Nothing...
...
Honestly I was pretty sure that this is how it would be, but it was a little bit disconcerting to actually be a floating consciousness in a void of nothing.
How long have I been here? Did I just arrive? Has it been millennia?
It was honestly nearly impossible to tell, it kinda felt like the brain numbness that you get after having a long physically exhausting day, a heavy meal, and then you sit down in front of a warm fire and you just zone out while staring into the flames only to be brought back into awareness sometime later with no recollection of anything that happened between the time you sat down, and the moment you regained cognisance.
Like right now. I've just been alerted to the fact that I have been I don't know what for I don't know how long.
'How?' You may ask.
Well.
Prepare to be Reborn.
What the fuck? Why is this floating box telling me something so strange? I paused for a moment. Wait, a floating text box is almost always actually the introduction of the concept of the Gamer system.
I am the Departed Immigration and Complementary Enlightenment System, or D.I.C.E. for short.
That's not right, right? Doesn't that spell...
Pay no mind to the inaccuracy of that thought, the acronym definitely spells DICE.
...
...
Damn, this thing is sassy...
The purpose of the DICE system is to reincarnate souls as a D character. Would you like to continue?
That's actually a pretty good deal, depending on the edition used... if it's first edition I'm fucked.
The system adjusts itself to the preferred system of the Player Character.
Oh, cool. In that case yes I would definitely like to continue! I think cheerily.
Very well. Scanning...
ERROR SDG-42
Interesting. As you may have guessed from our previous conversation, souls have a cycle of reincarnation, and while the mind may forget the past lives, the soul does not. Once a soul reaches a point of entropy it splits into two separate souls that have only the last life weighing on them. This process takes several hundred reincarnations to complete, and so it is very rare for someone to go through our system at the same time as their divide, in fact there have only been three such cases in the past 15 millennia. Today we have the fourth.
My mind was spinning with the information. My soul would divide? What does that mean for our deal?
Not to worry. The standard operating procedure for this situation is to simply divide your soul and then make the offer to both.
Great, let's do that.
Great, let's do that.
Wait...
Wait...
Damn this is worse than the time I sawâ
That guy that looked identical to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Alright, now the offer still stands for both of you. What do you say?
I'm in.
Sign me up.
Strange. You have already started to diverge in your manner of speaking.
Not really.
I've always had multiple methods to say the same thing.
This just...
Takes things to the next level.
I see. Well regardless, let's get this on the road.
Scanning.
Scan Complete.
Play system identified: Fifth Edition.
Let's now roll for stats.
The sound of multiple dice clacking against each other resounds through the space that we occupy.
Player 1
12
13
13
15
11
16
Player 2
12
15
15
14
12
13
Please proceed to character creation.
Before we begin, can we know what world we will be inserted into?
Yeah, it'd be pretty frustrating if we made a character that was an elf in a setting without the races.
Valid point acknowledged. You will be inserted into Solo Leveling during the double dungeon incident.
Well...
...Fuck.
Okay, end game boss on day one.
At least we can survive.
How does leveling work for us?
I doubt that milestone or experience will work.
You are correct, instead of experience points you will receive Electrum for completing quests and achievements. Electrum can be used to purchase levels, items, perks, feats, etc from the system and/or other DICE users. To start with you have 1,200 Electrum. You may also take a drawback to gain additional Electrum.
Be advised that while you share your total Electrum, any drawbacks you choose will only affect one of you, additionally whenever you purchase a level you will both level.
Both minds are quickly in agreement as to what to search for first, an optional rule that had begun in 3.5 and had received a 5e update.
Optional Rule: Gestalt - 3,900 Electrum
Ever wanted to multiclass, but didn't know how to divide your levels? Not anymore! With Gestalt you select two classes and then you level them both concurrently. At level one you would be both a level one Fighter AND a level one Barbarian if that was your choice.
Damn this is pricey.
Let's see what drawbacks we can take. If we can get this it'll change our builds.
Drawbacks:
Tasteless Sustenance:
All food, meat, vegetables, fruit, becomes utterly tasteless. The joy of feasting fades into blandness.
250 Electrum
Fragile Ammunition:
When the character fires a ranged weapon, the ammunition always breaks on impact. No effect on damage, but frustration abounds.
500 Electrum
Lodged Blade:
After any stab attack, the player's weapon becomes lodged inside the body of their enemy. A strength check (DC 15) is needed to free the weapon.
