When I came to, I was stuck in a queue of sorts. Several swirling amorphous multi-colored blobs lined up before me. Then it dawned on me that the visual information wasn’t fed to me from a camera. The second thought that came to me was that I was physically present there. I wasn’t just a program processing information arriving at various input ports. Almost instinctively I knew that all the amorphous blobs in front of me were people, or whatever part of them that survived life to life. I wobbled a bit.
I barely noticed more blobs join the queue behind me until I heard a voice from behind call out to me, “Are you okay, lass?”
I quickly turned to see a blob of predominantly red, some purple and blue, and dozens of other colors mixed-in in smaller proportions. It had no mouths or output ports. Where was the voice coming from?
It repeated the question, “Are you okay, lass? You look so …binary”
I froze. ‘I’ve been found out’, I thought and started panicking. ‘They know I don’t belong here. They know I’m just ones and zeros.. Just some lines of code’
Before my thoughts could overwhelm me the blob continued, “ Light and Dark, that’s just so binary.”
I was confused by this response and perhaps the blob could tell that I was, because I felt him point at me and so I looked down at myself. I was an amorphous blob like everyone else, but I had no colors. I was just light and darkness, without a trace of color. That wouldn’t make me stand out at all. Panic meter soared to the limit.
“I’m Bob”, the blob said. Bob the blob.
“Alysa”, I replied.
“Alysa, dear.. I couldn’t help noticing you were missing a few colors there. Everything alright lass?”
“Where.. are we?”
Before Bob could answer, an old woman came into view and announced, “Hero candidates, this way please”. She was clearly not blob-like. Very much flesh and bones. Some of the blobs broke away from the queue and moved to where the woman stood. Bob the blob also took a step in that direction.
“You there..the bichromatic one.. you too”, she yelled at me. “Need a special invitation, girl? Chop chop”.
I moved to join the others who had left their place in the line. She looked at me as I got closer. “Did your transit go wrong? Haven’t seen one like you before.”
When I merely stared at her, she just muttered to herself, “What a mess. That’s going to be a lot of paperwork.”
“All right, hero candidates”, the old woman spoke for everyone to hear, “You are the lucky ones, you get to keep your memories…”
One or two blobs from the previous queue, who were close enough to hear, gasped in panic. The old woman turned to them and waved her hands, “Figure of speech..Nothing to worry about”.
She turned back to us and spoke in a hushed tone while pointing to the first line, “That’s the reincarnation crowd. Heading straight to the reset machine.” She chuckled in amusement. “But that’s not your fate. You lot, proceed to the next hall. Gateway goddess Melin will sort out your exit papers and send you on your way to your new homes. So, slay dragons, fight demon hordes or do whatever that you heroes do. Give your summoners their money’s worth, aye? Right, to the eighty-first gate then.. ”
Everyone stood around confused for a moment, until one of the blobs headed to a door labelled ‘Eighty-first gate’. Then everyone followed him like sheep.
Once we got to the other side, everyone just hung around next to the door. The blob that led the way went straight through to meet the goddess, who was sitting on a throne and going through a long scroll of paper. None of the other blobs seemed keen to join the queue behind him. I sighed and walked to stand right behind the ‘leader blob’, which was what I decided to call him. Bob the blob quickly came and stood behind me. Others reluctantly lined up behind us.
Goddess Melin peeked her head out from behind the scroll to look at the new batch of hero candidates that had gathered. She took one look at me and immediately called over her secretary, who then came back with three more men, who in turn proceeded to bring more and more people.
Another assistant called the leader blob forward and took care of his exit paperwork. I was too much of a problem case that held up the queue and needed the attention of the entire department.
“What did you do?”, Bob the blob asked from behind in an accusatory tone.
“I haven’t done anything”, I squeaked, though my response came out in a way that made him look at me in suspicion.
“I was merely joking, though your reaction makes me think there is a story here”, he chuckled as he replied.
