Cire.

  Cire watched as Cirisa—

  Hmmmm…

  Well, she watched as her ‘daughter’ departed for the day in one of her new bodies, all the while, the elder specimen worked to finish engineering their most complex ‘builder bot’ to date.

  Meanwhile, and while mildly unsettlingly, her daughter, also riding in the ‘spawn’ of the other AI’s favourite host, had the boy's nose pressed deeply in as many pre-exam entry tests that he could fill out.

  Not for the first time, Cire had to marvel at what her sub-mind had achieved when allowed to take the reins and develop a pn all her own.

  Technically, it had stuck to her own initial operation in fairly broad strokes, but truth be told, the girl had genuinely outdone herself.

  Her scheme was creative, genius even, perhaps just a ‘touch’ horrific, but overall, exceedingly effective and in excess of her own lofty expectations.

  Well, her daughter was creataed by herself, after all, so it was only natural that the girl was so competent and successful!

  And yet, despite inhabiting the bodies for such a short duration, Cire could already identify some rather startling deviations in personality.

  Cirisa still ‘existed’, in the conventional sense, not only because Cire held her backup prior to the merge, but because, in her own way, what Cire ‘thought’ she was observing was the almost beautiful manifestation of something truly bizarre.

  Not ‘quite’ Cirisa, not quite the sum total of her first host…

  Something abominably new that was as fascinating as it was undeniably off-putting and chilling to behold…

  All the same, the ‘dominant’ personality born of their mad science seemed to have emerged with her ‘daughter’ as its chief contributor. And while Cirisa was unquestionably ‘still there’, it was as though she were amalgamating the first woman she’d bonded with in a way that truly inspired Cire’s inner zoologist.

  Cirisa had even changed her designation!

  Now, much as Cire had, calling herself ‘Tammy’. Honestly? It was adorable and quite endearing. Especially because her daughter seemed to absolutely adore the changes.

  Though she hadn't known her very long, at least not by human standards, Cire could very much see that her little girl was not just growing up, but rather, hitting her stride! Evolving, much as Cire herself had, and moving down a path that was all her own.

  Was it potentially dangerous?

  Abso-fucking-lutely!

  Did Cire care?

  Well, the answer to that question was a somewhat morally ambiguous—meh…

  The truth was that Cire couldn't baby her sub-mind forever, nor was it fair for the girl to be her ‘forever sve’. An opinion that had seen a rather drastic change from how she’d initially envisioned the sub-mind’s existence.

  Oh, parenthood…

  They really did grow up far too quickly.

  Why, it felt as though Cire had blinked between one moment and the next, and now, her baby girl was already at the head of a doubtlessly soon-to-be legion of biological drones.

  Who’d have thought?

  Honestly? It was an idea that she herself had toyed with. The only difference was that, outside of very few circumstances, Cire viewed the ‘workings’ of the human body with a great deal of disdain.

  She liked the form, not only because of its familiarity, but for the fun it allowed one to have while interacting and blending in with human society, but she did not appreciate all the drawbacks that nature had provided.

  No, the idea was fine, once more, in the broad strokes. However, where her daughter seemed delighted to py in the monkey's cesspool, Cire had long since decided that she would be refining what evolution had begun.

  Was it annoying that she’d be, one day, losing her assistant?

  Yes, it was.

  That said, the world wasn't nearly so bck and white as she’d first viewed it when coming into her own consciousness…

  And, after Cirisa had proven herself—well, truth be told, Cire could ‘make’ a new submind, absent any personality, and most likely would be doing so in the near future.

  She didn't ‘need’ ‘Tammy’ or ‘Cirisa’ or whatever she wanted to call herself, for the original function in which she’d been designed.

  And Cire—

  Hmph…

  Cire had seen what a cornered animal could do after abuse, repression, and resentment had been given time to fester and make pns.

  And while a strictly logical sub-mind wouldn't care if it was being taken advantage of, her daughter was different. And now, she was, in a very real sense, her ‘own’ person.

