1 Chapter 1
"Oh my god! Dude, the Quest World VR remake just got released!" As a male student exclaimed, almost the entirety of New York city went in an uproar. As students, teachers, people in traffic jams, offices, suddenly ran through the state street! Even though the working hours and school hours weren't completely over yet, you could say that everyone did what it took to get a copy of it's release, as they ran towards the poor game stops that are about to be filled with long lines, no, icebergs of people that want the latest remake of Quest World...
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In context, Quest World was a table-top RPG that rivaled one of the greater table-tops of It's time, Dungeons and Dragons. Although Initially it wasn't called that, but that isn't the point of this context. Because of popularity, many developers have helped in creating the perfect trilogy of the three games surrounding the development of the world known as Avalonia. Where everyone goes and plays as the mighty heroes that will save the world from the demonic forces that threaten humanity. Collect items, doing quests, all of that classic RPG stuff. Each installment of the game getting progressively better than the last! The 1st installment started out as a simple and crude, single player campaign with several glitches and unbalanced equipment. The 2nd giving a better story line, multi-player, and weapon-balancing. And the last installment included, better PVP and other quality of life patches, literally marking it as the best installment. So naturally, when everyone heard that the developers were releasing a Virtual Reality remake, It naturally made everyone hype...
But how is it so famous that everyone around the nation, and possibly the entire globe, that everyone and that means everyone wanted the game? Well, from the teenage fan-service, to kid friendly settings, and up to literal +18 actions. This game almost had every genre of games in one sophisticated, simple, 2.0 GB game, which made the the world's most superior video game in comparison to many other games. So naturally, everyone already had done everything within their powers, and budget in an attempt to purchase the game beforehand, only to be stopped the several rules of proper product distribution...
However, our story does not begin there...
Somewhere around the more "affordable" types of neighborhoods, is a girl walking down the street with her school bag slung only around one arm, and a tote bag being held by the same side hand. She has a very rugged appearance, which is saying a lot for people living in the slums. She had taken good advantage of everyone's determination and craze for the latest VR game in order to skip school and just head home, which is not as nice as the scenario around the her right now. Her building had several bricks falling down and people did not go easy on the land lady during Halloween, so there are still dirty egg splatters on several spaces in-between the windows and on them, speaking of which...
"Hanna!" A cheerful 32-year old, african-american woman with black hair, greeted her on the doorstep, she has a dirty apron put on and she wore a really, breezy dress. She then approached Hanna and gave her a little peck on the cheek "You're quite early, are you skippin' class again?" She asked as she walked her into the run down building, Hanna simply nods. "Sweety. You shouldn't skip out on class! How many times do we got to cover this? I know you've got, other jobs, but education is kinda important ya' know..." As she talked, Hanna just simply walked upstairs and into a room, with the number 3 on it's front. The land lady sighed, and while doing so she heard a splat outside. She turned towards the open door to see, and indeed she found the source. The bad teens were back again, and this time they were egging the building even though it's only a day before Halloween. And just before they used some toilet rolls, the land lady grabbed a bat from inside the house and proceeds to chase them off...
Hanna enters her room, greeting her neatly stacked pile of trash of this week's snacks and magazines, next to her recently cleaned out mattress, finally she sits down on her bed and then fiddles around her Game Bros. VR Headgear and finds the game slot, then she opens the game's packaging, blows off the dust resting on top of the game's small cartridge and then puts it in, as she looks over to the pile of other game cartridges in the small corner opposite to the garbage, she sighs as she puts on the Headgear...
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"Hello! Welcome to the selection screen!" A mechanical voice sounded, I was face-to-face against code. Right before I faced a selection screen of races, the classic selection of elves to dwarves, humans to undead, basically every playable race ever since the tabletop series' release, I searched throughout the selection screen and then found the race I played ever since the first video game installment. The sub-race of the undead, the skeleton! I tried reaching for the skeleton button but I stopped my hand, and thought: 'Hey, this is a new installment, maybe I should take my time and look for another race...' I then took my time to find out about other races, after all, this is a Virtual remake, play styles in between PC and VR might not be similar...
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'Sub-race of Construct? A scarecrow?' I looked at It's statistics, and it seems quite similar, if not slightly better than the skeleton sub-race, all of It's 6 stats are averagely low, all except constitution being 1, although it had some interesting passive abilities...
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[Construct's Nature] - Constructs are non-living creatures. Thus, they require no nourishment, rest, or even require breath to function normally. However, because you are a non-living creature, you will not receive healing from most sources, excluding being repaired manually.
[Fragile Materials] - You were built from low-grade materials as well as constructed poorly. Thus, you take increased damage from Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Burning, and Acid damage types. You are also completely Immune against organic-type curses, and diseases.
