Second Chances: Atlantis Reborn 340 Book 1 Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Asteria looked around herself in confusion. One moment she was preparing to survive ten strokes of the lash. A Mousekin slave, she had failed to meet her weekly quota for the third time in a row and had been shackled and tied to the whipping post for her failure.

She had bitten down on the leather strap she had been offered, hoping to survive the punishment that was to come when everything had changed. Asteria’s confusion cleared as she finally recognized where she was.

Her bedroom from before the integration.

A glance in the mirror above her dresser confirmed that she was her younger self. A shy teenage girl with a mixed heritage of Celtic and Grecian bloodlines. She had been gifted with the flawless olive-toned skin of her Greek father, along with her hair that contained the reddish undertones of her Welsh mother.

Her eyes were vibrant green, with long dark lashes she inherited from her father. Her lips were full, her teeth brilliantly white, and a small smattering of freckles was barely noticeable across the bridge of her small nose.

She wasn’t considered beautiful, but there was an exotic tone to her facial features that might allow her to blossom from pretty to beautiful.

Asteria was holding her backpack. She was dressed in a school uniform, the uniform a requirement for the private institution she attended. She was reaching for her cell phone when the message appeared.

A message that she had seen before. One that had forced her to live a nightmare existence as a slave.

[System Integration Beginning…

[Transporting Individual for Race and Class assignment…]

Asteria felt the shift in space this time. It was the feeling she endured when plunging down from the top of a roller-coaster. Her stomach rebelled, and perspiration trickled down her back.

The transition was instant, even if it didn’t feel like it. And Asteria was once again seated at a desk bare of anything except a computer monitor.

Asteria stared at the floating blue box in frustration. She didn’t know how she had gotten here, but she recognized where and when she was now that she had arrived. 

The classroom she sat in. The flickering of individuals in and out of existence as they completed the form on the computer placed at each desk. And the System Administrator seated at the professor's desk would have been enough of a clue for her to figure it out. 

The giant, [Welcome to System Integration 2.0], stenciled across the blackboard, was the only difference between this room and event and the one that she had participated in fifty years ago.

[Welcome to System Integration 2.0.]

A second chance.

Or was it a third? 

It was when she counted her life before System Integration 1.0.

A chance at a new life and a new start after the horrendous cluster fuck that had passed for a System integration in her previous one. The last time she had sat at this desk, she had used the computer in front of her to create a new character, one to forge a new life.

The problem was that the race and class selection were locked. She’d had no choice but to accept Mousekin as her race and Digger as her class. Years later, one of the people who had survived the integration figured out that race and class selection had been set based on what you were doing at the time of integration.

Asteria had been on her way to school, waiting at the subway while digging through her backpack, when the previous System Integration had happened. Why this integration began before she left her home might prove important. She hated the choices the System forced on her, even if she was considered to have been one of the lucky ones. 

Because of her location, and activity at the time of assimilation, the System had ‘gifted’ her a race that would allow her to live.  She had claws, teeth, and a tail. Physical advantages that could be used to attack and protect. And her sense of smell and digging skills allowed her to find and harvest mushrooms and ores.

She had survived, unlike the vast majority of humanity that had been forced into screwed-up combinations, and returned to Earth in the most inhospitable environment possible for their new race to survive.

Ninety percent of the newly integrated people hadn’t lived past the first week. Those under fifteen never returned. Asteria had always assumed the System just erased them, killing them because it wasn’t worth the resources needed to protect and nurture children that had no chance at survival.

Asteria had been sixteen when the first System integration happened. She always wondered if it might not have been better if the System cut-off age for integration had been eighteen. She might have been better erased from existence.

When she first realized where she was and what was going on, she wondered if she had regressed in time or if this wasn’t a nightmare version of Groundhog’s Day. Was she stuck in a time loop? But the blinking black text with her name flashing on the monitor she was glaring at demanded her input. 

What was happening here was secondary, she decided. The flashing text demanded she respond, but she refused. She would not be known by this name a second time around.

