OhmN
Page 2
“Anyway, now is the time you will begin the joy of finding out who you are and what you will be capable of in your next life.” The voice stated.
I wish to read all rights and policies. Derick said in a commanding mental voice, the same mental voice that Derick had used when forcing his platoon of soldiers to stand guard against unknown hostile forces in a supposedly friendly state.
“Access granted.” The machine’s voice changed from a man’s voice to that of a female. Most concerning was the way this voice caused the hairs on Derick’s neck to rise up. It was the same innate response he felt the minute before conflict broke out, the second before he saw two headlights turn on as a vehicle flew forward at him on a darkened street, and the same feeling he had when the Army said they would take care of everything.
Begin Last Chance Protocol life is power. Derick said the phrase exactly as it appeared.
“How very interesting.” The female mechanical voice said in his mind. This was not part of the script, the code was supposed to bring up an options menu.
“Access granted.” The female voice said, in a voice that Derick could swear was smiling at him.
“You have accessed the super user creation guide. Here you will be able to trade lives for starting non-transferrable powers. Each power you buy with a respawn will allow you access to greater powers, though be warned, this can only be purchased by your general account six times. How many lives do you wish to trade?”
All six, Derick thought knowing this was his only real way to succeed.
A slight pause came before a listing of six tiers of powers came available. The first tier had the least useful abilities as compared to the other tiers. In the first tier generic paths were given “immunity to fire damage,” “immunity to water damage,” etcetera. Derick was given a prompt that he had to choose an item from the first tier before the second tier abilities became available. Derick had a feeling this would likely continue until he got to the sixth and final tier of abilities. It took a moment, but Derick finally settled on “instant casting,” an ability that would remove any focus requirements, any words, gestures, movements from the activation sequence of a power and make them cast instantly. By itself, this ability would mean nothing, but Derick knew this ability would be priceless once he got to higher levels and the casting time of actions and abilities could mean the difference between life and death.
From the next tier Derick found a number of general survival powers and abilities that could provide boosts from things like “lay on hands” a blessing that would instantly heal a person of all damage taken, even if they were on the brink of death, “sprint” an ability that would allow a person to run at 10 times base run speed for 15 seconds, a skill that would likely save the life of anyone using it. The only problem with those first two powers was that they had a cooldown timer, where the powers would only be available to use again once a certain time requirement had been met. In the case of “lay on hands” the timer would be 12 in game hours. For the “sprint” the timer would be 20 minutes, apparently something called “spell power points” could be added to lower the cooldown time, but Derick didn’t know what spell power points were, nor how to get them. Derick finally settled on “viewing” a radar-like effect that would scan the local area for monsters or objects.
Derick thought this would be particularly helpful when trying to avoid dangerous enemies who would try to sneak up behind him. Finally at tier three more practical powers were available like “volley attack” where a volley of arrows would be fired for the cost of one arrow hitting every item in a circular target area a certain number of times, “tracking,” an ability that was similar to his already chosen “viewing” ability, but instead of seeing every monster, “tracking” could focus on one specific monster or object. Derick had a feeling that the “tracking” ability could be particularly useful for finishing quests, tasks that random non-player characters could assign or ones that could be derived from reading texts and want ads.
The “tracking” ability seemed as though it would be great for finding a random monster, a noted enemy, or a particular item or treasure. Yet, ultimately Derick went with the power “levitation.” The power had a starting 1 to 3 ratio of duration to cooldown time, meaning that it would last 10 minutes and only took 30 minutes to cooldown. Secondly the power allowed him to hover in the air, or at the very least descend slowly. Additionally, the power seemed as if it could be improved with the spell power points to allow him to float upward, and as corny as it sounded, it had always been one of Derick’s dreams to be able to fly on his own.
It seemed as though levitation was his one sure chance at achieving this goal. Derick envisioned times when he would be chased by a horde of hostile monsters that would chase him to the edge of a cliff. Rather than turning himself in to be killed he would activate “levitation” and give the hostile forces the bird and walk away to freedom.
Tier four offered more attack powers, from things like “lightning bolt” to “fireball” to more defensive powers like “ice wall,” but ultimately Derick settled on “telekinesis,” an ability that let Derick move objects with his mind. Derick had a feeling that the overall practical nature of telekinesis would allow for more versatility in the long run than something like “fireball” or “ice wall” would. How many ways could you cook an enemy after all.
