I got a letter to my hospital bed today from a corporation called In-Between-INC. This was my first letter in years. Most of my friends were dead and the media stopped asking for interviews about 5 years ago when my health started declining. One thing led to another and my body is being frozen while my consciousness is being thrown into a game until they can wake me up and fix me.
I hear the cryo pod hiss as it closes around me; that was the last thing I heard before my vision went black. For a few seconds I was floating in a black space but it felt like forever I was confused... “who am i”? “Where am I”? Then just as I gathered my thoughts and remembered my life, a bright white light shone from everywhere at once. It should have blinded me but I guess that’s not possible when you don’t have eyes or at least I didn’t have human eyes. A voice boomed from the pure whiteness that now surrounded me.
“Welcome to in-between Online!” The voice said, its voice echoing from all around me, and inside my head? Did I even have a head? I don’t think I did at the moment. The white space slowly changed to a white room with words on one wall. Please enter your name. I thought for a second And decided to enter something familiar and also not just my name because that would be boring. I entered (Screw_Charms) into the bar chuckling as I remembered my time as a jarhead. The words changed, kinda just falling away as if the words turned to sand, there were more words where the old ones were and they said, please select race. I looked through the selections there were your regular fantasy races like dwarfs, elves, and humans of course.
There were also sub races like surface dwarfs and mountain dwarfs both giving different bonuses for example the surface dwarfs got dexterity bonuses while the mountain dwarfs got Endurance bonuses. They also had other bonuses but I wasn’t interested enough in dwarfs to read into it too much. This was very familiar to me as iI used to play a lot of RPG games and I was well versed in the ways they worked. I even dabbled in the book genre LITRPG from time to time. I looked through the races for quite a while, finally coming to the elves but not just any elf, a dark elf. I read their description.
Dark elves are the least numerous of the elf race and one of the most prosecuted of the sapient races, for this reason they start with a low reputation with other sapient races and are often thought of as thieves and criminals, they are the ancestors of elves who started worshiping the dark gods. Like the other elves, they are taller than most races and have longer lifespans, they can see in the dark due to their dark god worshiping ancestors.
they get a boost to abilities relating to dark gods, they also gain a boost to stealth, there are also hidden modifiers. That last part I read was at the end of every race, the bonuses must have been many and minuscule for them not to add it to the description. I chose dark elf after skimming over the other races like a reptilian race called lizardfolk and small creatures called gnomes there were others but they're too many to mention. I chose dark elf and much like before the words sorta dissolved and the words please select your main class. Appeared in front of me. There were not so many options but the ones that were there included warrior, mage, archer, and rouge. It may seem like little options but before I was put into the Cryo pod I was briefed on the experimental treatment I would be alpha testing and It seemed it had a subclass system and a job system to further narrow your play style.
I scanned the classes selecting mage, I was always a mage when I played RPGs, I just loved the playstyle. The descriptions were simple and the names of the classes were pretty self-explanatory. The next words to show up were Please select subclass. I scanned the list and there was a lot to choose from such as pyromancer, sage, sword mage, elemental mage, and aeromancer were just a small fraction of the list but something immediately caught my eye, the Necromancer Subclass its Description read;
The Necromancer focuses on summoning undead to do your bidding, they have magic abilities that stem from soul magic and they also specialize in stealth, There are also hidden modifiers. Just like races each one had hidden modifiers which probably just helps simplify things for players. I picked Necromancer and quickly looked at the next list which told me to select my job, when I looked down at the list I saw an overwhelming amount of jobs to pick from, the list included farmer and cartographers all the way to an animal catcher job.
After looking for what felt like 20 minutes something caught my eye, a job that reminded me of my old life in the USMC. It was a job titled general. After picking general an avatar appeared, which looked kinda like me in my prime, broad shoulders, tall stature, blocky head with green eyes, and brown hair. The differences I could see were that the avatar had pointy ears and dark rings that seemed to arise from both of his eyes being lighter the further out the rings were, and my skin also changed color it was now a sickly blue tinge.
I could also tell my body was taller and it had sharper Features then it did before. I looked at my avatar with a satisfied smile, I had always loved Fantasy games, fantasy books pretty much anything fantasy related, and seeing a dark elf that looked like Me and was this realistic looking, in a game, really hit home on how old I was. When I was a kid virtual reality was still in its beginnings. I looked at the status sheet that already had predetermined skill points on it.
Name- Screw_Charms LV-1
Race- Dark Elf
Class- Mage
SubClass- Necromancer
Job- General
Health 128
Mana 144
STR> 15
INT> 22
WIS> 18
DEX> 24
END> 14
STA> 13
LUC> 11
He had 10 Stat points to allocate so he added 4 to END 3 to STA and 3 to STR, when he was done it looked like this.
