“Guide your spirit,” said a wise female voice accompanying the shifting darkness. “But be careful, you can only truly choose once.”

Pras next found himself standing in a small hall where there were several figures from different races standing in a semi-circular manner. Starting from his left, there was a human, an elf, something like an undead, a dwarf, an orc, and one greenish blue slender giant. This was definitely the time where he needed to choose the race he was going to play.

As Pras walked closer, the human greeted, “Adventure! Wisdom! And Courage! That's what it means to live with passion of….”

The word ‘passion’ immediately irked Pras. He was not planning to choose humans because he is already human in real life, but the choice of words had propelled him to walk faster. He also skipped the tall, fair, and slender elves since he considered being handsome like them would be a huge lie.

“Was there… a meaning to this plight?”

Pras shuddered as the undead greeted him. The creature was definitely ex-human, perhaps cursed or something like that. His flesh was as tattered as his worn robe. Though his lips moved as he spoke, his jaw was hanging motionless.

The view was so distracting that Pras couldn’t hear more from the undead. Further, he steeled himself that he won’t need a game to remind him of the bindings of his wrongdoings. Thus he walked faster.

The dwarf greeted him with an overwhelmingly positive attitude about hard work. In turn, Pras snarkily replied, “Have you tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn't even matter?”

Of course, the dwarf didn’t answer that question; it was not programmed to do so. And Pras finally stood before the orc.

Following the increasingly more common modern depiction of orcs, this race was not ugly in Zurefgar. They seemed more like a green skinned neanderthal with a somewhat bigger and more muscular body. Small tusks sprouting from their lower jaws.

“Honor, brother,” the orc greeted. He tapped his bare chest as he continued, “What is the meaning of an honorless life? Every single action shall face their judgement in the face of the living, the ancestors, and the spirits of the world. Will you be able to stand tall and answer with pride and honour when your time has come?”

“That was cool,” Pras mumbled. “Not gonna lie, that glimpse from the intro cinematic might have something to do with it.”

Pras stood before the orc long enough for some vision of orcs in actions started to be shown behind the orc. There were some colour variations other than green, some orcs seemed to have brown and grey skin. The orcs fought with brutal strength, yet with honour no matter how dire the battle was. 

A small semi transparent window appeared before the orc, giving more information about the race. Warrior, rogue, hunter, shaman, warlock, and wizard were the classes available to the orcs. They have a passive ability named [Battlerage] which would increase their power whenever a party member dies. [Brute Strength] increased damage output when using bows and two handed weapons. The passive ability [Honouring Valrosh] enabled them to wield two handed axes and maces regardless of class. The image of a two handed axe wielding orc wizard popped into Pras's mind when he saw that explanation.

“I guess, this would be the better one to pick,” Pras sighed. He reached out to the orc, eager to finish this gaming session as soon as possible. “Let’s get this done with, at least I’ll keep my end of the bargain.”

“What be bindin’ ya, my friend?”

An rather cynically toned yet easygoing voice called before Pras sealed his choice. It was a greeting by the last race in the hall. Unlike the others, he was squatting thus making his height on par with the orcs.

“Is this a glitch?” Pras questioned himself. With a quick glance, He knew his position wasn’t close enough for the last race to trigger a greeting.

“What be bindin’ ya, my friend?”

The creature called once more. It was supposed to be a normal greeting, yet somehow it was so effective to make someone like Pras draw close.

The name of the race was rakhs, which Pras thought probably taken from the mythical being rakshasa. That slender race has a slightly longer proportion of legs and arms compared to other races. Their tusks are much bigger than the orcs, the one that greeted Pras even has two pairs of it. There are also some sharp ivory like bones sprouting from their knees and elbows - fortunately still covered by skin. They also have a large pointy nose and ears.

The sly grin on the rakhs face widened the closer Pras walked. Similar to the orc, this rakhs clapped the left side of his bare chest as he explained, “You be not water, but rivers and oceans. You be not the air, but the sky. You be not dust, but mountains and rocks. We be spirit, my friend. Da spirit hosted in flesh and blood. Past and fear be da chain to our spirit. We act for our soul, our struggles be for our spirit. That be the meaning of being a rakhs.”