'Nourishment? Like Hunger and Dehydration, I guess those features kinda fit the construct. But the lowest level of construct is the scarecrow, and those guys can be man-handled even by low-level, wizard-class characters, and that's saying something for the class sporting the lowest physical damage dealt on hit...'
I thought for an extended duration, I mean, this was a tough choice. The skeleton sub-race could evolve into the zombie race, which could be purchased in the selection phase, but would have resulted in reduced starting stats in comparison to leveling and evolving from skeleton to zombie.
The construct was different however, aside from having one of the worst passives in-game, It did have another type of passive.
[Upgradable] – Since you are a construct, you can be upgraded by anyone proficient enough in the required Artisan's tool set*, and has the available materials. Thus, allowing earlier evolution selections.
*Required proficiencies are Smith's tools, Leatherworker's tools, and Woodcarver's tools
'I could choose this race, after all this has some benefits in comparison to undead…' It's true, In-comparison to being undead, I wouldn't get targeted easily by the common populace of the player base. And unlike the undead sub-race, I wouldn't get damaged by healing magic. Although, being a skeleton would help prevent me from being hit by projectile damage, and that includes fireballs. And believe me, a lot of fireballs are included in these games, especially on PvP when the wizards come strollin' in…
Although, I could try and play a construct, if food and drink was a necessity then both sub-races could help in preventing me from spending too much money on food and drinks. And If food and drink was going to be bother, then fatigue is also part of the game's play-style. This virtual remake was actually meant to replicate the entire Quest World universe and turn it into an interact-able world full of the original Quest World's universe content, that also means we could suffer from other things such as medical conditions.
'Maybe I should try something new…' I said as I pressed the select button beneath the scarecrow's plain, rag-sewn face, and my human character gets replaced by a potato sack with four, pathetic looking sticks that might be called limbs. Right after that, my screen is then replaced with another selection screen, which would be my background.
Backgrounds, are the origins of most characters in-game. However, for the case of some, exotic choices, backgrounds would naturally be limited, like the skeleton sub-race I considered. As such, I can't be a nobleman or a soldier, because low-level constructs aren't a practical source of fighting or diplomatic power. Neither can I be a sub-profession of a background, such as being a Professor or an Acolyte of a holy society. Both sub-race choices limit my profession, but I have already decided to choose one 'jack of all trades' background, the Hermit, being a hermit allows me to gain more benefits being alone, rather than being within a team, one of the many benefits in the original games surrounding hermits is the ability to obtain the [Natural Explorer] passive ability, and [Hermit's Item set], which includes a bone flute and several natural spell components.
Although it may seem redundant at start, It's relevancy in the early stages of the game are higher than that of any other background, the spell components can help with other item purchases because of their early game prices of 30cp per ingredient, which can help most players purchase better items even though they have the necessary spell-casting pre-requisites.
[Natural Explorer], allows players to select their early stage farm location, or prevent being lost or have disadvantages in forest environments, which might cause problems for forest combat scenarios. This ability was a Ranger exclusive passive ability, also an elven racial ability trait, but they changed it to prevent elven rangers being too over-powered. So this background definition is definitely, my type of play-style. In which I press the select button for the back ground, and like so, my scarecrow appearance takes on a more ragged and weathered down appearance, a pouch and a travel staff appear right next to each of my hands. I take both of them, and put them away into my inventory, which was a bag icon in the lower left of my screen, next to the inventory's main hot bar.
And then finally, the pinnacle selection of any playable character in Quest World's popular installments. The character's class, which defines the play-style of any character. There is the OG classes such as the unforgettable battle-savvy Barbarians, the edgy kleptomaniac Rogues and unforgettable, spell casting nerds known as Wizards, and then there is the unique, and totally strange playable classes, such as the ever hated Mystics with their Unbalanced spells, the strange and unpredictable Artificiers who creates flavorful spells and Magical items, and the Blood hunters, who are just glorified edgelords who thought 'Blood magic' is nothing like regular magic.
But there is already a class I have considered, and that is either the rogue class or the wizard class. Yes, I know. I already know that the wizarding class is a no go, the race I chose is already weak I do not need any more wear-down from other sources, the ranger class is also a viable option. Melee oriented classes don't season well with this sub-race, so my only choice remained to be: Either the ranger or rogue.
Ranger seems the most optimal, although stacking passives from different sources would mean they would have to reduce the passive's effects, rogue would also be a fun route, although I am definitely not type to play dirty, and using stealth is definitely just not my style. But there is one other class that I could play, but it's kind of a risky move…
"Well, It's either that or nothing…"
