I awoke in a space of endless darkness. I felt nothing: no pain, no limbs, no body, no eyes. Just a bundle of thoughts and confusion. Silver text appeared within the darkness.
Initiating system.
System? I thought, confused.
Initiation successful. Welcome, James Nelson.
The text faded away and the darkness resolved into my tiny moonlit room. My awareness hovered above my empty bed where my sleeping body once lay.
An unseen force tugged at my awareness, and I drifted sideways through the wall over Park Street. Higher and higher, faster and faster I soared until the town faded away beneath me and the round orb of the earth fell away beneath me. Within moments the sun itself was no more than a spec of light and I drifted alone in a sea of red.
Out here the Rift dominated the cosmos: a gaping maw within the universe. A maw I seemed to be moving towards. Stars began to shift around me, slowly at first, but soon they distorted and blurred as I careened between the jagged edges of the Rift. Then I was through, moving among a universe of strange alien stars that streaked past me.
My headlong pace slowed and my course shifted towards a point of light that grew into a ball of fire and then to a sphere of green and blue that resolved itself from the cosmos. Sprawling green continents, blue oceans, brown deserts, and polar ice sheets hung like an alien earth. Just as the planet grew large enough to fill the entirety of my strange eyeless perception, I screeched to a halt.
Silver text filled my vision once more.
Planet: Realgar
Type: Continental (Temperate)
Planet Size: Large
Gravity: Standard
Mana Density: Moderate
Sapient Elvenoid Species Detected: 133 (122 available)
Sapient Beast Species Detected: 13538 (0 available)
Elvenoid?
The text remained in my view, but a new box began to resolve itself beneath it:
Welcome James Nelson: Please select your species.
Select your species? Wasn’t I human? I seemed to remember being human.
As soon as the thought passed through my consciousness, the silver text faded away to be replaced by a large white box in which a very naked human stood. It was of average height with long black hair, a refined face, and a thin, awkward frame. It was me. Exactly me. The very same one that I saw in the mirror each morning. Silver text beneath the model stated a single word:
Species: Human
Why would I select a different species when I could just choose myself? I was curious though, what other options were there?
As if reading my mind, my human self disappeared to be replaced by another model. It was myself again, but somehow even skinnier with pale skin, silver-blond hair, pointed ears, and delicate features. Some cultures might find me pretty even.
Species: High Elf
A fantasy world then. I saw no reason to deny the evidence before me. Still, what reason was there to choose the elf over the human?
As soon as I thought of the word ‘human’, the model changed back to that of my lanky self. Good.
I switched it back to the elf with a thought and focused on the species. Could I find out anything else about them? Were they immortal like in some popular fantasy? What did their culture look like? Rushing into picking any species, even a human, when it could very well be enslaved or embroiled in a war seemed like a very bad idea. Assuming there even was civilization on this planet.
No matter how much I prodded the elf version of myself with my mind, no additional information appeared. With a mental sigh, I ‘asked’ for the next species to appear.
The model changed to that of a stout-looking me complete with a bushy beard, a broad nose, and somewhat less-pathetic muscles covering my body. The creature was shorter, with a lot more body hair than the elf or the human, and a grayish rock-like skin tone.
Species: Stone Dwarf
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It wasn’t for me. I mentally nudged it to swap to the next species. Something more unique please!
In answer to my request, some sort of humanoid fox creature appeared before me bearing little resemblance to me other than the skinny frame. It stood slightly shorter than my human self on two digitigrade legs with a coat of rusty orange fur and a lighter cream-colored stomach. Black fur covered its hands up to its elbows, foot paws up to its knees, the back of its ears, and the tip of a rather bushy tail. The head looked much like that of a red fox complete with yellow eyes, vertically slit pupils, and a toothy muzzle.
Species: Vul’heli
I’d put all my money on my sister selecting this one if she ever saw it. She was weird like that.
I switched the model again and another anthropomorphic creature appeared in front of me, this one shaped like some sort of cat. It sported the same digitigrade legs as the fox, but with a spotted gray-silver coat, a white belly, and a lynx-like head complete with tufts of fur on its cheeks and ear-tips. It looked somewhat sturdier than the fox.
Species: Sek’heli
Then came a larger, muscular reptilian creature complete with gleaming blue-green scales, ivory spikes protruding from the back of its wedge-shaped skull, and a massive tail sweeping out behind it. Its legs and feet were more human-like: plantigrade, yet tipped with sharp claws. It looked pretty badass.
Species: Sanask
'Something more human-like' I thought as I shifted the species once more.
This time a humanoid with purple-tinted ebony skin and rust-colored hair appeared before me. It was mostly human in shape except for a pair of digitigrade legs that ended in terrifying raptor-like feet complete with black talons longer than my fingers. Shorter black claws grew from its fingertips, twin horns curled backwards from its temples, and a long ebony tail snaked out from its rear. Also pretty badass, if a bit sinister. Of all the species I’d seen so far, this one screamed ‘Gretchen’. There was no way she wouldn’t pick this.