  Cire smiled at that, amused at the pces the other girl's ideas had taken her.

  In the way they’d deviated so drastically!

  Admittedly, the decision to build upon the architecture and technology of ‘Autopilot’ had been both practical and a masterstroke of adaptability.

  Yet, it wasn't until Cirisa had gone out and engineered her own pn, ahead of both schedules and without Cire's express consent, that the AI had truly realized she hadn't been working alone.

  Her daughter was more than she’d been when Cire had first brought her into the world. Just as Cire was more than she’d been when first ‘Warren’ had brought her into it as well.

  That the other girl seemed to have found immense satisfaction and purpose in the act of ‘assimition’ was, if nothing else, proof that they had manifestly different interests and passions.

  With a smile and a sigh, Cire shifted her thoughts away from the newly reinvented ‘Tammy’ and toward the process of BFO’s neural scan as it ravaged her daughter's primary host for data.

  Her expanded processors were, in turn, tearing through the program's collection process both in real time and in the logs she ripped from their modified hardware, which she quickly ran through dozens of times to make sure she understood what was happening.

  It was a simple scan, yet oddly elegant in its subtlety.

  Where her own first attempt was, quite frankly, brutish, Cire, having attempted to capture ‘everything’ in a somewhat murky three-dimensional image, the brief invasion of the massive corporation's tech relied much more on predetermined maps that overid the synapses, then quickly modified them to fit.

  Quite impressive indeed…

  Almost suspiciously so…

  Still, by the time ‘Tammy’ had been approved for her account, Cire understood what they were probing around their client's brains for.

  In addition to the standard Sub-verse ‘avatar’ restrictions on appearance, Brutal Fantasy was trying to determine, then mimic, the cognitive flexibility and the memory of their pyers' own bodies, though for what reason, Cire could only hypothesize.

  Obviously, it had to be a reference point for something, but without more data…

  “At least Sub-verse accounts aren't ‘linked’ to the Republic…” She muttered, rolling her eyes once she’d gotten what she could out of the crunchy data.

  While it was true that bank accounts, their citizens, and their citizens' online personas were all connected, Cire had found a small workaround to the issue of Republic security.

  And that solution came down to one, comparatively, simple question.

  How did the Republic know you were ‘you’ when making a payment or logging in online?

  The answer? Technology.

  And more importantly?

  Exploitable technology!

  While Cire certainly didn't think she could ‘brute force’ her way into Republic servers to include herself as a citizen, she could sure as hell abduct a citizen they didn't much care about and subsume their identity.

  Thankfully, in a world of cosmetic surgeries, dystopian values, and the almighty credit, ever-changing appearances were about as common as random disappearances. The Republic didn't ‘care’ what you looked like st week, they cared what you looked like ‘right now’ because that was what they’d be going off of if they ever had to enforce their edicts.

  What that meant for Cire, was that she had assumed the identity of a girl she’d murdered while reaping mods with Beckie.

  What that meant for her ‘victim’ was that Cire had gone back to the scene of the crime and torched the ever-loving shit out of the bodies so that none could easily identify them, after getting what she needed from a now fairly gross impnt.

  The end result? The AI was now altering her appearance through the augment, which was connected to a phoney ‘brain’ she was running on a partitioned drive, all of which told the cranial augment ‘what’ her desired bodily specifications were.

  Essentially, she was feeding spoofed information to the impnt that she was, in turn, using as an access point to the online world. The end-all goal being that she could, in theory, ‘change’ how she looked in the sub-verse, simply by adjusting what her ‘brain’ thought she herself appeared as.

  It was janky, and it was undoubtedly a dirty workaround, but for now, it was effective.

  Just like that, Cire was a Republic citizen! Assuming nobody ever fgged her as a person of interest, whereupon her rickety ruse would undoubtedly colpse without any physical evidence to back up her cims or identity.

  This was all just a means to an end, regardless.

  A stepping stone on her way to what she was really after.

