Really, the overgrown, underground temple ruins should have clued her in long before that. The ominous chanting reverberating out of the chamber below was just the cherry on top by this point. And Zoe had been cautiously on guard for something like this at various times since she arrived in this place—she mentally chastised herself as she ducked back down into the deeper shadows of the unlit balcony. Of course my first encounter is going to be something like this. That’s just how it works. If anything, she should be grateful that it happened a couple hours in and not, you know, immediately upon arrival.
Zoe still wasn’t sure if the word ‘arrival’ was even accurate. Awakening, maybe? The last thing she remembered before all of this was a hazy recollection of the preparations for her medically-induced coma. Hazy, due to a combination of powerful painkillers and sedatives and the rabies symptoms they were intended to alleviate. No one had much hope for her recovery. After all, even the ‘Milwaukee protocol’—the reason for the coma—had long been established as ineffective. But get people desperate enough and they’ll try anything. Zoe was going to die anyway, so why not give it another chance? At least that’s what her parents seemed to think.
So when Zoe woke up feeling cool, calm, and pleasantly refreshed, she was understandably relieved and surprised. That surprise quickly turned to confusion when she realized she wasn’t in a hospital bed but in some kind of stone and metal sarcophagus.
She just sat there for longer than she cared to admit. She wasn’t in any kind of hospital—that much was clear—but she didn’t have any idea what it could be. The only thing that really came to mind was ‘ancient buried ruin,’ the kind of place where she imagined revolutionary developments in archeology would happen. It was a spacious, nine-sided circular chamber, all worked metal and polished stone rising up to support a steeply vaulted ceiling. While it wasn’t actually very wide across, the sheer height and emptiness made the place feel surprisingly open. It was also quite dim—colors and shapes dull and muted—but that she could see at all surprised Zoe. There were no windows, after all.
Instead, the ambient illumination came from the softly glowing colors of the glyphs engraved all over the eight other sarcophagi encircling the chamber. Ones like Zoe’s.
Or no—only five of them were glowing. The glyphs on three others had gone dark. Two others sat open and empty in much the same ways Zoe’s had. The last was—for lack of a better word—shattered.
Now feeling a heady cocktail of relief, confusion, curiosity, fear, and a potent dash of excitement, Zoe shakily slid herself up over the smooth stone lid and down onto the immaculately polished tiled floor. A look behind confirmed that the glyphs on her own sarcophagus were nearly finished fading. Zoe eyed the five that were still sealed and brightly glowing. Does that mean…
Shaking her head, Zoe stepped forward towards the center. Something about the cool stone beneath her bare feet felt—odd. Frowning, Zoe looked down past the loose hospital gown she was fortunate to still be wearing. There’s no dust. That was odd—wasn’t it? The entire place absolutely radiated a feeling of gloomy stillness, things long forgotten, and the heavy weight of immense stretches of time. Why was there no dust? Something in Zoe’s subconscious convinced her that it wasn’t a place that was being maintained. So how was it in such good condition? Aside from the one shattered sarcophagus, there were no cracks or debris at all.
Finding herself now in the very middle, Zoe studied the floor. She was in the center of a nine-pointed star composed of three overlapping triangles. Inlaid into the stone in bands of white-gray metal, each point stretched outwards towards one of the surrounding sarcophagi. The rest of the designs were worked in a similarly simple style. Depictions of unfamiliar planets and stars, of winds, lightning, and clouds, and finally of an abstract nothingness were divided between each tip of the first triangle. A cluster of mountains, maybe glaciers, and—was that lava? Then a grove of trees filled with birds and small animals, and finally, a castle surmounted by a simple hammer for the second. The third triangle completed the set with a depiction of a ship on a stormy sea, a school of various marine life around a reef, and lastly, a large, unidentifiable form rising from below.
The final one pointed towards where Zoe had woken up. I wonder if that means anything. Zoe frowned. No, of course it means something. The real question was whether she would be able to find out what, and then whether it was at all relevant to her.
