NOVEL NEXT Chapter 56: Build-A-Girl 1.0
"I think I'm with Nikola on this one," she started gently, placing a feather-light touch on Luke's shoulder, "human, non-Lavish babies don't need to prove they're worth it to be born. Let's just try to be supportive of Nikola's decision of what to do with her own item. Which is hers." The purple-haired woman ended her sentence with a roughness to her tone.
Luke fell silent then, fists in tense balls at his sides. He wanted so badly to change Nikola's mind, but it seemed unchangeable at this point. But how did he step down from a hill where he knew he would die on the way down? If she would just listen to him...
Nikola decided to simply move on, though she could already see some of the new glimmer of something draining from Luke's eyes. She pushed past him and over to where Angelica was laying, cocooned, and produced the item from her Inventory.
It was just a flimsy rectangle of paper, but it felt weighty in her hands as she touched it to the red-haired girl's forehead. She didn't really know what she was doing, but if this was supposed to give her some form of consciousness, didn't it make sense to place it against her brain?
The World of Wills agreed, apparently, as golden tendrils of energy began to slither beyond her scalp and into her meaty innards. They made a robotic, tingling sort of noise as they fizzed around her like concentrated fireworks, bursting from the card and into the horizontal girl's brain.
[It seems you are using your NPC AWAKENING CARD: VENGEFUL PERSONALITY on Flapnap Prisoner 04. Are you sure you wish to proceed?]
"Yes," she stated. The two others in the room looked on with interest, though one was far less excited than the other, observing as if he were watching a car wreck. Except one of the drivers was going into it voluntarily, so in his mind it was kind of worse?
[Excellent! Do you wish to allow the NPC to remain as they are, or do you want to put them through the process of character creation?]
Nikola pushed some of her freshly clipped raven strands behind an ear. It occurred to her that she hadn't even put herself properly through character creation, so this would be her first time. But hadn't the card mentioned choosing a race and class for her? She had no idea what to choose for a person who was essentially a blank canvas.
"I wish to put her through character creation."
[Understood. Initializing character creation process...]
[Character creation process initialized. Let us begin!]
Pixels began to form in the air before her, and quickly they assembled into squares, which formed into a floaty blue box. It was calming, nostalgic even, to see its navy hue as it had been before Phase 2 had begun.
[Hello and welcome to the character creation process for Flapnap Prisoner 04! First, what would you like this NPC's username to be?]
A username for Angelica... well, the card had the Vengeful personality attached to it, so perhaps something like Vengelica would suffice. Carefully, she clicked each of the letters in, making sure there were no errors before proceeding.
[You have chosen 'Vengelica' as Flapnap Prisoner 04's username. Next, let's move on to appearance! Here, you can tweak Vengelica's hair colour, hair length, body shape, gender, height, weight, eye colour, and more! Please use the handy sliders provided and take your time.]
A truly staggering array of options sat before her, allowing her to mould Angelica's appearance to such a fine degree that she could spend hours immersed in the process. She could change the size of her nose, how much it turned up, how long or wide the bridge was, how much her nostrils flared, how big they were-- and that was just for her nose!
The option to change her race existed as well: fairy, beastman, human, elf, dragonkin, halfling... but she didn't delve into the menus, because she knew she would be keeping her as human. She didn't wish to tweak or change much about her; her appearance was one of the few things she did have, and did know about herself.
Firstly, Nikola changed her to be less gaunt. Her slider was all the way over to the extreme left, so she edged it closer to the middle, the concave of her stomach disappearing, her face rounding. She changed her eye colour to red, to match her hair and her would-be Vengeful nature, and allowed a light swoop of red cateye makeup to grace her small face.
She was short, so she put her height up from something like 4'9" to something more like 5'5". Suitably average, and she would have fewer troubles reaching things on the higher shelves. She wanted as few obstacles between Vengelica and nourishment as possible.
Next was her breast size. The Butcher's own breasts were handful-sized, maybe just a bit more, but she did find them to be cumbersome at times. Just how boy-crazy would she be when she matured? The only thing she knew about her for sure was that she would be 'vengeful'. Should couldn't imagine her needing them for anything specific as a revenge-seeking individual, but if they were the mammaries she would be carrying around from life until death, she wouldn't want her to be quite as flat as she was naturally. Right?
These were too many boob-related thoughts. Nikola moved the slider up just enough so there was something there, and moved on.
Her hair was matted from laying down so much, so she flicked between the available hairstyles until she got something as close to her current style as possible, just sleek and shiny instead.
She made her lips redder and added a slight shine to them, a gloss of some kind, and then pressed 'submit' on her choices. The red-haired girl looked like herself still, for the most part, just like she'd also had the opportunity to take care of herself.
Violet observed the changes in real time, the girl's hips swelling beneath the blankets, her hair lengthening slightly, her chest filling out just a touch. The makeup appeared upon her with a glittering flourish, swooping out from her eyelids.
[You have successfully modified Vengelica's appearance. Next, let's choose a class and outfit for her!]
Oh. A class.
The options on the screen were: Warrior, Healer, Mage, Bard, Archer and Rogue.
She had to consider what the girl would want from her life, and her experience of it and the game. If she truly wanted revenge, she would likely be unhappy with anything unable to ruthlessly retaliate.
She had only truly experienced the options available to a Rogue.
"Do you have a suggestion for which class I assign to her? Considering she will be 'vengeful', I would like for it to be something capable."
Luke was gruffly silent, but Violet spoke up intently, eager to assist. "A lot of the classes are able to Prestige into something offensive, even if they don't start out that way. A Healer can Prestige to be a Corruptor, for example, a class that can shift around all the HP on the battlefield. One of their class skills lets them swap the HP of a monster and a player for devastating results. But if you're looking for something more direct... a Scatterer won this whole thing once, just by nocking a Legendary Sword. A Scatterer is an Archer Prestige Class that can nock any weapon and use it instead of arrows, and the weapon splits into 1000 pieces. If you're confident she wouldn't be alone, which it seems like she won't be, you could also consider a Mage. It would be beautiful to see her learn to cast magic after everything she's been through, and she could never be rendered helpless that way. Mages can't be disarmed, so if she was ever put in a cage again..."
Nikola nodded thoughtfully through all the information being so freely given. All three options seemed viable to the former NPC, but...