Path of Spirit (Disgardium Book #6): LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  “Is subjective,” Peter Hovatski suggested, curator of the Cali Bottom division of the HCMO project.

  “Right, Pete,” Kiran nodded, shooting him an annoyed glance. “Time there went five hundred times faster. The world lived while there was at least a single player in it, but without them, it went into sleep mode. It was important for us to figure out what happens in the later stages of the game, how the quest chains develop, what happens to the mobs and non-player characters, how the population changes through the generations…”

  “How mobs migrate and evolve,” Hovatski added.

  “Exactly. The first beta testers were meant to spend nearly a month in full life-support capsules. For them, it would have been forty years. Everyone in the company was certain that nothing would happen…”

  “They all died,” came a hoarse voice from the far corner. “The poor bastards’ brains burnt out, and after only three days of real time.”

  Kiran grit his teeth. He wanted to snap something back, but changed his mind. Bad idea to lock horns with Menfil. The man was quick, rough, and knew too much. Kiran knew to be careful with people like that. Especially when they weren’t his direct subordinates. Menfil had been installed at Snowstorm by people above Kiran, outside the citizenship categories, and he’d been there since the very launch of Disgardium.

  “Not all of them, Mr. Menfil,” Kiran said to the man. “One was pulled out.”

  “Who?” Chloe Cliffhanger the marketing director asked, raising her hand.

  The young woman wearing a suit and old-fashioned glasses — probably to look older and more reliable — wasn’t Jackson’s favorite. She was vulturish, grasping and clever. Too clever, Kiran thought.

  “That has nothing to do with the matter at hand!” he snapped, annoyed to be distracted with frivolous details.

  “A certain Dennis Kaverin,” Menfil answered for him. “The boy was pulled out, his memories were wiped and he was sent on his way, with a premium capsule for his troubles…”

  “Mr. Menfil!” Kiran regretted that he couldn’t put a Seal of Silence on the attendees of the conference. “Incidentally, the participants died due to the negligence of the attending physicians and the carelessness of a man who is no longer with the company. He was the one who authorized deep immersion!”

  “Burned up in a flyer. Ah, what a tragedy!” Menfil said, the irony clear in his voice. “Such a terrible shame, the way his ejection mechanism locked up at the worst possible moment.”

  “You seem better informed than me,” Kiran said, barely holding back his anger and using all his strength to keep a calm smile on his face. “Please, come out where everyone can see you.”

  Wheels squeaked across the carpeted floor. What Kiran had taken to be an ordinary chair was actually a wheelchair. Rolling to the center of the hall, it stood before Jackson.

  “What happened?” he asked in surprise.

  “You aren’t much good at faking surprise, Jackson.”

  Kiran didn’t realize right away that Menfil’s scratchy voice now resounded only in his head — the new communicator allowed one to speak selectively to those nearby, preventing others from hearing the conversation.

  “My flyer suddenly lost control and caught fire yesterday. Do you happen to know why? The ejection mechanism kicked in, but it spat me right into the wall of a skyscraper, because the flyer was spanning so fast it was impossible to tell up from down. It’s a miracle I survived. I’m sure you know more about that than I do. Isn’t that so, Jackson?”

  Kiran frowned and moved his lips, hoping that the communicator would convey his threatening tone:

  “Careful, Arto! I advise you think twice before you keep talking! I have no idea what happened to you!”

  Menfil looked him up and down contemptuously, then suddenly laughed and spread his hands, turning to the others:

  “I was in an accident yesterday. I broke both my legs! The bones regrew, but the doctors recommended I stay off my feet for at least a day, so I’m in a wheelchair. But I couldn’t miss this meeting.”

  He was cheered and wished a fast recovery. Menfil nodded, but when he raised his head, his smile was gone. Now the a tired old man pinned them with his piercing gaze — all sharp cheekbones, wrinkles, sunken cheeks and dark circles beneath his eyes.

  “For those who don’t know me, which is almost all of you… My name is Arto Menfil. Since Snowstorm’s founding, I have led the Optimization project. Its ultimate goals are linked to Pilgrim, but it was intended as a plan B. Nobody believed that it would ever come to launching Optimization. We all put our hopes in Pilgrim…”

  Menfil closed his eyes, said nothing for some time. Taking advantage of the pause, one of those present looked at Kiran and asked in confusion:

  “What was that story about the beta testers for?”