The tier five powers were more of the same beefed up attack powers that one would expect from upper level attacks. Everything from “earthquake,” a power where the user punched the ground causing a giant chasm to appear before them, to “tornado,” a channeled spell that would let the caster use wind power to rip an opponent apart.
Derick found many of the attack spells to be useful, if altogether destructive for the overall game world. It was ultimately the idea of angering an entire village for collapsing their houses that turned Derick off from the high level powers and toward the more defensive power “phasing,” a power that let the caster phase out of existence and traverse material boundaries and objects at will. The power had a short timer, what appeared to be under five seconds, but if he only had a short distance to travel like a jail cell or other such place to leave, Derick found that he could see many different uses for this defensive power. Added to it was it had a short 1 minute cool down timer and it appeared that if he got enough spell power points it would simultaneously increase the time phased and lower the cool down timer, Derick imagined a time when he could almost chain cast the power to escape certain doom and destruction. In the end the versatility of the “phasing” ability again won out in Derick’s mind as he finally accessed the tier six powers. Derick rubbed his imaginary fingers together anticipating what could be available.
Once accessing the tier six abilities a pop-up menu appeared in Derick’s mind’s eye. “Congratulations, you are the first person to successfully trade away all remaining respawns. As such a new tier of powers are available to you. These are the most powerful abilities in the game, but come at a cost of knowing that this is it, unless you find a way to earn more respawns you will have your code forever be removed from those who can be resurrected. Additionally, if extra respawns are acquired, this power will be removed upon respawn, regardless of external factors or unlocked badges and abilities. Are you sure you wish to trade in your last respawn?”
Derick took in a mental breath, then let it out and mentally voiced the command “Yes, I wish to trade my last respawn for power.”
With that Derick was granted access to the final tier of powers. Derick saw some of the most overpowered abilities available, everything from “divine wrath,” an ability that instantly drains the caster of all stamina, mana, and mental energy points available but will kill any desired target, regardless of hit points or special abilities. The only problem with divine wrath was that it had a 24 hour cooldown timer, meaning that it could only be used to save his life once a day. If two or more enemies are battling me at the same time, I would kill one, but the other would surely get me. Deri
ck thought to himself as he continued down the list. He saw “divine protection” as well, an ability that could be cast once every 12 hours making the user immune to all attacks and damage received for a one minute time period. “Divine protection” was a power that had its uses but again a long cooldown timer.
Finally Derick settled on a constant passive ability “vampirism,” a power that allowed Derick to have a chance at stealing a random power or ability from any slain opponent. The fact that it was passive meant that even if Derick didn’t have any energy left, the power would still be active. It also meant that if Derick did earn a respawn in the future, while vampirism itself might not be available, there might be a way to keep all his stolen powers and abilities in the next respawn. “Vampirism” was also the only tier six ability available that didn’t offer an immediate reward to the user. One called “skilled” allowed a user to increase any one skill by 100 points, supposedly the maximum available for any skill. This would make the user the supreme user of that skill. If added to weapons, the user would be the best blade master in the lands. If added to metallurgy, then they would be able to forge epic level items.
Ultimately the idea of Derick coming across such an individual and being able to kill the “skilled” person and take his powers is what caused Derick to stick with “vampirism.”
Finally Derick got to the merits and flaws section where, just as with the powers, Derick saw that there were literally thousands of possible merits, flaws and combination merits and flaws available to him. One of the first that Derick noticed was the merit and flaw undead. This was a merit that meant the owner would have to play an undead which would be hated by all living races and only accepted by other undead races. Similarly the undead offered seemingly benign merits like does not breathe, does not eat or drink, dark vision - an ability to see clearly in the dark. Other than the starting reputation flaws, an increased vulnerability to light and nature magic and not being able to reproduce the undead merit really was a merit. It was also a merit that was only available upon final life, meaning that this would mark him as being on his last life and likely unable to enact revenge for a sneak attack.
Derick didn’t know what the worlds had in store for him, but realized there might be a time when he was stuck in an air proof container, or unable to find food or water for days. The last thing Derick wanted was to die from a common cause of death that took millions in the United States yearly, starvation.
