Cassie stared at the letter with resignation. The words “We regret to inform you” stared back at her with haunting familiarity. She sighed and tossed it onto the mound of unpaid bills and Chinese takeaway menus that littered the kitchen counter..
This wasn’t her first rejection letter, but every new one carried the same sting of disappointment. Seriously, who even sent rejection letters by mail any more? She trudged over to the sofa and threw herself onto it, burrowing her face into a cushion to muffle a scream of rage and frustration. She lay there for a full minute, wallowing in misery. Then she turned her head to look at Mr Truffles in the window. He was washing himself with quiet dignity, ignoring her unseemly behaviour.
“Do you ever wish you could start over, Truff?” Cassie asked. “Live your life the way you wanted instead of listening to other people?”
Mr Truffles stopped, considered the question, then went back to licking his paws.
“I guess that’s your life already, huh?” Cassie said, more to herself than the cat. “Must be easy when you don’t have anyone depending on you or tying you down.” She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and wrestled with the challenge of extricating it while maintaining her position on her stomach. Eventually she succeeded. She held the phone up to her face and squinted. There was a notification on the lock screen. An unfamiliar icon – concentric circles divided by a lightning bolt – with a message alongside it. “Welcome to your new life!” She frowned and clicked on it.
The phone unlocked. The screen displayed a message in white on a simple blue background.
You have been chosen for a chance to start a new life. Will you dare to enter a world of endless possibility?
Yes - No
Cassie furrowed her brow at the coincidence. “Alexa? Have you been spying on me again?”
There was a beep from a corner of the room, followed by a robotic voice. “I don’t know about that.”
“Likely story,” Cassie muttered. The app looked like some kind of video game but she couldn’t remember downloading anything with that icon. Then again, given her state of intoxication last night it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. She tried closing the app but her phone didn’t respond. A new message appeared below the first, flashing insistently.
Choose an option to proceed
Cassie sat up, glancing at Mr Truffles who had finished washing and was making his way to the cat flap on the front door. “What do you think Truff? Seems dodgy, right?” Mr Truffles didn’t stop to answer. He jumped out through the flap leaving Cassie sitting by herself.
“I guess I’ll be unboxing that new phone after all,” Cassie muttered. She looked at the message on the screen – a chance to start a new life. If only it was that easy. “Well,” she said. “I guess I can see if it’s any good.”
----------------------------------------
Alystair Harvesson, Junior Researcher in Humanities and Human Sociology, staggered across the main campus quad and towards the Reality Engineering building. It was a grey evening, heavy with the threat of rain, and the large open forum was deserted. He fumbled as he tried to extract his ID badge from the inside pocket of his coat. He’d been halfway through a proper bender in the college bar when he got the message summoning him back to the lab. He was hoping the Demiurge wasn’t expecting any complex analysis from him at this hour.
“Alystair!” The voice was young and female and accompanied by the rhythmic sound of shoes slapping against stone. Alystair turned and straightened up involuntarily when he recognised the figure running up to join him. “Oh. Uhm. Hi Lyriel,” he said. Then he frowned. “Wait. Lyriel? What are you doing here?”
“I got the message on my communicator,” Lyriel said, brandishing a small device. “It said code red.” She was panting slightly and her breath came as clouds of fog in the still winter air. She was a young woman, about Alystair’s age. Her thick grey winter jacket matched the sky above them and her flushed cheeks just accentuated her cheery elfin features. Alystair reminded himself yet again that he was now a qualified member of university staff, and that it would be very inappropriate for him to be crushing on the new intern.
“I… think that was only for qualified researchers,” Alystair said. “Not lab interns.”
“Yeah, but there’s no way I was going to miss the excitement,” Lyriel said. “Besides, the message came from Lady Tiamat. And I couldn’t resist the chance to meet the Great Demiurge herself.” The playful grin she flashed at Alystair made butterflies stir in his stomach. Or perhaps that was the alcohol.
