Chapter 2: Character Creation
> Or are you someone out there
> Who's a little bit like me?
> Who knows deep down
> I'm not where I'm meant to be?
> - “Into the Unknown,” Panic at the Disco
> Frozen 2 Soundtrack
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Augmented Reality Integration Begun.
Integration at 24%
Integration at 58%
Integration at 92%
Integration complete.
Welcome to Realms of Destiny 2.
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Sophia blinked at the message that scrolled across her vision. It looked like the text that scrolled across her monitor screen when she was reinstalling the operating system on her personal computer. But she wasn’t staring at her computer. In fact, Sophia realized with a start, she didn’t know where she was. She had gone to sleep after watching a few episodes of Doctor Who - she hadn’t had the time to watch lately and needed to get caught up - and had planned to get up early to see her housemates off on their vacation. …And maybe to log into the Realms’ alpha test server. Possibly. Probably.
But she hadn’t woken up - Sophia was sure of that. She wasn’t sitting at her computer wearing the XVR goggles, and she most certainly wasn’t logging into Realms of Destiny.
Instead, Sophia looked around a dark room with walls 30 feet across and 20 feet tall. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of 5 square foot panels, each one made of a shiny black material. Sophia couldn’t tell if it was an obsidian-like stone, metal or some sort of ceramic, but the panels covered the walls, floor and ceiling in an almost unrelieved black. The only exception was the thin lines of white light that ran between the panels, and the massive screen that took up almost the entirety of one wall. On that huge screen, quite possibly the largest monitor that Sophia had ever seen, the words glowed in a stark, mechanical font, in bright blue font.
Sophia barely had time to process her surroundings before the text scrolled up and more words appeared.
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Welcome, NewPlayer1.
Create Character?
Yes. No.
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“Uh… okay…” She was dreaming. That was the answer. Sophia’s subconscious could sometimes get overactive and her dreams could be unusual, but she’d never had a dream this vivid. Still, if she was dreaming of Realms of Destiny 2, she might as well play along. She started to move towards the screen, looking for some way to interact with the system and wondering if it was perhaps a touch screen, but before Sophia could reach out to tap ‘yes’, a voice spoke up behind her, making Sophia jump and whirl around.
“Hello, Sophia. I am Minerva, an advanced intelligence resource system. I have been assigned to guide you through the character creation process.”
Sophia stared at the figure standing just 2 feet behind her. The AI was almost 8 feet tall, with long, thin limbs that made her (it?) look more like a robotic alien than a human. She - Sophia decided to go with female because of the name and the female timber of the AI’s voice - was clad in smooth, curved metallic plates the color of rose gold. Her head was smooth and egg-shaped and sat on a long cylindrical neck, with two blue glowing spots for eyes and no other facial features.
“Um… hi.” Sophia stared, open mouthed, at the AI. She had seen videos of artificial intelligent robots, but she was pretty sure that humans hadn’t yet succeeded in creating a robot with true sapience. And yet, Minerva gave her the distinct impression of an intelligence and… awareness… that unnerved Sophia.
“If you would like,” Minerva continued, seemingly unaware of Sophia’s uncertainty, “I can streamline the character creation process and maximize the potential of your character. Would you like me to do so?”
Sophia hesitated. This whole experience was very different from the character creation process of the original Realms of Destiny game, though that had been built on a system designed over 30 years ago. Technology advanced and the video game industry was always pushing forward what was possible. Still, Sophia hadn’t seen anything like this in any game she had played before, even the couple cutting edge VRMMORPGs that she’d been able to try at a game conference the previous summer.
Finally, Sophia shrugged. Might as well play along and see where it took her. “Sure.”
With a robotic jerk, Minerva tilted her head in what may have been a nod. Then, with a blink, she was just… gone. Sophia stared at the spot where Minerva had been standing, then glanced back at the screen on the wall. With a start, she realized that the previous text was gone, replaced with a new message.
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Welcome, Sophia.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Custom Character Creation Activated.
Custom Character Creation Complete.
Accept New Character? Yes. No.
