by Arthur Stone
He could shut his eyes?! He could see! He had a body! But why couldn’t he feel it?!
“Welcome to Second World. This is the best world of the three that have existed and exist to date. Would you like to hear a brief history of our world?”
There was nothing metallic about the voice—it was alive, and very much so. A female voice, and not a cold one, either—it sounded pleasant and slightly mischievous, making him wish he could meet its owner in circumstances conducive to making a closer acquaintance.
“Would you like to hear a brief history of our world?”
“Would you like to hear a brief history of our world?”
So, probably a robot, after all. But still much better than the voices of real people he had communicated with at the clinic.
“No, I don’t want to hear the history of the world. I would like to log on as soon as I can.”
The radiance dimmed, and a mannequin figure formed out of nothing. It started to rotate slowly, with blue sparks running over its surface.
“You current location is the lifeless space between the Second and the Third worlds. You are a spirit searching for a worthy vessel. What would you like your vessel’s name to be?”
“Gennady. Or maybe just Gena, or Jenya. Actually, my friends call me Ros—that’s derived from my last name.”
It felt so good to be hearing his own voice conduct a dialogue with a female contralto sounding just like the real thing. He may have swapped a vegetable’s existence for a strange surrogate, but so far he hadn’t regretted it once.
“Unfortunately, you have a free work account with no right to choose a username. You will be given a two-part system-generated username. You can use three letters of your choice at the beginning of your username.”
“In that case, let it be Ros.”
“Accepted. You have three attempts to generate a username. Your current username is Rosfamathultos Negiromandust. You have two attempts left to choose a different username. Would you like to generate a new username?”
He tried to imagine the legend “Rosfamathultos Negiromandust” over his fighter plane, and then, over a pointy-eared elf, and ended up deciding it didn’t look particularly attractive.
“Generate a new one.”
“You have two attempts left to generate a new username. Your current username is: Rosfamathultos Negiromandust. Do you confirm the generation of a new username?”
“I do.”
“Accepted. Your new username is Rostendrix Poterentax. Would you like to replace your current username with Rostendrix Poterentax? You have three minutes to confirm the change.”
He asked for another attempt, and ended up choosing the second version: Rostendrix Poterentax. It didn’t sound particularly melodious, but the two other versions sounded worse.
“Rostendrix Poterentax, select your character’s race.”
“Race?”
“Each race has its own set of distributed basic stats, abilities, and visual features. You can change your basic stats and appearance using in-game methods or by purchasing a full account. The game also offers the option to change your race for another, or a hybrid. Any changes or modifications of basic stats may present complications that can be resolved with in-game methods if you lack the access to the features of a full account.”
“So, if I make the wrong choice now, I’ll be able to fix it later, but it will cost me dearly, right?” he wanted to clarify.
“Any changes or modifications of basic stats may present complications that can be resolved with in-game methods.”
“Would that be difficult?”
“It can be resolved with in-game methods.”
Ros decided to waste no time if the complications could be resolved—in his case, it was a commodity more valuable than all the world’s treasures. He was still uncertain whether he was already connected or whether he still hung between the ruin of his body and the trap of a set of pixels ascribed to a character in the game where he’d have to toil for an undefined period of time, possibly for all eternity.
Being unfamiliar with the game world, he couldn’t have known that one really shouldn’t rush this process.
On the other hand, maybe it was better that he didn’t know…
“What you see is the list of races available to your account. You received it as a result of your preliminary search for races capable of mining and quarrying. You can highlight the one that interests you.”
The list was hardly impressively long. What had the guy told him, the one John had sent to the clinic to try and remedy Ros’ mind-boggling ignorance? He may have been a player himself, but he wasn’t much of an educator, only confusing himself and others with his explanations. However, he had mentioned hundreds of races, whereas here was a list with a measly twenty entries.
“Is that it? I heard there are hundreds of races.”
“This is the list of races available to your account. You also asked for a list of races best adapted for mining and quarrying when activating your account. If you purchase an expanded account, the list of available races will expand accordingly. We could also give you a full list of available races, but most of them will have inferior mining and quarrying skills.”
That much was expected—pay more to get more. His account cost two hundred and eight dollars a month. The cheapest there was, including the discount for purchasing several months in advance. Most of the funds would be spent on life support, which was prohibitively expensive—thankfully, his former employer was covering most of it. Freezing him would be cheaper, but given that no one had yet succeeded in unfreezing a patient alive, this would be the last resort. And it still wouldn’t be free—not by a long shot.
So, what do we have? Oddly, no elves, nor were there any… Oh, never mind—here was a dwarf. The letters in the name of the race became bold, and the “mannequin” started to change shape, quickly forming into a stocky figure with a bearded face that could have belonged to a weathered drunkard. The info screen lit up on the left:
“Race: Dwarf.