“You seem like you were having a good night,” Lyriel said as they resumed walking towards the lab.
Alystair grinned sheepishly. “Yeah. Had a bit of a premature celebration at the bar with the Humanities department. It’s D-day tomorrow after all. We’ll finally see the results of those months of hard work.”
“Unless the code red delays it somehow,” Lyriel said. “Any idea what it’s all about?”
Alystair shrugged. “Last I heard the simulation was running fine. We’re on track for the big event in a few hours. It’s probably just someone messing with the temporal engine.”
“That sounds… risky.”
Alystair smiled. “It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.” It certainly wasn’t something that warranted a code red. But then with the simulation on the brink of success, Lady Tiamat was bound to be on edge.
As they neared the building though, Alystair realised that he might have underestimated the situation. Every light in the building was on. The cacophony of raised voices reached them even from across the street. The department was in pandemonium.
They waited by the entrance as the night guard scanned their ID badges and let them into the building annex. “Evening, Carrel,’ Alystair said. “Do you know what the code red is about?”
Carrel was fidgeting nervously with his baton. “You haven’t heard?” He paused, then looked around the empty annex before continuing in a conspiratorial whisper. “There’s been an incursion into the simulation.”
Sobriety hit Alystair like a speeding train. He froze in place. “An incursion?” His voice faltered. “What kind of incursion?”
“Humans,” Carrel said. “We’ve got multiple humans in the sim. And… they’ve managed to breach the system interface.”
Alystair closed his eyes and groaned.
----------------------------------------
“What the hell is this place?!”
Cassie had stopped hyperventilating. Eventually. She’d gone through panic and come out to the other side, into detached curiosity. And the first thing she wanted to figure out was how she got here. One minute she’d been lying on her sofa, the next she was standing in this room, as though she had been here the whole time.
She was alone. She still wore her grey hoodie and jeans, but they felt strangely airy. Ethereal. Like they almost didn’t exist any more. Cassie hugged herself defensively, out of a sudden urge to reassure herself that she was still alive.
The room was a large cube, and filled with a white light emanating from the walls themselves. There weren’t any windows or doors that she’d managed to discover. She’d run around the perimeter knocking desperately on the walls but it was like she was sealed into a concrete bunker. She’d shouted for help but had no response. The only feature in the room was a large screen mounted on one wall. It showed a blue window with large white text reading:
Welcome to the system interface for Project #TIA41D (Codename: Tiavalis)
Acknowledge message to continue
Cassie stared at the screen, wondering if she was hallucinating. Maybe she’d had a stroke. That’s how strokes work, right? Or maybe someone knocked her out, kidnapped her, then stuck her in this weird room as some kind of practical joke. Even Cassie had a tough time believing that.
She looked at the message on the screen “Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll bite. How do I-” Before she could finish, the screen cleared and a new message began to type itself across it. She frowned. Was it voice activated? Or was there someone in another room listening to her and typing on the screen? She scanned for cameras but there was nothing in here. Nothing but the glowing white walls.
You have chosen to embark on a new existence. Well done, adventurer!
Cassie rolled her eyes despite her situation. “This is the dorkiest practical joke ever.” The text continued to scroll.
You are about to enter the world of Tiavalis. This is a standard world engineered by Tiamat Labs. The simulation has been running for 2999 years in local time.
Tiamat Labs? Cassie had never heard of them. If she’d had her phone she might have looked them up, but that seemed to have disappeared along with everything else. Still, simulation? 2999 years in local time? If this was a video game, it was a very badly written one.
“Acknowledge?” Cassie tried. Again, the text cleared and a new message began to type out on the screen.
Choose your gender Male Female Other
“Female,” Cassie said with a frown.
Tiavalis is populated by thirty-one sentient races, each with their own unique skills and characteristics. Choose your race from the list below.
A scrolling list appeared below this. Cassie frowned. It was a game system. She’d played enough Dungeons and Dragons to know what a character creation tool looked like. True enough, the list of races started off with the usual suspects:
Elf Dwarf Halfling Orc
So far so good. She was familiar enough with them that she could weigh up those options. Then came the more unusual entries.
