NOVEL FROG Chapter 2: I Choose the Goddess Class!
Her immediate thoughts to the great mass of insanity that assaulted her was that it was a harrowing nightmare.
I haven’t even smoked anything in days! Did I eat something weird recently? Have I spontaneously learned lucid dreaming?
The text with the soulless voice came again:
User samantha_elizabeth_reine44444, your soul has been transported into the domains of the System. Please utilize the visualization aid to select your primary class or you will be randomly assigned.
Wake up! Wake up! I’m not here! I’m not… I’m not waking up. Okay. Okay, we can do this, it’s a little better than sleep paralysis… just play along, I’ll wake up any second now…
She did not need to think hard before the blurred, vaguely humanoid image in front of her began to try and materialize. At first, it was right on the cusp of forming a feminine figure with a big hat, a flintlock pistol, and a cutlass — a pirate. But it faded out before completely generating.
Okay, no, not a damn pirate. Maybe a warrior princess?
Once more, a half-baked image tried to form, a buxom Amazonian warrioress in black leathers. But somehow, her brain or her heart wasn’t into it enough to bring it fully to ‘life.’
User samantha_elizabeth_reine44444, this is your final warning before random assignment. Select your primary class.
She felt a bubble of panic in that hovering, disembodied black void, mixed with hysteria. The whole matter was so absurd. But she knew she wanted no part of that random assignment business. It was guaranteed to be an even worse nightmare.
Her head first spun with a cornucopia of things, all the templates of fiction morphing together, but then in a eureka moment, everything clicked and her mind zeroed in on one thing, visualized effortlessly: the Empress of so many tarot sets. The Goddess. Her favorite.
The image of a stately, beautiful figure materialized, clad in a dazzling dress of ice blue and white bedecked in reflective crystals as if she were draped in a mirror made into fabric. A great crown of pure crystal sat atop her head and more of the same adorned her as jewelry, all of it glittering. She was majestic and had only a smidge of Sammy in her at all.
Her smile was perfect, and Sammy realized she was smiling. Like they were one and the same. Weird.
What’s with the mirror stuff? Guess I tossed that in there from how this dream-
[Goddess] class selection acknowledged. Sending request…
Request has been accepted and [Goddess class level 1] granted with starting domain: mirrors. Congratulations. Integration commencing… integration complete.
Transportation to planar designation Sendrek-Rovoss 43, world designation Calrenazzod Atka complete.
The text-voice accompanied her through a bewildering kaleidoscope of blinding flashes her mind poorly processed the details of. For a split moment, she was aware of something like outer space expanding from a pinpoint to suddenly being everywhere with her made into the pinpoint, comparatively. Another flash of a star that got slightly bigger, then things went black.
True awareness sparked like coming out of a daze. She realized she was in a body, and looking down at well-manicured, white-painted nails pressed down onto something like white marble. ‘She’ was on her hands and knees as if she’d fallen over. But she didn’t feel like Sammy at all.
She was occupying another body entirely. She was someone else.
Feeling an onset panic attack, she whirled upward onto her feet. Her panic was drowned out temporarily by the sheer amazement at what she beheld around her.
The marble was like a massive disk floating in a sort of starry black void, but most of the space was filled with endlessly rotating spirals of mirrors with distorted, cloudy reflections. It was like a clockwork of them spinning around the disk, giving it only a small spherical clearance. Any void space was only temporarily seen, as some mirror or another would cross it.
In the center of the disk was a great throne of crystal and ivory, every facet gleaming clear but warping the light that touched it into contorted imagery. The light around the area was more of a great ambient glow than from the briefly-seen stars beyond.
It distracted her only so long from the body issue. She looked down at herself in a mix of horror and fascination. She knew what she was looking at — the same image, the avatar she’d chosen. She was inside it, was it.
What the absolute fuck?!
She felt it too. She was bigger, taller, stronger, healthier, thicker, prettier. More aware. Sharper. Yet it was mortifying because it wasn’t her. She hadn’t been ecstatic about her body image before, but not enough to want a new skin.
None of it felt like a dream anymore, and even if it was, she had no idea how to get out of it.
“What the hell is this?!” She called out loudly in a voice also alien to her. It was more mature, powerful, and rang like a chime in that place, like it echoed with her distress, her fear that she was alone and abandoned.
And the text-voice came again, this time pared down into a simplified, quick imprint: This is your deific domain, User samantha_elizabeth_reine44444.
“Stop calling me that!” She yelled, voice going shrill. She felt stupid for yelling at a voice in her head, but she couldn’t help it. “I’m Sammy, goddamn you!” The statement made tears well in her eyes because she really wasn’t sure anymore.
Nickname registration acknowledged and accepted, User Sammy. This is your deific domain, User Sammy. It is attached to Calrenazzod Atka, your potential world of influence.
“This isn’t a dream, is it?”
No.
She nodded even as her lip quivered. As she refused inwardly to cry. Two tears streamed down her cheeks. “Well. That’s what I would expect a… a dream demon to say.”
There was only dead silence in answer to this. Questions only, is it, you fucker?
“Just what the hell do you call yourself, then? Who are you? Why did you do this to me?”
This is a limited interface with the System. The System exists as a tool for users to interface more directly and effectively with reality, utilizing a variety of proprietary cosmic manipulation methods and vectors, simplified for the benefit of the end user, available in perpetuity within participating universes. Void where prohibited.
Tokens are provided to recruiters as a limited lottery for promotional purposes, to reach out to less fortunate universes outside of full transformative vectors. Any further information about your circumstances or universe is not available.
Is this really all from some corporate bullshit?! I can’t get away from it even in another fucking universe!
“Look, I don’t care, okay? Just… send me back. I don’t want this, whatever it is. I want to go home.”
That is not possible or desirable, User Sammy.