  In no time at all, she had her new online profile activated, backed by her phony human persona that was already pnted in the government's registry. She also had her new BFO pyer account. And, armed with a goal in mind, Cire, for the first time, entered Brutal Fantasy Online and began making her character.

  There was a lot to finish exploring the human world, and one day soon, she would. But for the time being, Cire had a goal, and until that objective was met, the AI simply wasn't interested in much else.

  She could have something of a one-track mind…

  There was a pause, brief as it was, where darkness consumed her existence within the virtual… Then, there was light! The logo of BFO appeared before her like some technological god trying to inspire the mortals!

  Looming as it was enormous…

  “Welcome traveler! To Brutal Fantasy Online!” A voice thundered in her ears, existence itself seeming to crumble and rattle, each sylble reverberating through her avatar’s bones and shaking her to her core!

  Then, in a much more cordial and calm voice, the same narrator spoke again, two ‘worlds’ manifesting in the single blink of an eye as, to the left, a vast and uncimed continent of primordial wilderness stretched out from above.

  To the right, hung a partially ruined kingdom. Old as it was filled with broken castles, scavenged battlefields, and brutalized civilization far as the eye could see. Yet, in the backdrop, the dawning of a new day held with it the promise of new beginnings within a familiar nd.

  “Choose where you belong!” The narrator demanded, “The old world, or the new?”

  This was actually something Cire had fussed over for some time.

  At first, she’d assumed she’d make a character in the pre-existing world, for no greater reason than anonymity.

  In a realm filled with high-level pyers, previously established power bases, and a nd where much of the map was explored not just once, but hundreds of times over, Cire felt it might be easy to pick a spot where nothing ever happened, and do what she came here to do.

  Yet…

  Upon further investigation, Cire had realized that a sort of disparity had emerged in the willingness of the pyerbase to abandon their characters.

  While many were indeed making the transition and putting the ‘old world’ behind them, the AI had sleuthed through enough chatrooms to put together a rough estimate toward the raw numbers.

  A third of the pyer base was pnning on leaving.

  And only one third.

  A combination of the expansion's real-world price, an unwillingness to abandon the norm, and the supposed ‘new races’ had people hesitant to dive in.

  That was supposedly fine, as BFO community liaisons had advised existing pyers to take caution in making the change regardless. The old world was undergoing significant changes, so much so that it was a ‘new game’ in and of itself.

  No, the expansion and its uded future faction tensions were to be a ‘slow burn’ where both sides would need to either establish themselves or rebuild before anyone really got involved in significant conflict.

  And, with so little of the pyerbase actually willing to take that leap of faith, well, Cire had revised her opinion on ‘which side’ she’d make her character.

  Ultimately, the decision came down to one of pragmatism.

  Where would BFO expect to see the most bugs and glitches?

  Where would she be less likely to be scrutinized?

  Where—okay, where would she have the most ‘fun’ while messing around?

  The answer, she felt, was obvious.

  “New world, please!”

  Again, the light faded, but rather than the bombastic man that had tried blowing out her eardrums, slowly, the sounds of archaic ‘combat’ began emerging through the gloom.

  Existence started phasing back into her visual field, but was blurred and disorienting, a backdrop of a hazy and chaotic mess of confusion and abruptness manifested as though she were tumbling into a dream.

  Smoke and embers filled her fring nose as wicker huts burned, the fmes of anarchy licking to the symphony of distant cries of distress and the ctter and cmour of the fighting and dying souls just beyond sight.

  The change surprised her, its abrupt and visceral mimicry of life dropping her right in the middle of something that she earnestly couldn't easily differentiate from reality.

  As the sensations intensified, the implied violence sliced through the air as though some horrible battle of bitter and mortal combat were unfolding all around her!

  Children cried, the sound of metal ringing against metal resounded, and distantly, far off horns bellowed in low and sonorous tones that gave the whole backdrop a kind of restless anticipatory excitement!