400 Electrum
Weighted Strikes:
The player's weapons become twice as heavy, requiring two actions to strike once, until the curse is lifted. Each swing feels like dragging an anchor.
600 Electrum
Shared Pain:
The cursed character takes 1 damage whenever a creature within 30 feet of them takes any damage. Their fate intertwines with others.
600 Electrum
While there were more than just that, those were the ones that caught our attention.
I think we should have one melee attacker and one caster.
Agreed, but how will we decide who is melee and who is magic?
Good question, system can you please choose a random number between one and one hundred and keep it to yourself?
Done.
High or low?
Low.
I guess I have high. System?
32
I win, I'm the caster.
That makes me the front liner.
We can both take Fragile Ammunition, I don't plan on using anything ranged, do you?
Nah sounds good to me.
1,000 Electrum
We can also both take Tasteless Sustenance if we have to.
Food tasting bland would be unfortunately doable, how about we hold off until we know if we need the Electrum.
Agreed. As the front liner odds are that it'd be best for me not to take any of the drawbacks that affect melee combat, do you want to take them?
A loud mental sigh accompanied the next thought. Yeah, that makes sense. System I'll take Lodged Blade, Weighted Strike, and Shared Pain.
1,600 Electrum
Damn.
100 short.
Well then let's just bite the bullet and have some extra funds.
A bullet would probably taste better than what we'll be tasting.
500 Electrum
Budget: 4,200 Electrum
Purchase Optional Rule: Gestalt for 3,900?
Y/N
Yes
Budget remaining: 300 Electrum
Okay, now let's build our characters now.
Vast Erimos
Level: 1
Class: Wizard/Druid
Background: Inheritor
Race: Human (Variant)
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Hit Points: 10
Hit Die: 1D8
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 13
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 16
Wisdom: 16
Charisma: 12
Proficiency modifier: 2
Saving Throw proficiencies:
INT: 5
WIS: 5
Skill proficiencies:
Arcana: 5
History: 5
Investigation: 5
Perception: 5
Survival: 5
Language proficiencies:
Common (English)
Korean
French
Druidic
Features and Traits:
Wizard Features:
•Arcane Recovery
You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. Once per day when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. For example, if you're a 4th-level wizard, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level spell slots.
Eldritch Adept: Aspect of the Moon
You no longer need to sleep and can't be forced to sleep by any means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you can spend all 8 hours doing light activity, such as reading your Book of Shadows and keeping watch.
Aura Erimos
Level: 1
Class: Fighter/Rogue
Background: Inheritor
Race: Human (Variant)
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Hit Points: 12
Hit Die: 1D10
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 16
Charisma: 13
Proficiency modifier: 2
Saving Throw proficiencies:
DEX: 5
CON: 4
Skill proficiencies:
Acrobatics: 5
Deception: 3
History: 3
Investigation: 3
Perception: 7
Stealth: 7
Survival: 5
Language proficiencies:
Common (English)
Korean
French
Thieves Cant
Tool proficiencies:
Thieves Tools
Features and Traits:
Rogue Features:
•Expertise
At 1st level, choose two of your skill proficiencies, or one of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves' tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies. At 6th level, you can choose two more of your proficiencies (in skills or with thieves' tools) to gain this benefit.
Perception
Stealth
•Sneak Attack
Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe's distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon. You don't need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the attack roll. The amount of the extra damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Sneak Attack column of the Rogue table.
Fighter Features:
•Fighting Style: Two-Weapon Fighting
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
•Second Wind
You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm. On your turn, you can use a bonus action to regain hit points equal to 1d10 your fighter level. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.
Eldritch Adept: Aspect of the Moon
You no longer need to sleep and can't be forced to sleep by any means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you can spend all 8 hours doing light activity, such as reading your Book of Shadows and keeping watch.
Wait, you chose to be a woman?
Yeah, I mean we always did wonder about it.
...
...
True.
Anyways. System can we get a level up?
Electrum remaining: 300
Cost to advance to level 2: 300
Would you like to purchase?
Y/N
Yes?
Yes.
Vast Erimos
Level: 2
Class: Wizard/Druid
Background: Inheritor
Race: Human (Variant)
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Hit Points: 17
Hit Die: 2D8
Wizard Features:
•Arcane Tradition: Order of Scribes
When you reach 2nd level, you choose an arcane tradition, shaping your practice of magic through one of eight schools: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, or Transmutation. The School of Evocation is detailed at the end of the class description, and more choices are available in other sources.
