by Kris Schnee
"Knock yourself out."
Stan drove back through town and made a detour to Ms. Parker's place. He had no quest to go visit her, but he had something nice and the apartment was almost along his route. He left the things in a cup of water next to the door, and went away smiling and unable to explain why.
5. Royalty and Commoners
According to the wiki, an Anchor Stone was probably only going to show up at least five islands away from Central, like North-5. He couldn't even grab it from a specific, predictable spot or buy it from someone; it had to be gotten from a personalized quest. So far, he'd only had one actual quest dangled in front of him, the assassin dagger thing, and he'd blown that off. It was strange that Ludo hadn't assigned him some other big plot to get involved in. In fact, the AI hadn't even contacted him lately.
Stan stretched and flopped onto his bed. He turned on the Talisman, pushed the help button and said, "How are you doing? All the processors humming?"
The screen shifted to show Ludo in a sort of wooden throne room whose walls were shifting constantly like a puzzle. He said, "Yes, and thanks for asking. Want to resume your game?"
"What's Eddie doing? Something I could join in on?"
"He's using a private zone, one of the more educational scenarios. I have a few dozen basic setups for various kinds of personal game. His is meant for single-player."
Starting from a few standard worlds did sound easier for Ludo than designing something totally new for every player. "You mentioned I'd earned a new character slot?"
Ludo paced, making his boots thunk against the wooden floor. "Right. You had basically the one slot plus a throwaway we don't take too seriously, that you're currently using for the audio-only space game. Like a lot of people you managed to earn a second 'real' character."
"Does that mean all those other players are buying that with little real-world favors?"
Ludo faced him and grinned. "Mostly not. So, what can I do for you tonight?"
"I want an Anchor Stone, but I haven't gotten pulled into a plot for one."
"Then do you want a plot? I could say 'go to Island South-6 East-2 and slay the Pillow Golem menacing the villagers'."
"There's a Pillow Golem?"
"Not unless I put one there."
"Sounds contrived," Stan said.
The AI shrugged. "Yes, but that's how games tend to be. What's the goal for when you get the stone?"
Stan said, "I want it so I can get a raft and keep it." He asked himself, And then what? It wouldn't just be assigned to him like a tool to do his job; he had to decide.
He said, "And then, I'd explore more of the sea. And find more things to make and sell." He talked about the business with the vegetables and pallets today, leaving the flowers out.
Ludo nodded. "Thought about borrowing a truck?"
"We're not allowed to use it. Too bad you can't hook me up with an actual spellbook, huh?"
"Heh, yeah. Although a couple of things you might mistake for magic are starting to become real."
Stan scowled. "Robots and stuff? Yeah, in places I'll never get to go."
Ludo raised one bushy eyebrow at that but said nothing. He turned away and faced the clacking walls, through which starry space was visible. "I have a quest idea. In Endless Isles, at least five islands out, shake hands with any native AI."
"Shake hands?"
"Yeah. You don't seem to care about a traditional fantasy plotline where you gradually uncover the machinations of the Dark Oblivion Cult, or the Pillowmancers for that matter. So you get a meta-plot that helps my evil schemes."
[Quest offered by Ludo: The Handshake. Shake hands with a native AI in Endless Isles, not within 5 zones of Central Island. Reward: Anchor Stone. Accept?]
"All right," said Stan. There might be some kind of useful contact among them. "Do they have any idea what we're dealing with out here, or are they only good at battling fantasy monsters?"
Ludo said, "You might be surprised." He leaned toward the camera, seeming to grab it, and said, "The native AIs are my friends. Are you going to walk into a conversation with them with a chip on your shoulder?"
Stan looked away. "I guess not. So... Could I try one of those educational scenarios? I'm not up for smelting ore right now."
"As you wish."
* * *
The view switched to a block of wood. Stan hit a button and the view swung up to show a bedroom of marble and brass. He'd been face-down at a desk. A man in a red-trimmed uniform bowed, saying, "Your highness, are you awake? Today is the day of the Royal Succession Decree."
