Realms of Fantasy 9: Drinks And Some World Building
A little world building and some family time...
Hey everyone. I promise this will be the last of the kinda sad moments for a while. Got something a bit more exciting planned for next time, so hope you guys don't mind wading through a little more sadness and some world building to get there. As always, all constructive criticism is welcome. Enjoy!
This looks kind of familiar, I thought as I watched Katt downing drinks in the middle of the tavern. After listening her go through what happened in her opening quest and then crawling through the tunnel into that abandoned house when she met up with me, I figured letting her sample some of the local cuisine might have been a good way to take her mind off things. Eating occasionally was necessary to keep your stats up in Realms anyway, and she was probably starving after her journey. So after cleaning up and putting on the white tunic and brown pants I'd bought for her earlier, we went to The Oasis' tavern.
"So..." I thought about telling her how alcohol wouldn't have the same effects here as it did in the real world as she started on drink number 3, but I decided to let it slide. Instead, I started filling her in on some of the game backstory of Realms of Fantasy.
"About fifteen years ago, a strange illness began to fall over all the women in Aerosia, the world Realms takes place on. Over the period of a month or so, every female, regardless of age, began to experience a transformation. What exactly they gained and how exactly they reacted upon getting it varied, but all of them began to acquire animal traits."
"You mean, like all the players in the game have?" Good; at least she wasn't too out of sorts to keep up with the conversation. Katt indicated her own tiger ears and tail. "So before then, people weren't like this?"
"Exactly; there were monsters, sure, but all the humanoids were ordinary humans. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason for how someone acquired the traits they did, either. A mother could be part wolf, and her daughter could be part cat. At the same time, it seemed like nobody had any clue why this suddenly all happened to begin with."
"How each woman reacted physically to the change varied as well. Some were gravely ill for days until their bodies slowly adjusted. Some had their transformation dragged out over minutes and were in excruciating pain the whole time. And yet for others it was so fast and painless they didn't even notice anything had happened to them until someone else pointed it out to them. Then there were the mental changes."
"Mental changes? How so?" Katt stood up a little to glance around the other patrons of the tavern as if she expected to see something strange.
"Again, it varied. Some had no noticeable changes, and others felt unusual animal urges, often relating to the type of animal they'd become. A wolf might find a desire to seek a pack, while a housewife who'd never left the city prior to acquiring lioness traits would suddenly get the urge to go out and hunt for food. Most of them went into fully feral mindset."
"Many of them would act violently and unpredictably, not unlike a wild animal suddenly found itself in a strange and unusual place. Many of those who did often had a much more pronounced physical transformation that exponentially increased the potential harm they could do to themselves and others as well. They also only seemed to target males for the most part, only going after a female if they actively tried to stop them or otherwise got in the way. This wild, unpredictable behavior began to make many males of the world begin to feel like they were targeted."
"Well, I'm not a... what do they call those guys who go online and talk about how horrible things are for men?" Katt asked. When I suggested she maybe meant a men's right activist, or MRA, she nodded(My Old Lady gets a little prickly when she sees what passes for grammar and the written word online, being a librarian and all, so she's not always up on the latest internet speak). "Right; that. Still, it DOES kind of sound like the males weren't having a fun time of things for the most part. And none of them experienced the transformation either?"
"Nope; not a single soul. Soon rumor began to spread that the women of the world were being changed because...well, depends on who you asked. Some quoted religious texts, others had more scientific and magical theories, and some just thought it was because women weren't pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen like they were, 'supposed' to be. Basically no one could agree, and soon chaos began to take hold in a lot of the major cities."
Some demanded all the females be locked up, even after they'd come to their senses(which also varied wildly in the length of time it took for that to happen). Others wanted protection and started arming themselves or hiring bodyguards, or demanding an increase in the city watch. A few women left on their own, either because of persecution or worrying about what the potential harm they might do their loved ones. A lot of people just left the cities to form their own communities, either to escape the potential threat of the changing women or the riots that would occur because of them, directly or otherwise.
Soon that month passed, and by then all the females had transformed and largely came back to their senses. Though it's hard to say exactly, it's rumored that the last woman completing her transformation is what triggered the release of Corruption. It seemed subtle at first; people started noticing the air outside the city just felt... wrong, somehow. A few people stayed within the warded city walls, but many went out doing their normal work. Hours passed without incident, but suddenly all the men outside the city walls began to transform. While many debated about the nature the transformations the women faced, few would argue that what the men who left the city were becoming was anything good.
