It seemed like Icidae’s nightmare would never end. Her mother had long ago disappeared, taking their money and any chance of them living a normal life along with her. Since that day her father had kept on drinking, drinking as if the world had ended. Their debts kept on rising and their situation kept on getting worse.

She did not have good looks or a slim figure. Because of their financial situation, decent quality clothes had been out of the question. And above it all, she was a social wreck. Icidae did not know where she had gotten her soft and emotional nature from. It wasn’t from her mother, and father was only concerned with his own misery. But needless to say, the wretched boiling pot that was high school turned out to living hell for her.

But time marches relentlessly on, hell or no hell, and she grew into a reserved and quiet twenty-year-old. A cheap laptop had become her own little safe space as she drowned herself in the word of old MMORPGs. Control, destiny, reward for one’s hard work, and blessings for one’s virtues. The games provided her with all the things she lacked in her real life.

But then, on a cloudy Tuesday morning disaster had struck again. She suddenly woke up in a hospital bed, no recollection of having gotten there. The nurses' expressions were cold, the doctor’s grave.

A sudden cerebral infarction had toppled her on the way to her college. The cause, Brain cancer, incurable. The damage to the brain was already too severe and would kill all on its own.

No more words were necessary, she would die, and it would not be long before she did so. Thus she waited, partially paralysed, for the end to come.

Her father did not show, nor did he call…

And so, all alone, she died.

Death, of course, was not the tragedy it used to be. The AFTERLIFE had been made real and even the completely broke Icidae could nowadays take part. So with a slight feeling of enthusiasm, she arrived in the warm white void.

However, that feeling of relief did not last long…

With absolute fear and disgust, she looked at the creature before her. Eight long hairy legs, a thick furry abdomen, eight gross eyes of different sizes and clicking horrid jaws. Half humanoid half arachnid, at the size of a child’s tricycle. Like a mutant female gnome tied to a ‘house of horrors’ prop spider.

Completely and utterly disgusting, gross, wretched, filthy…

“Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope…”

[If you are unsatisfied with your character you can reroll it for a small payment of 19.95 Ƒ.]

“Go burn in a fire, you know my credit status!”

[Then we are done here, Miss Salt]

“Thieeeef!”

All feed halted in an instant and hands reached to check their belongings.

“Not good.” Rowan mumbled to herself.

She had expected it to take longer for them to notice, but it seems they had been patting down their belongings regularly. The line started to split as the ogre stomped around in a raging fury.

Rowan looked around for an escape. This cart gave her some shelter, but it was far from a foolproof hiding place. Slowly the line moved back into motion, swirling around the trio. Judging from their gazes, they were monitoring the back end of the line. Expecting (correctly) that the perpetrator was going to attempt to sneak in after them. She had the feeling that if the ogre would spot her nearby, stolen goods or not, he would pound her into mush regardless.

Forward it was then, and it had to be quick.

With a couple of well-timed leaps, she moved from shelter to shelter and emerged in front of a well-filled carriage.

The gate was handled by a hand full of guards and the line roughly split in three. One for heavy transport and two for regular travellers. Rowan shelter had started its curve toward the first, leaving her only short moments before ogre and friends would spot her among the crowd. The second line would take at least a hand full of minutes to get through, and the last seemed to have ground to a complete halt.

She took a quick glance at the front, where some spider person seemed to be throwing tantrum. Even with the inhuman eyes and terrifying jaws, Rowan could, at a single glance, tell it was one of ‘those’ people.

She did not have to listen to the spider’s tear-stained wallowing to understand exactly what was happening. The guard's tired ‘not another one of these’ expression told her more than enough. With a grin, Rowan stepped to the front of the line.

“Oh, the humanity, poor Miss. My heart is so moved by the tragedy of your tale that I will pay for your entry.”

The spider’s wailing finally stopped and the guard looked relieved he would not have to get the insecticide after all.

Rowan threw the necessary coins on the desk. Helpfully, they had been labelled with their value. And walked through the gate without looking back. Somewhere far back an ogre still roared, but he was not going to get his vengeance today.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…

Rowan moved her chest around a little and concluded it felt a lot better than it did before. It seemed that, if she had broken ribs, they had not cracked all the way through.

“So, I am inside the city, what now? I need info, both on the frog-humper and possible locations of my old colleagues… if they are around. Also, this money won’t last me a week, so I need a plan for my next ‘job’.”

Tap, tap, tap, tap…

Personal Quest Complete: Get to Work

You have managed to get into the first ring of Greadig the city of Greed through theft and skulduggery. With this you have risen from tier 0 to a tier 1 class, ascending from [Goat] to [Novice Criminal Scum].

Also due to your perpetual hard-headedness (well ok, actually because of your ascension), you gained the skill [Bonehead]. The first hit in combat you receive will never be lethal, a perfect ability for your common criminal goon.

Personal Quest Added: Planning Ahead

Task: Find info on: the frog-humper, old acquaintances and a good place to rob. Also, find a way to get rid of the spider, it creeps me out.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…

“[Bonehead] ey, fascinating. Although, I don’t like the idea of fighting things that can kill me in a single blow. But I might need to go and pay some attention to this whole game thing if it doles out magical powers like this more often. It could get quite hairy if an enemy catches me off guard with one.”

Tap, tap, tap, tap…

As Rowan moved through the streets mumbling to herself the soft tapping off hairy paws on stone was ever-present. She had ignored it for a while, but it had proven surprisingly tenacious. With a loud sigh, she turned around.

“I ain’t taking care of a damsel in distress, get lost. You were useful for getting through that gate as fast as possible, but do not mistake my actions for pity.”

