Puppet Golem (2314 words)

[Ding! Please create your character.]

I look at the blue panel floating in front of me till it faded away, giving way to a bigger one with a lot more things on it.

There were spaces asking for name, class, race and a whole lot of sliders that allow a great variety of customization.

Leaving the name section empty for now I move on to the class.

When my mind focused on it, it opened up another panel with 22 choices.

Trailing my eyes over them they involuntarily widen as they seemed rather familiar to me.

'Aren't these the twenty-two pathways to divinity from "The lord of the mysteries" novel?'

Seer

Apprentice

Marauder

Spectator

Secrets Supplicant

Bard

Sailor

Reader

Sleepless

Warrior

Corpse Collector

Hunter

Assassin

Savant

Mystery Pryer

Monster

Apothecary

Planter

Arbiter

Lawyer

Prisoner

Criminal

…

Definitely the same.

My hands start to shake, and fear takes hold of my entire being.

This is bad, very bad.

The lord of the mysteries is not a universe or reality I wanted to come into contact with.

Why yes, the powers and the system were a masterpiece, but this very same thing, the awesome story and its many hidden layer was exactly what made the very thought of actually making contact with that world so terrifying.

Hell, madness was the very foundation it was built on, literally.

Not to mention all the outer gods and gods in general, each of them has some influence on their respective pathway or pathway's.

My mind starts to go into an endless downwards spiral as all the possible horror I could face fill my head.

Then, like a shining blue singe form a holy and generous god instead of these mad twisted things form the lord of the mysteries, a new panel appeared in my field of view.

[Ding! Currently none of the available class choices have been chosen.]

Reading the few words immediate blew away so many of my worries as the threat of a higher sequence being influencing me no longer seemed to exist.

Immediate my body stiffened again as a new worry sprout in my mind.

Luckily before it could bloom it was unearthed and burnt to ashes by another of these oh so nice blue panels.

[Ding! Classes are issued by the system and altered to fit the required needs.]

'Phew, no insane original creator god infecting everything with madness because of its paradoxical existence, lucky me.'

Starting to calm down thanks to the continued reassurance of the blue panels that no horror from that mad world would reach out to me through these classes, I take a still bit shaky breath before focusing back on the classes available to me.

Looking at them I try to recall as much information about them form the novel as possible as I sort out the ones, I don't feel appealing.

The indigenous thing about these twenty-two choices is that none of them is stronger or weaker than the other.

Each of them allows you to reach godhood by the end of it, it's just that their focus is different, and the strength gained by advancing to the next sequence is differently spread out throughout them.

So instead of arguing which one is the strongest I focus on what kind of abilities I wanted and their respective theme.

Honestly, my mind was already very set on a choice, it was boring in a sense as it was the same choice the protagonist of the novel took, but I couldn't help myself but be drawn towards it.

With a defeated sigh I give up and make my choice.

[Ding! You have chosen {Seer} as your main class, please proceed to choose two sub-classes now.]

The first halve of the panel was expected but the latter half caused me to rub my eyes to make sure that I want dreaming.

A single pathway was already extremely powerful in its later stages, but three of them? That was simply insane.

Desperately trying to calm my racing heart my eyes slowly trail towards the twenty-one remaining paths to divinity.

For a moment I thought about choosing Apprentice and Marauder in order to complete the set for becoming the lord of the mysteries, an above sequence existence, but something told me that that would be a massive waste.

Trusting this feeling for some odd reason I instead let my eyes wander of the still plenty big selection of classes.

Recalling the powers and names of the higher sequences of each pathway I suddenly had an interesting idea.

I was to create my character, right?

So, let's go with a theme.

With a slowly forming picture in my head, I quickly choose two pathways for my sub-classes.

[Ding! You have chosen {Prisoner} and {Planter} as your sub-classes.]

Satisfied I close the panel for the class selection and move on the race slot.

Once again, a new panel appeared once I focused on the slot, giving me an even more extensive selection than the class did.

I could become a dwarf, an elve, a fey or more exotic things like a goat demon or beast person which can range from humans covered in fur all the way to a literal panda.

But none of the after mentioned fit very well with the picture of my character that had become clearer ever so slightly.

After a while looking through the choices presented to me, I came to a decision.

[Ding! You have chosen the {Golem} race.]

Satisfied I come back to the main panel where I finally start to design my character.

Of course, it has to be female, after all I myself am and I'm pretty sure I am going to reincarnate as this character, so better make one I can feel comfortable with.

Taking one of the basic choices, a female human appeared in the character window.

From there on I got lost in character creation, like in most games I spent probably hours piecing together the character design till I was finally happy with how she looked.

Standing at a proud two meters tall is a slender woman with smooth pale blue skin made from a light stone.

By the elbows and knees is an extra plate of pale blue stone, but through the links of the stone one can see dark green strings that connect everything together like with a puppet.

Another outstanding feature about her are the number of arms attached to her torso, eight to be precise.

Each of them carefully paced with enough distance to the others to allow a great area of movement while still keeping them relatively close to each other.

I made it so that only the arms and legs have that puppet like design while making the hands, torso, neck and head very smooth and soft to the point that they look alive.