Derick chose the undead merit, which also gave him a few base stats and something that allowed for extra stats per each level. It was then that Derick noticed that not all of his stats would increase per level, so Derick went about buying merits that would increase each stat at least once a level. He was given five starting merit pints, and he quickly bought seven more merit points by taking the flaws “cannot smell,” “cannot taste,” and “offensive to animals,” a flaw that meant he would never be able to have a mount or familiars while he had the flaw. Given that Derick was undead and apparently immune to poisons and wouldn’t need to eat or drink anything Derick couldn’t see how the first two flaws would work against him. Similarly why wouldn’t animals already be afraid of walking with or carrying him. This gave him enough to buy the merits Lucky, wise, intelligent, willful, and perceptive. Derick had a feeling that while the physical traits of strength, dexterity and stamina would all increase each level thanks to his undead status, the others would quickly fall to the wayside without direct intervention. As Derick mentally scrolled through the available merits and flaws, a free merit and flaw appeared before Derick’s eyes.
The Gods of the worlds you are about to enter have noticed your attention to detail and have rewarded you with the “random race” merit. With random race you will be awarded a random starting race that will be permanently locked to you for all future respawns. This race might or might not have additional starting stats or world traits that will not be available to other people, even people of the same race. Do you wish to accept the reward “random race”? In effect you will be granted an additional +25 stat points, +10 skill points, and +3 spell power points. Do you wish to accept “random race” boon?
Derick thought to himself about how there might be many different races that he would not like to play, but ultimately was won by the chance to start with +3 spell power points. Derick had no idea how to gain them, or what they would be for, but Derick knew they would come in handy, especially as he now possessed six different abilities and powers that each required spell power points to advance in power. Derick mentally thought, time to go big or go gnome. “I accept random race boon.”
The next few minutes were spent adding his starting points into a sheet that didn’t seem to make much sense. Adding a few points to every stat, but the most to a stat called willpower, which seemed to be used by all his powers. Finally after what felt like hours Derick looked over everything, made sure it was the best character he would create, hit accept. Then everything turned a bright white, until slowly Derick lost consciousness.
Character View 1
Name
OhmN (ΩN)
Race
Celstial Gnome
Class
Psychic-Leech
Status
Undead
Age
27
Alignment
Neutral
Current Level
0
Experience
0
Experience to Next Level
100
Respawns
0
Attributes
Attribute
Score
Strength
12
Dexterity
15
Constitution
20
Charisma
13
Willpower
50
Intelligence
15
Wisdom
15
Perception
25
Luck
16
Vitals
Health
200 / 200
(Constitution X 10)
Stamina
100 / 100
(Constitution X 5)
Mental Power
500 / 500
(Willpower X 10)
Mana
150 / 150
(Intelligence X10)
Skills
Name
Level
Skill Rank
Awareness
35
Journeyman
Stealth
25
Journeyman
Spell Power / Abilities:
Name
Power Level
Description
Psychic-Viewing
1 (1 + 0)
Range: 56 Yards, 29% chance to identify Magically/Ability hidden people, objects, or locations
Levitation
1 (1 + 0)
Duration12 minutes, 26 minute cooldown.
Psychic-Telekinesis
4 (1 + 3)
Can lift 99 lbs per Mental Energy or Stamina Point spent. No range limit.
Phasing
1 (1 + 0)
Duration 7 Seconds, 1 minute cooldown.
Psychic-Vampirism
1 (1 + 0)
12% chance to steal power from slain enemy.
Resistances
Resistance Name
Percentage
Poison Resistance
Immune
Disease Resistance
Immune
Bleed Resistance
Immune
Mental Power Resistance
50%
Darkness Power Resistance
50%
Spirit Power Resistance
50%
Light Power Resistance
-50%
Nature Power Resistance
-50%
(*Synergy Sync) Undead Package
Undead Mertits
Description
Dark Vision
Player can see in the dark.
No Food or Drink
Plaer will never die of dehydration or starvation.
Restless
Player never needs to sleep.
Poison Immunity
Immune to Poisons
Disease Immunity
Immune to Diseases
Bleed Immunity
Immune to Bleed effects
Dark Resistence
50% Reduction from Dark Energy
Spirit Resistence
50% Reduction from Spirit Energy
Mental Resistence
50% Reduction from Mental Energy
Immortal
Player will never grow old or die from old age
Increased attributes
+10 Unattributed stats
+10 Stamina
Awareness Journeyman
+25 Awerness
Stealth Journeyman
+25 Stealth