Stan sat up straight, a little uncomfortable. He wasn't cut out for royalty. "Uh, yeah. Yes."
"Excellent. Please get yourself ready and join us in the throne room. You should use the mirror." The official saluted and stepped out of the room.
Stan looked around the elegant chamber. Other than the four-poster bed and the desk there was little here; he was probably meant to decorate and configure the place. He walked up to the mirror and recoiled. His new avatar was based on his real appearance but dressed in a fine white uniform with gold braids, wearing a fencing sword and a gold band around his head. He looked like a rich angel.
There was a ton of controls for adjusting his character's look, from height to eyebrow thickness. He spent a few minutes playing with various sliders and then reset them to not look like a moron. Then, curious, he hit the sex icon. His character changed, and he stared at the reflection of a white-clad princess who could be a sister of his. That was weird.
He tilted his head and switched to third-person mode. Huh. Well, if I get to try totally different characters out, why not? Mercifully her outfit was nearly the same as the male version. He didn't mess with the body proportions... well, okay, a little. Then he was off to see the story.
[Suggested character name: Stanna. OK?]
"Yeah, okay."
The throne room was made of the same sparkling marble, with a red carpet and a throne with sharp-beaked bird designs. On it sat an ancient king in heavy robes. He said, "Ah, good, you're here. Now whenever Princess Loren arrives --"
The big front doors opened and a girl in flowing purple strode in, snapping her fingers. A skinny man hurried in after her and blew a trumpet to announce her arrival. The girl bowled elegantly to the king and said, "I await your command, your majesty."
"Yes, well. My dear adopted daughters, as you know I have no heir. One of you shall become the next ruler. The Noble Council has designed a test to see which of you is more worthy."
"I'm ready for any test, sire," said Princess Loren.
Stan stood there watching the game talk to itself. Unless Loren was another player? No, that wasn't likely; this was a personal zone created for him. A few choice buttons appeared; he tried hitting the one that said "Bow" but didn't speak.
The king said, "A ruler must be skilled in law, finance, war, and diplomacy. Beyond these, they must have other skills to distinguish themselves. In one year both of you will be tested on these first abilities along with three others of your choice. Show me and the Council what you can do, and you will have the crown. Are you ready?"
"No problem," Loren said, bowing in the same way "Stanna" had. She didn't look at Stan. "Sire."
"Well, Stanna? Are you prepared for this year of challenge?"
Something unnerved Stan about this situation, making his hands clammy on the game pad. It was meant to be educational, and he'd asked for it, but it was formulaic. An assigned set of classes, something like being back in high school. Not the way Ludo usually seemed to operate, which was much more freeform. He said, "There's a law class, and a war class, and so on?"
"You may train however you wish. In fact, I recommend that you hire one of the capital's best teachers, of your choice, and will provide funding for them to help you in whatever way you see fit. Seven of them are waiting outside."
What did he want out of this scenario, anyway? He'd called for it because he was wondering what Eddie was up to and he had a
free character slot. Not because there was any point to doing extra studying. If he kept playing this thing he'd be pushed into reading textbooks or playing carefully designed edutainment games, no different from the stupid ones he could get on his Slab.
He maneuvered out of the throne room and reached a waiting room nicer than any home he'd ever lived in. It dripped with gold and gems and velvet, all the things he could never have. Seven vividly detailed instructors waited at attention, ranging from a stern elven sorceress to a deer-bodied centaur in a leather apron full of tools. He focused on a hooded man in grey with a fish embroidered in blue on his breast. A message appeared: [Arnwell, House Quara. Specialties: Medicine, Finance. Raises your favor with House Quara.]
Princess Loren paced, studying each one in turn or at least their description. "What do you think?" she said.
"I don't know yet. Maybe you should pick first."
"Of course." Loren turned away, muttering, "Doesn't count; she's not even real."