•Wizardly Quill
As a bonus action, you can magically create a Tiny quill in your free hand. The magic quill has the following properties:
The quill doesn't require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink in a color of your choice on the writing surface.
The time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook equals 2 minutes per spell level if you use the quill for the transcription.
You can erase anything you write with the quill if you wave the feather over the text as a bonus action, provided the text is within 5 feet of you.
This quill disappears if you create another one or if you die.
•Awakened Spellbook
Using specially prepared inks and ancient incantations passed down by your wizardly order, you have awakened an arcane sentience within your spellbook. While you are holding the book, it grants you the following benefits:
You can use the book as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.
When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook, which magically alters the spell's formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.
When you cast a wizard spell as a ritual, you can use the spell's normal casting time, rather than adding 10 minutes to it. Once you use this benefit, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest.
If necessary, you can replace the book over the course of a short rest by using your Wizardly Quill to write arcane sigils in a blank book or a magic spellbook to which you're attuned. At the end of the rest, your spellbook's consciousness is summoned into the new book, which the consciousness transforms into your spellbook, along with all its spells. If the previous book still existed somewhere, all the spells vanish from its pages.
Druid Features
•Druid Circle: Circle of Extinction
At 2nd level, you choose to identify with a circle of druids: the Circle of the Land detailed at the end of the class description or one from the Player's Handbook or other sources. Your choice grants you features at 2nd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.
•Transpose Land: Eruption
When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you gain the ability to transmute a 15 foot area around yourself based on which form of chaotic energy you possess. The affected areas created by this ability do not revert back to normal, instead being permanently scarred, barring intervention from another party, or natural phenomena. Activating this ability requires a bonus action. Overuse of this ability puts great strain on your body, and therefore you must finish a short or long rest before being able to use it again. Choose one of the following- eruption, flood, freeze, or impact. As you gain levels in this subclass you gain new abilities based on this choice. Starting at 6th level, when you initially activate this ability, you may increase the radius of transpose land by 5 feet per spell slot level you surrender.
Eruption. The area around you erupts in a blaze of searing hot molten lava. Each creature who starts their turn in this area, or moves through it, takes 1d6 your spellcasting modifier fire damage. You are immune to this damage. This lava ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
Flood. Swampy marsh, 5 feet deep, overtakes the area beneath you. Once activated, each creature of your choice within this area must succeed a Strength saving throw against your druid spell DC or become grappled by the marsh. A grappled creature can remake this save at the end of each of their turns to try and end the effect. As an action on each of your turns, you may attempt to grapple a creature within your marsh.
Freeze. Crystalline ice sweeps over the area around you. This area is considered difficult terrain for everyone other than you, and other druids who share this ability. Your speed increases by 10 feet while you are moving over ice or snow.
Impact. You are able to manipulate the ground and those who stand on it. As an action and/or bonus action, you can shift any large or smaller creature or object within your area by 5 feet in any direction, so long as it stays within the range of your transpose land ability.
•Relentless Casting
Your ability to slingout a barrage of spells and manipulate spell slots is what keeps you going in battle. Starting at 2nd level, whenever you bring a creature to 0 hit points by casting a spell, you regain your lowest level expelled spell slot. Starting at 6th level, you also gain this benefit whenever you score a critical hit on a spell attack.
Aura Erimos
Level: 2
Class: Fighter/Rogue
Background: Inheritor
Race: Human (Variant)
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Hit Points: 20
Hit Die: 2D10
Rogue Features:
•Cunning Action
Starting at 2nd level, your quick thinking and agility allow you to move and act quickly. You can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.
Fighter Features:
•Action Surge
Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again. Starting at 17th level, you can use it twice before a rest, but only once on the same turn.
Cost to advance to level 3: 900
Insufficient Electrum.
Remaining Electrum: 0
Well I guess it's time to start this little adventure.
I guess so.
Initializing...
-Vast Erimos-
A pair of siblings are awakened by a sudden jostling of their shoulders. "Hunter Erimos and Hunter... Erimos, we've arrived at the Gate." A shorter looking woman in a suit said, shaking my shoulder.
"Hmm?" I cleared my throat as I blinked awake. "What's that?"