Shrugging, she prodded around the area for a bit longer before looking for a way out. There really wasn’t much else to speak of, though. While the rest of the floor, walls, and ceiling were nice enough, it was all purely abstract craftsmanship. It had a kind of art-deco aesthetic, Zoe decided. As for the sarcophagi—Zoe hadn’t discovered anything. The three-now-four opened ones seemed to be nothing more than plain stone and metal, while the remaining five offered her little insight. The one interesting discovery was that once the glyphs went dark, it seemed they disappeared completely. They weren’t carved or inlaid or anything—in fact, the lit ones didn’t even look to be painted.
Zoe did get the idea to check on both her own and the one broken one, but that was a dead end. Sighing, she headed for the only door. It’s not like I can’t come back later if I need to. If I can actually get out of here in the first place…
It was hard to miss the towering set of bronze doors. Tall, but quite narrow. Walking up, Zoe looked for a knob, a latch, a handle, anything. There was nothing. Maybe I just push? Tenderly placing her palm against the cool metal, Zoe leaned in slightly—and yanked her hand back as shimmering golden lines flared up across the entire surface. As they were far brighter than the previous glyphs, it took Zoe’s eyes a moment to adjust. Blinking away the spots, she saw that they had opened. Huh. With one last glance over her shoulder, Zoe started up the flight of steps.
The difference between the inside and outside of the chamber was immediately obvious. While the staircase continued the same tastefully opulent art-deco theme, it was littered with a layer of dust and small debris. Even the air was viscerally different. No longer eternally still, it was cool, a bit humid, and—was that the sound of dripping water?
Hastening her pace, Zoe made it to the top, where a lush, damp, moss-covered natural cavern greeted her. Well, mostly natural. There were plenty of crumbling, overgrown ruins scattered around the place—most free standing, possible only given the sheer expansive size of the place.
Beams of gentle light filtered down from unseen pathways up above, striking the clear, glassy surface of the central lake. Zoe took a deep breath. The whole place felt delightfully alive in a way she hadn’t known she was craving. What looked like tiny insects flitted here and there through the air, water dripped from above, and something made a chattering sound that echoed out from the distance. Even the artificial ruins were a part of it—not dead or ‘ruined’ at all.
Okay, well, this is very nice and all, but genuinely where am I? Zoe looked around, a bit of nervousness creeping back in. Way too real to be a dream or drug trip or anything. So then—obviously I somehow miraculously survived the treatment, and someone put me here. Wherever this is. Why would anyone do that? Zoe had never even heard of a place quite like this. She was also pretty certain that the chamber below was positively ancient, and it seemed entirely undisturbed. So how…?
Magic? Or maybe this was the far future—perhaps she had been preserved, only to now awaken in a forgotten facility in a long-abandoned area. There was no reason that advanced technology couldn’t have this sort of fantasy aesthetic. But what now?
“Hey, is anyone here?” Zoe asked rather loudly. She immediately cringed as her shaky voice reverberated across the space. Well, if anyone’s there, they probably heard me. “Hello! …help? Where am I?” With no response forthcoming, Zoe was just about ready to begin actively looking for a way out when her mind’s eye was brutally assaulted by a flood of foreign sensations.
Outsider Detected.
Welcome, Outsider.
Beginning Integration.
Your integration was successful! You can now access your status and other system features.
You have entered the Temple of
Default restrictions applied.
Inheritor Detected.
Welcome, Scion of
Restrictions removed. New restrictions applied.
New permissions granted.
…
Stolen novel; please report.
Your claim to the Temple of
Permissions suspended.
New Quest!
[CLAIM YOUR RIGHT]
As the Scion of
The other inhabitants might disagree. Prove them wrong.
-Rewards-
Divine claim to the Temple of
Once Zoe had mostly collected herself after reeling from the shock of the flood of foreign information, she quickly began trying to actually parse all of it. Fortunately, this didn’t actually take very long. The problem was that it raised more questions than it answered. Which wasn’t surprising, given that it didn’t seem to answer any.