Dwarves are creatures of the earth—it is deep underground, where darkness reigns supreme, that their talents truly unfold. They are tireless miners, but it would be a singularly bad idea to get on their wrong side—a dwarf might find it hard to vanquish your present incarnation, but you won’t fare much better.
Primary base stats:
Strength: 5
Agility: 0
Intellect: 0
Mental Power: 0
Stamina: 3
Vigor: 2
Resilience: 0
Accuracy: 0
Defense: 1
Attack: 1
Secondary base stats :
Perception: 1
Disguise: 0
Arcane Knowledge: 0
Speed: 3
Luck: 0
Carrying Capacity: 5
Essence of Things: 0
Craftsman: 1
Reason: 0
Creation: 0
Racial Abilities:
Twilight Vision.
Each Strength point adds 0.1% to the character’s chance of receiving an extra resource during mining and 0.05% to the chance of discovering an unexpected resource.
A dwarf receives one Carrying Capacity point per every 5 Strength points.
+5% to Physical Defense
+10% to Damage from crushing weapons
Unique ability: 1% chance of crafting two items from resources spent on one (doesn’t affect rare or higher-grade items).
Unique ability: the regeneration of Vigor and life energy is twice faster underground.
+10% to Defense from crushing strikes of any nature.
Tap this line to learn more about the secondary stats.”
Ros didn’t tap anything. What he saw was enough to come to terms with his utter ignorance. A dwarf seemed to be a dim creature with zero Intellect and an emphasis on Strength. On the other hand, the dwarf was merely a character controlled by a human. And there were all kinds of humans, som
e of them quite intelligent. So what was the connection between one’s intelligence and zero points of Intellect?
That lawyer guy would come in handy with his explanations right now.
Ros clicked through all the races out of sheer curiosity, casting only a perfunctory glance over their characteristics. He did get the gist of it, anyway—the emphasis was on Strength, Carrying Capacity, Stamina, and Vigor. He didn’t know much about worker characters and their usual pastimes, but he started to suspect he’d have to haul heavy stuff around pretty often.
Suddenly, he saw a huge inscription in blood-red gothic lettering flare up: “Exclusive offer. Valid only today. A new race is available to you: the rrokh. Would you like to learn more about the race’s characteristics?”
“I have a work account and no spare funds.”
The inscription did not fade, and the sexy girl’s voice stayed silent.
“Well, why not? I would. Make it quick, though.”
The inscription vanished without a trace. The mannequin instantly transformed into the image of a rrokh—without the visual effect with the gradual transformation as used earlier. A far cry from a dwarf—a tall and skinny frame supporting a disproportionately huge head on a thin neck. The same face of a hopeless alcoholic, but without a matted beard this time. Huge eyes, too—big enough that you could make a pair of regular-sized eyes from one of these.
“The last representative of the rrokh race.
These are the creatures that live deep underground—the carriers of the Shade of Chaos. Their talents unfold fully where darkness reigns supreme. They can delve into the essence of things where no one else does. There’s nothing more awkward than a rrokh in an axe or a club fight, but a rrokh’s ambush should never be taken lightly. A rrokh’s strike from the dark is always quick and unexpected, and, if you’re weak, this strike may be enough for the rrokh to win.
Primary base stats:
Strength: 1
Agility: 3
Intellect: 1
Mental Power: 1
Stamina: 2
Vigor: 2
Resilience: 0
Accuracy: 0
Defense: 1
Attack: 1
Secondary base stats:
Perception: 1
Disguise: 1
Arcane Knowledge: 1
Speed: 2
Luck: 1
Carrying Capacity: 1
Essence of Things: 1
Craftsman: 0
Reason: 1
Creation: 1
Racial Abilities:
Night Vision.
The last representative of the race receives the following gift: after reincarnation with level loss, the last representative of the race does not lose stat points received as a result of leveling up. Once the former level is regained, the character receives an extra undistributed point that can be added to primary stats for each level regained.
The rrokh receives a point of Strength for every three points of Agility (in case of item bonuses, the extra points are only applied while the item remains in active inventory). The rrokh receives +0.1% to the chance of dealing double damage with magic as well as physical attacks for each three points of Agility and one point of Strength. The chance of dealing double damage grows by +1% in case of a surprise attack. In case of a critical strike, the damage dealt always grows fourfold.
The rrokh receives a unique creature summoning skill for each 25 Summoning levels.
Unique ability: Soul Trap. When activated, the chance of receiving a Soul Crystal from your victim grows by 25%. The ability can also be used on somebody else’s kill, in which case its chance of success is always 25%, regardless of the character’s stats or equipment bonuses.
Unique ability: Reviving the Trapped Soul of the Long Dead. When activated, the creature is revived without penalty to level or stats with 100% probability. There is a 50% chance for the creature to retain the skills it had possessed while alive, and a 2% chance for the creature to learn one (or more) of the victim’s skills.
