I stood on the edge of a 100 meter apartment block as the wind gently  brushed against my face. I knew that if I fell from  too low of a place I’d  just end up with broken bones,  dying in agony. I never wanted that. Well, who does? I stood on the edge of the building for a long time, no longer as afraid of the height as I once was. The endless void of air felt like a sea to fall in, until I reached the bottom. The pavement. I  took a deep breath, taking a step forward with my left leg. I panicked mid air.

“Aaaah” I screamed

My life flashed before my eyes. The man who raped me. My boyfriend who got me fired from my job and manipulated me. My mom’s words that made me have nightmares.

A wave of tranquil peace  washed over me.

“That’s it. I have almost killed myself.” I thought

The last thing I saw was the pavement.

Everything had gone black.

You have been given a second chance!

Choose  which race you want to sponsor!

“What? Am I not dead? What is this?”I asked, frantically turning around.

It was a tragically empty white space with a old looking, almost crumbling stone table in the middle, documents with pictures scattered across the table like someone left them in a hurry. And there were lots of them. I  looked through them.  Harpies, goblins,imps, elves, sprites,humans,vampires, giants

Harpies seemed interesting, as they could fly right off the bat, however, they had 2 downsides. First, they had no arms, so ranged combat was off the table. Second, their reproductive potential was only medium. So I imagine they can become quite good at the end, but the start is rough. Elves had good reproduction potential, and started off with innate magic and archery bonuses, but their evolutions were boring, similarly humans had great reproduction, boring everything else. Imps were an interesting case. Bad everything, interesting evolutions. Memory demons being the most interesting. Vampires were interesting, but had way too many drawbacks. Sprites were very interesting. I sat there looking through them for a long time. They had a lot of good evolutions. 

“Huh, would you look at that.” I said.

I ended up choosing them.

Sprites also had the ability to fly. The drawbacks were much different tho. For one, they had butterfly  wings instead of sturdy  bird wings and overall were much  more fragile. However, they were what I’d call glass cannons.  They had innate magic proficiency and could pack quite the punch. That’s what made them the best race to start with, in my opinion.

Their starting point was in lush plains. A  straight terrain full of meadows and mushrooms , perfect for bombing the shit out of someone. However, this also meant there was no natural cover. I  started with 10 sprites. The goal of this  adventure? Who knows. I wasn’t told anything. I was just there to choose. Anyways, in the beginning  I had the option to sponsor a sprite, meaning I could give a small stat boost to one and only one sprite of my choice.  I looked around the plains to get a good grasp of my choices. Litio was the first one I saw, a magnificent male sprite with gorgeous red hair and an air of pompousness. He had a Gaston vibe. He was boasting to a a sprite called  Aura, who was looking at him, unimpressed. Aura seemed mysterious and reserved, so I continued with my search. Not far from that, I saw a sprite with brown wings and hair sitting at a lake. He had  grass in his mouth.

A little cliche? I thought. I  could poke around with weather a bit  as part of being  their god so I made it rain. He gave no shits. I like this guy. 

“Oh wait.” I realised.” You can actually  see their stats too, not just their names… Duh, how did I not think of that! Why give a stat boost  without knowing their stats?

  I checked Oren’s( that’s what I decided to call him, he had no name, so I gave him one, which I also had the authority of doing) stats and his magic power was bad. His strength on the other hand, seemed high in comparison.

You have gained a  name! His majesty the god of  sprites had given you a name.

A screechy voice  said  inside of him, throwing him off balance. His fishing rod went feeeioww right into the water.

 He spit out the grass straw. “ Oren huh, guess we have a god? Interesting… Or I have gone mad, haha?”

 I went back to check Aura’s stats. And oh my oh my did I have a lot to see. Strength 1,(weak, even for sprites) intelligence 10(average),hp 3(low, even for sprites) mana 5(low, for sprites anyway) however… She had an innate skill… Oh???  It was called: grow plants.  The skill description said: create any plant as long as you know how it looks. Interesting as I just  saw gaston guy( he has a name-Litio but I don’t care, he’s gaston for me) complain about a lack of plants in the plains besides mushrooms. But that  wasn’t all. I remembered that sprites could only  reproduce by  putting mana into  a circle of 4 blue mushrooms  that had roots in the ground.  Doing so manually would be a pain in the ass. But if she could grow them with magic, that could  make up for their low reproduction and  low starting numbers. In other  words she was my golden chicken. I could  give her an even buff or a not so even one. I decided to risk it and put the whole ten points buff into her mana. She now had 15 mana. Not amazing, but decent.Then I took a look at my abilities As I  was looking through my abilities, I saw  dream- once a month, you can  contact a sprite through a dream. Hmmmmmmm… I have an idea. Someone has to protect your golden egg, right? Especially as squishy as her. I should have oren be her bodyguard. Or well… I could have gaston do that, who has decent mana… Oren has better constitution and strength tho. Besides, I like Oren more. Yeah it’s gonna be him. Now, what should the dream say? Eh, let’s just be straightforward.