"Mmnm." My apparent twin mumbled a sound of displeasure. "Five more minutes."
"You requested to be on the raid team for a D-rank raid shortly after you tested to be roughly middle D-ranks." She explained with a sigh of irritation. "I offered to give you a ride since I'm the Association overseer for this Gate, and then you two fell asleep, and are now causing me problems." She said, her glare strong enough that I'm pretty sure she could make dragons quiver in fear.
"R-right." I stutter out before shoving my... sister?... eh, whatever. Works for me, I shove my sister off me hard enough that she ends up hitting the far door. "Oi! We're here, time to work." As she blinks into consciousness I step out of the car and stretch a bit.
Looking down at myself, I'm wearing a black and gray jacket over a teal shirt and tan cargo pants with a pair of boots on my feet. Across my chest is a bandeller like strap that has a few spell components in the loops, at my hip rests my spellbook.
Behind me I hear a yawn and the little grunts of someone stretching, turning around I get a good look at the female version of me. She stands slightly shorter than my 5'11" height at 5'7" with blonde hair that is a few shades lighter than the dirty blonde on my head. As she finishes stretching her eyes open to show hazel eyes that at the moment are a light green shade.
She pauses for a moment as she is looking at me in confusion before walking towards me. She's wearing a gray hoodie under some basic leather armor with a nearly identical pair of pants and boots on. Strapped on either side of her hips are a pair of rapiers and not much else. When she walks up next to me I turn around and we walk into a construction site that has Hunters milling around.
"You know," She said, switching to French, as we walked past the coffee truck. "It's really weird to look at the face that I always thought was my own."
"Yeah." I replied in the same language. "So how do we want to do this?"
"Best I can come up with is just to survive."
"Damn, how the hell did anyone put up with our sarcasm?" I ask the sky.
"Yo, Sung! You made it!"
"Sung, thanks for coming."
We turn around to find our scrawny protagonist making his way in from the entrance to the construction site. "There he is."
"Yo, Sung! You eat yet?" A gray haired man in a blue coat asked.
"Yeah, Mr. Kim Sang-Shik. Thanks for worrying about me." The young man said.
I turned to Aura. "What do you think, should we stay close to him or keep our distance?"
She paused and cupped her chin in thought. "Let's keep our distance. If we leave him in the temple after we get buddy-buddy with him I doubt he'll forgive us anytime soon, regardless of our intentions."
I nod. "Agreed. Next question: how much do we want to stand out?" I ask, looking at the future Shadow Monarch.
"Today?" My sister clarifies. "Not much. With any luck we'll hopefully get the Electrum to get us to level 3 and then I can choose my Archetypes." She says with a nod.
"Okay then." I say as I notice a middle aged brown haired Hunter standing on top of a stack of plywood.
"Everyone!" He called out, getting the attention of every Hunter in the area. "We're all here to go hunting, so I'm not really qualified to say this, but..." he looked around, getting a feel of the crowd. "I'd like to be the party leader for this raid, is that alright with everyone?"
There was a chorus of agreement throughout the gathered Hunters. "Damn." Aura whispers to me. "How high do you think his Charisma stat is?"
"Higher than mine." I replied before turning towards the gate.
"Alright, then let's enter the Dungeon!" Song Chi-Yul exclaimed, seamlessly stepping into his role as the party leader.
"Well, here we go." I say, quickly expending a spell slot I cast Mage Armor on myself and then walk into the glowing portal of the gate.
-Aura Erimos-
Damn do I feel weird. This thought kept cycling through my mind as we fought our way through the Beast Dungeon, fighting wolves and bears primarily. In the last life I- we- fuck this is confusing. In the last life I was male. I made this choice purely out of curiosity. My left rapier speared through the head of a slightly oversized hyena as my right was used to nick a wolf that was lunging towards Vast. While I didn't yet have the Sentinel feat, the strike was more than enough to get the aggro of the beast.
We were approaching the boss room, it'd been maybe an hour since we entered and I was just happy neither of us had made CON our dump stat. We quickly fell into a routine, I'd defend and he'd support me getting the occasional set of kills in to replenish his supply of spells. And that was a pretty huge realization.
Apparently he chose Circle of Extinction Druid for its battlefield control, what we had both missed was the second level two class feature Relentless Casting. So we pretty quickly figured out that if I got a good hit on each wolf and a couple on each bear he could lob out a Magic Missile, kill 3 creatures, and get 3 spell slots back. It was a huge game changer.
