“Humans are the most prevalent and widespread races of Eilyth. Facing religious upheaval in their homeland they have traveled west to the Susaire Colonies to continue the worship of their god without persecution. Although not always so, they are typically militaristic and authoritarian. With the rise of the Noctis humans find themselves struggling to keep a foothold in the colonies and rumors spread that artests are burning ships that try and escape in an effort to return east.”
Beside the human version of herself was the massive and bulky form of her ‘Ohzj’ self. This creature had gray skin, short black hair, and an intimidating musculature. When she walked in front of the creature it looked directly down at her with flint-like eyes. The bonuses for these creatures were focused on strength and intuition and physical and crafting skills. Meanwhile they suffered a negative modification to the knowledge statistic. They had a natural ability to see in absolute darkness and something called ‘Prayer of Fire’.
The text for Prayer of Fire read, “Ohzj are always able to create a small amount of fire even if tools and fuel are not available. They can apply a small amount of this energy to their melee weapon strikes!”
The preceding lore said:
“Ohzj are a product of the desperate pairing of the now extinct races of dwarves and orcs. Trapped within the underground settlements of the former, the two races allied to try and survive successive hordes of Noctis. Ohzj somehow escaped to the surface after their century long ordeal and now live in tribal communities of the far north. Ohzj are famous for their strength and their ability to craft weapons of legendary quality.”
The third figure was only slightly shorter than the Ohzj but far less broad and physically imposing. The D'Vyre appeared to be much like the elves she had seen out of other stories and films but alien and unsettling. This figure was abnormally tall and emaciated to a terrifying degree. Its ears were nearly a foot long and had her same short dark hair. Its features were sharp and cheeks hollow. The eyes were solid and pupiless blue. D'Vyre had increased agility and charm but a weakness in vitality. They had natural skill in ranged weaponry and magic, some ability to see perfectly well in moonlight and an ability called ‘Vital Soul’.
“Vital Soul: D'Vyre are completely immune to all disease.”
She was surprised to find that D'Vyre were not in fact elves.
“D'Vyre are all that remain of the true immortal Vyre. The few Vyre who remained after The Sundering descended into decadence and promiscuity to save their species. The result were the half Vyre or D'Vyre. Due to the crimes of their forebears the D'Vyre are not always welcomed amidst some communities. Many legends speak of the strength, power, and immortality of the true Vyre but most assume that they are long lost to Eilyth.”
The last two figures were very similar and when she grew close she found that they were staring with open malice at each other. Both of the creatures were below three feet tall. The first seemed to be a small but hunched human with long thick sideburns, tufts of dark hair on the backs of its hands and tops of its feet, and six fingers and toes on its hands and feet. They were called the Imperial Grath. These Grath had bonuses to the constitution and knowledge statistics, and a detriment to the intuition statistic. They also had a bonus to persuasion skills and athletics skills and two natural abilities called ‘Natural Soldier’ and ‘Hardy’’.
Their two abilities read:
“Natural Soldier: Imperial Grath accrue fatigue and hunger and half the rate of other races.”
“Hardy: Imperial Grath recover from injuries in half the amount of time of other races.”
The other was much the same but covered in fur, sporting a prehensile tail, and with pronounced bestial fangs. They looked much more like apes than their ‘imperial’ counterparts. They were called Western Grath. While both were clearly related there was an obvious amount of divergent evolution between the two creatures. Western Grath had a bonus to both reflexes and intuition and a detriment to charm. They had bonuses to survival and stealth skills. Western Grath had two special skills; ‘Servant of the Bound Gods’, and the ability to have a third limb via their prehensile tail.
“Servant of the Bound Gods: Like other races of creatures that refused to serve the Dominus all Western Grath are tempered to use artes from birth.”
Their lore was the most unsettling yet: “So called ‘Imperial Grath’ are the direct result of conditioning. The Empires of the East Marches enslaved their ancestors to take advantage of their small size and their low subsistence cost. As the centuries have passed the Grath have largely been freed from captivity by Imperial edict. Despite their freedom the Imperial Grath remain common both in the legions as soldiers and as servants.”