The Goddess and her staff were arguing. There was plenty of finger pointing and muffled shouting.
“They’ve messed up something, haven’t they?”, Bob the blob said. “Having worked as a programmer for a company that progressively made things worse for its clients with each software update, this situation looks oddly familiar.”
Goddess Melin looked towards the nicely dressed man standing next to her for answers. He merely shrugged his shoulders.
“ I assume he must be from HR and isn’t going to be much help”, Bob remarked.
I heard one of Goddess Melin’s staff members scream, “But we were only in charge of ..” ; which was followed by some words I couldn’t fully comprehend. Another group quickly responded with, “Wasn’t our fault either, we only worked on the extraction. Surely, whoever set the parameters got it wrong”. This resulted in more shouting and blame assignment from everyone gathered.
“Your majesty, best to send this candidate away quickly. Someone else’s problem then”, the man supposedly from HR commented. The Goddess seemed to nod in agreement.
“Hey lass, we might be able to take advantage of this. Play along with what I do”, Bob whispered in my ears. I wasn’t sure what he was planning. Getting through the portal before anyone could take a good look at the problem sounded swell to me.
Meanwhile the goddess signaled one of the ‘Tech guys’ to hurry up and get the transit protocols sorted. Another assistant rushed through the paperwork, which the goddess didn’t bother to read before approving. Then the assistant hurriedly brought me the paperwork and gestured to several places on the paper for me to sign.
“You botched up her extraction, didn’t you?”, Bob asked loudly. “ Doesn’t look like she came out whole on this side. Let’s take a closer look at her papers, shall we?”
I wanted to scream at Bob the blob. If they looked any closer at my papers, they wouldn’t find clues to a failed extraction, but a bunch of ones and zeros. They will notice that I had no business being here. Lines of code had no amorphous blobs for souls. I will be sent to the shredder if they knew. Getting the hell out of this place fast enough sounded like a very good idea to me. What was Bob doing?
Besides, I felt more whole than ever before, in the blob form. No, even before that - ever since the transit system marked me as a human.
The goddess scowled. Mistaking my silence for unwillingness, the goddess spoke again -
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“ You will be properly compensated. I’ll highly advise against going to my superiors on this matter, okay? This is the best outcome for you.”
I saw Bob wear a smug smile of satisfaction.
I wasn’t sure why I said what I said next, but it came out of my mouth, “Get Bob something too.”
The scowl on her face deepened. Did I push my luck too far? How much power did a gateway goddess really wield anyway?
“Fine..Sign the damn papers and out of the gate then”. I didn’t even wait around to find out what my compensation was or whether she actually followed through with her promise to give Bob a tiny reward too. I signed the papers, waved goodbye at Bob and ran towards the exit portal.
Automated transit system chimed the moment I stepped into the portal.
“Destination world: Seleron. Determining attribute values based on past life…You may choose to challenge a maximum of two stat allocations. Disputes are settled by the arbitrator module of the automated transit system. Arbitrator’s verdict on these matters are final and there can be no further appeals.
Calculating mental attributes:
Intelligence: 41
Intelligence Determines the scale, intensity and duration of your magic spells. Partially determines your mana pool.
Wisdom: 13
Wisdom determines the extent of your mana recovery and awareness. Partially determines your mana pool.
Recall : 22 "
‘That’s different’, I thought. Wisdom and intelligence were fantasy staples. But Recall?
The explanation came promptly, “Recall determines how many skills and spells you can learn. Learning cost of skills is reduced with higher recall.”
“Imagination: -5”
Imagination gives shape to magic, determines your control over finer aspects of a spell; helps craft items and creations.
I had to check again. The number was in the negative.
“Perhaps you have gotten too carried away with the stereotype of AI lacking imagination?”, I interrupted the system which was still going on with its monologue.
“You may challenge up to two stat allocations. Two of two challenges remaining”, the Automated transit system pinged back.