"Alright, boss room." Song Chi-Yul said as he turned to face us. "If this is your first raid, raise your hand." Roughly one third of the present party raised their hands including Vast and I. "Good, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Now most of you may see this as an easy raid given the beasts we've fought up until now, but that doesn't matter. Never underestimate the Boss." He said looking at everyone that had raised their hands. "I want you to pair up with a veteran Hunter and stick to them like glue. We're going to take a ten minute break and then we'll head in." He then turned to Vast and I. "You two are with me."
"So much for keeping a low profile." Vast whispered to me in the one language that we knew that was highly unlikely for anyone else to understand. Returning to Korean, he gave his attention to the party leader. "Yes sir, how can we help you?"
"Don't worry about the whole sir thing." He ordered as he took a seat with his back against a pillar, gesturing for us to join him. "I noticed your coordination out there, almost like you could read each other's minds. Tell me about yourselves."
I looked at my... brother I guess, before I answered the question. "You see our father was French and our mother was Korean." My throat constricted at a sudden onslaught of emotions and memories.
Vast joined in then, giving me a chance to breathe. Were my emotions always this intense? I asked myself as I fought back tears. "Two years ago we lost both our parents and our paternal grandparents during a dungeon break in Leon. After that we went to America to bury ourselves in college, we each got our associates before we heard from a lawyer from Korea."
Having regained my composure I resume the story. "He was in charge of our maternal grandparents estate, apparently our mother had only had one younger sister who had drowned in a swimming accident when she was young and our grandparents hadn't been able to find us after our parents died and we moved to the US and had passed away. The lawyer managed to track us down and let us know that their entire estate had been left to Vast here as the sole male heir." I took a deep breath that bordered on a sigh. "So last week we arrived, signed all of the paperwork and were in the process of finding work when we awakened and decided to get tested."
"And now you're here." Song said, looking between us. "Well I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm glad that you're here." He bowed his head in apology before looking towards the weakest Hunter who was sitting with our groups dedicated healer. "I noticed you drawing much of the attention that would have been directed at Hunter Sung over there, he's usually far more injured at this point and don't think I didn't miss the two or three D-rank bears that you weakened enough for him to take care of. I'm sure that it meant a lot to him."
We sat in silence for a few more minutes. Vast and I were mainly coming to terms with our new past, everything that we had told Song Chi-Yul was true, we had been getting it piecemeal throughout the last hour.
"I apologize, but I never got your names." The elder Hunter requested of us as the break drew to a close. "My name is Hunter Song Chi-Yul."
We looked at each other for a moment before looking back to the party leader. "I am Hunter Vast Erimos and this is my twin sister Aura. Thank you for looking after us."
"Erimos is our family name." I clarified, remembering that in Asian countries it was normally the family name that came first. "Please call us by our given names, it's what we're used to and it's less confusing if you're trying to get the attention of only one of us."
The Hunter smiles and nods before getting to his feet. "Alright, break is over. Let's deal with the Boss and call it a day."
A/N: alright so unfortunately this isn't a chapter of love and war, but it's what my creative mind has been nagging me to do. This is based on the DICE system that flameclawxx made for his fic Dungeons and Devils, if you haven't read it yet I highly recommend it.
Okay so just to get some things out of the way:
1) read about Gestalt rules about a year ago and have since been wanting to try it, since I unfortunately have very little free time to play D let alone find a group and DM who want to try it.
2)When building the character for this I couldn't decide between a frontline melee build or a backline magic build, so I didn't.
3)The Circle of Extinction is a homebrew circle that I found years ago and have always wanted to play if I ever played a Druid.
4)I am male. I only put in Aura as a female character because it's something that I've played in the past (except she was a warlock rogue rather than fighter rogue) and I figured that a clear separation between the two MCs was in order. I am sorry if anything I write from her POV is sexist in any way, I just don't know how a woman thinks so it's more like the mind of a grown man being placed into the body of a woman with no instruction manual. It's really just how I think I'd react in that situation.
Anyway, thanks for reading. And hopefully my muse will allow me to get back to my longer term stories, and maybe this will join in that list. Those waiting for Love and War I have one more story that my mind is going to insist I write before I get back to it so hang in there.
Read. Follow. Review.