Dragonkin Elemental Bugbear Naga
And then the truly exotic and bizarre.
Each-uisge Kappa Jotun Girtablulu
“Wait a sec.” Cassie frowned at the screen. She scanned all the way from the top of the list to the bottom but there was a notable exception. “Where’s ‘Human’?” she said. The screen didn’t change. “Search ‘Human’,” Cassie tried.
No search results found
“Search ‘Homo sapiens’.”
No search results found
“Search ‘Terran’”
No search results found
“What the hell?” Cassie muttered. “That’s usually the default choice! Who designs a game without a Human option?”
----------------------------------------
“So… humans,” Lyriel said. She was leaning against a countertop sipping a mug of steaming hot coffee. “What’s the problem with having them in the simulation? And how did they get there anyway?”
They were in the deserted junior staff room of the Reality Engineering department. The most important part of any emergency midnight meeting was to get people caffeinated and functional. And naturally this vital task fell to the least vital members of staff – the drunk junior researcher and the new lab intern.
Alystair considered the question. This was basic knowledge for most Reality Architects, but Lyriel was an intern after all. “Well, what do you know about humans?” he asked, pulling another pair of chipped white mugs out from one of the cupboards.
“Just the basics,” Lyriel said with a shrug. “My field is Mathematics and Reality Engineering, not Sociology. They were the first artificially created sentient race, right? The original Demiurges created them as a test population for their first Reality Games.”
“That’s almost right,” Alystair conceded. “But it wasn’t so much for games as for war. It was the last great conflict of the Vokraaven Nations. Tired of killing each other to prove their supremacy, the Demiurges decided to settle the conflict permanently using the World Core technology. They created a new world called Terra Prime – Earth – and a new race called humans. Each tribe of Demiurges styled themselves as gods and took control of a group of humans, then used them to demonstrate their abilities as rulers and strategists.”
“So what happened?” Lyriel asked. She put down her empty mug in the sink and started filling the kettle with more water.
"Well, the Demiurges discovered that they very much preferred this new way of settling disputes,” Alystair explained. “And that gave rise to the Reality Games as a way of electing new Vokraaven leaders."
Lyriel shook her head. "I mean toTerra Prime. The simulation failed?"
Alystair nodded. "The humans were too chaotic, rebellious, and selfish to be governed properly. So the Demiurges left them to their own devices. Jupiter and Zeus had joined forces by then and it seemed like they would conquer the whole world if given a chance, so they were declared the winners. Although their humans deserted their worship almost immediately after they withdrew from Earth. Meanwhile some of the other Demiurges are still being worshipped to this day, even in their absence.”
“And Lady Tiamat?” Lyriel asked. “She was one of the original Demiurges, wasn’t she?”
Alystair laughed. “Lady Tiamat didn’t even make it past the first century.” He grinned at Lyriel’s outraged expression. “Oh she’s done very well since. But in Terra Prime she got into a fight with one of her own followers and he killed her god avatar on Earth.”
"Is that why she hates humans so much?" Lyriel asked.
"No, that came later. You see, when the Demiurges made Terra Prime, they didn't know they had to bind the humans to its World Core. So now humans can find themselves randomly transported to any new world that the Demiurges create – often against their own will. And inevitably they taint the new worlds with their innate humanity and ruin any simulation they come into contact with. On Earth they even have a word for it – isekai. It happens often enough that the concept has filtered into the public consciousness."
“Ah. And now they’ve come to Tiavalis,” Lyriel said. She started to pour milk into the mugs of coffee Alystair had prepared, then stopped and frowned. “Hang on. Surely we can just spot them and pull them out of the simulation, right? There aren’t any humans on Tiavalis so they’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
Alystair shook his head. “If only it was that easy. Do you remember the race creation system we used when we were setting up the simulation? Well, humans have an uncanny knack for gaining access to the system interface when they arrive in a new world. Which means that they can create a new persona for themselves. New race, new background, new appearance. They even manipulate their physical and mental attributes.” He sighed “Once a human is in the system, it’s almost impossible to tell them apart from the natives. And that means we have almost no chance of finding them.”
