[ Entering queue for initial trials. ]
Trials? What were those? Shouldn't I go to a starter zone? Or an inn somewhere?
[ 7 of 10 candidates found. Please be patient as characters are generated to fill out the remaining slots. ]
Maybe it would be a tutorial to teach me the System before the whole world opened up. I hoped Dam-- Oh what was his name...
I hoped my friend would be there.
I would be shown as a woman to him. The thought hit me like a ton of bricks. With the gender locked state of character creation, he would know something was up. What would I say to him? What about to other people? I didn't know how to be a woman.
[ Characters generated. Now entering Taur-Na-Tastaith, the Forest of Trials - Instance 47. ]
[ New Quest: Trials of the Native Player Character.
You are now a Native to the forest of Taur-Na-Tastaith, the Forest of Trials. Work together to create a viable elven settlement. You will be evaluated on settlement quality, survival rate, and community cohesion.
Duration: Ten Days.
Zone: Evaluation Area-47.
Projected Difficulty: Tier 3.
Rewards: Dependent on leaderboard rankings. ]
[ Admin Message:
Welcome to Erendria.
I'm sure many of you have questions from character creation. What are you doing here? What happened to you? Did you die? What is the System? Unfortunately, we don't have time to get into the details behind all of that.
For now, just understand that yes, you live in this world, and no, there is nothing that I can do to bring you back to your old world. It is in everyone's best interest that you adapt to a new life here, and I will be here with you every step of the way to help you all adapt. Well, all of you who survive your trials.
BUT! That doesn't mean that there's no hope. Those of us in the Realm of the System have full confidence that you and your teams will put your best foot forward to show us how you can rebuild Erendria. Those that prove themselves will be given everything they need to build a new civilization from nothing.
Through adversity and apocalypse, we triumph,
-Elven Native Admin, Cyril]
I blinked and I stood in a small clearing in the middle of the forest. The smell of sap mixed with petrichor as birdsong echoed against the backdrop of an orchestra of cicadas, crickets, and rustling leaves. The deciduous trees towered over everything, leaving the forest floor lush with moss, vines, and the occasional shrubbery. The morning mist sent shivers through my skin and got my brain moving.
I wasn't alone. There were nine other people with me in the clearing, all of them arcane or world elves -- looking just as dazed and in awe as I did. I wondered who they were for a brief moment, before I realized -- I did know them. I knew all of them.
[ Downloading additional context to Neural-Annex.
Communal background generated. ]
I accessed my NA as easy as thinking. It didn't live in my subconscious, not yet, but I could look at the tall muscular black woman in armor to know her name was Eimear, a Mage-Knight Spellblade. Or that lanky robed white man with spiky bright red hair was Aodhan, a Prismatic Mage.
We were an expedition that had been sent into Taur-Na-Tastaith to create a new settlement. We all came from the elven city of Dreamflower, named for the unique flowers that grew from its world tree, which had been struggling with a recent adventuring boom and was dealing with a scarcity of resources and overpopulation. Not that it was terribly large, but a city that had to maintain a deep integration with nature and not disturb the natural balance quickly ran into an upper limit of what it could support.
We were only one of many expeditions who had been sent out into the surrounding woods to try to find a place to create a settlement, and eventually turn it into a new elven city. My NA told me that our settlement should blend into nature, should not disturb the land too much, but should be able to survive the rigors of life in the wilds. After all, this was not a peaceful world -- monsters and dungeons were plentiful, and they were known to surge and rampage across the land, destroying everything in their path. Cities existed as a bastion against that.
I brought my focus back to the present, to the nine other people standing around me. Eimear and Seanán both wore armor, just a simple breastplate over a gambeson with vambraces, and had a sword and shield. Fianait and Sé each wore a light leather jerkin, the former had a bow slung over her shoulder, and the latter had a bandolier of daggers. Aodhan, Niall, and myself all had simple cloth robes and a plain wooden staff. Gormán, Torcán, and Blánaid were wearing simple linen clothes, Blánaid wore a skirt, while both Gormán and Torcán were in pants. All three had a toolbelt around their waists and backpacks laden with supplies.