  Jackson opened his mouth to answer, but Menfil spoke:

  “The Nether. That is the name of the shadowy non-player realm integrated with Dis. That selfsame beta world. The testers died, but not their characters. In some mysterious manner, the consciousness of the testers was digitized and continued to live on in the Nether. Limited information from the world status showed that the players were still ‘online.’ In addition, subject to the game mechanics, they became technically immortal, reviving after death. We learned that from the world status too. At first nobody took it seriously, but then the players began to level up…”

  Menfil’s hoarse words caused explosions through the hall. Whispers turned into a clamor. Kiran, who knew the origins of Pilgrim, breathed a sigh of relief that everyone there was bound by a mental contract. If the public learned of this…

  “Since then, ten thousand years have passed in the Nether,” Menfil continued calmly, causing a fresh wave of surprised gasps. “Not everyone has survived; there is a final death mechanic in the beta version. Unfortunately, we have never been able to make contact with the players. Several times, individual players have somehow managed to break through to the Nether…”

  Kiran froze. Right now, his fate was being decided. He had held back intel about Scyth’s trip into the Nether, deciding to wait for the boy to finally give up and come crawling back to surrender. Jackson had been sure that the Threat would be stuck in the beta world forever, that all their problems were solved. Unfortunately, Scyth somehow got out and Kiran missed the chance to contact the beta testers through Sheppard.

  “We found out about this after the fact — it doesn’t show up in the logs, the character just leaves the game as if logging out normally,” Menfil said. “Unfortunately, none have survived. They were all diagnosed with SDS — sudden death syndrome. With how much time people spend in virtual worlds, this became common long ago. Tens of thousands die in their capsules every day.”

  Kiran started breathing again. His secret remained unknown to Arto Menfil. The man continued:

  “How did the Nether become part of Dis, you ask? It was a copy of the world, hosted on the same servers as the main version. Roughly speaking, the main AI incorporated it into its system and added the beta world to the game universe, taking it to be just another plane of existence. Just like the Astral or the Inferno. Players have no way to access it, and the worlds don’t interact, not counting the Nether rifts and the Ravager assaults. It seems the beta world has evolved over ten thousand years. Or…” Menfil paused a moment, then admitted: “Or it could be because we integrated the Nether into wider Dis ourselves. We had to give the Nucleus of the Destroying Plague an external energy source independent of the AI gods… But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  “The important thing is that this phenomenon led to the creation of Pilgrim!” Kiran exclaimed, trying to get the conference back on the rails.

  “Yes, Pilgrim…” Menfil said. “More people know about that project. In fact, the project lead Mr. Jackson is here right now. I’ll hand off to him.”

  “Formally the project lead,” Kiran shook his head. “In fact, Bellamy Drake manages operational control. Bellamy, can you
help me..?”

  Drake nodded and brought up a hologram of the earth for all to see, where some of the land was colored in red, some orange and the rest yellow and green.

  “Time presses, so I’ll be brief,” Kiran said energetically. “Citizenship areas occupy less than 20% of our total landmass. The remaining land, as we all know, is unsuitable for life. Part of it disappeared underwater due to the melting ice caps, some was rendered uninhabitable due to the Third World War and the spread of radiation. Nonetheless, the planet’s population has doubled since before the war. There isn’t enough space. The colonization of Mars is no solution; terraforming will take a millennium.”

  “Too many pesky people,” Menfil cackled like a raven.

  Paying him no mind, Kiran continued:

  “The earth cannot feed so many people. The only solution is to colonize distant space. But how, if a one-way journey takes a thousand years? The Pilgrim program aims to move the conscious minds of non-citizens into Disgardium. It will be a kind of Great Exodus, noble and humanitarian. After all, in exchange, the non-citizens will get eternal life…”

  “And what then?” Chloe asked. “Will their fate be the same as the beta testers? Will they become NPCs?”

  “Not exactly,” Kiran answered. “It is believed that since there is a way to transfer consciousness in one direction, then the reverse must also be possible. And that means we can send AI-controlled colony ships into distant space, ‘print’ bodies at the destination and ‘unpack’ the colonists in situ.”

  “That’s crazy,” Chloe snorted.

  “Not at all. The capsule performs a full body scan and DNA analysis on first immersion. Replicating the bodies won’t be an issue. The hard part is transferring consciousness.”

  “Why not just repeat the experiment with the beta testers?” Chloe asked again.

  Do you really think you’re going to solve this, you bitch? Kiran thought in annoyance, smiling kindly. Smarter people than you have tried!

  “As in the case of Patrick O’Grady, we were unable to repeat the experiment. We were cut off from the beta world — it was encapsulated to maintain the integrity of the experiment. At the kernel level, no less. Deep immersion in identical worlds had no effect at all.”

  “The eggheads emptied two prisons full of life-termers,” Menfil said, his voice cutting. “Their brains burnt out, but their conscious minds didn’t copy into virtspace. When the subjects died, their characters disappeared.”

  “What makes you think the non-citizens will go on this Great Exodus of yours?” Chloe asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “The transfer of consciousness will be entirely voluntary,” Kiran assured her, and Menfil chuckled. “Our analysts are certain that 90% of non-citizens will go willingly — they have nothing to lose in real life. Anyway, their family and friends will be right alongside them. Accordingly, based on the program’s goals, the government has been actively encouraging non-citizens to seek work in Dis, and sponsoring the production of free non-citizen-type VR capsules. However, as of today, the only successful consciousness transfer has been that of Patrick O’Grady.”

