Hope Engine

by Andrew Lynch

  Horace raised a robed hand. ‘We believe it is because they like the Bubonic Buttercups, master.’

  ‘Brilliant. Fine, gather up enough Bubonic Buttercups to feed everyone. I mean, you say it’s edible, right? You guys have lived off of it for years?’

  Horace hesitated, then mumbled, ‘Survived, master.’

  Chapter 10: Construction

  Angie stood behind me and watched the proceedings with true wonder.

  ‘A truly prodigious amount, Severo. Is this an accurate simulation? Could a human truly produce this much in your world?’

  I wiped my mouth and checked my stat screen. My Hunger was greater than before I started eating, now sitting at sixty percent. My Toxicity level had risen to ten percent, which explained why I was now on my hands and knees in the woods, trying to hide my weakness from the cultists. The cultists who could definitely see me, because I hadn’t made it past the first tree before I started hurling my insides out.

  ‘Tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Fascinating.’

  I thought I’d finally emptied my stomach, so rolled on to my back and focused on breathing. ‘This pain simulation is remarkably real for such an inconvenience.’

  ‘You could turn pain off, of course.’

  I thought back to how everything felt simulated in the real world when I forgot to take my receptor gloves off. ‘No. It’s good to feel something sometimes.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Right, time to build this village.’

  I staggered to my feet and strode back towards the group of aimlessly wandering minions. They weren’t quite enjoying their new freedom yet, and were still exploring their new capabilities – namely, being able to walk faster than a frenzied shuffle.

  There had been a lot of grumbling as they’d threaded the weeds through their robes, but I hoped that they’d all see the benefits outweighed the embarrassment of yellow gilding round the edges. This shorter robe also led to a lot of bare ankles, which they all vehemently protested about, but when master says jump… well, they dropped to their knees and grovelled for forgiveness in true cultist fashion. The ankles on display did have one interesting side-effect. These cultists definitely were not all human. There was the usual range of flesh tones I’d expect, from unhealthy white all the way through to burned umbra, but there was also liquid blue, fire red, flint grey, and flayed skin flesh. I decided to let them keep everything else covered, including the obfuscating hoods.

  I now had a village of level one tailors. If there was a war that needed a button poorly attached to a coat, we would be the undisputed winners. Angie had assured me that, despite trade skills being a valid way to level up and play the game, there were no tailor wars.

  What I did not have, was a place for everyone to sleep for the night.

  I passed through the huddle of aimless cultists on the way to my hut and heard snippets of conversations.

  ‘I’m not sure about this new guy…’

  ‘Master? Seems a bit of a stretch.’

  ‘The shadows of Taligrad are no longer cast.’

  Yeah, I had no idea what that last one meant, but the general consensus was that people were unsure about me. I got that. Now, if only there was a way to codify that and get it in a simple black and white, no misunderstandings possible, kind of way.

  I held the door open for Angie, and the door fell of its rope hinges. I left it open and muttered to the nearest cultist. ‘Your new master has an open-door policy. Any question, any time.’

  The cultist’s dark hood turned toward me, bobbed, then returned to the huddle it was in.

  Hopefully “open door” wouldn’t turn into open jugular.

  I entered my Altar and viewed my vast and expansive village from a bird’s eye perspective. All my little villagers had names and status bars. I could see their health and mana as if this was a real-time strategy and they were my troops, but I could also see their general happiness. I saw Horace’s name in amongst the largest group of cultists. His happiness bar was at 75% and he had a smiling face next to it. Everyone around him was between 35-45% and had neutral faces. Getting promoted to leader had a morale boost that even my, so far shocking, leadership couldn’t undo.

  Selecting Horace, more numbers appeared. He had all the Living Stats I had: Hunger, Thirst, Toxicity, and Fatigue. His Hunger and Toxicity were at 0. Proof that I was going to have to level up my own Bubonic Buttercup resistance.

  Horace stopped talking to his small congregation and looked up into the sky. Specifically, he looked directly at my disembodied vision. Then he fell to his knees and started gibbering something about “The master is ever vigilant in his ruination”. Good to know that whoever I looked at could tell I was looking.

  I unselected Horace, and after a few seconds he managed to recover his composure.

  Angie’s face popped into the top left of my vision. ‘Let’s try building something, shall we?’

  ‘Sure thing, tutorial Angie. A barracks, perhaps? An irrigation system? A lumber mill to start putting all these deadly trees to use? The sixth great wonder of the world?’

  ‘All fine ideas, but let’s start with a third hut.’

  ‘Right. Splendid.’

  ‘There are several tabs along the bottom of your view. Select the buildings, and then select a hut.’

  I focused on the Buildings tab, and it expanded, giving me a whole range of options. It was divided into materials and use. So, I could search for “stone military”, or “wooden business”. Currently I was searching for “debris living”.

  I found the highlighted option of “single hut”, but right next to it was “minion dormitory”.

  ‘Angie, I can’t select the dormitory. That would be more useful than a single hut.’

  ‘Yes, Severo, it would, but this is a tutorial, and today the lesson is “You can’t always get what you want”.’

  ‘But if we try real hard, we can get what we need?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. Just build the hut.’