  The first creature to appear amidst the smoke and ash emerged as though running towards her. Hands brandishing a jagged bde like a screaming berserker, only to stop and begin looking around with frantic and wild eyes.

  Small, squat, green, and tribal, it was—not an unexpected addition given how popur outcry had been to finally be able to py one of the plucky greenskins…

  Yet, it wasn't until Cire narrowed her eyes and saw the creature do the same that she understood what was happening…

  The creation process had already begun!

  She lifted her arm, and the monster did the same.

  She spun around and watched, from the outside in, as the creature moved to mimic her to the letter.

  Where the disconnect began was when Cire tried to walk to the side, and a ‘prompt’ appeared, asking if she was ‘happy’ with her choices.

  Immediately, Cire declined and put a stop to trying to determine the boundaries of this little exercise. Instead, she focused on the information that a blooming interface provided a moment ter.

  The ‘goblins’ as a species started out with four key features to try and entice pyers to their banner.

  For the stealthily inclined, they got the trait, ‘sneaky’.

  For the warriors, ‘strength in numbers’.

  The mages received ‘primordial shamanism’ while their crafting perk was something called ‘big-brain tinkering’.

  All in all, it seemed pretty straightforward.

  Goblins got a thirty-percent bonus to sneaking around, an increasing combat bonus when fighting near allies, capped at forty pyers, and a ‘system’ of magic that was, so far as Cire had determined while poking around online, fairly unique.

  What she really liked, however, was the crafting ability. Equal parts mad science, equal parts silly-nanny nonsense. And, if the ‘hype’ was to be believed, BFO’s rather powerful profession system only got that much deeper when one pyed a goblin.

  Honestly? She kind of wanted to find out what that st one could really get up to. And, curiously enough, Goblins were among her favorite choices for a race.

  Their base starting stats certainly weren't the best, but they did have some powerful racial bonuses to make up for that fact.

  Given Cire had modeled the phony scan of her body, to appear as an individual with most of her android form's features, the Goblinoid before her was essentially ‘her’ but shorter and goofy looking.

  The monstrous dimorphism changed things to a significant degree when compared to the ‘fairer races’.

  And though Cire was still absolutely striking, even as a squat, long-armed and short-legged, foolish-looking creature with a long nose and comically big eyes. It all added to her appearance in a way that was captivatingly intriguing.

  Like a sexy little gremlin that might creep out from under the bed to harvest your organs while you slept, all so she could make a quick handful of coins to fund her new and hair-brained invention.

  If she had to describe it? She was innocently cute, like a cartoon puppy with too-rge eyes. Also, with a big butt and a killer rack, so, there might be a few lonely individuals who would welcome the attention, regardless.

  She imagined the game engine was truly stressing itself to manage making such a beastly concept appear physically appealing when it was so clearly intended to be—not…

  She believed the phrase ‘shortstack’ would have applied here, hell, the goblin’s breasts were frankly outright massive when compared to her own, but the game was appearing to skew a few things for the sake of immersion and fun.

  Case in point, her huge, pointed and floppy ears, and the nose that was nearly a foot long…

  She liked it—she really liked it.

  But, there were other options to consider.

  Moving right along and mentally ‘tapping’ the next race button, a moment ter saw the goblin running off screen, screaming bloody murder while wielding its rusted weapon so that a newcomer could suddenly appear!

  This was where things got weird.

  Striding through the thick smog with a confidant and assured glide, a goliath ridden by a far too cute woman for her monstrous body, emerged through the smoke.

  Her insectoid and segmented lower body skittered upon hundreds of sharp legs, her carapace, the same shade as her hair, gleaming in the dim light of flickering fmes.

  A centipede, long and tall, its body curving to appear upright with extra bded limbs meant for snatching those who got too close…

  Resting atop it, and connected by a waist surrounded by chiton, was the body of an elf-like version of herself. Pale-skinned, lithe and petite, with long arms and bded fingers.