Narrated by the rakhs, Pras saw the vision of the race in action. The rakhs fought like wild savages, yet calm and balanced. Their long arms climbed trees with ferocious speed. Blades of axes swirl in harmonic dances. Spears and arrows struck with the blinding speed of a cobra. The final part of the visions showed the rakhs howled in unison as they went into a maddened savagery in battles.

That was their racial ability, [Warcry]. An ability that gave them increased speed and pain tolerance which effect increased the more dire situation and more rakhs performed it in unison. [Descendants of Giants] gave rakhs increased damage output when using bows and one handed weapons due to them being able to wield a bigger and heavier version of the weapons. [Axes be Friend], their other racial ability, is a passive one that enables them to dual wield one handed axes regardless of class. They can choose between warrior, rogue, hunter, wizard, and priest.

Warcry aside, neither the passive abilities nor classes drew Pras’s attention. It was purely the words said by the rakhs and the vision he saw. All these years, even today, he knew there was something binding him. 

Perhaps, it was dumb coincidence of word choice. Yet, no matter how dumb, it was the very thing that invoked a rebellious feeling inside him. Something inside him resonated with the wildness of the rakhs.

As they shook hands, the rakhs said, “We be spirits, my friend.”

Soon after, it was dark again. A keyboard and a window of character customization appeared before him. Pras didn’t bother much as his mind was busy controlling his clashing emotions. He picked a cyan colored skin, long braided silver hair, also pretty big tusks and ivory bones. He even almost typed his old in game nickname Taz-D.

But he stopped at the letter T. 

Pras was immediately awash with negative emotions from his past, nauseating him. Using that same name could be another grave mistake if someone spotted him.

Pras was struggling for what felt like forever before gaining his composure and finally chose a name based on a butchered name of nordic god of victory, Tier. Then, tribal drums sung in confirmation to accompany Pras’s transformation into a rakhs named Tier.

Soon after, he found himself standing in the clearing among a lush tropical rainforest. There was only him and one NPC, which might mean he was still inside some sort of an instance.

The rakhs, who greeted him earlier, now sat before a campfire. His eyes flickered in joy when he saw Tier. “Come, my friend, choose your way. Or sit down here if you want to return to da hall of spirits.”

The rakhs gestured towards the small paths with signs connected to the clearing. Tier took his time to check each of them while trying to figure out the user interface which now appeared in his sight.

His name and HP bar - which was around 1000 points - were located at the top left. There was another bar below HP that was still empty, which Tier suspected would be the slot for resources used in abilities. On his lower right, he saw a minimap with his location shown similar to a compass needle. The location was named ‘Crossings of Paths’.

There were four paths available, which are path of courage, path of knowledge, path of balance, and path of cunningness. Each of the paths emits unique auras like how the path of balance emitted a warm yet cold auras. However, there was something amiss about the path of cunningness. Tier curiously felt nothing from it. And he finally drew closer to the path when he heard small rustling noises coming from it.

Tier saw shadows moving swiftly among the jungles. Though he was not sure if those are just his imaginations or there were real creatures out there, he dashed in.

His curiosity got the best of him as he was not aware of an incoming bladed twig that swung hard and knocked him.

“What the…” Tier groaned. He really never was expecting a trap in a condition like this.

“Where be your awareness, my friend?”

“Is this a test?” mumbled Tier after he heard someone whisper among the trees. Tier pressed forward, but at that moment he also just realised that there were supposed to be 5 paths available if each path corresponds to each class. Was there a bug? Or was there something he missed?

Tier casted away his thoughts and tried to be more aware of his surroundings, enabling him to avoid some sort of bear trap on his path.

“Not bad.”

Someone commented. The voice was almost similar to the one that warned him earlier. Almost… as Tier felt something was rather off.

The path was painful to tread. Even though Tier didn’t manage to avoid all of the traps, the voices still whispered some applauding, warning, or mocking words.

“Is that all, my friend?”

“My friend, be wild.”

“Tread carefully, my friend.”

“Nice observation, now avoid the next one.”

“Listen to your instinct.”

“Fight on, my friend.”

“Live on.”

Tier was almost at his wits end when he might have found the end of the path. Only 150 of his hit points were left. There was rustling on the bushes ahead and Tier was sure there was a shadow lurking.