  ‘Yes Ms. Bossy.’ I selected the hut and a faint outline of the finished building appeared on the ground. I found that I could move it around.

  ‘You can swap between freeform and grid mode when placing buildings. For someone of your skill, I’d recommend the grid.’

  I rolled my disembodied eyes but turned on the grid function. A series of glowing yellow lines formed a grid on the ground. At first it looked like each unit was a two metre square, but when I looked more closely, they were actually a two metre cube. Although I was building in a pretty standard isometric view, it was still a 3D world, so height mattered. It also implied that buildings didn’t have fixed heights.

  With the grid turned on, the building now snapped to it as I moved around.

  ‘Excellent. Now build it next to your current hut.’

  I activated the building, and instantly my minions sprung into action. One of them moved to the foundations and started clearing the area, kicking aside random twigs and stones. The other eighteen headed into the woods.

  ‘As your village grows, and more responsibilities are assigned to specific minions, you won’t incite a mass exodus every time you try to build the most basic building. Right now of course, they have nothing else to do.’

  ‘Makes sense. I’m guessing that progress bar is a–’

  ‘A build timer, yes. Keep in mind that it is an approximation depending on your current resources, both material and manpower. If circumstances change, the bar can slow down or speed up.’

  ‘I don’t have any material resources, though?’

  ‘They don’t need to be stockpiled to be used, but that method is significantly faster, yes. Also, you can’t stockpile debris. The closest thing to that would be if one of your finished buildings is destroyed. You could then build a debris level building using its wreckage.’

  ‘Okay. Seems simple enough, but how does the progress bar update based on materials I don’t have?’

  ‘As I said,
It knows what is within your control.’

  Hmm, interesting. In theory, I could triangulate on certain resources based on the progress bar of my buildings. I assumed rare materials were a thing. I mean, the wood in this area was obvious, it was everywhere. But stone? Metal? I had no idea how to find those.

  Angie let me have a moment to think things through, but soon carried on. ‘Next you’ll need food. Select a debris level farm. You’ll see that there is an extra information with any gathering buildings. This farm has a “0” next to it, which indicates that you won’t gain any food from placing it in this area. You could move it around to try and find a suitable location, but from the local information you’ve unlocked, we know that there is no wildlife to farm.’

  I groaned. The shooting star of hope had risen in me when she mentioned a farm, but was then immediately shot down by the reality of stewed Bubonic Buttercup.

  ‘With food taken care of, and no obvious water bodies nearby, you should build a well.’

  I selected the debris level well, which was just a hole in the ground, and dragged it around my village. As I moved it, the production counter next to it rose and fell. Right next to my hut gave me 0 water but moving it ten metres north gave me 20. Another ten metres to the north east and it gave me 30. Presumably this meant there was an underwater stream running in that direction, but I had to admit that my subterranean aqua cavern knowledge was not up to scratch.

  ‘Angie, what does 30 water mean? 30 litres a day? 30 buckets an hour? What’s up?’

  ‘Outside of your character statistics, there are very few numbers that are arbitrary. Mostly, these numbers default to a percentage, so 30 water means that 30% of your village’s requirements will be met at the level you are building.’

  I gave that some thought but needed clarification. ‘By “at the level you are building”, you mean that a debris level well might provide 50% of my daily water requirements, but if I built a stone well in the exact same place, with no other changes to my village, it might provide 100%?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Makes sense. So, right now, I’m going to have to build five debris wells to get 100%.’

  ‘Exactly. However, at this level, you don’t need 100%. You’ll notice that you have a population limit. Currently you are at 52.5% capacity. To increase this, you need to upgrade your hub to the next level.’

  ‘My hub being this hut?’

  ‘You can designate any building as your hub, but for now it is this lacklustre hut, yes.’

  ‘Can I ever go over 100% population?’

  ‘There are many situations where this can occur. However, you can never produce more than 100%, so sustaining an above capacity population is impossible for more than a short period.’

  ‘Okay, good to know!’

  I placed the well where it would give me 30 water, and then placed a second further along where it would give me another 30 water. I was 7.5% over what I needed, so that was everyone’s Thirst stat safe. I knew I had twenty-one people living in the village – nineteen cultists, myself, and Angie. That meant that my current maximum capacity was forty people.

  ‘If you want to upgrade a building, simply select it and choose the level you wish to upgrade it to. In some cases, it will be quicker and cheaper to demolish the building before building a new one. Now that you know how to build your town, the decisions will be up to you.’

  I stayed in my Altar for a little while longer, watching my minions scurry around. Four of them had broken off to start digging the wells, while the rest had begun piling up their debris and lashing it together in some obviously failing attempt at creating support struts for the roof. The well diggers were using their hands, and the construction bar was showing a completion date of two days. Two days without water sounded pretty bad. I mean, I could just die of Thirst, and then resurrect, but my minions…

  ‘Angie, what happens to my minions when they die? Do they have a one week respawn like an npc, or a is it closer to minutes and hours like a mob?’

  ‘Minions are their own class, and they do not respawn.’

  Of course they didn’t. Wouldn’t be much risk to the village if they could just come back to life.