Icidae halted in shock, tears welling in her eyes from the word go. She was about to open her mouth when Rowan cut her off.

“Yea, yea, I am sure your life was absolutely miserable and you were dealt a bad hand. I can see it in your eyes, people like you are a dime a dozen. Unfortunately, life is a bi-… set of cockroach carcasses and above that, hardly fair.

But people like you, who go ‘woe is me’ and toil in their own misery, those disgust me. Grow a horse pissing spine and strangle those who wronged you instead of kneeling and begging for their mercy. I offer no help to worms.”

Tap, tap, tap, tap… click, click, click, click…

Icidae wanted to cry, to hide, to run away, but instead she followed. Her feet tapped on the hard ground and her mandibles clicked in frustration. The disgusting sound made her stomach churn witch made them only click faster.

Normally she would have run away to cry, as she used to do after rejection. But something made her stay, and follow. She was weak, she knew she was, but this was not real life. This should have been a video game, her home turf. Yet it had scarily resembled one since she had come here.

No fighting goblins, no raiding dungeons, no handsome princes, no adventure and no mighty dragons. Just hunger, scorching sunlight, eating bugs to survive, living in filthy slums outside the city walls, and this wretched, horrid, disgusting body.

But just now, for the first time since she came here something happened that felt like a video game. She had heard that type of speech countless times before, in an endless number of variations. A plucky hero, a gruff wizened mentor and the speech of rejection after their first meeting.

No, I shall not train you, young one, you are not ready.

He has no talent.

There is too much anger inside him.

And what did the hero do then, sulk and give up? No, he showed he was worthy, regardless of the old man’s commands. She stared at the goat's back and wondered, was it even a person? Could it be an NPC made especially for her? Could this be part of a story quest?

She knew that the dynamic quest generation and AI systems of Aard were impressive. But it was hard to communicate the extent of the system's features in a form post. So she did not know what fell inside its capabilities and what did not.

How could she tell if the goat was an AI? Would it tell her if she asked?

That speech was quite odd, she had never met an actual person who talks in such a domineering manner. Then she felt something enter her mind.

Personal Quest Added: Proving One’s Worth

Task: Get Rowan to take you under her wing, well… furry arm, whatever works.

That was it, she was sure now, this Rowan had to be an NPC! This made an enormous weight fall from her shoulders. It wasn’t a backstabbing worthless human, it was a computer, a quest giver, a party member, something made to entertain her. She knew how to deal with those, she had done so for fun for most of her life.

Yes, all she had to do was to ‘be the protagonist’ and then everything would finally be fine…

Tap, tap, tap, tap…, click, click, click, click…

Rowan was quite annoyed. Not at the spider, she was frustrating, but a minor matter in the grand scheme of things. Although the clicking sounds she made were quite unsettling. No, Rowan was annoyed because she had misjudged the spider’s character.

Her capability to read people’s personality was one of her greatest assets. But she had somehow managed to severely misread some simpleton’s emotional state. And even worse, she failed to see what had gone wrong. Even after the simpleton had shown significantly divergent behaviour.

Her experience told her that even minor rejection should have caused the damsel in distress to crawl up into a ball. But the damsel had continued on following her. Albeit while making creepy clicking sounds. Was this some variant of the damsel personally or a completely different type?

Rowan glanced around, the city’s strangeness was not helping her mood. It had looked like ‘normal’ sun-scorched badlands on the other side, but after passing through the gate it had turned peculiar fast.

Most of the roads and houses were built on a foundation of wooden mesh, not dissimilar to scaffolding. The construction sunk into shimmering rivers of dust that flowed between high rising roots of the countless trees. And an insufferable pressing heat hung in the air as brown rain-like dust globules pelted down from the sky.

Dense foliage rose all around, blocking out the sky completely. Old horrid looking trees weaved in and out of houses unperturbed. Large putrid flowers oozed from corners and crevices. Seas of leaves mangled with clusters of thorns. Strange gangly vines wrapped around nearly every free surface. And all of it looked dry and dead, bearing the colours of a desert wasteland.

Spikes, flying buttresses and arches covered everything that wasn’t already drowned in plants. Droplets of dust seemed to agglomerate and flow like water down the sloped roofs. The odd substance itched unpleasantly as made its way through Rowan´s fur and dripped into her dress. Like a freak swamp, the flowing dust rivers bubbled and oozed with countless fish, insects and other dead looking plants.

And that merely described the environment. Leaving out the shops, markets, fights, people, and other goings on that were all equally as peculiar.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…, click, click, click, click…

Rowan walked through the bustling city streets as they slowly gave way to dingy alleyways.

The path went quiet as the noises of the main road slowly faded in the distance.

“So, where are we heading?”

At those words she turned, this nonsense had lasted long enough. With a smooth motion, she swiped her knife out of her belt and pressed it against her pursuer’s throat.

“Where are ‘we’ heading? Well, I am going finding to find some rich guy's house to rob, so I can pay for a nice room in a high-quality inn. Then I am going to find out if my old colleagues so I can go request a couple of murders. And finally, I am going to strangle Olivier Oldward the Third and also steal everything he owns.

On the way there I will probably encounter and inflict untold misery, death, torture and trauma of both the mental and physical kind. If that sounds like your cup of tea, Miss Spider, feel free to join me.”

By all accounts that should have done it, even a mentally stable person should have fled. But there the spider stood, only flinching ever so slightly. It was like she knew that she was going to get a blade pressed to her throat the moment she spoke up. Her eyes stared back at Rowan with a strangely dissonant expression, half instinctual fear and half strange amusement.

“Sounds like fun, count me in.”