----------------------------------------
Cassie was considering her options. When it came to role-playing games she’d never really strayed far from the human fighter archetype. But it seemed that wasn’t possible here.
She was slowly coming to terms with the idea that this was more than a prank. For one, she couldn’t think of a rational explanation for how she’d ended up here. For another, she’d found that she could zoom in and out of the screen and scroll the list of races up and down simply by thinking about it. And while she could explain away voice-activated technology, she definitely couldn’t explain that.
She’d watched enough anime in her life to be familiar with the concept of isekai. And while that sounded ridiculous, it was increasingly clear that she should consider her next steps very carefully.
A cursory read-through had revealed that the list was ordered according to how common the race was in Tiavalis. So elves, it seemed, were the most plentiful, while the Girtablulu – similar to centaurs but with scorpion bodies instead of horses – were the least.
A common race would be a safer option, she thought. She would draw less attention that way. But then again, maybe something more unusual and exotic would help hide the fact that she was an isekai, since people would be as unfamiliar with her race as she was herself. She bit her lip. It really depended on what kind of character she wanted to play. She kept going back to the original message. “Start a new life,” it had said. What did she want her life to be?
She thought back to her life so far. If she had to describe it in a word, it was mediocre. She’d drifted through life. Drifted through school, through jobs, through relationships. It was like she was always at the whim of others, buffeted by the winds of fate.
“I want to control my own life.” she said slowly. “I want to make my own choices. If I’m going to make mistakes, I want them to be my own, not ones I was forced into by circumstances or by other people.”
And she knew which race she was going to go for.
Cambion
Born from the union of a mortal and a demon, cambions embrace the potential of both lineages. Cambions are by their very nature unbound from both the celestial and the demonic order, able to forge their own path in defiance of both their bloodlines, or give in to one to one or the other for greater power.
The Cambion race was towards the bottom of the list of racial options, which likely meant she would be an unusual sight in the game. But the freedom to make choices that went against the social order was a pretty big advantage. As she mentally confirmed the choice, the screen cleared and a new set of messages came up.
You have chosen the Cambion racial option
+1 to Spirit attribute
You have gained fluency in the Common language
You have gained fluency in the Demonic language
You have gained the Scales of the Soul racial ability
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
You have gained the Demonic Path racial ability
You have unlocked 2 out of 3 racial abilities
Scales of the Soul (Racial ability)
You live your life caught in the balance between your mortal and demonic natures. If you would gain an ability score increase by levelling up, you may decline this to progress your Demonic Path ability instead
Cassie frowned. That seemed like a rough deal. Ability scores were the meat and bones of any game system. Without them, she wouldn’t progress in power by levelling up. The Demon Path skills would have to be pretty good to make up for it.
Demonic Path (Racial ability)
You are further on the road to damnation than most, but with damnation comes powerful abilities. You may surrender growth in your attributes to progress along your Demonic Path and unlock additional racial abilities.
You currently have no Demonic Path selected
Cassie nodded and the screen updated.
As a cambion, your abilities reflect your demonic ancestry. The factions of hell are legion, and each is ruled by a powerful Demonic Magister. Your Demon Path racial ability is determined by your Infernal Lineage.
Choose your Infernal Lineage
A rapidly expanding and seemingly never-ending list began to scroll under the message. Cassie wondered – and not for the first time – who exactly had designed such an intricate and broken character creation system. When the list had finally finished typing out, Cassie scrolled mentally to the top of the list. She tried to ignore the thought about how exactly she was doing it. The top of the list, she figured, was where the most popular choices lay.