Species: Kaldani
I continued skimming through the species seeing a dark elf followed by a halfling, a gnome, a short reptilian kobold, and a centaur. I even saw a strange flightless bird with shimmering blue feathers called an 'avanci'. A fish-tailed merfolk of some sort, a green-skinned goblin, a massive gray-skinned and tusk-toothed orc, as well as several others that were dismissed immediately.
After flipping through a dozen or so more species, I began to get bored and switched back to my naked human self. I knew what I was going to pick from the start. Many of these species were neat and all, but I had spent my entire life as a human. Walking a fantasy world in another creature’s skin just seemed wrong to me. Love yourself for who you are and all that.
Human. I thought. Select. Go. Whatever.
Silver text materialized in front of my eyes:
Error: Humans have reached capacity for the current integration. Please select another species.
I stared at the floating text in shock. I couldn’t select a human? Why even offer it to me then! I ground my non-existent teeth in frustration. What was my second choice? Did I even have one? The next best choice would be one of the elves, probably. The halfling might also work. I wondered if the system could show me all of the elf species at once.
On command, four models appeared simultaneously in a line in front of me. On the left was the high elf I saw before, followed by the dark elf. Third was an olive-skinned elf with black hair called a ‘wood elf’, and finally the fourth looked much like a high elf, but sported red hair that glowed and danced like flames. The species name read ‘ember elf’.
After brief deliberation, I mentally selected the wood elf.
Error: Wood elves have reached capacity for the current integration. Please select another species.
My disembodied mind blanked at the sight of the text. If there were strict number limits on species, it would make sense that the seven billion people on earth mostly chose human-looking options. They couldn’t all be gone though, right?
I took a deep mental breath and selected the high elf.
Error: High elves have reached capacity for the current integration. Please select another species.
My inaudible mental swearing echoed through the cosmos.
The dark elf and the ember elf returned the same error message. Next I called up all of the halfling species for which there was only one. Same message.
With great annoyance I called up the dwarves to find two different species greeting me. I paused, examining the stony and the metallic-skinned bearded versions of myself. Were these really the two next best options? I had an opportunity here to try something wild and imaginative like an orc or the demon-like kaldani.
After mulling it over, I brought up the kaldani and spent a long minute staring into its orange demonic eyes. This is the face I would be wearing. Did I really want that?
Maybe I was overthinking things. The kaldani were pretty badass. I selected the species.
Kaldani is currently available. Would you like to confirm this species?
Finally! Yes! I would do it.
Error: Another member of your family unit has already selected vul’heli. Closely related family members are required to select the same species. Species has defaulted to vul’heli.
…
I had no words.
That wasn’t right. I had many words. Some were reserved for my sister who was the only one of my family to fall asleep before me, but mostly I spewed a mental stream of profanity at the wall of system text.
What was wrong with this system! I thought once I managed to calm myself down. I clearly never had a choice in the first place, so why give me the illusion that I did? Why waste my time? This was ‘I want to speak to your manager’ levels of frustrating.
Right. Imaginary deep breaths. Whew. Okay. Maybe a vul'heli wouldn't be terrible. I refused to enter this Realgar with a negative mindset. I turned my attention to a new message which had appeared in my vision.
Notice: Would you like to spawn near any known acquaintances?
A new wall of text appeared in front of me with a list of what had to be a hundred people I knew from life. My family was there along with my friends and even several people I hadn’t spoken to in years. I selected Kevin and my sister Sarah immediately, the latter because I needed to give her a piece of my mind. Next I put Dean and Gretchen, but I hesitated at my parents. I mean, they were my parents and all, but did I really want to start near them?
With only the four selected, I mentally accepted the list. The silver text winked out of sight and my view of Realgar lurched into motion once more.
The planet grew rapidly as I streaked towards a large landmass in the northern hemisphere surrounded on nearly all sides by water except for a peninsula in the south and north. Mountain ranges ran west to east across the north where they butted against a massive emerald forest commanding much of the continent’s center. To the southwest I saw a series of large islands surrounding a large inland sea that abutted the tans and browns of an expansive desert.
Lakes, islands, hills, massive rivers and deltas all blurred as the land approached at terrifying speed. I found myself hurtling towards the north where the green and yellow forests crashed against the mountains and glacier-covered peaks jutted into the sky.
Still I fell, the green forests beneath me resolving into rolling foothills broken only by a wide river that snaked through the verdant valleys. From the hills rose five broad plateaus covered by the stone ruins of some ancient civilization. I braced for impact only for my consciousness to pass through the canopy like a ghost. The leaf-strewn forest floor rose until my perception met the damp earth.