“Western Grath are typically found in the wilds and are at odds with the colonizing armies of the Imperial Legions. They remain deeply devoted to the Bound Goddesses and refuse to recognize the authority of the Dominus religion of the invading imperial forces. Rumors spread that they have consumed the corpses of legionnaires and are in league with the Noctis.”
Maria stepped away from the figures, all five of them were staring at her as if waiting patiently. None of them looked happy. The sprite continued to drift oblivious to her, and maybe everything. She asked softly, “Will I be able to change this choice later.”
The sprite did not look at her, it simply drifted along and muttered thickly, “No.”
The question was, did she want to double down on her strengths or diversify? If it were the former there were really only two choices: Human or Western Grath.
She didn’t relish the possibility of looking like a monkey person, but she wasn’t here to win a popularity contest.
Maria glanced at the sprite again and said, “Are you allowed to tell me anything about what kind of environment I’ll be going to.”
Once again the sprite muttered, although she sensed a note of mirth, “No.”
Maria ran a hand through her hair and raised her hand toward the Western Grath. The figure perked up and turned and smirked at the other four who immediately collapsed to the floor like falling liquid leaving only a ripple in their wake.
With her hand still raised another group of floating symbols appeared as a rotating 3d menu around the Western Grath figure. She was surprised to see that the symbols were hieroglyphs. They seemed to have more in common with Mayan script than Egyptian. The first was several bars, three horizontal and two vertical, with two spheres. Flexing her raised hand revealed that it was the symbol for ‘fire affinity’.
Fully opening her hand revealed a description that seemed exactly the same for each affinity: “Affinities determine the source of your magical abilities if you choose to either study to become an Artest or Hedge Caster. In addition it provides you some resistance to the element chosen.”
Maria took a deep breath and used her fingers to flip between the four images until she found ‘Earth’. She pressed her fingers to the image and watched as the symbol flashed and then the tiny Grath looked down and then raised its wrist to reveal a clear brand of the ‘Earth’ symbol.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
She recoiled only slightly when the sprite spoke next to her ear, “The Player has chosen her race and affinity!”
She glared at the creature and it said, “You should check your statistics before you make your final choice. Once you enter Eilyth you will not be able to check your status until you return here!”
She took a deep steadying breath and raised her hand. With a flex of her fingers a light blue menu opened showing a list of statistics:
Name: Maria Emilia Rossi
Race: Western Grath
Affinity: Bound Earth
Level: 1
HP: 90/90
MP: 90/90
Strength 9
Reflex 11
Constitution 9
Knowledge 8
Intuition 10
Charm 7
Physicals
Acrobatics 18
Athletics 20
Brawl 20
Melee 16
Ranged 19
Stealth 20
Socials
Deception 12
Persuasion 16
Menace 15
Leadership 17
Barter 11
Mentals
Drive 21
Science 19
Finance 16
Strategy 19
Crafting 17
Survival 20
Abilities
Servant of the Bound Gods
Prehensile Tail
*NEW!* Hedge Cleric
Known Artes / Runes
Stoneflesh
Bound Equipment
Ranger’s Blade
Wilderling’s Bag
Waterskin
Symbol of the Dominus
Ranger’s Leathers
She spread her palm open and many of the statistics and skills split into a rapidly branching root system of numbers that nearly blocked her vision. Every single skill she had ever even dabbled in was branched beneath the major skills in some way. The different vehicles she had driven, down to manufacturer or even bicycles were represented. She winced at the summer she had spent DJing amounting to a score of eight. Almost all skill values were low, but that was the lowest. The highest values seemed to be in those skills she had chosen to focus her life’s work on.