The Prince of Lust The Hoarder of Wealth The Illusory Enchantress The Bringer of Chaos The Doom-marked Face The Endless Maw The Scion of the Roil The Whispering Damnation The Wretched Oracle
She made a face. They all seemed so… chunibyo. Come on! Bringer of Chaos? She sniggered. Definitely not. She also definitely wasn’t picking anything like the Prince of Lust. She had a feeling that would stick her with a charisma-based succubus creature and she’d never really been into playing the busty, half-naked type of character.
The Hoarder of Wealth might be pretty useful, she thought. That sort of option usually came with an ability that increased gold acquisition or item drop rate. But ‘Hoarder’ implied she might have a problem spending that gold afterwards. She sighed. There was no way she could read through the whole list, and what each of them did. Whispering Damnation seemed pretty cool. Maybe she could make a diplomacy-based build like a spy. Or maybe a barbarian character with the Scion of the Roil. That definitely seemed more interesting than the Bringer of Chaos.
She idly scrolled down the list, scanning the options for something that caught her eye. Then she stopped. Now that was interesting.
The Breaker of Prophecy (Demonic lineage)
The Breaker of Prophecy is a minor noble in the Demonic Legion. Like many demons, the Breaker of Prophecy is opposed to the celestial order, but is also a rebel opposed to the demonic order. This demon’s powers hold the will to disrupt the threads of destiny and a refusal to be bound by predetermined paths.
It seemed like exactly what she wanted! It was in the top half of the list too, although she did notice that the options here seemed to be ordered alphabetically. She wasn’t sure what that meant.
You have chosen the Breaker of Prophecy demonic lineage.
+1 to Spirit attribute
You have gained the Demonic Path: Path of the Prophecy Breaker
You have unlocked the Path of the Prophecy Breaker ability Shield of the Fateless
Shield of the Fateless (Demonic Path ability)
You have resistance to spells and abilities which manipulate fate or prophecy, including divination and scrying abilities which target you or your party.
Cassie bit her lip. Shield of the Fateless was a very specific power. She wasn’t sure how many low-level opponents would have fate-manipulating skills. Besides, she doubted she would be important enough as a level 1 character that people would actively try to use divination or scrying to find her.
----------------------------------------
“First, let me clarify the situation,” Tiamat said. “We have detected a human incursion into Tiavalis. Six humans from Terra Prime have entered the simulation. And they have access to the system interface.”
The conference room was packed to capacity. Researchers jostled for space at the table and most were forced to stand. As a junior researcher – and the last to arrive – Alystair didn’t merit a seat. Instead he leaned against the doorframe and peered past the gathered throng.
Lady Tiamat was leading the meeting – the Great Demiurge herself. The Chancellor of the university was sitting next to her, glaring at the gathered researchers with a stormy expression. About fifty people in all, each with dark circles under their eyes and sombre expressions. Although Alystair doubted any of them looked as ghastly as he felt.
Tiamat was a tall, regal woman wearing sea-green robes and a crown shaped like draconic horns. Her eyes scanned the room imperiously. For anyone else, the outfit would have invited comment but the original Demiurges were always allowed their eccentricities.
“Are we pre-Event or post-Event?” a voice asked. Tiavalis was a test simulation. A world designed to observe how the standard races reacted to a paradigm-shifting event within their realm. That would allow the Demiurges to see how they could help their followers work through such an event if it came up in the next Reality Games.
If they were pre-Event, at least they could stop the humans from disrupting everything until the paradigm shift took place. If they were post-Event, the world may already be irrevocably changed by the humans’ presence.
“Pre-Event,” Lady Tiamat replied. “But our time is limited. We have two months until D-day.” There was a flurry of confused whispers. The simulation should have been much closer than that. Lady Tiamat glared at the crowd till the whispers died down before continuing. “One of the night team members decided to slow down the simulation before the event so she could… conduct some sociological analysis.”
Lyriel cast a questioning look at Alystair. “Sometimes the researchers slow the simulation down to real time speed,” he whispered. “So they can… watch people go about their lives. Watch battles unfolding in real time, that sort of thing.” The truth was somewhat less noble but there was no reason to spoil Lyriel’s visions of sociological research.