Actually—Zoe ‘stared’ at the vividly imagined message log for a moment—there are probably a whole lot of clues here. The first of which would be just the presence of the intangible notifications themselves. Zoe quickly settled on two different explanations and discarded all the rest. Either she had woken up in some far future and now possessed some kind of neural interface that was both detecting her location and displaying this HUD—or she had been punted into another world where an RPG system was baked into reality. The funny thing is, I’m really feeling like the second one is a lot more likely.
Skimming back over the first few messages, Zoe sighed, shook her head in embarrassment, and said the word. “Status.”
[ZOE BLACKWELL]
Level 1 | Rank F
Human
-Active Quests-
> Claim Your Right
-Active Titles-
> Outsider
-Stats and Bindings-
Power 7
Perception 15
Acuity 11
Durability 9
Vitality 13
-General Skills-
> Identify 1 (Rank C)
-Available-
> 2 class choices
> 5 stat points
Zoe read through the entire status in about two seconds, thought she had skipped to the end, and reread it slowly line by line. Naturally, she already remembered everything from before the re-read perfectly. This exact kind of thing was an annoying habit of hers. But that didn’t matter right now. What matters is that I definitely got punted into a fantasy RPG world. That’s neat.
Looking around again, Zoe shivered a bit in excitement. And because it was kind of cold. Probably mostly because it was cold. But she was still excited. Why wouldn’t she be? Not only had she cheated death, her previous life was pretty boring. She definitely wasn’t going to be looking for a way back—Earth sucked and she wasn’t going to miss anyone. She briefly thought about her parents—but she had been planning to move out anyway and she wasn’t particularly attached to either. There were now much more important things, things like exploring, leveling up, and figuring out if she had something that would make her overpowered.
Let’s see—can I see my class choices please? To her delight, a new menu popped up as soon as Zoe thought it. Which was great to know, as she had hoped she wouldn’t have to audibly shout skill names or something equally stupid. Also, she was even more pleased to see that the new menu had over four-hundred entries—wait, no—over four hundred pages. For some reason she had assumed that ‘2 class choices’ meant she had two options. Instead it seemed to mean she got to pick any two from the absolutely massive list. Unfortunately, this created the delicate problem that Zoe might eloquently describe as ‘no way I’m reading all of that.’
So instead—system, can you please sort these by rarity? It was time to see what crazy mythical S-plus tier classes she could pick.
[AVAILABLE CLASSES]
Filter: Rarity
Technomancer [Cyber] (Rank B)
Cybersmith (Rank C)
Bard [Synth] (Rank C)
…
Demagogue (Rank A)
Zoe blinked. That—wasn’t what she had expected. It was convenient that she could filter it in some way, and that it also showed some kind of letter rank. But didn’t rarer always mean better with these things? The very idea that it might not threatened to paralyze her thought. For a vaguely nerdy shut-in such as herself, considering any other possibility was like trying to divide by zero. Whatever. Wait—are most of these rare because they don’t even normally exist here? Many on the first page seemed like fantasy translations of things related to her newly minted computer science degree. She also somehow doubted she would encounter any synthesizer playing bards—though she had to admit the idea of a gnome rave or something was a bit amusing. But what’s that last one?
[DEMAGOGUE]
Rank A
Wielding neither a sword nor staff but rather the blind power of the masses, pervert the truth to influence and direct large numbers of people to get what you really want. Just be sure to look good while doing it.
-Effects-
> +25 Perception, +15 Acuity, +10 Power
> Bonuses to all deception, illusion, stealth, information, and mind skills.
> Increased chances to learn deception, illusion, stealth, information, and mind skills.
> Grants Acting, Persuasion, Mirage, and Lesser Disguise.
> Grants additional skills at further advancement stages.
> Enables system privileges for displayed information.
Did you really think your days of online trolling and social media manipulation were completely behind you?
Zoe felt a bit sick as she finished reading through all of the information on the class. More than just sounding gross and malicious, it brought back a whole lot that she didn’t want to think about right now. Or ever. And of course it has to be the most powerful looking one, she thought bitterly. Not only was it the highest letter rank—opening several more descriptions and skimming over them, Zoe saw that it gave the highest stat boost and what sounded like some pretty useful bonuses and skills. Sure, it sounded bad, but—No. Not picking this.