  Angie continued. ‘Interesting anecdote for you. In an early version of the game, that wasn’t the case, but as anything in your village can be insured against the central Tulgatha bank, several players began a life insurance scam that caused the first ever reactive hotfix patch.’

  ‘Fascinating.’

  I could hear Angie’s disapproval. ‘Yes, it is, and hopefully you’ll figure out why before it matters.’

  ‘Oh God. Why is an insurance scam important?’

  ‘You’re focusing on the wrong part of the story. Also, we don’t say “God” here. We say “Eyes”.’

  ‘Eyes? Oh, yeah, I kind of remember you saying, “Eyes Above”. What does it mean?’

  ‘There are many interpretations. Right now, you are the eyes above, so some players believe it refers to themselves – the NPCs placing players as deities, as no mob or NPC can shift their vision as a player can. Others believe it is a greater power.’

  ‘But… you’re seeing what I’m seeing, right? Isn’t your vision up here?’

  ‘We’ve been over this, Severo. I am more a construct than a simple NPC.’

  ‘Ahh yes, the “colliding spheres when you don’t know basic functions” thing. I recall. Fine. In that case, my minions are digging with bare hands, and will probably all die of Thirst if we don’t speed that up. Shovel me?’

  ‘You could create a debris level warehouse and place a work order for a shovel, but I suggest we take this moment to explore crafting.’

  I guessed what work orders were, so didn’t bother to ask for a clarification. I exited my Altar and sat up in my bed. Well, sat up on the dirt floor. ‘Sounds good. Let’s get to it.’

  Chapter 11: Crafting

  ‘It’s an intuitive system that lets you craft just about anything.’

  We were stood next to the, currently being built, debris hut. Under the glare of the cultist that had been set to guard the foundations, Angie picked a stick from the pile and handed it to me.

  I didn’t need to be told this was a stick to be able to inspect it and get the description of “Stick”. It didn't have any other information.

  ‘You can take almost any object and use it to construct other items. The process of attaching a pommel to your sword is the same as creating a shovel. Modification and creation are the same thing.’

  I thought about entering the crafting menu, and the game did the rest. My vision left my body, and I was viewing myself from the front. The robes suited me. What can I say, I had very fetching ankles.

  ‘All items require a base, an attachment, and a binding. The quality of the base material will determine how many attachments can be applied. Base materials can be upgraded with relevant skills.’

  Sure enough, in my third person view, there were three windows sticking out from the stick. One at each end, and one in the middle. When I selected one, the other two greyed out, indicating they were no longer usable.

  ‘Umm, I can only put one attachment on this.’

  ‘You have picked up the lowest possible base class, so yes, only a single attachment is possible.’

  ‘So, I can put a head on the shovel, or a handle. Not both? Okay, how do I upgrade it?’

  ‘You can take a sharp object and whittle away the knobs and dead spots. To upgrade it further than that would require more tools and equipment than you have access to right now.’

  ‘Whittling it is.’

  Seemingly out of nowhere, Horace had approached behind me, and magicked a knife out of his sleeves. Surprisingly helpful!

  ‘Do try not to cut yourself, master.’

  ‘Wise words, Horace, thank you.’

  He slunk off into the background.

  I selected the upgrade button on the stick, and the game took my body through the motions of whittling a stick.
After five minutes, now that I had stats set to medium, I saw a notification appear at the bottom left of my screen. “Woodworking: level 1. +5 xp.”

  ‘Well, at least I know what gave me the points this time.’ I muttered and tried to ignore Angie’s smug grin.

  ‘Now add the–’

  ‘Head and binding, I get the concept.’ It was all pretty logical. Except I didn’t have anything that could act as a shovelhead or a way to attach it, so perhaps I should have let Angie finish her sentence.

  As I tried to figure out how to not lose face, having to ask Angie what to do next, my good friend Horace slunk back into focus with a handful of Bubonic Buttercups, and a wide, flat stone.

  Taking them from him, they added to my inventory, and became selectable in a drop down menu when I looked at the attachments box on my stick.

  When I added the stone and weeds, a small box with a preview of what would be created popped up. It showed my stick with a stone on the end – pretty much what I’d expected – along with a basic description, “The first step on the way to being able to dig holes. You won’t do it fast, but at least you won’t take damage”.

  I made a note to check if my cultists had actually been taking damage when digging that hole and clicked create on my debris level basic shovel.

  My hands moved on their own, and thirty seconds later, I had a “poor quality debris shovel”. If I was honest, calling it poor quality on top of being debris level seemed a bit harsh, but as Angie was quick to point out…

  ‘Your skill at crafting, specifically woodworking, but also generally, dictates the quality of item you can create. As this is your first creation, you should just be happy it successfully crafted – not always the case with higher level items.’

  ‘Good to know.’ I turned to Horace and handed the shovel to him. He bowed reverently and gently took it into his shaking hands.

  ‘A gift from the Eyes Above, my lord. It shall be treasured for a thousand years in vaults unseen by human eyes. There will be a brief touring period around the capitals to reinvigorate people’s interest in the cult of Severo, but it would only be a token gesture before it is then entombed for a million eons.’