chance to refuse the random draw if I don’t like it?”
— Since you asked, you can’t know the name of the race or any details, however you can make an educated guess based on the appearance, and you can just select another race if you don’t like what you see. Incidentally, did you know only 12 players asked this question before you? —
Breath in. Breath out. Plan to find out the programmer so she could kill him later.
“Random”
— You may alter your appearance. The basic appearance is based on your actual appearance, using the scans present on the capsule. —
“You do know that the fact that the capsule takes scans is actually disturbing right? I’m suddenly grateful that it is a cold day and I’m decently covered… Moving on, let me see what I’m dealing with…”
Light blinked in front of her, and a humanoid figure appeared from the floor, it was… well, she could recognize herself; that was her small upturned nose, her lips were thin, her face was heart shaped, she was 157 cm and really thin.
There were also scars on her hands and face.
And at the same time it(she? her?) was different, the skin was a perfectly smooth light grey, as if one had taken a common rock and polished it to perfection, the eyes were large and had a beautiful emerald green colour, making her look quite innocent and 2 years younger than she was.
The hair was silver-white, and went down her hips, an improbable length she would never have the patience to grow it to, considering her real hair was short in boy’s cut…
“Can you remove the scars?”
Wordlessly (finally!) the scars vanished, leaving a beautiful and exotic looking 15 years old girl.
Briefly she wondered if she should change the face so no one would be able to recognize her, but the girl in front of her didn’t look her age, the skin tone would throw people off already, the eyes were not the same and the scars that attract people’s attention were nowhere to be seen.
In short, while a close friend (pff!) could probably recognize her, no one else would.
“That’s… acceptable…”
— Your account has been activated. Your stats and class shall be determined while you are playing Royal Road. Do you wish to take the tutorial? —
“No, that’s ok, I will learn it as I go”
— Select a city and kingdom you want to start —
“What’s farthest from the main continent I can get?”
— The Citadel of Serabourg, Rosenheim Kingdom —
“I will take it”
— Welcome to Royal Road, good luck —