One thing they all had in common was their access to racial classes, which represented character power that was innate to their bodies and natural talents, as opposed to job classes, which typically represented learned skills. Of course, one acquired them the same way — by gaining experience points — but they embodied different play styles.
In general, racial classes gave a steady, always-on power boost, while job classes instead granted potent but limited-use abilities which had to be carefully managed, though skilful application of class abilities could often turn the tide in a dire situation.
In the case of demihumans, they could take levels in racial classes to represent the fact that many demihumans had special abilities which humanoids did not possess, or to show that they were offshoots or mutations of their base race. Trolls were infamous for that; it was often said that there was a troll for every occasion, but there were almost as many variants of giants too, ranging from the comparatively small hill giants to the towering storm giants.
Of course, taking levels in racial classes meant that they could take fewer levels in job classes, but some players enjoyed the idea of being large and in charge, or being able to regenerate, or simply being able to turn invisible and make others dance irresistibly. YGGDRASIL was big enough to accommodate the hopes and dreams of such players.
And then, there were the heteromorphs.
The heteromorphic races in YGGDRASIL could rightfully be called "monstrous player characters". That was because they were, in fact, monsters. There was no iconic selection of heteromorphic species, because one might as well open up the almanac that every player started the game with and randomly flip to a page in the bestiary to find a heteromorphic player character race.
Much like demihumans, heteromorphs had racial classes. Unlike demihumans, theirs were far more potent and varied; in fact, one could compare them to job classes in terms of their depth and variety. Where a magic caster's job classes might go from Wizard to Evoker to Elementalist (Fire), a dragon's racial classes might instead progress from Wyvern to Red Dragon to Hellfire Wyrm. Since most heteromorphs were based on powerful monsters, their racial class levels often granted very high base stats and potent special abilities. However, since YGGDRASIL was a game which balanced advantages with disadvantages, they tended to have corresponding weaknesses as well, such as vulnerabilities to a certain energy or damage type.
Hitomi was one such creature.
Specifically, she was a Gazer. Strictly speaking, she was a higher order of being than an ordinary Gazer, but Gazers were easier to pronounce. They were members of the Floating Eyeball family, which were famous for three things; spherical bodies which flew without the need for wings, many eyestalks, and the ability to emit powerful eye rays.
However, she did not fit the standard body pattern of Gazer-type monsters, because in her own words, "I don't want to look like a floating mass of cancer". Thus, she had used a cash item to change her look, and as a result she had lost the big toothy maw she had originally possessed, though she had retained the eyestalks and natural flight abilities.
As she adjusted her robes, said eyestalks emerged from behind her and through her long, flowing hair, seemingly anchored on her back where a tail would have been attached. They were the same black as her hair, but seemingly made of some sort of segmented, chitinous material. They swiftly arranged themselves all around her, and then their ends flowered open into eyeballs surrounded by an arrangement of petal-like black leaves. Each of them looked like a smaller version of Hitomi's main eye, and they served the same function.
From Hitomi's perspective, ten small windows appeared at the edges of her vision. Each one corresponded to the view supplied by an individual eyestalk, and when put together they allowed Hitomi to see (to some extent) all around her.
Currently, all she saw was the massive branches of the World Tree all around her. The faint sounds of festivity and merry-making filtered up from below, and she remembered why she had come here.
Two weeks ago, the developers had extended an invitation to all players to gather at the Plain of Iðavöllr in YGGDRASIL, at the feet of Yggdrasil, to celebrate the end of the game. Initially, Hitomi had ignored it; she had never been a very social player, after all. However, as the days wore on and the reality of the game's closure sank in, she had changed her mind.
For quite some time now, she had explored and adventured in the game by herself, using summoned monsters and mercenary NPCs for support. She did not actually need them to do what she wanted, but having them around had saved her from more than one ambush, and she could always send them out of the way when she wanted to enjoy the scenery by herself.
But it had never felt right. Knowing that someone was around her built an expectation for companionship, but the fact that the summoned monsters and NPCs could not respond to anything she said dashed that hope. In fact, it only made the feeling of loneliness worse; when people around did not react to her, it was not just solitude she felt, but something like rejection.
Of course, on an intellectual level, she understood the absurdity of how she felt. However, a person's emotions operated in an entirely different mental sphere, and she could not explain that away with any amount of logic.
Thus, when she had packed up from her Muspelheim hideout and come here, she had reached a decision: She would try and spend the last night of YGGDRASIL with others, in the hope of experiencing something she had not felt in a long time:
Camaraderie.
Hitomi had not always been a solo player. In the past, she had even belonged to a clan. But due to her foolishness, she had said things that should not have been said and done things which were irrevocable. She had left that clan, and it was far too late to regret her foolish decision.
That was the start of her days as an independent adventurer. Then she met some people who seemed friendly enough. They asked her to join them while she was languishing in solitude, and she accepted. However, after spending some time with them, she realised that they were nothing like the clan she had once adventured with, and thus she had left.
After that, she had kept to herself for the most part. She might have partied up with people farming a dungeon, or join in on World-Class Enemy fights, but she never affiliated with any particular grouping of adventurers again. After wronging others and being wronged herself, she had come to the conclusion that being in a group was not for her.
Yet, emptiness remained in Hitomi's heart. She tried to fill it with accomplishments and achievements. She travelled far and wide across the nine worlds, bedecked herself in a panoply of jaw-dropping wonders, claimed one of the legendary World-Class Items, amassed a huge pile of wins in the PVP circuit and through personal PKing, completed difficult dungeons by herself (and a few NPC party-stuffers), challenged fearsome bosses and monsters… she had done all those things that would need an adventuring group by herself.
She held on to the hope of recapturing the same sense of achievement that she had felt in the past.
But she had not. And the reason for that was obvious. The line of reasoning which fuelled her motivation was fundamentally flawed.
The whole point of accomplishing something in a team, of banding together in dire circumstances to achieve a goal through mutual effort, was that one was doing it in a team. There had to be people around to banter and joke with, to point out things that one would never have thought of, sharing joy and sorrow in a meeting of minds and hearts.
For all that Hitomi had tried to replicate the form of the thing, she had utterly failed to capture its essence. And because of that, no matter what she did, that hollow sensation remained within her; a feeling of it's just not the same andthere must be something more.