Hmm let’s see… I’m thinking a morrowind type prophecy or something like that.  Let’s go with this.

Before the first  sprite was born,   a pact between 2 gods was made. (Lying a bit lol, who cares) Each would have an oracle, and  the one whose oracle won, would have reign over the other. Your job is to protect  our oracle. Her name is Aura.

That should do it.

Tomorrow…

“What a strange dream…” Oren said. “Now how do I  make our god’s wish come true. She’s impossible to get close to. Wait… I know!”

Oren walked up  to Aura. 

“Aura, I have something to tell you.” Oren said.

Aura raised an eyebrow.

“I’m in love with you!”

“What???”She raised her voice in confusion.

What????? I thought. What the hell kind of bodyguarding attempt is that? I facepalmed with my invisible hand.  Speaking of, why can’t I even know what I look like? So weird having my  body be there but invisible.Wait… It’s actually working???? Huh???

“If you really mean it… I would be honored to be with you…” Aura blushed.

Guess she’s weak to beefcakes huh? I thought.

“Huuh??? This worked?” Oren thought.

Oren you dumbass… Good job???

 Wait… Oh crap! What about urging  Aura to make blue mushrooms? Ah shit!!! I already spent the dream… OH! I can still use the quest once a month. Alright, let’s  do this! C.r.e.a.t.e. a  blue mushroom circle with your skill, flora.

Hmmm. Maximum exp I can give with these requirements is 2. What if I make it harder?

Create 2 blue mushroom  circles.

4 exp.

Alright, create 5 mushroom circles.

10 exp,  all stats  increase by 1

Nice!!! Confirm. That’s gonna take a while tho. Let me see how much mana the ability requires. 15 mana for each use?????? Since she recovers mana back to full every day it should take  her 4 days to make 4 blue mushrooms,  meaning it should take her… 20 days??? That’s not great. I didn’t think this through..And what is also not great is the fact I spent all of my  monthly actions.

As Aura was sitting with Oren, she  heard a screechy voice announce a quest:

You have a quest from the god of sprites. Create 5 mushroom circles.

0/20 blue mushrooms grown with your magic skill flora.

“That’s a terrible announcer voice.” She said.

“Oh? I didn’t know I could do that. The hell is flora? Let’s try it here. Try to imagine a blue mushroom, hmmm…”

Aura has grown a blue mushroom for the first time! An achievement was made.

All stats will go up by 1 as a reward.

Aura( Strength 2, intelligence 11,hp 4,  mana 16)

“Nice!” She  celebrated.

“Wow, Aura I didn’t know you could do that! Oren cheered.

“Looks like I can.” She smiled. I am very exhausted now though.” She  fell to her knees.

Oren got up. “Aura are you ok?”

“Yeah, just exhausted my mana all at once so I am very tired.”She yawned.

“Come  sit on my lap.” Oren suggested.

“Oh, alright.” She quickly fell asleep.

 DAY 2

There’s an issue. There are no trees in the plains,  which we need,  but  I can’t send my squishy golden chicken, egg , whatever, to scout the area. What if she dies? I have to send the whole group somehow, but I can’t because I’m out of monthly actions. Wait, let’s check my exp… Hmmm ⅘. Almost there.  Guess I have to wait for her to complete the quest huh… 

DAY  10

One of the sprites with green wings, Palia, has  found a blue mushroom circle at the edge of the plains. The bad news is, she also saw goblins at the same edge, where the forest  borders the plains. And I have no more  monthly actions to tell her   she needs  to put mana in  the circle. On the other hand,  Aura has been  creating mushrooms every  day.

Day 19

“Guys, we have a problem. I saw 20 goblins coming our way. They have 10 archers and 10 melee warriors.Litio said

Everyone started panicking.

Litio screamed. It’s time to get serious! Palia, go gather everyone. Oren, protect Aura. We may need her in the future. She has a lot of potential.

“Noted” Oren said.

Aura squeezed his hand.

Hanson, you’re the best  at  aiming magic bolts here. Aim at the archers first so they can’t shoot us out of the sky.