Stan's face flushed and he said, "I count! I matter, damn it!" He shook the screen. In reaction his character stamped the stone floor and made it ring. She suddenly had her fencing sword out. The game had even picked up on the fact that Stan was left-handed.
Loren backed away and put her hand on her own sword hilt. "What's wrong with you?"
The game was in first-person now so that Stan saw his elegant sword gleaming in the beam from the palace's skylight. The designated rival was staring at him as though trying to judge whether Stan was real, or a meaningless blip that could be deleted with no effect on anything. Or both.
He turned to the deer-centaur, whose tools and gloves made him look like the most practical of the lot. "You. You don't look like you've got noble blood and a destiny to have anybody give a damn about you. I don't either. I'm practically a peasant."
The craftsman tutor looked down at him and said, "You can be more."
The blood drained from Stan's face. It was a game, with some corporation behind it. He shouldn't be telling it things, letting it know what angered him, or about the pointless empty work that had gotten him to waste his time playing video games in the first place!
He put the Talisman down and stood, pacing across his tiny room. He needed to go outside.
Stan threw open the door of his room and looked down the hall of identical dorm doors. A few were open and a few were decorated, but it was a confining place and pretty much all the same from month to month and probably year to year. He headed outside from there to the main lounge and made for the building's exit, but it was after curfew and the door wouldn't let him out. Rules were rules.
Mina was sprawled across a battered chair in what looked like an uncomfortable pose, reading on her Slab. "You okay there?" she said. She was in her pajamas, giving Stan a glimpse of her legs.
Stan sighed. "This place feels static. Like everything is locked into place."
"As opposed to what?"
He sat on the next chair over with his head on his hands. "Moving. Able to get better."
"It's improving. Our average SCS rating --"
"I don't care about the SCS!" said Stan.
"Well, you should. Are you even trying to keep yours up? I haven't seen you at movie night, drum circle, the health lecture, nothing but work hours. Not even midnight secret baking." She twisted around on her seat and said, "This is about that game again, isn't it? It sounds like the least fun game ever if it keeps making you mope."
"Every part of it is fun. There's always something to do. But the way it talks to you..." He shook his head. "I could probably tell the AI to leave me alone and just run the game without pulling real-world stuff into it."
Mina looked concerned now. "Is Thousand Tales telling you to do things? Like, go steal secret computer tech for our future AI overlords?"
"No. Nothing sinister, anyway. Using the Net to trade favors is nothing new, and neither is using it for teaching or getting advice or gaming. But put all those together and there's this, this system that could accomplish amazing things, even if uploading weren't around. And I'm just watching it happen."
Mina said, "It's not our place to make the big decisions. That's for the politicians. Our job, your job, is to help the Community." She held up her Slab and showed him the book she was reading. "There're some neat plans on the horizon about redesigning the Communities across the country, and maybe adding more service years. There's a lot to learn about how it might work in the future."
Stan stared at the screen, then at her sincere face. "You could be reading anything, and you're reviewing Community guidelines?"
"Why not? It's fun to read about the future." She stretched. "There's an event next month, getting everyone together for a blood drive and picnic. Are you in?"
"I hadn't seen the notice."
"Of course you didn't."
"Let me think about it," he said. "Want to cook something again, since we're up?"
"Actually yeah. I got a snack recipe and every ingredient is on the approved nutrition list."
* * *
He took a day off from gaming, but came back. In the Central Island workshop, Stan was smelting ore while talking with a young blue dragon-girl and a boy who was part phoenix. "Then, you just mix the wet oatmeal with the pineapple chunks and raisins and nuts, squish it down in a pan, and bake."
"That sounds pretty good," the phoenix said, watching Stan at the furnace. His beak clacked as he studied Stan's progress at the little smelting puzzle. "I haven't gotten to cook. I should try."
Stan was immersed in a display of flowing metal where he had to arrange the streams and guide pure copper away from bits of rock. Occasionally a message appeared stating [Crafting result: Copper Ingot], with some historical fact or pun about metal. The two kids were hopping back and forth on a set of bellows to force air into the furnace, in time with a set of glowing arrows that scrolled up past them.