Something was trying to keep her identity tied to the one she had always had. An identity that had been the reason she had been bullied and treated harshly even before the System integration.

Asteria Antonius, the name seemed innocent enough, but when people started shortening it to double-A, a misnomer that aligned well with her under-developed chest, that name had become a taunt, a means to bully and demean her.

She refused to go through whatever this was. She could not bring herself to be ridiculed as the double-A reject again.

“Not going to happen,” Asteria stated emphatically.

She began searching for a way to get help or reset the display screen. The monitor display didn’t come with the  Windows or Mac operating system a normal computer would come with. There was no keyboard and no way to alt-tab out of the current display.

“Damn it! I want to file a complaint,” Asteria finally shouted in frustration. 

The robotic parody of a teacher that had been sitting at the front of the class ignoring everything finally responded. A spark of intelligence that had been missing manifested behind the horn-rimmed glasses that perched precariously across the older woman's nose.

She glared at Asteria, lips puckered in displeasure as she heaved herself from her chair to lumber over to where Asteria was seated. The energy barriers that surrounded each desk, the barrier that had kept Asteria in place, ignored the woman allowing her a clear path to Asteria’s desk.

“What seems to be the problem?” The matronly looking woman demanded.

“This thing won’t let me change my name,” Asteria replied, refusing to be cowed by the woman.

“The name change option becomes available once you select your race and class.”

“Please,” Asteria sneered, “I know exactly what is going to happen.  I’ll page to the next screen and will be forced to choose Mousekin for my race. The next page will force me to choose Digger for my class. And the next page will force me to select the Gisen Tunnels for my starting location.

“I will never be offered a choice. This entire integration is a scam, and I refuse to play a game that won’t even let me change my name.  I’ll just sit here taking up space at this desk until System Integration 3.0!”

The woman ignored Asteria’s fit of pique. She reached across the desk to a newly available keyboard and hit the enter key. Asteria was about to scream in rage when the screen changed before she stopped and read the new prompt that was flashing.

[Scanning…

[User has the option of the following races to choose from:

[Sidhe- (sub-races available)

[Atlantian-

[Atlantian/Sidhe Hybrid-

[Mousekin…

Asteria read the list. Then read it again. This was completely different from the last time. Although Mousekin was still there taunting her, it was only one choice. One she knew she would rather rot at this desk for all eternity than select.

Tabbing through the selection, Asteria was able to highlight each choice to get a description. 

[Sidhe - The progeny of the Tuatha de Danann, the Sidhe, have formed two courts. The Summer Court is associated with the Seelie and is ruled by King Oberon. The Winter Court is associated with the Unseelie and is ruled by Queen Mab.

The Summer and Winter Courts have historically battled for supremacy. Currently, the King of Summer and Queen of Winter have agreed to a truce, one that will last for one hundred years after System Integration.

Bloodline Detected - Celtic(Glamour)

Alliances - Atlantian. Aztec. Mayan. The People. Egypt.

Enemies - Asgard. Greek Olympus. Roman Olympus.

If Sidhe is selected, a choice of Court must also be selected. This selection opens a sub-menu of available Seelie or Unseelie races.

Bonus to Magic. Bonus to Vitality. Bonus to Illusion and Glamour.

Weakness to Oak. Weakness to Silver. Weakness to Elfshot.]

[Atlantian- The continent and people of Atlantis have been restored. Once lost and destroyed, the Atlantis Pantheon of Gods has been reborn. The Atlantian people have been forced to adapt to environmental factors. Natural selection has allowed these people to evolve their Psionic abilities along with the technological capability that allows them to build cities that can withstand even the harshest pressure beneath the ocean’s depths.

Earth 2.0 has been merged with a number of celestial bodies within the solar system, increasing in size by a factor of four. The oceans of the world cover seventy percent of the planet, allowing the Atlantians to share the lion's share of the planet with few other races.

Bloodline Detected - Atlantian(Illusion)

Alliances- Tuatha de Danann. 

