“Welcome to the System Interface for New Spawns,” a disembodied voice said from nowhere and somehow everywhere. It had all the emotion of a teenager working the night shift at a drive-thru.
“The what?” I asked, beyond confused by the voice and thensome.
It felt very much like I had just come into being; one moment I wasn’t and one moment I was. All I could perceive around me was a lack of anything to perceive.
Is this what those sensory deprivation tanks are like? I wondered.
Maybe, though even in those tanks there was still probably some sensation of having a body. I could feel I existed in some sense, but if I had skin I couldn’t feel anything, not even the cold I would have expected from a void. I could think about moving, but no muscles tensed or flexed. I was pretty sure I should have had a body and yet…
“Oh, you must be a deviant.”
This time the voice was followed by the sound of a vacuum sealed jar being opened and a pulsing orb of light just appeared. It gently bobbed in place, putting off a soft green glow that reminded me of a sapling breaking from ground for the first time. It was soothing in a way.
“What do you mean by ‘deviant’?” I asked. How I was speaking was a mystery I’d never solve.
“It is not within my parameters to answer that question,” the flickering orb answered, turning an alarming red color before fading back to the soft green. “I am the Overseer of the System Interface for New Spawns. You may simply call me Overseer. I will process you for integration into the System.”
“What System? What’s going on?” I demanded. “Why don’t I know who I am?”
“I will be the one asking questions,” Overseer said with that same bored tone. “Choose your name.”
“That’s not a question,” I fired back.
“Unknown it is,”
“Wait, that’s not–”
Overseer flared a bright red as the pulsing light transformed into wicked looking spikes. At the same time pain lanced through what felt like my very being.
“You will speak only to answer my prompts or I will let the System randomize everything and shove you into the Tower with no tutorial quest!”
The Overseer’s voice boomed from everywhere and made every fiber of my being quake. It almost made me want to cower, but then there was nowhere for meto hide in that vast nothingness. As far as Icould tell there was nowhere for me to go.
“Now,” Overseer said, its voice going back to a bored tone and green color. “Do you have a preferred gender?”
“Male,” I answered. I had already been thinking of myself that way even if I had no clue what I was or had been.
“Do you have a preferred race?”
The question stumped him. He had a choice of race?
“Random it is.”
“Wait—”
My words cut off sharply as a lance of agony spiked through me for the second time.
“You were warned,” Overseer said. “Randomizing choices. Opting out of the starting tutorial quest. Prepare for integration.”
The unfairness of it made my whole being burn with rage.
“Dick,” I managed to mumble just as Overseer seemingly blinked out of existence.
::Handoff to System initiated…
::Transmitting New Spawn information…
::Downloading…
The text popped up in the middle of my vision at the same time there was a strange push-pull sensation that intensified rapidly. Yet, I was almost positive I wasn’t moving at all.
::Upload complete/Download complete
::Handoff complete
::Analyzing…
::Analysis complete
::Skipping tutorial
::Scanning…
Unlike with the Overseer, this time I couldn’t talk. All I could do was read the text and rage silently against the unfairness of it all. I didn’t choose anything except my gender and I definitely didn’t want to skip a tutorial that could prepare me for whatever the hell was going on.
::New Spawn zone 3…
::Current new spawns: 3
::Tome connected
::Initiating integration…
There was that push-pull sensation again but even more intense and at the same time it was like I was solidifying somehow.. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but it was weird. Really weird.
1…
The sound of trickling water tickled my ears…
2…
I smelled earth and grass…
3…
A light breeze caressed my skin…
4…
I inhaled deeply and immediately choked as gritty, foul-tasting dirt clogged my mouth. Hacking deeply, I pushed myself up on trembling arms, my fingers—claws—digging into the soft soil beneath me, and managed to roll onto my side before collapsing back down. I continued to try to spit out the last bit of dirt, but my mouth was desert dry, and more than a few grains stuck stubbornly.
I cracked open my eyes slowly, wary of how they might react to the light after so much darkness. The first thing I saw was the patchy dirt and grass I’d had the pleasure of tasting only moments earlier. Lifting my head just a little, I saw the burbling stream only an arm’s reach away.