Unfortunately, it was not a shadow of a rakhs but a huge brown bear.

Tier was almost too late. The rakhs jumped backwards to avoid the savage claw from the beast. As the bear dashed forward in rage, Tier was stunned. Not by the effects on an ability, but by his own mind.

Flashes of his memories haunted him at that moment. It was like three and a half years ago. He stood motionless before the incoming truck. His mind worked hard to avoid him being killed, forcing the clock to seemingly turn slower.

Both in the past and present, Tier was helpless due to his recklessness. His thoughts were telling him that it was all futile. That he will die.

Watch out!

It was the same voice again, this time with the image of her extending her arms to help, that knocked Tier back to his senses. Tier drew a deep breath and sighed. The world around him turned even slower, yet his body was free to move swiftly. Instinctively he rolled aside to avoid the bear’s mauling claw.

“Kill or be killed.”

The world was still turning slowly as Tier realised a raksh in dark clothing had put an axe several steps to his right. The rakhs could be the class trainer giving an option to fight back. Tier questioned if his remaining hit points would be enough to allow him to survive a fight with a freaking bear.

Tier glanced towards the bear and where it had come from. There, he saw two frightened bear cubs looking at him. He shuddered. The bear was there to protect her cubs. Even if he won, even if this is just a game, Tier knew he couldn’t stomach such feelings. Not after the betrayal he had done in the past.

Tier dodged once more. Time started to flow normally as he tried his best to remember if he had ever read something about how to avoid a bear's assault.

“If black, fight back. If brown, fall down. If white, gotta say goodnight,” Tier whispered to himself.

He then raised his hand and spoke slowly, “I’m backing off, I’m backing off.” 

Tier withdrew slowly behind some bushes, then curled up to avoid provoking the bear even more. Moments later, the bear went away with her cubs.

“Wise choice, my friend.”

From the trees above, a rakhs clad in scale-like brigandine armour commended Tier’s action. “Ya be fitting for a hunter,” he said as he jumped down.

“Such a waste,” commented another rakhs who was taking back the axe he put. “That kind of mercy could get ya killed.”

The brigandine clad rakhs - which Tier is now sure that he is a hunter class trainer - laughed. He explained, “A hunter be not about killing, but about adapting. We don’t take lives to waste it. This be not about surviving or dying, it be about awareness and understanding of your surroundings.”

“My friend,” he pointed at Tier - who was struggling to stand up. “Ya be showing those qualities. Bows and guns be not the ultimate weapon of a hunter. It be your instincts. It be your surroundings and situations. Location, landscape, beast, friend, and even your opponent are the things that could be used to ensure the safety of you or your team.”

“Fight on, live on, trust your instincts and heart. Are you ready, my friend, to be a true hunter? To be da important instrument in your team and for yourself? To be a true rakhs who acts for the freedom of our spirit?”

The hunter-class trainer extended his arm towards Tier. His smile was mischievous yet honest. He added with a wink, “or ya can go back and think about it again. Don’t worry, you don’t need to go through all this again, just talk straight away with me.”

To be a hunter, to be a true rakhs, a boundless person… Those invitations had again ignited the dormant sparks in Tier’s heart. Yes, this was just a game, a character. Yet, Tier was unable to cast aside those rebellious feelings that yearn for him to be unbound by the past.

Wasn’t this the reason why he was saved? Wasn’t this the reason why he met his current friends?

His saviour’s smile turned more clearly in his memories than it was this past few years. His friend's enthusiasm that felt so frightening at first, turned a little warmer in his mind.

They wanted to go to the Clashing Realms and Tier thought that it wouldn't hurt him if he just helped them achieve their goals. It would be more for him. Perhaps by becoming ‘this instrument’ of survival for his friends and to help them would be the action he needed to unchain himself from his past.

As Tier reached out to the hunter trainer, he saw the special racial ability hunter class gained from rakhs race which allows him to mimic the tenacity of rhinos. He also saw the vision of a hunter in action. They fought from far and in close combat, setting traps, scouting, helping coordination, and fought valiantly with their companion beast.

When they shook hands, the hunter trainer grinned. “Remember my friend, we never hunt alone.”