“It was a good thing that she did,” Lady Tiamat said. “If the simulation was running at full speed, we might already have been too late. Instead, we managed to spot the incursion as it happened. Now we have a chance to remove the humans before they can impact the simulation.”
“Do we know where the humans are?” someone asked.
“No, we don’t know where they’ve manifested or in which form. There’s no way of telling until they demonstrate any unusual behaviour,” Tiamat replied. There was a silence as this sank in.
“Uhm… Lady Tiamat?” Lyriel raised her hand hesitantly. All eyes turned to the doorway and Alystair tried desperately to shrink back into the shadows. He knew from experience not to draw attention to himself in meetings like this. Unfortunately Lyriel was still too green to have learnt the lesson.
“Yes. Lyriel, isn’t it?” Tiamat asked.
Lyriel blushed at the unexpected recognition. “I was involved in the engineering for the character creation system for this project, and I know the system keeps logs of every newly created character. I was wondering why we don’t just look at those to see what the humans picked and identify them that way.”
The Demiurge looked at one of the senior researchers. “It’s not a bad idea,” he admitted. “We did implement that system for this project. But the system records every birth of a sentient creature on Tiavalis as a new character creation event. And there are about a thousand new births every day. Still, we could look through the logs and generate a list of new characters. It wouldn’t pinpoint the humans, but it would give us somewhere to start. A thousand is a better number than half a billion in any case.”
Tiamat gave Lyriel an approving smile. “Well done Lyriel. I can see you’re going to be an asset to this team already.” Lyriel looked like she might burst from pride. Alystair grumbled to himself. That was a much better outcome than the first time he’d spoken up in a meeting.
“Whether we identify them seems to be a bit of a moot question,” the Chancellor piped up. “Even if we do identify them, can we remove them before they destroy the experiment?”
Tiamat sighed. “Unfortunately we opted not to programme god avatars into the World Core. Which means we cannot remove them directly in that way.” She glanced at the Chancellor who gave her a furious glare. The god avatars were a safety measure. They allowed the research staff to enter into the simulations as god-like manifestations and alter the reality of the simulation directly. However, it also tended to cause inadvertent disruption to the simulation itself, so Lady Tiamat had fought to exclude them from the project against the Chancellor’s request.
A heavy silence descended on the room, broken as the Chancellor cleared her throat. “So to summarise, we have human insurgents on Tiavalis who are going to ruin our simulation. But we can’t remove them because that would also ruin the simulation. Am I with you so far?” She glared at Tiamat. “So that’s millions of credits worth of research spent on a project which is doomed to fail.”
“Not necessarily,” Tiamat said. She hesitated. It was strange seeing this powerful figure so nervous. “There is an alternative. It’s risky and untested. But it seems to be our best option.” She took a deep breath. “We can send our own people in. We assemble a team of researchers who can identify the humans and eliminate them from within the world itself.”
This time the uproar was well beyond a whisper and even Tiamat’s glaring did not quiet it. Eventually the Chancellor slapped her hand down on the table, silencing the room. “Is that even possible?” she asked.
“It’s hardly a new concept,” Tiamat said with a shrug. “We’ve had our people enter simulations before on many occasions. That was the whole point of Terra Prime – to allow us to enter a simulation and battle.”
“As semi-divine entities,” the Chancellor snapped. “Anyone who goes into Tiavalis would be a level 1 character at best.”
“Which is why we can’t send our research leads,” Tiamat agreed. “The risk is too great. But we could spare some of the more junior team members. Their knowledge of Tiavalis is unrivalled after all, as is their knowledge of humans.” Her gaze wandered over to the doorway where the only junior Humanities specialist was clutching his mug of coffee.
Alystair felt the colour drain from his face. “Oh hell,” he said under his breath. “I’m going in, aren’t I?”
----------------------------------------
“What, again?!” Cassie said. “I thought that was the end of it.”