Enemies- Greek Olympus. Roman Olympus.

If Atlantian is selected, a choice of cultivation must be chosen: Mind, Body, or Spirit.

Bonus to underwater survivability. Bonus to Psionic abilities. Bonus to Pet Taming.

Weakness to Heat. Weakness to Death Magic. Weakness to Airborne Poison.]

[Atlantian/Sidhe Hybrid- The Sidhe are a long-lived race, immortal unless killed. That long life comes with low population growth. But their ties with nature's magic and blessings from Danu make them able to breed with every other race. The Sidhe/Atlantian Hybrid combines the strengths and weaknesses of both species to create a homogenized blending that can be as strong or stronger than the originating species.

The Hybrid race available for this selection requires the individual to choose to merge Atlantis’ genetics with Kelpie, Selkie, or Sea Hag. Each race adapted to survive within the ocean’s depth. 

Bloodline Detected - Atlantian(Illusion) Celtic(Glamour)

Alliances - Tuatha de Danann. 

Atlantis will serve as the primary race requiring a cultivation method to be selected: Mind, Body, or Spirit.

Bonus to Psionic Abilities. Bonus to Pet Taming. Bonus to Illusion and Glamour.

Weakness to Heat. Weakness to Elfshot.]

Asteria sat back in contemplation after reading the information about the three races she would choose from. She refused to highlight and look at the Mousekin information, afraid that simply by selecting it to compare this version to the past that she would somehow lock in that race as her selection.

The [System Administrator], who had been serving as the matronly professor, nodded to herself before returning to her desk. The errors of the previous timeline were sorting themselves out quickly, and she was pleased with how things were progressing.

Asteria Antonius was a direct descendant of the Teigh’s original bloodline. There were others, but the [Administrator] recognized something in the personality of this young woman that resonated with the God, Teigh had become. There was something about her that was different than any of the others that shared his bloodline.

Asteria hesitated for a few moments, switching back and forth between the two other choices and Atlantian/Hybrid. The hybrid seemed obviously the better choice, but she was afraid there was something there. A glaring flaw that she was missing.

She finally clenched her teeth and selected the Atlantian/Hybrid.  Even if there were drawbacks and disadvantages she was missing, the race was legions better than living another life as a Mousekin miner. One living in slavery and never seeing the sun.

[Kelpie, Selkie, or Sea Hag...

Asteria wasn't sure what difference any of the three choices offered. She didn't know what a Kelpie or Selkie was, so she decided to go with Sea Hag. At least she new what the two words meant.

[Your bloodline has awakened…

[Bloodline Progenitor identified: Teigh, God of [Illusion and Glamour]…

[Teigh has been gifted with a Duality of Divine Blessings. He is part of the Tuatha de Danann Pantheon of Gods and the Atlantis Pantheon of Gods…

[You gain [Teigh’s Blessing]…

[Bonus to [Illusion and Glamour] skills, spells, or abilities…

[Choose which cultivation method you will practice: Body, Mind, or Soul…

Asteria had an easier time with this choice. One of the reasons she main strengths of the race was its bonus to psychic abilities. It seemed obvious to her that with that bonus, she would be an idiot if she didn’t cultivate the mind.

[Name…

And there it was. The chance to change her name as the woman posing as a teacher had promised. She would keep Asteria; she had always thought her first name beautiful and unique. 

Her mother had often told her the story about how she had selected it. Many people would have thought posting an online poll and asking friends to vote and help select a name wrong. But Asteria’s mother had always explained that she had wanted to share the joy that creating a new life and bringing her into the world felt with people who cared. 

People that had supported her mother as she’d labored to give birth and then guided and shared the growth of Asteria with those friends and supporters.

She would keep Asteria as her name. As for her last name? It seemed fitting she paid respect to the Bloodline Progenitor that had made everything possible. Without Teigh, would there even have been an Asteria?

Asteria firmly and carefully keyed in her new name.

[Asteria Teigh…

For good or ill, she would embrace this new identity.