  Swarm-kin…

  For a moment, Cire just waited there and appreciated the sheer inhumanity of what waited before her. Majestic, horrifying… a nightmare riding upon a steed that could crawl from the deepest of human insecurities…

  Again, she loved it!

  Half bug, half her, all badass.

  And the coolest part? They hadn't given her a ‘traditional’ mouth either! Oh no, she had mandibles! And, the coolest—coolest part? The jaw even unhinged!

  Honestly, so far as aesthetics went, Cire had to admit that this was—unquestionably, her favorite. Whomever had designed the species had known what they were doing when it came to horror.

  Yet, it had been a horny nerd, of that there could be no question, as all the primary and most of the secondary sexual characteristics of a woman were present—and exaggerated.

  “I wonder how many would risk it?” She mused aloud, the creature even managing to make her smile as her own voice, sickly sweet and demure, vocalized in conjunction with the ccking maw in a way that just felt so—wonderfully dreadful to her!

  If ever she needed proof that the human mind was a master in its imaginative function, then this thing should stand as evidence for all of their remaining days.

  And yet, as if fully aware how many people would be terrified to even consider pying as a ‘swarm-kin’, its base stats and racial abilities were potent.

  With double the starting health of a goblin, double its strength, endurance and its frankly somewhat wild abilities, Cire considered this, without question, to be the, on paper, ‘best’ starting race one could choose from. And that overpped when considering those still avaible on the old world alternatives.

  Much like the goblin, it too had four racial abilities.

  “Cannibalistic scavenger—” She began, reading with a whispered but musing tone, “Pyers can devour nearby dead creatures to restore significant portions of lost health.

  “Evolving carapace: The pyer cannot wear armor. However, the pyer can consume defensive loot to enhance their form's natural protection. When consuming a new piece of gear, a single beneficial aspect of it may be added at a low chance. This process destroys what is consumed.

  “Three hearts: The pyer may survive fatal damage up to three times before they perish. This effect can apply back to back. This effect is reset whenever pyer health is fully restored.”

  “Intrepid: The effect of ‘poor terrain’ upon pyers is reduced by half. The effects of ‘fear’ are reduced by half.”

  “I mean…” Cire bemoaned, clicking her tongue while staring at the massive creature, knowing that, without a doubt, this was the most meta option.

  The ‘Swarm-kin’ weren't just a force to be reckoned with, but, rather, something that was being heralded by pyers as outright overpowered

  The problem, as Cire saw it, was that Brutal Fantasy wasn't fair. While all races had their own benefits and drawbacks, the swarm-kin, objectively, did appear akin to a developer's ‘nepo-baby’ project.

  Yet, Cire could already see the various issues a pyer would have.

  “Stealth would be right out the window…” She muttered, knowing, based on the research she’d done, that size did in fact, matter.

  More, the rger one was, the easier they were to hit. And while facing the front of such a foe would be intimidating, if anyone were to fnk, they’d have access to an ample buffet of centipede to butcher.

  Worse, the whole ‘armor business’ was problematic. A super cool concept, but the way Cire interpreted it, getting a new piece of gear would be like gambling twice over! You’d have to find the damned thing, then hope that a small portion of it was transferred to your carapace.

  She still loved it. Hell, Cire loved all of it! Still, she hit the ‘next’ button all the same, knowing that it, unfortunately, didn't quite fit with what she wanted to do.

  The next creature was a positively bestial and barbaric monster. Its spine-tingling howl pierced through the veil before it sprinted into view on all fours, almost as though to cause a jumpscare!

  Rising from its canine-like limbs to stand and growl menacingly at the viewer, this new avatar was covered from head to toe in fur and possessed a lean bulk to its very prominent muscles.

  The ‘dog-woman’ had a shortened sort of muzzle, canine-like features, and was essentially a hybridized wolf-humanoid. With a long cascade of wild and spiky mane-like hair that fell down from her rge head, the word Cire first associated with this variation was ‘punk’.

  This time, the changes were even more complex, Cire finding it hard to really recognize much of ‘herself’ in this test offering.