Reaching out toward the creek, I froze when I caught sight of my arm and the hand attached to it. I stared, trying to remember if I’d always had scales, and gave up. Instead, I marveled at the shimmering purples, greens, and blues that created seamless gradients of colors. The green on my hand gradually became more translucent as the fingers tapered into points.
By that point, I just accepted that I had claws, whether I’d had them before or not.
After a while, I had enough strength to push myself up and crawl over to the stream. Water meant a reflection to better see myself, but I skipped that in favor of using my cupped hands to try to get some of it to my mouth instead. The first mouthful I gargled and then spit out to get the last grains of dirt clear. With that done, I drank deeply, satiating a thirst I hadn’t realized was there until I swallowed the first gulp.
It was only when I felt satisfied that I actually paid attention to my reflection. It felt weird to stare at myself, but after the whole experience in the void, I was more than a little curious about everything.
As the ripples settled, I saw the face staring back at me, and it wasn’t what I expected—not that I knew what I was expecting.
The angular contours of my head were crowned with sharp, ridged scales that gave me an imposing and yet almost regal appearance. Glowing green eyes stared back at me in an almost unsettling way —piercing, predatory, and alive with an intensity that felt both foreign and familiar. My slightly elongated snout tapered to a point, lined with serrated teeth that hinted at a latent ferocity that continued the predatory theme, but when I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth I felt the blunt, grinding teeth of an herbivore.
So that’s what I look like now. It wasn’t comforting, exactly, but it was better to know. Knowledge is key to success after all. What I needed to succeed at was still a question. Survival, I guess?
I stood up, shaking off the last of the water. There were no answers in the stream, just more questions. I had a name, sort of. A form, definitely. And a forest that seemed to go on forever.
As I looked around, I spotted something I could have sworn wasn’t there before. Next to where I’d woken up was an open book. A soft golden glow issued from it, and I felt a pull in my chest that was so strong that I’d moved to pick up the book without a conscious thought to do so.
The cover was supple, finely crafted brown leather with markings of some kind embossed in gold on it. I did a quick flip through the pages and found them to be more like parchment than paper. It was the kind of quality that was meant to last.
“What’s this doing here?” I asked no one in particular. I was almost positive it hadn’t been there when I’d woken up.
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Well, I wasn’t going to get any answers just staring at it. Being careful of the sharp points of my fingers, I lifted the cover to see the first page. It was a table of contents.
* Insight
* Quests
* Inventory
* Codex
* Journal
Each word gave off a soft glow, and to my surprise—and delight, if I was honest with myself—I felt an innate connection with the tome. It was mine, though I was sure it hadn’t been before coming here. Nonetheless, the knowledge of what it was and how to use it filled my mind.
It was a tome, but it wasn’t. It was real, but it wasn’t. It was solid, but it was also fluid and ever-changing.
“Please have some answers,” I muttered like a prayer before tapping my finger to the glowing insight text.
The page flipped just once, which made me feel a little silly for not just turning the page myself. I instinctively knew that wouldn’t work for the rest of the tome. The different sections would expand as I learned things, especially the codex. The journal section would do the same, but only as I added to it.
Hopeful that just maybe I’d get some answers as to what was going on, I focused on the information before me:
* Name: Unknown
* Rank: New Spawn
* Race: Gargoyle
* Class: Sentinel (Level 1)
* Subclass: Locked
* HP: 100%
* Armor: 0
* MP: 100%
On the opposite page was an outline of what I assumed was supposed to be me. There were what looked like open sockets of some kind in different parts of the diagram and each one was labeled.
Attributes:
* Vitality: Unbound
* Dexterity: Unbound
* Wisdom: Unbound
* Charisma: Unbound
* Strength: Unbound
* Intelligence: Unbound
* Perception: Unbound
* Willpower: Unbound
I wasn’t sure what ‘unbound’ meant. Unbound to what? Did something go in the sockets?
I shook my head and turned the page, sensing there was more for me to see.