Name- Screw_Charms LV-1
Race- Dark Elf
Class- Mage
SubClass- Necromancer
Job- General
Health 136
Mana 144
STR> 18
INT> 22
WIS> 18
DEX> 24
END> 18
STA> 16
LUC> 11
The Words shifted and a complete button materialized onto the wall. The people who made this game only really told me the basics of the character setup process and a few other things on a need to know basis, so for the rest of this game I was going in blind, I was in for a long ride. I mentally prepared myself, and I pressed the button. My vision turned black and a second later I was somewhere else. The first thing I saw was, wait, nothing?
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
My whole body was weighed down by something and I couldn't open my eyes as if I was buried alive, wait a second I couldn't even breathe. I really am buried alive I think. What type of game starts like this? I pushed up and it seemed I was close to the surface because my hands quickly broke into the air above. My lungs were burning by now so used all my energy to pull my head to the surface. like a fish out of water i quickly gulped for air and when i was breathing normally again I pulled the rest of my body out of the ground.
I took stock of my surroundings which were as I could see grass plains all around me with a scary looking forest to the south with a gravel road coming from the forest and going north. I quickly dusted myself off and noticed I was wearing, well I was wearing nothing. I was completely nude, except for a small leather pouch tied around my waist. I untied the bag and picked it up. It was pretty heavy so I was pretty interested in what was in it.
I opened the bag and was surprised to see an inventory type screen show up in my vision, there were 20 total slots and 11 of those slots looked occupied. When I thought about a specific occupied slot the description of the item appeared before me. The following are the items in the bag.
Common Leather Chestplate +3 defense
Common Leather Pants +2 defense
Common Leather Shirt +2 defence
Common Leather Shoes + 1 mobility
Common Leather Gloves +1 dexterity
Common Iron War Scythe +2 bleeding +1 damage
Common Cloth Cloak +1 stealth (hides your face)
Underclothes
10 Gold Pieces
5 Rations
Full Canteen
“That's useful,” I thought as I tried to figure out how to take the items out of the bag. Removing the items turned out to be pretty straightforward; you just had to think about wanting it out of the bag, which I did for every single item I had there. There was no way all this stuff could fit in that small bag, I wonder if it is magical or something. I picked the bag up and turned it around in my hand looking at it from all sides, and then all of sudden a notification flashed in my view (Skill: Inspection LVL 1 acquired: Small Inventory Bag max slots 20 weight reduction 60%) that was interesting I seemed to have Learned the skill inspection which according to its name inspected things. Well now I had an answer on why the bag wasn't super heavy and was just kinda heavy.
I donned my armor and strapped the scythe to my waist. I looked over the other items, the gold pieces were the currency of this world so put those back in the bag. The canteen was pretty big and was completely full of water. I wasn't thirsty so I also put that back in the bag. I finally came to the rations which were probably enough for 5 days.
After putting the rations into my bag I strapped it on the left side of my waist opposite of my scythe and made my way towards the road. After thinking for about 2 seconds I decided to ignore the creepy forest and follow the road north. After about 2 hours of walking I was fully appreciating my new body. It was truly as if someone rewinded time to when I was in my mid 20s. Over the horizon I spotted the walls of a town, or a city? He couldn't tell. After another hour and half of walking I reached the front gates and decided it was a city, I mean, what town would have such large stone walls?
The gates were crowded with people of all shapes and sizes. I was glad I had long since decided to put my hood up, not wanting to cause a scene knowing full well my species wasn't well liked. It took awhile for the line to move along, when I started to get closer to the guards I suddenly felt nervous there were 3 of them in full plate armor with chainmail underneath, helmets almost completely covering their faces. I couldn't tell what their races were exactly but one of them had a tail sticking out from under their armor.
“What if they killed me for being a dark elf? I thought. “There's no way they dont want to see my face, right?” well hopefully if they do pull my cloak up they dont make a scene. “It can't be that bad right?” I groan as I am released from the holding cell, they had immediately told me to take off my hood and upon seeing my face wasted no time to lock me up on the suspicion I was a wanted criminal. The guard who let me out of the cell and was now escorting me out of the barracks, from what I could tell he was very obviously human. When we reached the exit the guard sneered at me, “we have our eyes on you dark elf” he said with disdain in his tone, he then pushed me into the street, they were a racist bunch, but at least they didn't steal any of my stuff.
I pulled my hood up vowing to keep it on as long as possible from then on. I decided I needed to find an inn first so I started down the road. The city was packed, people and carriages pulled by horses were everywhere, food stalls and stores lined the sides of the wide gravel road I was making my way down. The signs hanging in front of the buildings were pictures instead of words so I assumed most people weren't able to read or write. I walked until I saw a 3 floor building with a picture of a bed on the outside, I Assumed that meant it was an inn so I entered.