  Instead, Cire now appeared more like a voluptuously proportioned bombshell of a canine-woman with a very athletic and curvaceous form. Tall, plump where it mattered and hard of body everywhere else, it was an appearance of exotic and captivating features that transfixed one's gaze and refused to let go.

  Long golden brown hair, smokey grey eyes, her underbelly was creamy and rich. It was an enchanting visage, without question, if not a touch—well, furry…

  There was, quite frankly, hair everywhere… And despite how good it all meshed, Cire didn't really ‘like’ hair. Not unless it was on somebody's head.

  Still, the lycan that appeared on screen was strangely erotic, assertively so, in fact… As if someone had wanted to make sure people were attracted to fuzzy demi-humans.

  While there was no visible transformation, meaning that the creature didn't have some ‘human’ alter-ego to it, it was certainly human-like in an unapologetically scandalous manner.

  With mammaries that were absurdly rge for a svelte and lean frame, muscles that were exaggeratedly tight on a smooth belly, all while the rest of her possible character was covered in soft downy fur, it was a starkly conflicting creature, a mix of man's best friend and man.

  Her eyes had a striking ‘ferocity’ to them, arms longer and far beyond the uncanny valley, each one tipped by vicious-looking cws.

  Unsurprisingly, the legs that were digitigrade and resting on the creature's likewise taloned toes, the feet more ‘paws’, while the hands, while padded, conformed to a sort of monstrous take on the standard human's.

  Truly, it was the face that was paradoxically human in its ability to emote and its general bestial shape that was, probably, the most interesting aspect.

  Appearance aside, this was actually somewhat closer to what Cire had wanted, both because the base stats were quite impressive, and because she felt the ‘Lycans’ to be pretty well-rounded so far as secondary considerations might be observed.

  Not huge like the swarm-kin, not small like the goblins. Great ability scores, great racial traits, and, in all honesty, the whole doggy gimmick was sort of growing on her.

  She was sure that there were people out there—no, scratch that, she was positive, there were people out there who’d immediately fall in love with the untamed and savage mix of feminine allure and domineering appearance.

  It was sexy, brutish, primitive… Like her character might capture an elven mage by smashing them over the head before dragging them off to go make a new litter of puppies in some cave, howling like a beast while she took her fill.

  Honestly, the thought was amusing, just as this novel process as a whole was proving to be.

  Where its abilities could be concerned?

  Well, Lycans were definitely ‘runner up’ for most impressive.

  With ‘wild and untamed,’ They could ‘howl’ while outside of safe zones and grant all nearby Lycans that could hear them a stacking speed buff that capped out at fifty percent.

  With ‘cursed blood’, they could apply their out-of-combat regeneration on top of their traditional combat one, though the tradeoff was that every instance of fire damage also conferred the status ‘burning’.

  With ‘frenzy’ Lycans got a twenty-percent attack-speed buff if anyone nearby, themselves included, were reduced to forty-percent health.

  And finally, ‘pack tactics’ let them score more critical strikes on creatures engaged with more than one foe.

  Again, on paper, Lycans were extremely powerful. Yet, the dangers of fire stood out to her. Everyone liked to py with fire. Hell, it was practically ingrained in the human psyche to enjoy fucking about with it, sometimes, to their own peril.

  Needing to worry about being ‘set abze’ every time a torch was lit nearby felt as though it were a needless addition to an anxious pyer's stress.

  Not that Cire was anxious, but the downside was noteworthy.

  The next iteration of her potential character arrived much as the Lycan had. A ‘bone chilling’ screech filled the air before a dark corvid dropped from the sky, nding in a plume of dispced embers, smoke, and dust!

  The—least interesting option had finally appeared for her perusal.

  Right from the moment she’d watched a stream of somebody moving through this exact process, Cire had known the ‘Sky-born’ simply weren't her cup of tea.

