My name is Lucia Morales. At least, I used to call myself that. Other people did too. Back then, I was twenty-two years old, and I was studying to become an interpreter—at least, I was until an incident that happened on a certain day. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first, a little bit more about the life I used to lead. I grew up in a multilingual household with my mother, an interpreter and translator; my father, a construction worker; and three older brothers. Before I started high school, I’d already decided to become an interpreter, just like my mother, so I studied a lot.
As you might have guessed, my study habits led to me not being very popular at school. I wasn’t exactly socially awkward, I just prioritized my language learning over making friends. Fortunately, my brothers, who were all bigger and more athletic than I was, made sure the bullying never got out of hand. Even so, school was pretty rough for me.
Around five years ago, I was still in high school, and going through a particularly rough time. Looking for a way to unwind, I picked up my smartphone and searched for games. There were so many available, and I tried quite a few of them, but none held my interest very long. Luckily the algorithm came to my rescue, and after I’d tried a few games out, the recommendations got better. Finally I found myself looking at the banner for a game called “Questonicia.” It might not have been the most popular, but it ended up changing my life forever. Not that I knew that back then, but as I looked at the banner with its cute little characters, I decided I had to play it.
Questonicia (a name made by combining the words “quest” and “nice”) was a mobile game, but the virtual world it was set in used procedural generation. It was literally infinite. The game world expanded as people found new places to explore. There weren’t really towns and villages in the beginning, but that was the point. Players chose their characters from one of four factions: the Hyumins, Gawordens, Necromages, and Sprigians. Each faction had a different role in the game, but all of them could create things.
Hyumins were basically just humans, and they used resources to build cities and roads. Gawordens were beast-like people who managed ecosystems, creating animals and plants. Necromages created and managed underground tombs full of undead creatures. Sprigians primarily created towers, which they could fill with monsters, but they could also expand their dungeons by creating more towers, then using their exclusive Adjoin ability to connect them together.
It was the Sprigian faction that got me to download this game in the first place. Their cute designs and adorable monster minions were all over the banner ad. So, when I created my character, I chose to make a Sprigian. Not because of their gameplay mechanics, but because of how cute they were. The entire game had a playful art style, but the Sprigians were next level adorable. I definitely spent well over an hour in the character creator, fussing over how my in-game persona would look. Her skin, hair, even the size of her butt were all options I could play with. The end result was Lilac Grimwood, my avatar. Even though Lilac was the character I played in the game, I treated her more like a virtual pet.
With a few pokes of the screen, I made her skin color a light brown, close to what mine was in real life. Her hair was a pale purple, and her eyes were a special color called “twilight sky.” This color made her eyes take on a silvery hue, and it looked like there were tiny stars floating in her pupils. She was an absolute masterpiece. Like all Sprigians, she had adorable chibi character proportions and huge eyes. Characters from other factions were still cute, but in Questonicia, Sprigians reigned supreme in that department. They were the smallest race, while the other races were more like “half chibi” and didn’t stir my maternal instincts.
With the rest of my life so miserable at the time, Lilac quickly became a sanctuary of sorts for me. Before I knew it, I was doting on her like a grandparent. I used real money to buy her in-game dresses and accessories. Every day I looked forward to coming home and dressing her up, styling her hair, and surveying her little tower. There were all sorts of adorable little Sprigian creatures to fill the tower with. Each one had their own summoning requirements and required a certain amount of time to create. Since my main interest in the game was how cute everything was, I never used any of the items that made construction go faster; I just enjoyed watching my cute little minions build stuff with their tiny hammers or carry resources around.
Eventually, my brothers found out about the game, and they all started playing too. Each of them chose a different faction, but we all cooperated together to make cities, forests, and dungeons. Carlos, my eldest brother, played a Hyumin and built a city which I surrounded with adjoined towers for defense. Pedro, the second oldest, chose a Necromage character; he built an underground labyrinth beneath the city and connected it to my tower labyrinth aboveground. Manuel, my third brother, created a female Gaworden avatar and populated the area around the city with forests and animals. I surrounded those forests with another set of towers, and our perfect little settlement was born. Our collaborative effort eventually became a popular spot for other players to go on adventures. There was a town to stock up on supplies, a forest to go hunting in, and an expansive series of dungeons full of monsters to battle.
Thanks to my brothers, I also ended up taking Lilac on adventures and gaining levels. In battle, Carlos was our tank, a defensive character who drew the attention of monsters and animals. Pedro was a combat mage with an array of magic for defeating enemies, and Manuel was a scout who could disarm traps and sneak up on foes to ambush them. And I, as Lilac, was our healer, with an array of spells designed to recover health and remove negative effects. As we gained levels, I was able to summon even more monsters, and my casual little dungeon became a huge wall that protected our city.
Even as our city’s in-game popularity grew and our characters got stronger, though, I still had the most fun when I was just playing with Lilac. Her little dungeon master room was decorated with all of the cutest furnishings available. I would rearrange them and try different combinations, then change her clothes and do it all again. I took so many screenshots. I started up a social media account just for Lilac, and posted pics of her room. I think I inspired quite a few other girls to try the game.
Before I knew it, high school had ended, and I was studying more than ever. I still played the game at least once a day, but I spent way less time on it than I did while I was in school. I told myself it would all pay off once I successfully became an interpreter, but I missed Lilac just the same. When I did play, instead of my phone I used a tablet I’d splurged on it so I could watch Lilac on a bigger screen. Er, I mean, I’d bought it for school, and just happened to have room to download the game on it. I bought plush toys of characters from the game and filled my real-life room with them. They were all too cute, so I couldn’t help myself. When I looked at them while I was studying, it was like they were cheering me on. I had to try hard, for them!
Anyway, the day my life turned upside down began as my brothers and I were helping my parents pack up a moving truck. The old house we’d all grown up in was located in a rough neighborhood, and my parents had talked about moving somewhere else for as long as I could remember. On that day, it was finally happening. My parents were both doing better at work, so we could finally afford to move into a better neighborhood. My brothers had all moved out already, but they came back to help load the rented moving truck. So it was a sort of family reunion atmosphere.