With all of that temporarily put aside, Zoe decided it was time to start running around and spamming Identify on everything. First, obviously, was everything in the lower chamber where she had first woken up. Bitterness forgotten and excitement bubbling back up, Zoe practically tumbled down the stone staircase, only slowing down when she slammed bodily against the set of now-closed bronze doors. Huh. She didn’t notice them close behind her. Shrugging, she placed her palm against the cool surface and pushed.
Nothing happened.
Zoe swallowed. Perhaps they only swung one way? Was there any handle on the outside? She couldn’t find any. Maybe she just needed to will them to open? Maybe the glowing line thing would happen again. When it didn’t, she stomped in frustration. Because of course the most important and interesting location yet won’t let me back in. Just typical. As Zoe tried to figure out how to proceed, she thought back to why she wanted to get back inside in the first place.
Identify!
She could literally feel the skill activate. Not that it was anything extraordinary—just flexing something for the first time. It felt kind of like swallowing, she thought. The whole thing was a voluntary movement on her part, but there was little manual control over the intricacies of it. Weird, definitely, but not nearly as interesting as the new information it gave.
[THE SANCTUM OF
The inner sanctum of this temple is sealed. It will open for none but a Scion.
And that was it. Zoe chewed her lip. She knew the system had welcomed her as a scion previously—whatever that meant. She could also just scroll back through her notifications to prove it. And the doors had opened before, so—is there a specific trick? Zoe placed her hand back on the metal and willed it again. “I’m literally a Scion, so please open back up. I wanna get back in.”
When shimmering golden lines suddenly etched across the bronze surface, Zoe cheered. At the same time, yet another notification arrived.
Scion Detected.
Access Denied.
Zoe froze—and the lines all went dark. What? When she tried again—and the same thing happened—she glared. “Alright then, what’s the deal here? Why isn’t it opening?”
Your claim to the Temple of
Permissions suspended.
What? Why… A blinking quest icon caught Zoe’s eye. She groaned.
[CLAIM YOUR RIGHT]
As the Scion of
The other inhabitants might disagree. Prove them wrong.
-Rewards-
Divine claim to the Temple of
Zoe did not think that this was very fair. Seriously—what kind of quest literally contradicted itself in its own description? If she had a—supposedly—divine claim to this temple of who-knows-what, then why did she have to prove anything just to open a door? You alone now possess a divine right to this temple? Zoe reread that part of the quest. Yeah, that’s a genuine falsehood—even if I do have a claim, I’m obviously not the only one because the system is making me complete a quest to actually get it. Zoe glared into empty space. Nothing glared back.
Caught between warring desires to angrily huff and to deflate against the door, Zoe broke the standstill by shrugging and trudging up the stairs two at a time. While she absolutely wanted to comb over every inch of the entire place, she decided it would be smarter to forge ahead in search of the biggest clues first. It wasn’t like she would get much from scrutinizing every little patch of mostly identical moss.
Figuring out which way to go turned out to not be very difficult. It took Zoe about a minute to stumble onto a shattered, sunken, and largely overgrown path lazily winding between the most notable central structures. Ironically, walking on the more natural terrain on either side proved to be less treacherous than the actual path—but it still made a handy guide. And despite the cavern’s seemingly immense size, it took Zoe not much longer than that to reach a tall, narrow crevasse opening into a very rough staircase winding upwards.
With one and then two last glances back at the tranquil ruins, Zoe left them for the rocky darkness of the passage. There was no clear end in sight—but that was fine. She could definitely use the time to investigate the system and her own status more. Yet she couldn’t help but begin feeling a little anxiety over the Claim Your Right quest—would she have to fight anyone? Zoe shook her head and climbed faster.
There’s no reason to think that dealing with these ‘other inhabitants’ has to be violent. Perhaps I can convince them to leave, or work something else out. Zoe nodded to herself.
Maybe they would even be friendly.
And in the meantime, she could begin investigating the system for her S-tier cheat power.