My Old Home - Lost in Thought and Boredom

Ever felt like none of the character options were appealing to you? Well, I do, all the time.

Neither do I want to be a tank – soaking damage and protecting your team may be heroic, but boring – nor a defenseless healer. Sure, the latter is perhaps the most important class of all, it’s just that sitting in the back without some impressive ability of my own isn’t my style.

Still, healing the deepest of wounds in the most perilous moments… that’s quite appealing. Okay, I am going to take this aspect at least. After all, who doesn’t like it when a hero radiantly descends upon the battlefield like an angel holding golden fire that brings healing to allies and defiance towards the villain’s strikes?

Anyway, playing the fragile fire blasting magic wielder doesn’t satisfy me either anymore, I want more than being a walking flamethrower – that collapses from wind speed raising slightly above fresh breeze level.

I could go on all day – not utility, not area damage… you get it. So here is what I came up with: Designing my own class that fulfils a very special role. It may be far from perfect in most normal situations, which a player’s party may have to deal with, but it excels at one thing. And this is to save the day. My class is going to be a “rescuer” (note to myself: working term).

This character role, I mean the character class I am just creating, can take quite a punch. Or rather, it can’t, but when the character is killed, he is resurrected by himself. Yes, you heard right my inner voice that’s talking to itself. My character can defy death itself, grab his own hair and pull himself up from the dead back into the world of the living!

He can reach any place, deliver some healing, distract the opponent or pull his teammates directly out of any danger. Short bursts of power let him retaliate and throw back his foes, giving his team just the one precious extra moment it needs to regroup to strike back or retreat. My character is also resistant against control effects. Let’s ignore the downside of not having the stamina for extended fights for now…

My room in my parents’ house was small, the second smallest in the building as far as I knew. It was a small house too. This has been the first thing I noticed when I moved back in after graduating. I was trying to find a job, and I still did, but it was hard getting accepted and feeling comfortable at the workplace.

But who was I to complain? My friend Lia told me that she’s working on her own indie role-playing game and invited me to join in the process. My programming skills were far inferior to hers, but she said she values my creative input. If it should ever become a success, she was going to give me a share of the money. Still, what was way more interesting to me is that Lia gave me total freedom in creating the character class of my dreams.

That’s where my previous thoughts stemmed from. Now, all I needed were one or two signature special abilities.

While rummaging through my desk searching for some old notes, I took a look out of the window. The old tree that once stood there was felled long ago. It felt strange how quickly everything seems to change when you are no longer a child. I was happy to no longer be confined to my small hometown. But on the other side, things didn’t excite me that much anymore as they had done when I was little.

My pondering came to an end when my father knocked on the door.

“Yes?”

He entered, wearing his usual checked shirt. As always, he took two steps inside and left a dirty footprint on my cheap carpet. Then he said: “Lunch is ready.”

“Give me a minute to finish, then I am there.”

“Sure.” He turned around, looking at the staple of cartons, smirking. “We have no problem with having you here. We are glad to have you. But don’t you want to take care of that?”

As always, I ignored him.

The noodles, covered in tomato sauce, steamed on my plate. It was my father’s turn to cook, and the food was still way too hot for me. He seemed to not bother as he consumed one fork load after the next. I wondered whether it wasn’t as bad as I thought or if decades of too hot coffee have killed the nerves in his mouth.

My mother stared at him, then at her plate. “Where are the vegetables?”

“Oh, they dissolved because I, uh, forgot them. Sometime later there was only a green watery stew left.”

She sighed. “As long as it’s there, I don’t want to know for how long you forgot them.” After deeming the sauce edible, she turned her head in my direction. “There was another letter from one of the libraries you applied to. Wanna open it?”

I took the letter from her and ripped it open, careful to not damage the contents. Besides other things, it read:

We are delighted to inform you, that we would like to offer you a position as a lector for works regarding philosophy and interdisciplinary topics between philosophy and biology.

In short, I wasn’t qualified to do real research. Instead, I was supposed to merely proofread publications. But the usual librarian’s business didn’t interest me in the slightest. I only applied because I had to.

After telling to my parents, my mother said: “Why did you have to make biology your minor, instead of your major? I don’t get it.”

“I agree with your mother”, my father added, “so why don’t you apply to a master degree?”

I stuffed the letter into my trouser pocket, crumpling it in the process. “Because they don’t accept philosophy majors.”

Finally, the conversation ended with them saying: “Well, as long as you have a job. You can find solutions later.”

Sure dad, sure mom…