IiS Chapter 02 (Patreon)

My choice was boiled down to elves. So I could be the racist who loves the smell of their own farts elf, the dark ‘comically evil also the most oppressed’ elves, or the ones with the shit passive and active racial traits. Fuck it, we ball! Elf nazis it is! It would also make my character lean more towards magic, which wasn’t normally my play style. I normally did a jack of all build but I could get behind casting magic. I look at the changes that particular classes would make before I notice something different than the normal choices.

On top of the normal information, there was also a charisma effect each race would have, but also how most Nords would view you. Picking Altmer gave me above-average charisma but would make me be negatively viewed if not outright hated by Nords. Breaking it down even further, almost every other race viewed Altmer in a negative light. What’s this? There were more options beyond the first race I chose, you could make hybrids of up to four different races based on your grandparents.

I automatically select Nord as one of my ancestors, which mitigates the negative aspects of the Altmer. The passive and active racials of each class slightly changed and incorporated into a unique buff. 25% frost resistance and 25 magicka while the active daily regenerated 25% of my magicka a second and panicked the nearby enemies for thirty seconds. It appeared the total time of the magicka buff was reduced by half while the Nord buff had a reduced effect only making enemies less likely to hit and if they did it dealt less damage instead of sending them fleeing from me.

I wasn’t done with just those choices though, if I could pick more than two then I would. I couldn’t pick Argonian or Khajiit, I mean I could but I wouldn’t because they both had complete negative charisma towards other races. I would totally fuck an Argonian or Khajiit but I guess that made me odd compared to the average person. Even if I picked base Altmer I had no doubt I could get a bunch of pussy from Nords who looked down on me.

Both Argonian and Khajiit would be me shooting myself in my proverbial foot if I wanted to have sex with lots of women. Orc was similar but the negative charisma wasn’t at the end of the bar but sort of in the middle of the negative charisma. Orsimer was human enough not to be a complete turn-off to other races while the other two apparently were. I wanted the magic resistance that Breton provided and the active racial Orsimer gave so those were my third and fourth choices.

Three of the races I chose were on the positive side of the charisma spectrum but even still I felt the hit on my beauty as I picked Orsimer. I breathed in and out as I thought about the amazing active racial orcs had as I locked it in. I looked at the effects again and noticed that they didn’t decrease further as I chose more ancestors. It meant there was no reason to not pick four ancestors rather than two.

Passives effects

12.5% magic resistance, 25% frost resistance, can enter orc strongholds, 25 magicka 

Active power

Panick enemies, absorb 50% of magicka from all incoming spells, take half damage, do double physical damage, regenerate 25% of your maximum magicka for thirty seconds

The daily cooldown I could use made me effectively invincible while it was active. I would be exploiting that to make sure I’d never come close to death. I was going to play the first few levels like an absolute pussy until I made myself OP. I picked my races and moved on to another screen to pick my powers. I didn’t have points to spend but I knew I could only pick three of the powers. It wasn’t as straightforward as the Marvel/DC choices. I could get a feeling of what each power did, but it was more like I was tapping into a power I previously had.

I also had much less choice and after reaching the end I realized I had ten choices to choose from. Strength, speed, endurance, intellect, or charisma… Five choices that were inflections on the stats I had in the other world. I doubted I’d be as strong as a god, or even Spiderman if I picked strength though. I felt it wouldn’t even make me twice as strong as a normal freshly made character. The stat boost would be gamified into like 50% melee damage and 100 carry capacity or some shit.

I ruled out those five choices right off the bat. Sure, being harder to kill was always a good thing but it wasn’t a game-changer like I felt the other choices were. The other five options were my signature powers from the last world, or something similar. Growth, teleportation, item warehouse, dual cultivation, and magical affinity/knowledge.

No power siphon, energy storage, or biomatter control but I think it was more so they were just too strong to be choices. I could easily break the world with any of those three so I just wasn’t offered any of them. I could eventually break the world with how growth worked before… But I felt it had been highly regulated and it wasn’t possible to grow infinitely, or it was much, much more difficult.

I still picked growth. It was the safest bet to grow powerful with less work than the other choices. The other choices just seemed like conveniences. Teleportation was not going to be as OP if it cost magicka to use; more than likely, it was a replacement for the fast travel system in the game. Dual cultivation also felt more restricted. There were more catches than just having sex with any woman and making us both stronger.

Item warehouse was equivalent to the inventory system in Skyrim, I felt that without the gamified system to rely on I’d only be able to carry whatever could fit in a bag on my back without crippling my fighting capabilities. I would also have to worry about keeping food and water on me as I would need to eat and drink, I also had to worry about freezing to death which you didn’t in the game.

I had workarounds for both systems. The game only allowed you to have two followers with you but I didn’t have that limitation. My followers would die if they were knocked to the ground though, they wouldn’t just fall to a knee until they recovered. Out of sheer convenience, I picked item warehouse which left me a single choice left.

Teleportation was out, as nice as it would be I wasn’t sure it held up to my other two choices. Dual cultivation or magical knowledge/affinity, both provided boosts to my future growth. The feeling of each was what led me to my final decision. As restricted as dual cultivation felt, it still felt more powerful than magical knowledge/affinity. The most I could hope for was easing the difficulty of learning new magical spells or enchantments. One would make learning easier the other would increase the survivability of me and my loved ones… Looking at it from that perspective makes it easier to pick.

This sucked… I wish I had more to choose more than three but because I absolutely demolished the last universal choices I had become more restricted. There was no figuring out the perfect set of powers to make me invincible… I’d just have to do that once I got into the world.