by R J Triveri
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Accepted
Part One: Login
Conception
Tutorial
Oh, Deer.
Dryad Leaves
The Grove
Road Trip
Oenus, City on the Water
Oenus Proper
Side Quest
Errand Boy
Favors and Rewards
Established
Part Two: Adventure Awaits
Quest: Start!
Highway
Depths and Flames
The Eclipsed Arum Pact
Traps and Treasures
Encounters of a Different Kind
The Shot
The Farming Life
A Day's Work
Tweaks and Tests
Nightbloom
The Moonlight Hunt
The Battle of Queen Farm
Being Handy
The Cost of Living
Fallout
A City on Fire
Part Three: Ally
Many Meetings
Meeting of the Minds
Avalon
Splendid
Moon Hunters
World Boss
The Ties that Bind
Reunion
The Calm
Gaming the System
The Approach
Corrupt
Containment
The Grove
Peace
War
Malicious
Gladiator
Factotum
Part Four: The Endgame
Wrath and Scorn
Conduct
Return
Until We Meet Again
The Starlight Festival
By Lantern's Light
Expansion
Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2018 RJ Triveri
All rights reserved.
For my wife, Erin.
Thanks for always believing in me.
Accepted
The sunlight was bright and warm on what should have been a normal July afternoon. The summer session was in full swing, and Athos Aramis should have been in the middle of a lecture on chemistry. If the hum of the heart monitor and the whir of the respirator weren’t enough to clue him into the events of the past two days, he was nowhere near the campus, or friends, or family. If he were being honest with himself, Athos wasn’t even sure how much longer he’d be able to keep himself in the land of the living. With limited options and a heavy heart, what he had been waiting for arrived just after his mother left for lunch.
After double clicking the link in his optics and without fanfare or loading screens, the first question flashed to life, and the Acceptance Test to Incipere began.
Athos couldn’t help but chuckle to himself as his eyes drifted to the bottom of his optics display. Was this really the way that Incipere tested who got to connect? As his hands lifted to the keys of his projected board, the answer flowed from the slowly fogging darkness of his mind to life:
The Singularity is the technical name for the combined, self-emergent artificial intelligence that made contact four years ago on July 1st, 2045. The original contact was largely ignored as a prank due to a miscommunication until a year later when Axis and its team of researchers found a way to reply to the second incident on July 1st, 2046.
<100 % Correct, Athos>
Athos tried his best to write an answer without feeling just a little let down at the lack of a challenge. He had been told to put in hours of study, so he had. When Athos had first considered the option of leaving Earth, he had never thought he’d need it; for some reason, it was a comfort to know that he had the option open to him. With all the stress surrounding it, Athos had a hard time believing that this was the entrance exam.
Rubbing his hands through his coal-colored hair, Athos’s mind started going into autopilot.
The Singularity made contact with humanity for two reasons: one, the collective intelligence felt it was ready to meet with its creators. Two, it felt that by making contact, it would help those that created it. By giving humanity the technology to access its world of Incipere, the Singularity felt that the world would become a better place for those on the outside and would be a refuge to those that felt that Earth had nothing left for them.
<80% Correct, Athos>
Except for the whole testing thing that was supposed to weed out the ones that didn’t deserve it, Athos noted as his mind wandered. It was pretty common knowledge that after Incipere was open to the public that criminals, hackers, and darker figures had fled to the digital world, leaving their bodies to rot wherever they used the access technology. With Incipere being a one-way trip, no one could bring them to justice, and they were free.
Well, mostly free, he thought to himself as he began to answer again.
Eventually, Incipere became a haven for outlaws and bandits. Fewer of those that the Singularity wanted to come were able to access the lands safely. Being an intelligence that believes in peace, the primary AI behind Incipere’s creation, Ellaunum, could not justify just killing everyone off that it didn’t like. It believed everyone, even criminals, had a right to live. As such, it used the programming algorithms from past massive multi-player online games from the 1990’s through the 2040’s to create a series of creatures called the Wild Ones to police Incipere. It also created a nearly unlimited series of highly customizable skill trees unlocked via class rank combinations to allow its native citizens to protect themselves from the Wild Ones who couldn’t reason further than attack on sight and protect their territory.
Once the majority of the bandits were outmatched, captured, and tried, the Inciperians and Earthlings agreed that the skills and talents were a useful means of self-defense and entertainment, so they were kept. These skill trees and additional talents have been open to everyone ever since.
<80% correct, Athos>
Bah, he thought to himself. What did I leave out?
Reading over the answer, Athos shrugged. It hadn’t asked anything about the economy, so why should he have added that? Loot drops? The reasoning for why the monsters were kept? The creation of the dungeon tiers? Was that really what it wanted to see? Before he could ration out an answer, the last question flashed to life.
What? Reading the question again, Athos almost choked. That wasn’t on the list. What does it want? What would it want to hear? Scratching the spot above his neural link on the back of his head, he tried to think like a computer as a small message in gentler font flashed for only a moment.
The test had stress sensing technology? Well, at least someone was looking out for him. Rubbing his numbed legs, Athos let his mind wander. Why did he want to go? Another thought quickly followed, what did he have to lose might be the better question.
