CHAPTER 9: CREATION MYTH

  WC:2146

  I watched the cut-scene again on the screen. Using my controller, I pressed START and then everything beyond that was all new to me. On the left side of the screen was my name—TyBerius and an empty background where the metal dwarf was last time. Instead of saying Franz Kranz, the slot was empty, and when I highlighted it, it said in gray letters NEW CHARACTER.

  I selected it and a load screen followed, with tips that appeared and disappeared. One of them said, workbenches may be found in shops. Another said, guards will arrest anyone they witness committing a crime. That one sort of had me thinking about the character I was about to make. Not reconsidering, just…thinking about options.

  When the load screen finished, a plain-looking guy in a white Medieval peasant underwear thing stood on my screen. Under him was a triangle that said GENDER. I used the controller to move a cursor around the triangle and found that the side the cursor originated on was the masculine side, and the other bottom corner of the triangle was very feminine, and if I brought the cursor to the top of the triangle, the body sort of looked in-between.

  I had planned on making my character look like me…mostly because that’s what I always had done, so I slid the cursor a little bit back toward the masculine side. I stared at the wimpy body for a moment and then slid the cursor a little more. Until there were noticeable pecs and a faint six-pack. NEXT.

  FACTION:

  Elderlands Brotherhood

  Union of Stars

  Marcantile Collective

  Okay, I remembered a little about that from Ramon’s tutorial video. The three factions surrounding the Atinok Empire had formed in response to the expansion. The northern one was Elderlands and it was populated by Viking-like people, some magic-wielding scholars, and a shy, scattered tribal people. The western faction was the Union of Stars and it had one race I thought might be interesting—stealthy bowmen. Only problem with them was that the starting town for that faction was in a magic school-type town, or something (according to Ramon). So, I selected the southern faction—the Mercantile Collective. What better place to start my career than in a town surrounded by merchants.

  NEXT.

  RACE:

  Sannear

  Rahinn

  Uralon

  I had three options—the Sannear, who looked like good all-around fighters. They got a special bonus for dual wield and reduced environmental damage, but I wasn’t sure how much that would come into play during the game itself. Cool, though. The Uralon were a stereotypical warrior race. When I hovered over the name Uralon my skinny guy got buff without the body type triangle cursor moving at all. I was tempted to go back and see what happened if I played with the triangle again. And if green was a skin color that I could select… Oh man, I wanted to make a Hulk, but I didn’t want to get distracted from the character in my head.

  I selected the middle race, the Rahinn. They were experts of Medium Armor and were the only race to have a pickpocket bonus. Under my naked avatar, the paragraph read: The adaptable and resourceful Rahinn have made the most of life in a hard land. They make their homes in jungles, mountains, or grasslands, wherever they can find natural materials to craft into goods. Adherence to ancient traditions means they closely watch the moons and stars as they travel across Navanno with wares to trade or sell. Their endurance comes from increased Health, Magic, and Stamina, and their Health Recovery, Magic Recovery, and Stamina Recovery bonuses make them versatile allies in a fight. Rumors surface from time to time suggesting that these peaceful travelers have a deft hand for picking pockets. Perhaps the rumor was started by an unhappy merchant guild whose prices were undercut. Or, maybe there’s something to the rumor and the natural stealth of the Rahinn help them not only keep safe while out in the wild, but sneak into town right under the noses of the guards and leave before anyone even knows anything is missing. Either way, their decreased detection range grants them increased Critical Hit Damage and Healing.

  Yep. Everything I loved. Sneaking past guards, one-shot-kills, and stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down. The rest of the bonuses were just icing on the stabby-stabby cake.

  NEXT.

  When I got to the next step a menu came up that allowed me to scroll through the grayed-out names of all nine playable races. I read through them again closely to make sure I was selecting the right one, and then moved on to a similar list for character class.

  CLASS:

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  KNIGHT

  ROGUE

  MAGE

  CLERIC

  I briefly read through the stats and selecting the one I really wanted. I didn’t even open the other two. Magic characters can kick a lot of butt, but I’m just not great at playing them, at least not as a first character. It takes me time to learn the magic systems and resource management, so that was something future Tyler would maybe try. And there was zero part of me that wanted to be a healer. I would think about a knight, though. If I had to pick one and stick with it for six months, it had to be the one I knew I’d love.

  NEXT.

  Holy cow. The next step was page after page of physical characteristics, all of which had multiple options. When I picked an option, bars popped up that I could slide to alter things. I picked my hair color, face shape, even how big my thighs and feet were. Every single thing was adjustable.

  When I got to body art, I thought of Mel and her witch she was making. I couldn’t wait to see it, for sure. My character was probably bland in comparison. I made him tall and thin, with blonde swoopy hair and dark blue eyes. There weren’t a lot of options because the skin color palette was naturally sort of dark, and the only light option for Rahinn looked a bit ghoulish. So, I picked a rich tan skin and the single blonde-ish color option. I did consider a facial scar or eye patch to add character but decided against it. I hate picking random things for no reason. I always set out to make a character look like someone familiar, even if it’s Blade or something. That was one of my best Sims ever. It worked out great because I had the vampire expansion.

