More by Arthur Stone
I should not exist.
All children like me are stillborn, or die in infancy. Those who cannot grow stronger, die. No empty child has ever reached a year of age, yet I am now thirteen.
It has been a long and miserable thirteen years, where the best I can manage to do is walk with difficulty. Sometimes, I cannot even manage that.
My clan has paid dearly for every minute of my life. And money is not so easy to obtain, here at the edge of civilization.
Perhaps I might have lived in this state for many years. A cripple, strong in mind but feeble in body. But when some unexpected guests came to our estate, everything changed. I would die at last – or, I would learn to survive on my own.
I had a plan. A good one that I thought through really well. But it
only took a single cunning dwarf accompanied by two goons to force me
into acting earlier than I’d planned to and before I could complete
all my preparations. So all my plans needed revision in face of a
bunch of unpleasant surprises.
Instead of using an army of silent helpers to eradicate the scourge,
I’d have to act on my own. The town that might conceal something I’d
been searching for so long turned out to be under siege.
Apart from that, I got mistaken for a spy and a bloodthirsty maniac
offered me a walk to a place most often mentioned to scare children.
The plan might have not been that great to begin with, after all…
You are no one. Level zero. Empty of mind and memory. Even your past has been stripped from your brain by the inscrutable System.
A long, difficult road lies between you and remembering any part of who you are. A road punctuated with one death after another. You are too puny to survive by might alone. Information is the single resource that might keep you alive, but the brainless “digis” have none of it. Only those with experience can give you what you need, but most care nothing about you or your plight. In fact, some make it their mission to kill you.
So die you will, again and again, your life counter clicking lower and lower. Even the creators do not know what happens when your counter reaches zero, but many are sure that your last life here is just that. No more respawns.
You are not the first player in the world of S.T.Y.X., and you will not be the last. You can only hope luck will be on your side. The luckiest players are those who find a vulnerability in the System. Those they call cheaters.
Perhaps cheating is the only way to win.
Enjoy your game