Omainamiwa chose an unusual half race off the semi-restricted list.

It normally cost 500 karma points to play a half dragon, but a new system was being tested. You could get a 250 karma discount if you played the new character from infancy. Or in this case, from egghood.

Omainamiwa did hesitate before going ahead and spending all but 50 carefully saved karma, but decided in the end that it would probably be worth it. The points were irrevocably transferred from one of the company's other games that had grown boring of late.

Of course Omainamiwa had always loved cute things, so the other half of this incarnation's race wasn't human, but pixie, making Omainamiwa a faerie dragon.

 

Omainamiwa spent half an hour in front of the mirror of incarnation making cute poses, before finally entering the veil.

The resident's teachings all seemed very standard to a lover of fantasy RPGs, so Omainamiwa quickly moved on to the gate that lead into The World.

 

Omainamiwa had forgotten that an egg couldn't move.

It might seem obvious, but it just hadn't been expected, and Omainamiwa supposed that one should be thankful that a 360 degree view through the shell of the egg was available. The first hour of play was so boring that Omainamiwa logged off and went for a walk.

Omainamiwa was distressed to discover upon logging back in that no time had passed on the hatching counter. Over the next few hours of play Omainamiwa read so much of the documentation that Omainamiwa felt like almost an expert on the basic gameplay of The World.

 

Things finally got interesting on the third day that Omainamiwa logged in to spend egg time.

Omainamiwa was scooped out of the comfortable nest, along with the other two eggs that occupied it, by an enterprising adventurer. For awhile, Omainamiwa greatly feared all the karma spent was going to be wasted. It wasn't clear in the documentation whether or not one could revive before having hatched. Omainamiwa worried that the eggs were intended as a breakfast ingredient, from the comments tossed around by the adventuring party.

Eventually Omainamiwa logged out for the day.

 

When Omainamiwa returned to The World the next day, an argument was going on. Apparently the adventuring party had had the eggs identified, and the other two had promptly been sold.

Bramble, the swashbuckler who'd stolen the eggs had decided to keep one to hatch. He was currently complaining about the hatching counter to the party's bard, Strings.

Strings said irritatedly, "I don't know anything about hatching eggs. And you do realize that in this game you have no chance of keeping the thing as a pet if it's smarter than you are?"

Bramble didn't argue, he merely said optimistically, "maybe it'll choose me as it's pet, like a cat?"

Omainamiwa was torn between liking Bramble for being familiar with cats, which are often cute, and being appalled by that a person wouldn't even argue that they might be smarter.

Bramble examined the egg again and said excitedly, "the counter is moving again!"

 

Later when he took the egg out of his pocket the counter had stopped again. Bramble decided maybe it was getting cold and popped it into his mouth to carry in his cheek like a strange squirrel. Of course, the actual reason was that Omainamiwa had logged out for dinner.

 

When Omainamiwa logged in again for more egg time, the egg was surrounded by darkness. Omainamiwa activated the night vision inherited from the pixie half. It was still dark.

Omainamiwa didn't realize it, but Bramble was offline and the egg was in storage, which is how the system had decided to interpret Bramble's keeping the egg in his mouth.

 

Several days passed and the counter ticked down slowly everytime Omainamiwa was online. It was boring being an egg, so Omainamiwa didn't play as much as the first couple of days, but logged in for a bit now and then. Bramble got discouraged by the apparently random movement of the egg's counter, and when his adventuring party met up with a high level wizard, he offered the egg for sale.

 

Darkfire eyed the egg doubtfully and asked, "are you sure it's a faerie dragon egg?"

Bramble and Strings assured him that they'd gotten the eggs identified and Bramble pointed out, "you're a wizard, you can identify it yourself can't you?"

Darkfire had a very low level in the identify spell, but agreed brazenly, "sure, but why should I waste the materials? You didn't say before that you'd already had it identified."

A faerie dragon would make an awesome familiar, so eventually Darkfire bought the egg. Bramble felt a little guilty and admitted, before he left, "the eggs hatching timer moves inconsistently."

Darkfire glared at him and hoped that the egg would actually hatch.

 

Omainamiwa logged in again to discover the egg was resting in a plush silken nest (Darkfire's best robe with temperature control enchantments) and being warmed gently from above by a captive fire elemental in a golden cage.

The eggs counter was close to finished and Omainamiwa decided to stay logged in until it finished.

Darkfire had a monitoring enchantment rigged up to trigger when the eggs status changed, and he ran into his workshop a moment later. They waited together, and Darkfire nervously adjusted the spell ingredients he'd prepared for the familiar spell.

At last the egg hatched and Omainamiwa was flooded with game notifications. Darkfire quickly began casting and suddenly a notification popped up that sent the rest of the information to the background.

"Accept familiar contract or resist spell?" The system queried.

"Seriously?" Omainamiwa asked.

Darkfire said with amazement, "you can already talk?" Then added quickly, "please become my familiar?"

"What's in it for me?" Omainamiwa asked grumpily.

Darkfire blinked and then pulled up the familiar spell and read, "both partners gain a stat boost of ¼ of the other's stats. The length of life span is doubled while both partners live."

"That actually sounds pretty good," Omainamiwa admitted reluctantly. "But what happens if one of the partners dies? What are the downsides?"

Darkfire uncertainly read the rest, "upon the death of a familiar, the caster loses half of their current hit points and loses all bonuses. Um, oh, here it is, if the master dies before the familiar, the familiar is released from the distance restriction and loses all bonuses."

"What distance restriction?" Omainamiwa asked sharply. "You didn't say anything about a distance restriction." Omainamiwa started sorting through notifications to teach the help menus and look up the spell. The system merely described it to non casters as, "a spell that shares life and abilities between the caster and the chosen familiar. Only one familiar can be maintained at a time."

"Oh, that was at the top," Darkfire said when he found the part he'd skipped. "Oh, I don't think you're going to like it," he added dubiously. "If the familiar is more than 100 meters away from the master, 1 hp will be lost every 5 minutes."

After a moment Omainamiwa asked, "does it say if the familiar or the master is the one losing hp?"

Darkfire looked at Omainamiwa doubtfully and replied, "I guess it doesn't, but I'd assume it's the familiar?"

"Maybe we should contact a Celestial and ask?" Omainamiwa suggested.

Darkfire stared incredulously at Omainamiwa and asked, "are you a player?"

"It's visitor, in this game," Omainamiwa corrected.

 

Darkfire cast the pvp coercion spell stored in his staff. "You will accept the familiar contact," he commanded.

Omainamiwa chose resist spell when the option popped up, and the system notified after a moment, "successfully resisted coercion." Omainamiwa promptly choose resist on the familiar contract. The system ran it's calculation...