"What the actual fuck is going on?" Aodhan, the prismatic mage wearing robes, shouted.
"Dude. What are you talking about?" A wiry pale World Elf man with a thin face with short brown hair asked. My NA informed me this was Sé, but my eyes went wide as I recognized the cadence of the dagger wielding rogue. That many daggers definitely counted as 'sneaky-stabby.'
"Damien?" I asked before thinking better of it as his name came back to me.
He looked at me and furrowed his brows, then his eyes went wide as his NA fed him information about me. "Holy.... Ryan? Wait... Why are you a chick?" He grinned. "But hey, at least you're hot, right?" He walked over to me and nudged me in the ribs with his elbow.
[ Notice: Beginning grace period for dialogue anachronisms.
Over the course of the initial quest and trial, restrictions will get stricter. Failure to adhere with dialogue guidelines will incur increasing penalties, up to, and including deletion from the World.
Please note that the memory update process will continue during your onboarding period, and will assist with verisimilitude integration. ]
Ugh, we had been automatically placed in a role-play server.
Fortunately, the System notice had gone out to everyone, and no one else seemed to notice Damien's -- or I guess I should think it as Sé's -- little mistake.
"I don't..." I struggled to find the words.
"I gotta ask though, dude. The System seemed pretty strict about choosing your sex." His eyes wandered to my chest, and I instinctively crossed my arms. "I know it's your usual, but how did you get around the restrictions?"
"I have my ways." I tried to say it cryptically, not wanting to talk about the System's judgement. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"What? The quest?"
"No, the other stuff. The memory stuff, and that admin message."
"Uhhh..." He blinked quickly, and shook his head. "Yeah, no clue dude. But we're like... living in a game right?"
"Either that, or we've reincarnated. I got a crazy sense of Deja vu as we came here. Does this world remind you of anything? What was its name... Eternal..." The rest of the game's name was in a haze beyond my grasp.
"Nope." He scratched his head. "Does it matter?"
"Yes! Probably?"
He shrugged. "Eh, it's probably fine. Either we've been here before, or we haven't. That doesn't change the fact that we have to figure out how to make a settlement. I bet it's going to help us learn this new world. Crafting and social systems for building a city, not to mention all the combat we'll need to do to fend off the monsters in the woods. How cool is that? Right?"
"I guess... We're still..." I vaguely gestured around as the fog in my mind condensed as I tried to think of memories that no longer existed. The world span and I stumbled.
Sé caught me. "Come on dude." He clapped me on the back. "Let's get to it."
"Get to what?" I hugged myself tight. For some strange reason, even with how awkward, and trapped I felt, the act made me feel comfortable in a way I couldn't explain.
Sé's eyes went to my chest as I hugged myself, and he grinned, then looked askance with a bit of a blush. I couldn't explain it, but that creepy act was somehow reassuring to me. That I was enough of a woman to get a lewd stare from my best friend.
"Dude. Relax." He clapped me on the shoulder and grinned again. "So... Bros get benefits right?"
"What?" I practically shouted. "No." I shoved him away. "How are you this blasé about this?" I pointed at my chest. "That I'm suddenly like this in this new world. We both know that being a..." I failed to say the word transgender as I pointed at myself, "is a sin right."
"Oh shit." He squirreled his expression. "Yeah... That would be a problem. Why'd you do it? Be a freak. I didn't take you for the type."
At least he was past being horny. Though I wasn't sure if this was better or not.
"Can you... not?" I said. "I want to focus on what's going on here. That message said something about being evaluated and having to make a settlement. Don't we get a tutorial? Or a guide?"
"No idea." He looked around, and his eyes unfocused as he looked into his NA.
I did the same, but I couldn't find any directions. "I guess... We just do stuff and figure it out?"