The delicate face surrounded by long snow-white hair and the glowing blue eyes surrounded by a black sclera gave her a very mysterious aura.

After that I drape her whole form into a three-layers of robes with the first layer being more like a white sleeveless sun dress.

Following that is a light grey mantle like coat with big and wide sleeves that easily allow four arms to fit through at the same time.

This robe has a high collar that reached up to cover parts of her lower face and reaches down to her ankles ending just above her bare feet.

Lastly a wide loose robe that is more of a cloak in greyish blue color went over the previous two layers.

It is left open at the front and has a hood attached to it, its sleeves are even bigger that the previous ones and it reaches all the way down to the ground, barely brushing against it.

A simple dark brown strip of cloth serves as a belt, while a fluffy grey and brown scarf is draped around her neck and a way to big witch hat of the same color as the outer robe rested on top of her white hair.

The wide and droopy rim of the hat casts a nice shadow onto her face highlighting the glowing blue eyes even future.

I was very satisfied with how my character turned out and was about to move on to the final step of choosing my new name when I got an idea.

The character creation allowed me to choose my clothes, doesn't that mean I could add some equipment to my character right here before hitting the start button?

Curious if my theory was correct, I add a simple brown pouch to my character design which she carries on her right side with a dark brown leather strip going over her left shoulder.

I continue to add small details like vials and a knife to her design by changing the belt form a simple cloth to something akin to a tool belt.

What felt like hours later I was finally satisfied and moved on to the last step.

Staring at the empty slot with a familiar keyboard in front of me I flip through a long list of names in my head till I come over something I felt was fitting.

[Ding! You have chosen the name {Aurora Whitmore} for your character.]

Hastily hitting the finish button so that I won't have time to get second thoughts about anything I was swallowed by darkness.

When I regained consciousness, I felt different, very different.

Pushing myself into an upright position while massaging my head with both my hands I let my hands wander over my body to make sure everything was alright.

Then I freeze.

Looking down I start to count my hands.

Two are pushing against the ground to keep myself upright, another pair rests on my temples while a total of four are placed all around my body in midst of inspecting it for any possible damage.

'Eight.' I think while blinking in confusion.

I took a moment to realize that I was indeed in the body of my character.

The moment I thought the word "Character", a familiar blue window popped up in front of me.

[Character Window]

Name: Aurora Whitmore

Race: Spirit Golem

Main-Class: Seer (0%)

Sub-Classes: Planter (0%), Prisoner (0%)

Main-Skills:

{Divination} You can use a great variety of ways and tools to find and interpret connections between people, places, objects, events, truths and lies.

{Danger Intuition} You can intuitively detect danger using your spirituality.

{Spirit Vision} You can see spirit bodies and spiritual energy.

Sub-Skills:

(Planter)

{Plant Lexicon} You have a rudimentary knowledge of plants.

{Weatherman} You can forecast the weather.

(Prisoner)

{Utilization} You have a basic understanding of almost any tool or weapon including explosives and can make use of almost any random items or objects to fulfill your desired effects.

I read through the panel and quickly understood its purpose.

'So that's my status. Most is as I expected it to be with exception of my race.' Starring at the two words for a few seconds inquisitively had the hoped effect as a small panel appeared giving me more information about what a "Spirit Golem" was.

After reading through that new panel, I couldn't help but close my eyes and clasp six of my eight hands together in prayer as I expressed my thanks to this wonderful system.

'I very lucky to have such a nice system that is looking out for me.' I think before opening my eyes again and standing up.

The reason for my gratitude to the systems alteration is that thanks to the customization it had done I was able to keep all my five senses.

A terrible mistake on my part.

If I had become a common golem, then I would have pretty much lost my sense of smell and taste while my sense of touch would have been greatly reduced.

Life would lose a great amount of worth if I was no longer capable of enjoying these simple things.

Normal golems have a core, as long as it isn't destroyed they will survive, but this also makes is so that they have a rather weak connection to their body as a whole.

Spirit Golems are different because of the fact that instead of concentrating their spirit or soul into a core, they saturate their entire body with their spiritual body, this causes spiritual energy to course through the physical body like blood and act similar to nerves allowing them to poses all the sense a human would and even slightly more.

Because my spirit body is practically filling out my physical body, I have a easy time to use my spiritual energy and am even able to sense everything in a two meter radius without physically being able to see it.

A negative side effect of this is that damage done to my physical body does the same amount of damage to my spirit body and attacks aimed at the spirit or soul are highly effective against me as my spirit body is practically completely exposed.

There are negative effects, but I am more than happy to accept them in return for being able to taste and smell.

Standing barefooted on the vibrant green grass of the rocky grass plains I found myself in I let my glowing blue eyes trail over the surroundings.

If I still had a breath, it would be taken from me now as I gaze upon the magical view revealed before my eyes.

Towering cliffs and mountains, deep ravines, endless forests, lakes of varying sizes and forms, swamps, desolated waste lands and so much more all somehow seamlessly fitted together in the panoramic picture that is laying before me.

I stood there just looking and appreciating the other worldly beauty of this new world.

After a while I start to notice the many ruins and damaged structures strewn throughout the land.