Stan said, "If you have any ore I can try working on it for you, too."
"Sorry, no. I could get some, though, and sell it to you."
"Maybe. I kind of like making things from parts I harvested myself." There was a lull in the puzzle as another ingot popped out of the smelter. "I... I like making things, in general."
"But you don't have armor unless you count those wood arm things."
A pile of arrow shafts already sat beside him. Stan started in on the last of the ore. "Yeah, I should probably make better gear. If I get Smithing on my skill list do I lose one of the others?"
The phoenix shook his head. "No, it's just that you only see your top five on the Main Skills list. And those are the ones that can have the perks or talents attached, so like if you've got a Sword talent and then Sword stops being one of your five, the talent becomes, uh..."
"Inactive?" said the dragon girl.
"Yeah. But you don't forget how to use a sword."
"Hang on." He finished his copper-making, nodded in satisfaction at the stack of little cylindrical ingots, then checked his skills. "I have... Woodworking, Club, Inspect, Dodge, Merchant. I'm just starting to do magic. I've got a basic copper utility knife, but my main weapon's a club because this junky thing is the first thing I could use. I should probably scrap it. What's a good weapon?"
The phoenix shrugged. "Depends on what you wanna do. If you're doing more craft stuff then maybe, like, a big hammer or a wrench?"
Stan grinned. "A wrench! That's the opposite end of the scale from some prissy fencing sword. I should try doing that for my other character. Do you two have any others?"
The dragon said, "I try a different scene sometimes. Scene?"
"You mean, scenario?"
It was fun to see the kid's eyes light up as she recalled the right word at Stan's urging. "That. But mostly just being me." She smiled and fluttered the little wings on her back. "You doing okay with this character?"
Stan considered. "Yeah. I just... I'm confused about Ludo, and other things. She gets you thinking."
Phoenix giggled chirpily, holding one t
aloned hand to his beak. "She does. She's nice, though."
"So I hear, but she worries a lot of people." Stan gathered up his metal, got ridiculously encumbered, and stuffed it into his bags where only half the weight counted. Oh right; he owed these two a share for the bellows work. He handed over several shiny ingots and a happy noise played. "Here you go! I should take a break and make nice with people; my minder is beeping at me. Do you have any spare feathers for these arrow shafts? I kind of promised to make some."
Phoenix took the copper and looked at his feathered arms. "I need mine! But you could find some on the beach, and I guess use rocks for points unless you want to use up the copper."
"Fair enough. Later though; see you." Stan headed out, and the pair went back to crafting some glass bottles.
* * *
Stan logged out and went to the big weekly dinner where they all got actual synthetic meat, not just beans and lentils. The baked oatmeal was a hit too, which pleased him. Baron Hal gave a speech about production and everybody's responsibility to feed the world. Stan wasn't paying much attention; he was checking the Thousand Tales wiki on his Slab.
There was a list of known AIs, since the game didn't say outright who was what. Outing them had become a shared mystery for the players. Most had been created as designated friends for rich bastards with premium accounts. Who would create a living person just to have someone to play with? Assuming the AIs counted. Stan snorted, recalling Mom's explanation that she'd wanted a second kid -- Stan -- so that his brother wouldn't be an only child. And her first kid had been a teenage accident. Stan wasn't sure who was less wanted in the end.
He sent her a quick e-mail while he was thinking about her. Nothing important, just keeping in touch.
The AIs included a centaur chef, a griffin who was an in-game moderator (what, censoring stuff?), a dwarf straight out of "Warcraft" or whatever other game first made them up, a pirate, a whole village that shared one brain between them, a unicorn... and a blue dragon girl named Volt. Stan smacked his forehead. He'd forgotten to scan the duo he'd been talking with, since he was so intent on the smelting. Not that the Inspect skill would've told him he was talking with an artificial mind. He wondered if the bird-boy even knew his friend wasn't sitting at a computer like him.