  “And in the meantime, dissatisfaction rises…” Menfil noted, cocking his head. All eyes now on him, he exchanged a glance with Kiran, who nodded, and Menfil continued: “I doubt you can even imagine how the non-citizens live, and the moods that gain popularity among them. If several billion inwinova march on your cozy districts, the resulting slaughter will make the Third World War look like a child’s birthday party.”

  “But that’s impossible!” Chloe’s voice, sharp as the whine of a power sander, made Kiran grimace. “We have the orbital complex, the robocops and the peacekeepers to protect us!”

  “Half your precious peacekeepers were once inwinova themselves,” Menfil snapped back. “But let me get one thing straight. Miss Cliffhanger, do I understand correctly that you do not oppose the use of force against the inwinova if they attack citizen territory?”

  “Of course not! They must know their place and respect the laws! If they violate the rights of citizens, then they have to be taught a lesson!”

  “What if there are children, old people and women with them?”

  “Inwinova,” Chloe spat. “Scum.”

  “Does everyone else agree?”

  Cries of support for the marketing director echoed through the room. They all thought life on the planet would be far better without the inwinova. Menfil nodded approvingly:

  “Perfect. Then I hope our plan B doesn’t shock your fine sensibilities. It was designed as a more radical alternative to the Pilgrim project. Optimization does what the orbital military complex could do, only far more humanely. You now know how immersion affects humans. The more time a person spends in Dis, the more real he perceives his surroundings, which makes the brain try to force the real body to conform to the virtual. I trust I don’t need to explain to you the concept of psychosomatic illness?” Menfil asked, looking around the room and nodding in satisfaction. “Good. The stigmata work in roughly the same way.”

  “The undead?” someone guessed.

  “Exactly.”

  “So what does that mean? They’ll turn into zombies in real life?”

  “Before I answer that question, let’s take a short tour into biochemistry…” Menfil attacked the attendees with scientific terminology, and when he realized that few understood, he sighed in disappointment. “Alright, for the lay people. To put it simply, the brain of a player who has turned undead, upon seeing its own decomposing body, causes necrosis in the tissues of the real body. Non-citizen capsules are fitted with special brain activity catalysts designed to enhance that effect. Without urgent medical intervention, this guarantees death.”

  “Nobody will link mysterious deaths to a virtual game…” Bellamy breathed thoughtfully. “The Optimization project will cut down the planet’s excess population.”

  “Optimize the population,” Kiran corrected him.

  “Do you think the inwinova are morons, Mr. Menfil?” Chloe asked, her eyes wide. “Thousands will die, but the rest will realize what’s happening and stop immersing.”

  “I doubt that. For the launch of the Destroying Plague faction, we have temporarily blocked the catalysts. We’ll activate them once we have enough inwinova among the undead. A minimum of 60% of non-citizens affected at once will be sufficient. Then we blame it all on a new disease like the Doom virus. Say the virus spreads faster in the unsanitary conditions of the non-citizen zones, something like that. The citizens will start to panic, we isolate the cities, institute quarantines, massage the numbers and add a few ‘deaths’ among citizens… You don’t need me to tell you how the media can infect the masses with ideas.” Arto picked up a glass of water from a tray carried by a drone floating next to him and took a drink. Then he turned to Kiran: “Which leads me to a question: what is happening, Mr. Jackson? I have been tracking the numbers of the undead, and they are growing, but mostly thanks to citizens. Where are the non-citizens?”

  Kiran swore mentally. They’d finally reached the subject they were all gathered here for, but Menfil represented a danger. He couldn’t allow them to find out that Kiran was responsible for what had happened, since it was his job to nip the problem of Scyth in the bud.

  “The inwinova have no mechanism to choose their race,” he admitted unwillingly. “Their characters have the same appearance as they do, and that means their race is the same too — they’re all human. When the dark races were unlocked, this became a problem of sorts — human miners don’t exactly fit in with the decor on Shad’Erung.”

  “I don’t give a damn about that!” Arto shouted. “Don’t try to wriggle out of it, Jackson. Answer the question!”

  Darkening, Kiran took in a lungful of air and continued stolidly:

  “We planned to use the legates of the Destroying Plague to forcibly conscript non-citizens by infecting workers. Part of the gameplay, as it were.”

  “NPC legates, right?”

  “That was
the plan. The leaders of the cult of Morena were supposed to become legates. The followers of the goddess of death have a built-in synergy with the undead race. They would have quickly reached level 1000 and higher. But the world-renowned Alex Sheppard, the class-A Threat, failed to turn them undead and ruined our plan. The AI controlling the Supreme Legate at the time, the lich Shazz, could have fixed the situation by turning some high-level NPC characters from among Nergal and Marduk’s high priests, but he died in the Lakharian Desert.”