  I kept it simple and was happy with the result—little TyBerius the Rogue was as close to my own features as I could get without spending the whole morning fiddling with sliding bars and color palettes.

  NEXT.

  The character displayed on the screen in clothing, which made him look more natural than the baggy diaper panties. A cursor blinked—NAME:

  Bet! I had a slew of perfect names. There were the ones I’d used before—Blonde Bandit, Kat Burgler, Cut’N Run—so many good ones. I settled on Chaos Walken. I sort of stole it from a guy I knew in middle school, Jess Walken. His name sounded like “just walking” and he got teased for it back then, but I always thought it was kinda neat. Maybe I was inadvertently making fun of him, though? I deleted the last couple letters and changed them.

  Chaos Walking. NEXT.

  I looked everything over carefully one last time, just to make sure I didn’t overlook any important details. There was an option to make a character with one button click, but selecting a randomly generated character was my nightmare, so I spent the better part of an hour hand-picking exactly what I wanted.

  The screen went black and a moment later it instructed me to put on the headset.

  INITIALIZING…

  When the music played in the darkness, it felt familiar instead of disorienting. The emerging light drove away the darkness and the scenery came into focus. I was in a wooden room of some sort. Lanterns flickered, but I couldn’t see well. Crates bound with ropes, and barrels with nailed tops were stacked al around. Noises of footsteps, and voices sounded above me. When the ground tilted, I reached out and steadied myself against a crate.

  A ship.

  Uh oh. I got motion-sick super easily. A ship was the worst possible place to start a tutorial where I’d have to look at and pay attention to everything! I turned toward the thin band of daylight that came from the end of the cabin.

  “Hello, traveler,” a woman in a leather breastplate said. She wore traveling clothes and a wide-brimmed hat with feathers. She stood in my way and my right hand tingled. I knew what it meant now, so I initiated a conversation.

  “ I’m Captain Misana and this is The Golden Jackal, a mercenary ship. We scooped you out of the sea last night. It looked like a wreck, judging by the debris, but you were the only survivor we found.” She extended her hand in friendship, patting my shoulder. “You’re welcome to recover here. We haven’t much, but what we have is meant to help people. We’re bound for the port of Majah. Our hold is full of refugees and supplies to aid in Majah’s relocation effort. My crew is sorely in need of shore leave and the Jackal needs repairs.” She smiled. “We’ll put into port shortly. If you’re feeling up to it, go on up and meet the crew. There are loads of stories on this ship, and maybe a little rum if you ask the right sailor.”

  MEET THE CREW

  She turned and entered an office room with a desk and shelves, and seafaring tools covering both of them. I followed the new directional marker at the top of my field of vision. Up the stairs and on the deck, it got brighter and I saw it was a sunny afternoon. A few people were standing around, looking over the railing at the coastline.

  My hand tingled so I squeezed it.

  “My old tutor joined the war efforts, but before she left, she told me to seek out a new teacher in the Mage’s Guild. I hope they will accept me.” A young man with a long ponytail stood beside me. His silk robes were bright pink, and green, and yellow. “I hear they’re accepting students of all caliber right now due to so many mages traveling to the front lines. Are you by chance a student of the art?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “Good luck on your travels, friend. I hope our paths cross again one day.”

  I saw some people walk below deck on the other side of the ship, so I followed. In the dim light below deck a crowd of refugees huddled, talking about an end to peace, a coming war. My right hand told me I could speak to some of the people, and since I had learned how to do it, I thought I’d just give it a try.

  “My husband is too sick to go off to war. What’s going to happen to our families?” one woman said.

  “Hello, stranger. Are you a refugee too?” another said.

  I walked around targeting different people and hearing what they had to say. Most were unimportant, but here and there I picked up bits of useful information. One man said there was a camp outside Majah where rebels were gathering, and he suggested if I wanted to do something more than stand around and gossip I ought to go check there. That initiated a message to pop up in my field of vision:

  NEW QUEST: SEARCH FOR REBEL CAMP

  I knew what the white dot meant but I was on a boat and couldn’t leave.

  I passed through the crowd and headed down a hallway that probably connected back to where I’d woken up. Cabins with closed or open doors lined the hallway and I peered into the ones that were open.

  A man with a sword on his hip and a dagger in his hand leaned against the wall in one of the cabins that held four bunks. Now, there was someone I needed to talk to! I went over to him and initiated a conversation.

  “Hey there, traveler!” The fellow flipped his dagger and caught it. “I think you may have made a mistake coming in here.” For the briefest moment his name popped up in white lettering like all the other NPCs’ names, but then it flashed red. Davi Ben stood and faced me. And everything went black when something hit the back of my head. Again, I felt the impact, but not any pain. I heard muffled voices and shouts for a moment or two before things went silent.