Tap this line to learn more about the secondary stats.”
This looked like a nimble weakling with boringly highbrow abilities. All Ros managed to grasp from the explanations was that his character was unlikely to succeed as a warrior, while the racial abilities were primarily oriented toward fighting, and would hardly be of any use to him.
On the other hand, there was an extra Intellect point here, which seemed pleasant enough for some reason. No intelligent person would be quite comfortable with an utterly imbecilic character.
The attorney had recommended a dwarf or an orc in no uncertain terms. Ros didn’t find orcs particularly appealing, either—both physically and in terms of stats, but surely an expert’s recommendation was worth something. On the other hand, here was a chance of snagging an exclusive race—he might be one of the first to choose it, and it might cost a lot more for other players. It was a bonus of sorts, so if he declined the rrokh, he might regret it eventually. It may be hard to choose a new race, given his condition and the state of his financial affairs. Nevertheless, the invisible girl claimed it could be done with “in-game methods.”
Also, rrokh was hardly any worse than the rest of the uglies, and probably less ugly than many. Orcs, for example, looked a hell of a lot worse with their prominent crooked fangs and greenish skin.
Even dwarves were more pleasing to the eye.
“I choose the rrokh.”
“Rostendrix Poterentax, you have chosen the rrokh race. Do you confirm your race choice?”
Ah, so the sweet voice was back.
“I do.”
“Congratulations. You are the last representative of the rrokh race in Second World. The rrokh race is no longer an available choice to the players.”
How interesting! Was this an unexpected bonus, or did he fall for some scam aimed at total losers that no one ever told him about because they believed him to be different?
He hadn’t a clue.
“You have thirty primary and ten secondary stats to choose from.”
There was no time to sweat the details—his clock could stop any moment. He had already spent much longer on race selection than anticipated.
“I’ll take care of this later, once I’m in the game. Is that possible?”
“Unfortunately, your account’s conditions do not permit it. You must distribute the stat points now, or your vessel will be rejected by Second World’s aura.”
A pity, of course, but there was no getting around it.
Ros thought everything was clear enough with the primary stats—he’d have to dump as many points as possible into Agility to get a bonus to Strength, which would result in a substantial overall increase in the sum total of all his stats. Vigor was something he didn’t quite understand—according to the description, a character with low Vigor got tired quickly, even doing the easiest work.
And Ros would have to toil quite a lot…
He ended up dumping six points into Vigor grudgingly, ending up with the following list:
Primary base stats:
Strength: 9
Agility: 27
Intellect: 1
Mental Power: 1
Stamina: 2
Vigor: 8
Resilience: 0
Accuracy: 0
Defense: 1
Attack: 1
Having distributed his stat points, he wondered whether he really needed Agility for anything. It might be perfectly useless, which meant he’d made a colossal blunder. It was hard to make decisions lacking even approximate information, let alone exhaustive. There was too little time available before immersion, and most of it was spent taking care of legal, medical, and financial affairs. The conversation with the gamer attorney had been brief and chaotic, something Ros was coming to really regret.
Time. Everything was a question of time. He should distribute the points one way or other—he would fine-tune it later, inside the game.
He took care of the secondary stats quickly
and without thinking twice. After all, they were secondary, and one shouldn’t worry about them too much. A worker would obviously need Carrying Capacity. He remembered that a miner (his best career option, according to the attorney) should be able to carry large amounts of ore. Strength also affected this somehow, but he wasn’t sure about the exact way the stats affected each other.
Speed would also come in handy, whatever the nature of his work—a slowpoke wouldn’t be fast enough to be successful at anything.
The Essence of Things told him nothing; however, the Craftsman skill seemed useful, as he might have to manufacture things. Arcane Knowledge? Well, he who increases knowledge, increases sorrow, and free points were hard to come by. Reason and Creation sounded useful. As for Disguise and Perception… Being perceptive seemed preferable to the ability to hide. Being lucky should also probably come in handy.
He ended up with the following values:
Secondary base stats:
Perception: 2
Disguise: 1
Arcane Knowledge: 1
Speed: 4
Luck: 2
Carrying Capacity: 4
Essence of Things: 1
Craftsman: 1
Reason: 2
Creation: 2
“Congratulations. You have distributed your free stat points. The door to a new realm will open before you in a moment: a realm of heroes and amazing opportunities. We wish you the best of luck as you explore its vast expanses.”
And so it came to pass that a newborn character came to Second World. His stats points were probably distributed in an incredibly idiotic way, but you wouldn’t know it from the upbeat music that had been playing all along.
* * *
In a data center somewhere.
“Here we go again…”
“What’s the matter?”
“The same error.”
“Come again?”
“The working account registration utility has gone mad—the number of available races keeps fluctuating between one and twenty-something.”