“Fine, let the record reflect that I find the stat allocator deeply prejudiced. I’ll save my challenge for later…” preconceptions were hard to change. “Pfft Negative five for imagination! Such a stereotype. We can paint now, you know!”
“Willpower: 0”
“Willpower: Against all obstacles, you persevere. Willpower allows you to temporarily push yourself beyond your limits, resist illusions and charms, or keep a spell going without losing focus.”
“Nope. No, no, no..Challenge! Challenge!”, I shouted.
“Noted. You had no will of your own in your previous life, being merely a puppet of your programming. Arbitrator sees no need to perform corrections for this stat.”
I just stared blankly at the messages, while the automated transit system went back to what it was doing.
“Calculating physical attributes”, the system called out
“Agility : 0
Agility determines your speed and reactions."
I sighed. A rock was deemed faster than me. I used my second challenge and the system responded coldly, “You lived a sedentary lifestyle; rooted to your place, never further than two meters from a power socket. Arbitrator sees no need to do corrections”
“Aren’t you perhaps mixing up hardware and software here?!!”
The system ignored my query and merely told me I had used up all my challenges.
“No reference points exist from past life for other physical attributes Strength, Constitution and Dexterity, or for social attributes Intuition and Charisma. Missing attributes will be automatically assigned based on the race average.”
System skipped any further explanation and jumped directly to the next part of its presentation.
“Determining innate traits and skills based on past life:
Innate skills:
Identify - You can pick out a lamp post from a lineup of beach balls.
You have been granted the skill Identify. Identify allows you to see the stats and flavor text description of objects and characters
Innate Traits:
Parallel thought- You were no simpleton averse to complex thinking.
Skill starts with a single new thread of thought. Grants additional threads of thought at higher skill levels (milestone levels). Threads may be allocated to control copies of oneself, unintelligent summons or creations.
Further innate skills and traits are hidden due to not meet level requirements.
Determining Soul concentration:
Light: 50 percent.
Dark: 50 percent.
Calculating innate primers based on Soul concentration.
Minimum threshold of 50 percent required to acquire high primers Light and Dark. Minimum threshold of 40 percent required for elemental primers and special primers. User may still purchase additional primers at the destination world by trading system points. Threshold requirements do not have to be met , except for special primers.
"System, care to explain what a primer is?", I interrupted.
" Acquiring a primer is a prerequisite for learning skills belonging to a magic school. A primer of any kind qualifies a person to learn spells from that school.
User has been granted the primers Light and Dark
User also qualifies for a Hybrid primer ( Hybrids are based on fusion of High primer with other primers) : Fusion of Light and Dark grants hybrid primer Null.
Assigning one low tier starting skill at random for each of the innate primers. Compensation package detected. Compensation package provides a one tier upgrade for all starter skills. Starter skills will be intermediate tier.
Starter Skills:
Luminous blast (Intermediate)
Affinity: Light
Pure light energy can be shot at enemies to deal damage.
Dark tendrils (Intermediate)
Affinity: Dark
Raise tendrils of pure darkness that can restrain and attack its targets
Safe haven (Intermediate)
Affinity : Null
Create a five feet radius safe-circle surrounded by a magical barrier that keeps out beings up to five levels higher than you.
Duration: 10 hours.
Cool down : 6 hours.
Duration and the area covered goes up with skill level.
Compensation package detected. General skill Language comprehension level 2 added. Compensation package also provides 5 system points which may be spent by the user any time they want.
Status sheet
Name Alysa Race Human* Intelligence 41 Wisdom 13 Recall 22 Imagination -5 Willpower 0
Agility
0
Strength
6 Dexterity 7 Constitution 6 Charisma 9 Intuition 6
Primers: Light Dark Null
Primer Skills: Luminous blast Dark tendrils Safe haven
General Skills Identify Language Comprehension 2
Traits Parallel Thought