Skills (auto-selected):
* Racial skill(s):
* Fluorite Armor (Active/Buff)-Rank 1
* Effect: When active the caster is covered in a hard stone skin that prevents all damage up to a threshold point
* Cost: Low
* Duration: 5 mins or until broken
* Cooldown: Low to High depending on if Stones Armor was broken
* Gargoyle’s Heritage (Passive)-Rank 1
* Effect: Enhanced strength and all senses
* Class skill(s):
* Stoneshard Armory (Active/Summons)-Rank 1
* Effect: Summon a spear and shield
* Cost: Low
* Duration: Until stowed or lost
* Cooldown: Low
It should have been a lot to take in, but somehow just reading the information instilled in me a basic idea of what it all meant and, in the case of the skills, how to use them. I also understood that the amount I knew compared to what I didn’t was like comparing a grain of sand to a mountain range. And how much of that I understood was more like that same grain of sand to a planet.
These were questions I’d have to find the answers to myself.
I tucked my finger under the next page and thought to myself about seeing the quest section. The whole tome glowed softly for a moment as I flipped the page, and I got the feeling that it didn’t matter how many pages of skills and attributes there were—I could always flip right to whatever I wanted as long as I thought about it.
Looking at the quest page, I saw that there was something already there.
----------------------------------------
Quest:
Do You See What I See?
Goal: Activate and configure insight vision
Reward: Unlock Wisdom XP bank
Status: Pending
Accept quest? Y/N
----------------------------------------
I tapped the ‘Y’ and the status flickered to say In Progress.
A little niggle in the back of my mind had me flipping back to the insight page. Immediately, my attention was drawn to the HP, MP, and Armor lines where each letter was jumping off the page in a wave before sinking back down and repeating the process. It was very clear what the tome was trying to tell me.
I rubbed my fingers carefully over the HP waving at me from the page. Instantly a little heart icon appeared in the bottom left corner of my vision. It was filled with red and pulsing in time with my very heartbeat.
I blinked a couple of times, but the icon stayed there. Strangely enough it felt natural, like it belonged there. I also got the sense that I could make it go away, but I left it as was. As long as it didn’t block my vision I didn’t see any reason not to have my health information easily viewable.
“Am I in a video game?” I asked the silent forest around me. It very unhelpfully didn’t answer.
I turned my attention to the MP and traced my finger over it. Just like the HP something appeared in my vision but this time it was a bar opposite the heart. It was filled with blue and I knew it would represent my mana. That also seemed like vital information so I left it there as well.
The armor icon was a bar right by the heart, but this one was empty. Made sense as I was only wearing something resembling a loin cloth. That could hardly be considered armor.
Out of curiosity I ran my finger over the skills heading to see if I could make anything into an icon. To my delight a long bar appeared between the armor and mana bars. This bar was slightly taller than the others and segmented into many boxes, but only two had icons.
The first icon looked like a suit of armor made out of rock that mirrored the colors of my scales. This was a representation of the Fluorite Armor skill. It gave me a visual representation of the cool down the skill would have before I could use it again.
The second icon was a spear and shield that looked like it was made out of the same rock as the armor. The shield in particular looked like it could be as much of a weapon itself with how spiky it was. Defense and offense in one; this was the Stoneshard Armory skill.
Well, it seemed like a pretty good start for my class. Sentinel. I knew what the word meant; protector, guardian.
But what was I supposed to be guarding? Was I going to get a quest for that too?
“I really am in a video game.”
A melodic, pleasant hum tickled my ear for a moment and on instinct I flipped to the quest page. Everything was the same, except this time the status had changed to completed and below it was the words “claim reward” which I eagerly traced over.
I felt something ever so slightly change inside me. It wasn’t inside me as if in my internal organs or something. It was deeper than that. Fundamental.
I closed my eyes and drew the idea of banking xp into a big vat with a spout above it. I then went ahead and imagined that there were vats for each of the other attributes too as it seemed to reason I could unlock banks for them too. They were all disappointingly empty.