The first wave of soldiers and city watchmen tried to intervene, only to swell the ranks of the Corrupted even more. Most became Corrupted hounds like Katt faced in the prison, but others became something more. Dragons, werewolves that were a story or more taller, horrible things with tentacles and mouths seemingly placed almost randomly on their body; all that and more were what the men were becoming. Despite how powerful they were, though, none seemed able to cross the magical protections that surrounded all the major cities. Those who remained inside were safe, until the creatures started going after the walls of the cities themselves.
"Everyone thought they were screwed once the walls came down; many couldn't even fight back without exposing themselves to the Corruption. But then some began to notice the few females that had gone out seemed unaffected by the Corruption. And while many were swarmed and overwhelmed by the sheer number of Corrupted monsters, many of them found their newly acquired animal instincts, strength and reflexes gave them an edge. The changed women very quickly went from being outcasts to the only ones who could possibly save everyone."
"So that's why there's only an option to make a female character?" Katt asked. Yeah; not even having the option to leave the city would put a damper in most player's game experience. "You also said something about how magic runes are required on the weapons when you were dealing with those goblins in the bank, right?"
"Yeah, but that's only when there's a Breach in the real world. That seems to be one of the few requirements we can pin down about how a person gets Called; they need to have some sort of magic weapon in their character's possession. In the game world here, any old weapon will do."
The day the Corruption appeared is referred to as The Rise. It's often meant in two ways, in how it was both the first day of the rise of Corruption but also the first day many started to see the rise of the changed women in a much more positive light. Those women became referred to as the Touched, as in being blessed with their new skills and protection from the Corruption. Eventually the monsters were either killed or driven back from the major cities by the Touched. As one could imagine, however, there were some serious changes that began that day that had nothing to do with physical transformations.
"There was an almost immediate reversal in traditional gender roles after that day. Any kind of work that would've taken someone outside became almost impossible for any man. Only through magical shielding similar to what's on the walls of the city can men even leave without adding to the monsters. Farming, mining, hunting; that's all women's work now. There's way more house husbands than house wives..."
Aw crap; bad move. At the word, "husband", Katt's face shifted back to the gloomy, overcast look it had when she'd finished her prison break tale.
"It's Jhan, isn't it? He reminded you of the Old Man," I smiled weakly in response to Katt's surprised look. I'd have to get back to filling her in on the backstory of Realms another time. "Come on; good man with a good heart, always speaking to you with kindness and respect, and putting your wellbeing before his? That was my Dad and your husband all the way to the end."
"Yes..." Katt sighed heavily, started to take a drink from her cup before realizing it was empty and setting it down again. "I know Jhan wasn't real, that this is all just a game, and I'm probably just projecting, but I can't help it.
"When he was showing me how to fight, he asked if I knew any sort of spells or had some sort of technique that I could use. Well, the only thing I know is Vault and Strike, so I did it. He seemed genuinely impressed when I flipped and managed to land on his shoulders. To be honest, it was one of the first times in a long time a man even close to my age seemed genuinely impressed with anything I did."
"Damn it..." I could feel my ears folding back a little in disappointment with myself. "I'm sorry, Mom, I didn-"
"I know. It was just a bit of a shock. Seeing something that reminded me of him here, in a world of...of..."
Katt struggled to find the appropriate word and settled for just motioning at the virtual world of magic, swords and anthropomorphic women around us before continuing.
"Well, all this." Katt sighed again briefly before shaking her head as if to cast the sadness off. "So, do we need to pay our bill now before we continue, or does that get added to our room tab?"
"You still want to keep playing now?" I felt confused as Katt slowly rose from our booth. "We can take a break if you need it; I don't mind..."
"No, I want... and really, need to keep going. I miss him, and I always will; that's never going to stop or change. But if I got scared off by everything that reminded me of him, I'd never be able to function in any world, real or fantasy. So come on; let's go back to the room to get our weapons and you can show me around."
"Besides..." Katt added with a sly smile as we started making our way back to the room to grab our gear, "I know he'd be just crushed if I didn't pry every detail about your girlfriend out of you. Wouldn't you agree?"
...Maybe I'm the one that needs to log out now...
...Seriously, though, I miss you too, Dad. Hope you're proud of me.