My original body was that of a human from Earth. I had lived a good life, at least I thought so, and died at a ripe old age of ninety-four. I Was married to the love of my life for almost sixty years, had two wonderful children, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren when I died.
In my early days, I was a typical wild boy. Climbing trees, fighting, and playing street sports with friends and brothers made up most of my childhood. I was intelligent, which often led to clashes with authority figures for things I considered stupid. That made school difficult. I had a natural wanderlust, which culminated in service to my country. This brought me my first experience of war. I was never the same after that, though I was able to glue myself together, but it took a few years.
After some time in college, I got lucky and found Beatrix, the love of my life, got married and had kids. Life was good, some might even say boring. There were the usual life shenanigans thrown in, of course, but honestly, it was a good life.
Technology was beyond incredible. You could visit VR worlds in your sleep and go on an outer space flight. Faster than light travel, or ftl had been invented but was still too expensive for the average Joe. The world was a relatively peaceful place, and so was my family’s life.
It was the story of the average person living in the modern world, so I won’t go through ninety-four years of memories, I grumbled in my head. I remembered the looks on my grandkids’ faces for “Grandpa’s stories”, and how they faded as they got older.
To be honest, after ninety-four years it was no shock when I died. One day I just fell over, and that was that. No idea what actually killed me that time, I thought. I hope my wife and kids didn’t mourn me for too long, and everyone got together for my funeral. I remember there was pain when dying, yet that wasn’t the memorable part. I recall my vision tunneling out, like an old television when you turned it off. Even with all I was destined to go through, nothing was as scary as the narrowing vision that led to nothing.
I didn’t remember my time dead, either time. Though, I have a vague sense that energy was everything, time meant nothing, with a feeling that everything was one. It doesn’t make sense when I think about it, and I honestly get too confused to dwell on it. I do recollect the confusion the first time I awoke in this body. I regained consciousness while attached to electrodes inside a suspension tank. Breathing through a tube, my body was still undergoing changes from the genetic cocktail that was my DNA.
From that point on, I was a Gess designated and named Rho. My old name lost forever. A genetically enhanced super soldier—a modified being with the implanted soul of a deceased sentient. The scientists/wizards didn’t care who you used to be. In fact, if you couldn’t adapt to the reality of being in a new body—of which there were several of us—broke any of their rules, or regulations—and oh boy, there were a lot—your soul was sent back to The beyond, and your Gess body reused. I wasn’t sure if I was the first to occupy this body, it was impossible to know. I witnessed many of my brothers and sisters being replaced during those terrifying first weeks in our vats.
The scientists, in their infinite wisdom, put a backup code in every Gess’ DNA. This granted them the ability to remotely trigger an ultrasonic pulse specifically designed for each Gess. Once activated, the pulse would then be sent directly to the offending Gess through the mind link, killing them instantly.
I didn’t have a single issue with being in this new body. It was magnificent! The things I could do compared to my old body were glorious and freeing. In a way, I never realized I had been restrained. That didn’t mean I was mentally okay, though. I missed my family but didn’t let it cripple me. I had had a good life, and wouldn’t let the sadness of losing it cause the geneticists to terminate my new existence. With that in mind, it was only a few months before I was able to get through the pain of losing my past life. That is not to say I forgot it.
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When my Gess body was released from the growing vat, my compatriots and I were informed that we were to be soldiers in their war for planetary control. The Enclave Alliance of Sentient Races, or the alliance as they were commonly called, was fighting for the survival of their world. On the other hand, the Dwellers of the Deeps, or the dwellers as we called them—it had some derogatory origin that I never bothered to learn—had come up from the depths of the Earth to destroy it. Looks like they both lost if my flashbacks are true, I thought, as I continued reminiscing.
The war had been raging for ten years when we left our vats and showed no signs of stopping. While casualties were steadily rising on both sides that wasn’t the main concern. The destruction of the planet was getting worse by the day, making vast areas of land unable to support life.
The alliance, desperate to find a way to win, had approved a hugely controversial project known as The Genetically Engineered Chimerical Sentient. The alliance took their best minds, and their worst, and went to work on creating the best soldier possible.
Able to resist a host of the enemy’s favorite weapons, such as Death’s touch,—a poisonous acid that was impossible to treat, which the enemy had in ample supply—Gess were to be a trump card. It took the alliance just under three years to develop and grow Gess to the point of being removed from our vats. Gess could see in the dark, had multiple immunities, were resistant to magic, the list went on, and on. Still, after almost thirteen years, the war raged on. Now, however, the alliance had a chance.
Unfortunately, the geneticists, and with them the alliance, found themselves in a bit of a bind. It turned out that it took thirteen years for Gess to become functioning soldiers. The issue was the system, heh, I chuckled thinking back on that disaster.
The system was ancient, no one knew where it came from, and personally I didn’t care. It was a familiar thing to me, the games my former body used to play had a similar function in almost all of them. Honestly, I found its presence comforting in this strange new world. Facility staff, the geneticists, everyone possible tried everything they could think of to get around the age requirement of the system. Studies into the history of the system, digging deep into its secrets, absolutely none of which mattered to me, all came up empty. The issue was that the system considered us newborns under the care of the facility staff. We wouldn’t be given control of our class, skills, or attribute points until we came of age. Which, according to the system, took place when an individual turned thirteen. While this stymied the progress of the project, causing the facility staff and the alliance in general huge amounts of suffering. That, of course, flowed down hill, again, I couldn’t help but chuckle. However, the project itself carried on.
While this was a huge issue for those in control, it was a boon for the Gess who were glad that it did take so long because of all the training needed to get used to their new bodies. The time needed to not only to accept that magic was real and let it sink in, but to learn it as well. It was hell. I stopped my thoughts at that point. Just thinking about that brutal training put a frown on my face.
We were able to train using our skills and spells, yet were unable to distribute any of our points. Points couldn’t be gained through training, and spells weren’t able to target others unless in a life-or-death emergency. The debuff for low ability scores didn’t affect us as we had a tag next to our age.
(Juvenile)
Juvenile: Unable to assign stat or skill points. Cannot use offensive spells unless under a threat of death. Stat debuffs negated.
As the years went by, the geneticists were less likely to use their deactivation code. Instead, they had our combat instructors beat us within an inch of our lives, for even the smallest mistakes. Our combat instructors were all veterans of the war, hard men and women who had seen horrors that I couldn’t yet begin to understand. All of them thought of us as abominations, treating us more like the enemy than fellow soldiers. They were constantly cutting off body parts, dealing out mass beatings at the drop of a hat that killed a few of us Gess as a result. The death of one of us was one of the few times the facility personnel would intervene. Though, only to protect their “property”. Things didn’t actually get any better. It wasn’t all bad, with all that training, I was able to master the long sword and medium armor easily once I could gain points at thirteen. I had also earned the finesse ability thanks to the years of training. Pfft, I huffed, looking at the ability in that section of my character sheet.
Finesse: Dex based damage instead of str based.