I was greeted with the smell of stale beer and meat stew, and when I looked around the first floor looked very much like your average medieval bar where a few people were sitting about at the tables strewn about, some were eating and some were gambling but all of them were drinking. I learned a few things before entering this game and one of those things was how money converted 10 copper was one silver 10 sliver was one gold and 10 gold was one platinum. That would definitely come in handy when buying rooms at this inn. I made my way to the lady at the bar and sat down at the stool. “How much for a room”? I ask, hoping she can't see my face. My cloak holds true when she responds, “5 copper for a night and an extra 5 copper if you want 2 meals a day”.
she says while filling up a mug of ale which she then hands to a man sitting 2 stools away from me. She makes her way to me and I hand her a single gold coin “10 nights with meals, then”. Now that she's closer I can get a good look at her. She has a rather distinct no BS face; she's rather pudgy and she has two dog ears sticking out of her head. She must also have a tail, I think as a recall the race she most likely is, a beastman. “Alright let me get you your key” she says as she reaches for a key that's on a key rack like the ones you see in hotels back home. “Your room is the 3rd room down on the 2nd floor” she says as I take the key from her hand.
“Thank you” I say but I get no response because she is already back to serving customers food and alcohol. I make my way to the stairs in the back left area of the inn and make my way to the 2nd floor where there looks to be a hallway with 5 rooms right next to each other on my left side. I walk until I get to the 3rd room and then unlock it with my key. I lock the door behind me as I look around the room. It's a simple room with a bed, table, one chair, and a nightstand with a singular large drawer.
There's also a small window that has a wooden shutter instead of glass. The floor, ceilings and walls are creaky wood, and the bed looks to be made out of straw and it is lacking a pillow. It was still midday, and as it was, it seemed I entered this world at a little after dawn. I sat on the bed and opened my skill menu, which was pretty simple, it seemed like I could open any menu by just thinking about it. The following was my Skill menu.
Skills:
Inspection LVL 1
Inspects a person, animal, monster, or an object details given depend on rarity and LVL of target and LVL of inspection skill.
Skeleton Bodyguard LVL 1
Summon 1 skeleton Guard per 10 LVLS: stats of skeleton depend on Skeleton Guard skill LVL 1
LVL 1 Skeleton
Class- Warrior
Subclass- Shieldman
Job- Bodyguard
Health 244
Mana 60
STR> 15
INT> 5
WIS> 5
DEX> 15
END> 22
STA> N.A.
LUC> 5
Skills:
Guard LVL 1
Absorb 50% of damage on target friendly: cooldown 30 min: Mana cost 50:
Weak Zombie Convert LVL 1
10 max zombies +1 max every LVL of Zombie Covert.
Convert Corpse into weak zombie:
Health 80
Mana 0
STR> 8
INT> 5
WIS> 5
DEX> 5
END> 10
STA> N.A.
LUC> 5
Conventional Elemental magic LVL N.A.
Ability to use Convental Elementai mana at no mana cost for example starting fires or filling canteens.
Soul Slice LVL 1
Slice at the very soul of your enemy ignoring armor.
Life steal 10HP +5 Every 5 LVLS of Soul Slice
15 damage +5 Every 5 LVLS of Soul Slice
Mana cost 15
Cooldown 2 min
Dark Cloak LVL 1
Blocks mana based attacks.
Mana damage blocked 10+5 every 3 LVLS of Dark Cloak
Mana cost 15
Lasts 10 min
Cooldown 2 min
Command LVL 1
All commands given increase damage output and speed of targets by 5%
Other effects unlocked at further LVLS.
It was a lot to go through but when I fully read it all I was happy that I picked necromancer. I experimented with my elemental skill to see how magic worked and it was pretty intuitive all I had to do was think of the skills name. A red hot flame expanded from my pointer finger it wasnt hot at all even if I touched it with my other hand. When I put it against a floorboard in my room the wood turned black.
Not wanting to burn down the building I turned off the skill and Cleaned the soot of the floorboards. Summoning a skeleton in the city would probably cause a ruckus so i hold off on testing my other skills for now. I needed a way to earn a living so I decided to ask around the inn to see if there was a guild or anything similar I could get quests from, hopefully he wouldn't need to sign up with my race. I exit My room and make my way down to the bar.
After asking the barkeep I found out that there was an adventurer's guild about 2 blocks down the road, it seemed I was right in that all games have something akin to an adventurer's guild. After walking for quite a bit ducking and weaving between a lot of people, I finally made it to the guild. It was a spectacular building with an overhang supported by four pillars in the front, the front doors were a head taller than me and that's saying something my new elf body was tall. It was constructed from a beautiful wood and it was also quite wide. My new life has just begun, I thought as I pushed through the front doors of the building.