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Sophia’s eyebrows rose as she stepped towards the screen. Custom Character Creation? That sounded interesting, but it also looked like she was being asked to accept the character without seeing the result. Frowning, Sophia reached up and tapped on “no.”
Nothing happened.
Sophia tapped “No” a couple more times with increasing pressure. Still, the screen didn’t change. She looked around for some other way to interact with the screen, but found no mouse or keypad. She even spoke her choice out loud, wondering if it was voice activated like Minerva had been.
Still nothing happened.
Frustrated, Sophia tapped on “Yes,” just to see what would happen, then she cursed silently as the words changed. She hadn’t actually wanted to accept it without seeing it first.
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Custom Character Approved.
Name: Sophia
Race: Human
Class: Unknown
Tier 0 Essences:
Zoion
Daimon
Dynamis
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Sophia scowled as the new information appeared. In Realms of Destiny 1, classes had been determined by a set of three essences that were chosen at character creation. These starting essences helped define how a character would start out, though new essences could be unlocked or discovered to help refine or alter the character down the road. It didn’t surprise Sophia that Realms of Destiny 2 would use a similar system, but the three essences that the system, or Minerva, had apparently assigned to her were not like any she had heard of. In the previous game, essences had been pretty self-explanatory - things like “strength,” “fire,” or “plants.” Sophia had no idea what the Zoion, Daimon, or Dynamis essences might represent. She also couldn’t take a cue from her class, because for some reason, the system wasn’t telling her what her class was.
“Is it a glitch?” Sophia wondered aloud. It was an alpha, after all, so some bugs could be expected. Sophia could find no way to report the bug, though, and even as she frowned over the situation, she watched the screen… well, glitch was the only way she could describe it. The words flickered and danced on the screen, then changed.
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Custom Character Approved.
Name: Sophia
Race: Human
Class: Unknown
Tier 0 Essences:
Animal
Demon
Power
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Sophia’s eyes widened and she shook her head. There was still no description of her class, but with the new essences, Sophia could make some educated guesses. She imagined herself summoning huge demon dogs or maybe becoming a demonic creature herself. Whatever it was, she didn’t want it! Sophia usually played a healer, and she always played good characters. Boring, maybe, but it was her archetype.
Frustrated, Sophia reached up to pull away the VR goggles, determined to log off manually and report the bug or at least reload the game so that she could restart the character creation process. But when she reached for the emergency switch that was default on all VR systems, she instead smacked herself on the head. She wasn’t wearing any VR goggles.
For a moment, Sophia just stood, disoriented. She had been so absorbed in the game that she had forgotten that this wasn’t Realms of Destiny - she was dreaming. And yet, this was more vivid and more bizarre than any dream she could have fathomed. She looked around the room, trying to shake off the feeling that she couldn’t possibly be asleep. She didn’t feel asleep. She felt wide awake and very, very confused.
It was several breaths before Sophia’s mind cleared enough to realize that new words had appeared on the large screen.
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Character Creation Complete.
Loading starting zone...
Warning! Starting Zone Error.
Recalibrating - please wait.
Loading starting zone...
Starting zone loaded. Enter Realms of Destiny 2?
Yes No
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Sophia glared at the screen. “No,” she snapped out loud. To her surprise, the text responded to her voice, but it wasn’t the response she had expected or wanted.
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Logging out...
Log out failed.
Loading starting zone...
Starting zone loaded. Enter Realms of Destiny 2?
Yes No
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“No!” Sophia spoke more firmly this time, but she once again got the same result. “What the hell is going on here?” She muttered but the screen gave no response. This wasn’t a dream, and it certainly wasn’t VR - it was too real for either of them. But the alternative explanation was pure lunacy. For the time being, though, Sophia could find no alternative except to play along. With a sigh, she acquiesced to the system screen. “Yes.”
In the next instant, Sophia’s world went black, but the instant before her consciousness faded, she could swear she saw one last message flicker onto the screen before it, too, disappeared.
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Upload complete.
Sophia.cha installed.
Program dohan.exe activated.
Good luck, hero. Oh, and please don’t die.
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