“What the hell do you mean it isn’t desirable? I just said that’s what I want! Just make a way. Or I swear I will sue! I don’t know anything about a token and I didn’t agree to this. My dad’s a lawyer.” A lie.
The System exists to provide permanent opportunity for users and is the superior interface with reality, allowing endless advancement potential. This chance of multiple lifetimes cannot be passed up.
Sammy found herself squinting upward, as though at the source of the ‘voice,’ though that was nonsense because it was in her head. But what was in her head was also insane nonsense.
“That’s not an answer. Look, just pass me up the chain. I want to speak to a manager.” It made her feel traitorous and dirty to go into Karen mode, but she had to.
The System is self-sustaining, and your query was already processed and integrated by the primary order. There are no managers.
It was quite ominous.
You can’t even be a Karen, then. I guess I can’t blame them for that…
Tired of ‘hearing’ the text/voice in her head, trying to nonetheless conceive of what she could possibly do, she sighed and ran a hand through her hair — or tried to. Her hand touched the crystalline crown atop her head. She immediately grabbed it with both hands and threw it off with a little scream.
The crown did not shatter, nor even break or clatter away. There was a mild chime-like sound and it simply went flat like it was held and controlled by a magnet, appearing utterly unaffected.
She scowled balefully at it, then wandered over to the only place she could sit down — the big ass throne — plopping into it with all the pout and angst her only-child self could bring to bear. And she didn’t even have a door to slam.
As soon as she sat, she suddenly had a greater awareness of all the mirrors flying around. She could feel them like they were connected to her by threads and could hear a tremendous cacophony of voices like whispers of varying volumes, combined with thousands of flashes of movement somehow inside the otherwise undisturbed mirrors.
With a frightened yelp, she immediately jumped out of the throne chair. Her strength and speed in such an act surprised her enough that she tripped and practically dived head-first for the marble.
She didn’t hit, however, nor did she break her neck as she should’ve. She floated slowly into an undulating summersault, gently landing back on her feet upon the platform, slightly dizzy but otherwise fine. Even her hair just naturally fell back into place.
After regaining her bearings, she yelled upward, “What the hell was that?!”
The throne provides access to every mirror on Calrenazzod Atka through your [Mirror Sense] and [Mirror Communication] powers.
“Mirror comm… powers… wait, why are you naming them like that? And that class selection crap. What is this, a roleplaying MMO? I swear to god, if-”
This is not a game, though even less fortunate universes are provided with mechanisms to prepare potential users for a proper, System-based reality.
“You’ve got to be shitting me. So because I played Mario Kart and Zelda, I got sent to video game fantasy dreamland?”
This limited interface does not have access to information pertaining to your recruitment or universe.
Hands on her hips, Sammy sighed once more. “So what are my other powers? What, do I have a goddamn status screen? A character sheet like DnD?”
Yes. And then a status splash screen flashed and embedded into her mind.
Sammy, Virgin Goddess of Mirrors
______________________________
Goddess Level 1; Fledgling Deity
Domains (1/2): Mirrors
Faith Energy: 0/1000
Brute: 0
Rogue: 0
Wizard: 0
Bard: 0
Special Skills: First Aid, Tarot Reading
Special Traits: Token User, Immortal, Demiplane Domain, Conceptual Body, Fueled By Faith
Powers: Faith Energy Utilization, Mirror Sense (at will), Mirror Communication (at will)
Status: Token User Promotional Bonus (0/30), New Deity Grace Period (0/7)
Sammy was completely slack-jawed for a moment at the continuing absurdity. But then she fixated on one particular annoyance within it.
“Virgin Goddess?! What the fuck?!”
It is accurate, User Sammy. You are a virgin, and you have no progeny, which is relevant as a deity.
“I-I’ve kissed!” she said defensively.
Some within a world can regard it as a trait of virtue, if you choose to remain chaste and emphasize it in the future.
“Oh yeah? Well, fuck them! And fuck you, too! It’s none of your business.” She crossed her arms, perturbed with the matter. “No one else can see that, right?”
System User Statuses should not be regarded as private, as various abilities can reveal them. As a deity, what you are will inevitably be discovered unless you take extensive precautions or corrective measures.
“Well, remove it. I don’t need or want such a title.”
That is not possible directly via this interface, User Sammy.
Making a frustrated growl in her throat, she walked away from the throne entirely. She came to the sheer edge of the marble and sat there with her feet dangling into the starry void. Somehow, she intuitively knew it held no danger to her. And she could see more of the stars that way, instead of the mirrors. An excellent distraction.
Beautiful. Clear, like being in outer space.
She still felt the mirrors somewhat, even away from the throne, though it was heavily muted. Direct proximity seemed to matter.
One of them seemed to jump out at her, draw her, the voice and the image stronger — without really thinking about it she focused on it out of instinctive curiosity, as one would glance at a close-passing figure talking loudly.
The entire clockwork of spinning mirrors slowed, and one mirror slid out of it all and floated up to her at a smooth but rapid pace. As it did, she saw an image of a woman erupt over the shimmering surface and heard a voice caught seemingly in the middle of speech.
“... don’t know what else I can do. I just wish I could help him. I’d do anything.” It was a middle-aged woman in strange clothes, leaning over a counter and wash basin with water dripping from her face, talking while directly staring at Sammy’s… viewpoint. It was precisely at the bizarre angle of view that a mirror would be.
As soon as the last of the silvery shimmering of the surface disappeared and the image was completely clear in front of her, the woman’s eyes widened and shifted, and suddenly it seemed like she was looking right into Sammy’s eyes, like she had just seen her.
With a horrified scream the woman grabbed the top of the mirror and smashed it down into the washbasin, shattering it and Sammy’s ‘viewpoint’ into pieces.