When I opened my eyes I saw that the tome had turned to a new page. The vats were there spread between the two pages in all the detail exactly as I’d pictured them. The top of the vat labeled Wisdom was open while all the others had lids on them indicating how they were still closed.
“Wow.”
I got another gentle nudge in the back of my mind and turned the page while thinking about the codex. I frowned a little bit. There were disappointingly few entries and some of them only had question marks beside them.
One of the few entries that was actually helpful was the one of the xp bank.
XP Bank: The XP Bank allows you to store XP you earn in a certain attribute until they have become bonded. Once an attribute is bonded all earned XP will be applied to that attribute. Limits on the XP Bank may be increased.
Well, that’s at least something.
I closed the book, then stared at it. What the hell was I supposed to do with it? I didn’t have any pockets, no backpack, or anything else to carry it.
A warm tingle spread through my chest and I looked down in curiosity. Like everything else it was obviously some hint at what I was supposed to do. I didn’t see anything there, but it was almost as if the tome was telling me what to do. It made no sense, but neither did anything else so far.
I held the tome up to my chest and couldn’t hold on a gasp as it absorbed right into my skin as if it was an intangible object. And yet, I could still feel it. When I experimentally drew my hand back, the tome materialized as if I was pulling it from inside myself.
“Video game,” I told myself. “I have to be in a video game.”
The problem with not being able to see the sun clearly was that I had no way of judging the passage of time as I walked along the stream. It felt like it had been hours, but for all I knew, it could have been minutes. At some point, my stomach started to make it known that its emptiness was unacceptable, but I had nothing to eat. The water of the stream was a poor substitute for food.
What does a gargoyle even eat?
After trudging on for some unknown amount of time, I heard the first sounds of civilization. A little girl’s laughter tickled my ear, and I couldn’t help but smile at the pure joy it held. Her laugh was followed by many others, and I picked up my pace, hopeful of finding anyone that might be able to help me.
“Vara Breen, don’t you dare get in that stream,” a stern female voice yelled, seeming to follow the children’s laughter.
“But maaaa…”
I laughed to myself as I imagined the pleading look on the little girl’s face.
I suddenly broke out of the heavy underbrush I’d been trudging through and into a wide-open glade where I immediate had to cover my eyes from the sudden burst of sunlight. I hadn’t even realized how dark it had been in the forest until that fun surprise.
With my hands over my eyes, I was taken completely by surprise as the childish laughter turned to pure shrieks of terror. My stomach curled at the sound and my heart immediately set into a gallop.
“Monster!”
I dropped my arm and looked around in panic. There were monsters in this world? Was that what I was meant to protect people from as a sentinel? I was morbidly curious but also wanted to head in the opposite direction of whatever these people were calling a monster.
My eyes flicked over to the others in the group briefly, noting the gaggle of children running toward six or seven adults who were keeping watch, but I didn’t focus on them. I swept the glade, looking for whatever the danger was, but other than myself and the other people, I didn’t see anything. Did they see something in the forest that I didn’t? It was always possible since they lived here and would know the threat of the area better than me.
I looked back at the adults for some sign of where the threat was coming from. That was the only reason I saw the javelin right before it sunk deep into my gut. The impact made me take a step back as shock rendered me briefly unable to understand what the hell had just happened.
“Wha–?”
My confused words were cut off as a second javelin slammed into my right leg just above my knee. I let out a roar of agony and dropped to my good knee while at the same time ripping the javelin out of my leg and then I yanked out the one in my gut. Immediately, a wave of dizziness hit me almost as hard as the pain did, and I tipped to the side until I was teetering on just this side of falling over completely..
There was a thundering sound of something heavy approaching me at speed. It was only as I lifted my head that I realized it had even dropped to begin with. Through swimming vision, I saw a blurry shape swing something at me.
Suddenly I was tumbling, my view flipping between the sky and the ground. I vaguely noted that the little heart in the corner of my vision was completely empty. My thoughts went sluggish. Everything was going dark as my view suddenly shifted, and I just barely had enough brain power to recognize I was looking at my own body. My headless body.