As a cambion, you are the product of a union between a demon and a mortal. Your abilities and your appearance will be influenced by your Mortal Lineage.
Choose your Mortal Lineage
The message was followed by the race options Cassie had encountered at the start of character creation, but some exceptions. It seemed some races either didn’t or couldn’t have kids with demons. The Girtablulu for example. Probably a good thing, Cassie thought. Half-demon was bad enough. But half-demon, half-scorpion creature?
Perhaps she should go for something more run of the mill for this choice. She looked at the top four familiar options.
Elf Dwarf Halfling Orc
Halfling was out of the question. She’d been short enough in real life that she wasn’t keen to continue the trend here. Dwarf was dismissed for the same reason. Orc? That choice usually came with a penalty to intelligence, and Cassie figured she’d be needing that attribute more than anything else in this situation. Elf then. Being part of the most common races in the world should have its advantages, right? She confirmed the choice in her head.
You have chosen Elf
You have gained fluency in the Elven language
Choose an Elf subrace
This time the list was short but Cassie just went for the first option anyway. “Low elf,” she said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
You have chosen the Low Elf lineage
+1 to Dexterity attribute
You have gained the Verdant Call racial ability
You have unlocked 3 out of 3 racial abilities
Verdant Call (Racial ability)
You have an affinity for the woods of Tiavalis. When in a wooded area, you may attempt to attune yourself to the forest. If successful, you become aware of the following features within a one mile radius from your location and within the bounds of the woods:
* The presence and number of any large or powerful creatures
* The quickest paths to traverse the woods in a particular direction
* The location of any water sources
Cassie wasn’t sure how much of Tiavalis was covered in woods, but if elves were the most common race in the world, she was sure she’d get more than enough use from that power. She acknowledged the message and the screen updated. “Woah!”
The screen showed a character portrait of a woman wearing black and brown armour. Her face had the typical graceful charm of fantasy elves. Her ears grew out from her head and tapered to sharp points. Her frame was lithe and athletic, and much more muscular than Cassie’s own. But nobody could mistake her for an elf. The demonic influence was too clear. Her skin had a greyish tinge to it, giving her an oddly dusky complexion. Her hair was jet black, like liquid obsidian. And then there were the two small horns jutting up from her head.
“That looks… amazing!” Cassie exclaimed. There was another blue window next to the portrait. A character sheet for her new elven cambion.
Race: Cambion
Demonic Lineage: The Breaker of Prophecy
Mortal Lineage: Low Elf
Hit points: 10
Willpower points: 10
Attributes
Mind Body Spirit Force 10 10 12 Dexterity 11 11 13 Resistance 10 10 12
Abilities
- Scales of the Soul
- Path of the Prophecy Breaker (Lv. 1)
- Verdant Call
Demonic Path Abilities
- Shield of the Fateless
Skills
None
At the top of the sheet was a textbox.
Enter your name and confirm to begin your new life
Okay, so either there wasn’t a class system in this game or she couldn’t access it during character creation. That just left the name. Cassie considered picking a new one – something dangerous and elegant to go with the demonic elf persona. But in the end, she couldn’t think of anything which didn’t sound just a bit ridiculous.
Besides, she wasn’t sure what to expect. If this really was a new world, if she really was being transported to a fantasy universe… she didn’t want to lose her past completely. She wanted something to hold on to. Something familiar to remind her that it wasn’t all a dream.
“Cassandra Andrews,” she said. “Confirm.”
----------------------------------------
“We’ve picked your avatars for you,” Lady Tiamat said as she briefed her team. “We’ve tried to take your preferences into consideration, but we do need a well-balanced team with a wide range of skills.”
They had wasted no time in getting this set up. Alystair could understand that. Every hour of delay was another hour’s head start for the humans.
“We’ll be running the simulation at real-time speed,” Tiamat continued. “That way if we need to contact you or if we need to send in reinforcements, there won’t be any delay. Remember that your avatars are disposable, but if they die you will have to start again from level 1. And we really don’t have the time for that. The objective is to level up fast, so we can seek and destroy.”