Survival and Science were the most varied and spread into various forms of anthropology and archaeology, different cultures of study, artifacts, and myriad types of environmental survival. It was unsettling to see all this condensed down into a simple numeric form. Those science skills came from her time in school and working as an archaeologist for all these years. The survival skills were related but predominantly came from the years of family trips to visit her Gram in upstate New York. She had spent the holidays hunting with her dad for eleven years straight. Layla had never been one for the outdoors. Maria had been his one hope for companionship on those hunts. He had never invited her to hunt again after she admitted that she didn’t want to join the military.
Shaking away the dark thoughts she continued scanning the various skills. She blushed a little when she noticed that her Persuasion skill was broken down into different kinds of seduction and that she apparently had different score values for seducing men and women. Her eye caught on the description of ‘Stoneflesh’, which seemed to be some kind of spell tied to her Servant of the Bound Gods trait.
Stoneflesh
The artest’s skin becomes as if of the body of the goddess they serve. Stoneflesh can be channeled reflexively to protect the artest. Stoneflesh can be channeled continually to provide constant protection until the caster’s mana is depleted.
She sighed and glared at the sprite before dropping her hand and banishing the floating text into digital mist. She said aloud, “I wonder if I will finally get to wake up once I tell you I’m ready for this.”
The sprite gave her a baleful and lazy side eye and muttered, “You are not dreaming.”
Maria put her hands on her hips and glared at the sprite, “Then let’s get this over with. I have finished this fucking tutorial.”
The sprite’s expression changed to a beaming smile like a switch being thrown and turned to her. It clapped its hands together and bellowed, “Welcome to Eilyth, Player!”
She flew at Maria without warning and cackled . The sprite reared back a tiny fist.
Maria only had time to partially raise her hands before the sprite’s fist came at her, “Don’t fail your task!” As its tiny fist arced in toward her chin her entire world went white with static.
8267 AA
Ice Shelf Camp
Timber Expanse
Somewhere distant and fuzzy she heard a man’s gruff voice, “I say we put the beast down! It matters not if it came from the Dominus! For all we know the blasted Grath conspired to put this little monster into our midst.”
A woman’s voice, of deep timbre but gentle, chided the man, “Would the Dominus not send great calamity upon our settlements if we murdered one of his servants?”
The man harrumphed and the gentle voice continued, “Besides, the dome is quite impenetrable at the moment.”
Maria grunted and tried to move her aching limbs. She was on a cold stone floor. It wasn’t the only chill. She suddenly realized that she was intensely cold despite feeling as if she was fully clothed. Looking around her she saw that she seemed to be surrounded by an mildly opaque silver dome that itself met the ground where it was also etched with silvery symbols. As she started to haul herself up she looked down and started at the fur on the back of her six fingered hand.
She put hands to her cheeks to feel the hair there as well and spoke softly, “That little bitch actually did it. I didn’t wake up? How could I not be awake? Dreams aren’t this long usually.”
The woman’s voice returned first as a chuckle before she said, “The Angelus has awakened First Spear, I suppose that we shall discover if she is a spy of the enemy or not.”
Maria planted her six fingered hands on the cold stone floor and pushed herself up. She muttered a curse when she saw her long black furred tail snap about behind her. An overwhelming scent of burned hair and meat assaulted her senses. Finally standing she started to reach to where she had seen the sword on the Western Grath’s hip during her ‘tutorial’… but stopped.
The gruff sounding man’s voice reminded her of a cop. She had encountered her fair share and what most of them were looking for was an excuse. She halted her hand and surveyed the room first.
There were five figures in the torchlit room. First and most prominent was a towering gray skinned woman with a broad, kindly face and shoulders that had to be four or five feet wide. She recognized her as an Ohzj wearing a dark gray robe. She was holding a much larger censor-like version of the symbol of the dominus she had chosen as one of her bound items. She noted with passing interest that the giant woman’s fingernails were painted elaborately, no nail the same, with silver and white nail polish or paint of some kind.
Between herself and the Ohzj there was a concave pit. It was filled with the burned remnants of some large four legged animal that had once been covered with fur. It was disintegrating as flames and cinders consumed it.