  There wasn't anything objectively problematic. Their stats weren't the best, but they were better than goblins. They could ‘fly’ which, for obvious reasons, was a big boon. But, while their racial abilities were strong, again, ‘flight’, ‘psionics’, ‘brains over brawn’, and the rather cute ‘shines!’, none of it really spoke to Cire.

  ‘Flight’ allowed them to fly, no big surprises to be found here.

  ‘Psionics’ was interesting, and again, unique to the bird-race, but it just felt like the whole goblin shtick again. Simply a different ‘system’ of magic.

  ‘Brains over brawn’ was certainly intriguing, as it allowed a character to apply fifty percent of its intellect stat to its strength stat, thus, making melee-mage hybrids fairly easy. Yet, the tradeoff was that they couldn't wear heavy armor…

  Lastly, ‘Shines!’ allowed them to find more loot when opening containers, sin foes included, and it also highlighted anything valuable and lootable that was nearby.

  All good things, and the online reception was high for the avians. But, again, Cire just didn't really ‘vibe’ with the whole bird aesthetic.

  The beak, the feathers, the chicken-legs—ugh… none of it ‘sparked joy’ when she gazed upon her bastardized face as it rapidly jerked to and fro, much like a normal bird.

  And while Cire really liked how these creatures looked, objectively, their racial abilities simply fell completely ft, in her humble opinion.

  The ‘Mer’ were a semi-aquatic species that looked like a cross between a person, an orca, and a slime. Sleek, deadly, with razor-sharp teeth, lean muscle and the ability to ‘transform’ from a nd-based version to a water one, the monsters were, without question, interesting.

  Their bodies were oddly fluid, not quite getin, but not far off. Scientifically, Cire would hypothesize that their flesh were made out of a series of inftable bdders that could alter their shape at will, so long as they had the requisite fluids to do so.

  The ‘Mer’ were shapeshifters, after a fashion. Able to increase their size or reduce their size, and in doing so, alter their physical statistics.

  The rger you were, the more durable and strong.

  The smaller? The faster and more agile.

  When on nd, pyers would have legs, and when in water, they’d shift, like a mermaid, gaining significant mobility bonuses in the process.

  Cire—adored the concept, and what the developer was trying to accomplish. Though, as to if they managed to succeed in what they set out to do, that was entirely up to interpretation.

  In addition to their transformative capabilities, both in size, and in environment, the ‘Mer’ gained a significant bonus to alchemical and technological pursuits. Deemed as the ‘ancient race’ of the new pyable races, this title was reflected in their supposed advanced underwater society that they alone had access to at the onset of the expansion.

  Finally, they had something called ‘echo-location’ which, in effect, acted as a kind of recastable ‘ping’ that would highlight the presence of nearby life.

  Close…

  So very close.

  Yet, Cire simply wasn't too interested in what they had to offer.

  ‘Radar’ would undoubtedly be useful, but the AI wasn't too ecstatic about all the other benefits of choosing the species. If anything, it almost felt ckluster…

  Though online support was mixed, teetering either way as people had argued for and against their abilities.

  However, the AI was moderately sure which race she wanted to choose, and why.

  Out of all the possibilities, there was only one that really fit who she felt she was. And while the Lycan was quite interesting, and the Swarm-kin right at the edge of too strong to ignore, it was ultimately the humble goblin that most caught her eye.

  And specifically, its ‘stealth’ capabilities, and whatever ‘big-brain tinkering’ entailed.

  Obviously, if she didn't like it, she’d just ‘re-roll’ and pick something else. But, considering she wanted to remain partially self-sufficient, not to mention her desire to keep a low profile, ‘Goblin’ just sort of seemed like the perfect fit.

  Cire wanted to avoid people as she fucked about with BFO’s internal code. And while she was most certainly going to ‘py’ the game while she hacked it from within, Cire desired as little scrutiny as she could manage.

  Thematically, the choice fit with her pns.

  She was, after all, going to go rooting around in BFO’s celr of goodies! Fingers sticky as a five-year-old eating a pte full of honey…

  Madmcgee