Alystair looked at his team. They were researchers, not special-ops assassins. But the Chancellor had insisted that the team be kept in-house. “Can’t risk our research leaking to the other Institutes,” she’d said. “Even at the cost of the project failing. Besides, just make them take some class levels in Assassin. That’s all the training they need.”
There were four of them, Alystair included. Lyriel had talked her way onto the team as well, and was listening with rapt attention. Alystair was glad he was going into the simulation with someone he knew. That was it, he tried to tell himself. There wasn’t anything more to the situation. He definitely wasn’t thinking about using their excursion into a fantasy world as an excuse to get to know her better romantically.
The third member was Nessa, one of the junior researchers from the Reality Engineering division. Alystair knew her slightly from working in the lab but he didn’t think he’d ever spoken to her. She seemed distinctly unhappy to be there, even more than Alystair had been. He didn’t know why she’d been chosen, but she seemed even more unhappy to be here than he had been.
The last of the group, Chrom, was the odd one out. He was a reader in Military History, and not one of the Tiavalis research team. But Lady Tiamat had worked with him before and vouched for him. Of the four of them, he was the only one who had been inside a simulation before.
“The system will allocate you to a random location on Tiavalis,” Lady Tiamat said. “This is to our advantage since the humans will be randomised too. This will allow you to level up and begin the search before you regroup. You will regroup at the Red Drake Inn in the city of Belifor. Remember to stick to the predetermined avatar options we have chosen for you. This will allow us to identify you within the simulation and track you throughout. Any questions?”
The team was silent.
Lady Tiamat sighed. “I know we are asking a lot from you. This will not be an easy mission. However, the future of the experiment relies on your efforts.” She paused. “Remember that we won’t be able to contact you directly in the sim but we will be able to view you and track your progress. So we can send reinforcements or messengers if you need them, but it may take days or weeks before they can arrive at your location, by which time you may have had to move on anyway. But rest assured we’ll be monitoring you closely.”
“How do we get out of the sim if we need to?” Alystair asked nervously.
Lady Tiamat made a face. “You don’t,” she said. “There is no way to disconnect you from the sim without killing your avatar. We’ll be taking care of you from this side, don’t worry. But once you’re in there, you’re there till your character dies. Or the world ends.”
The four volunteers looked at each other. Chrom spoke up, his voice deep and gravelly. “Which will be in how long? Do you think?”
Lady Tiamat pursed her lips. “By our current estimates, in just over two months…”
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Cassie blinked and squinted. After what seemed like hours of character creation in the white cube, this was a sensory overload. She was lying on the ground. On grass. She sat up, feeling awkward at the new proportions of her body. She held her hands in front of her face. They were slender, graceful. Very unlike her own. She flexed and relaxed her fingers, testing that they worked. She was wearing a dark tunic and trousers with leather armour on top. A black woollen cloak was fastened at her shoulder with a silver brooch.
She reached up and felt her hair, shorter than it had been before, and cut choppily around her shoulders. She felt the long, pointy ears which grew almost sideways from her head. And poking up above them, two hard horns that jutted up from her scalp and tapered to sharp points.
She was really here. In Tiavalis, presumably. She had been coming around to the idea whilst in the cube but now, being here in this place, it was just unbelievable. She had a feeling that she should be more freaked out than she was. Like the impossibility of the situation should drive her insane in some Lovecraftian revelation of cosmic horror. But she felt fine. Relaxed even. The lack of reaction bothered her more than anything.
She steadied herself on the ground, and then sprang upright in one fluid motion. The act was so natural, so effortless. Even in an unfamiliar body. Like this had been her body all along. Cassie looked up from the ground and to the horizon. And that’s when she saw the small blue window, floating in front of her at eye level.
Welcome to the world of Tiavalis
The Apocalypse will occur in: 62 days
Cassie stared at the message in disbelief. “The fu-”