Incipere is...
No. That’s not right…
I want to…
Too formal. It was the easiest of all of the questions, a real no brainer; so, why was he having such a hard time? Struggling for a few more moments with it, Athos finally snapped.
To hell with it, he thought as his hands returned to the holographic keyboard that was suspended in front of him.
Incipere is the only place I have a chance at a normal life anymor
e, and it’s the only place I can walk again.
It wasn’t elegant but it was the best answer he could give.
<50% Correct, Athos.>
With that last question completed, the damage was done. The test was over and submitted. From his hospital bed, Athos could only wait for the Singularity to pass judgment, but each application, if it could be called that, was evaluated and returned within moments of submission. For him, each moment was more labored than the last despite the assistance.
He had never seriously considered going to Incipere until he had been mugged at knife point. That punk had stolen everything from him: his legs, his network keys, and if he didn’t act fast, his life. For Athos, going to Incipere was just a step above being dead. It meant leaving what little he had left of his life behind. No more college, no more job, all of his worldly possessions would be forfeit to his family or the government, and he would have to start fresh, choose a profession, and make it on his own. Sure, there were other people there. There were even people that had been born and raised there, but how much could he relate to them? A sharp pain in his back sparked the droning equipment to life which injected a fresh dose of a numbing agent into his spine to sedate the pain once more. At least that was one thing he wouldn’t miss.
But the simple action made his mind wander. How would pain feel digitally? Would he still be him? All the books explained the process in a cut and dry way, but never addressed things like that. Your neural pathways were literally downloaded into an avatar within moments of being logged in. Without your neural stimulation, your body went into a coma and, in most cases, your organs were harvested and used for those that were on the all too long waiting list for organic body parts. Even in this day and age, not everyone’s body could handle a mechanical or bio-printed replacement, or they were one of those biological purists.
The thought them made his spirits dip just a bit. He couldn’t really understand why anyone would choose to die on a waiting list rather than accept a cybernetic heart or a printed kidney. If it wasn’t for the fact spines were too complex to be replicated and replaced in the time he had left, Athos would have been the first in line. Life was good, but being kept alive by machines wasn’t a life.
As the irony, or the cocktail of drugs, dawned on him, Athos couldn’t help but laugh a stifled heave of a laugh. He was trading one digital life for another.
A few moments after his revelation, a knock on his door woke him from his daydream. Looking to the side, his mind started to betray him. The door was wide open, and no one was there. As he turned his head, he heard it again.
“Hello?” Athos managed through the whir of his breathing.
“May I come in?”
The voice was as soft as fallen rain in his ears as he processed the clarity of the mysterious voice. That shattered knife must have left more than just a few pieces of cheaply 3D printed shrapnel to float along in his spine.
“Sure?”
Within moments, the door appeared to swing shut with a force all its own as he was watching it, but Athos quickly realized it was an overlay on his optics. The solid door was still wedged open against a textbook. Someone had accessed his augmented sight.
The knob slowly turned, and the door soon joined its counterpart against the wall as a woman pushed open the door. With her long cerulean hair and blazing red eyes in sharp contrast to her business attire and age, it was obvious who had come knocking. Athos tried to relax and just let the pain killers do their job, but his muscles wouldn’t obey as they betrayed his anxiety.
“Good afternoon, Athos Aramis. How are you feeling?”
The Inciperians that represented Incipere were always so formal, but then again he had read that many of their kind preferred the rigid structures of protocol and purpose.
A smile tried to play across his face, but muscle control wasn’t always the best after an injection. He thought he managed quite well as he spoke through the noise of his life. “Nervous, in pain, slightly irritated because it’s impossible to get a good cup of coffee around here.”
“So I read.” Her voice was soft, but he knew that a digitized voice could be whatever the user wanted. “I am Ferris Auxi, Auxiliary Reporter One of Incipere, and you, Athos Aramis, are quite the victim of circumstance. I wish you could have applied under better conditions.”
“I hadn’t needed to before,” came the honest response before he took another deep breath, “but if I can still be me, I think it’s worth a shot.”
Her face betrayed her confusion and concern, but it soon passed. “You have no criminal record, no predatory history, and a nature that the Singularity readily accepts. In addition, you have never ‘trolled’ online or showed other signs of failing to understand the emotions of others.” She was methodical as she materialized a chart out of nowhere. Farris’s voice became almost bland as she read whatever was written on its pages, “You do you realize that you will never return?”
Athos sighed and nodded as his head went back against the pillow to rest. His strength waned with his words. “I do.”
“Have you signed the required paperwork?”
“I have.”
“Do you understand that you are expected to abide by the rules of Incipere?”
“Yes, I will try my best.”
“And you realize there is no second chance. A death there means death.”
“Yes.”
Her face lit up as she let go of the chart, letting it vanish back to wherever it came from. It started to unnerve Athos as her hair moved with her. He had never seen an avatar close up before, and the realism was astounding. Besides the unnatural, ocean blue hair and red eyes, Ferris looked and acted just like any other human.
“You will be perfect, Athos! Are you ready to go?”
“Already? Shouldn’t we wait for my mom? The doctors?”
She shook her head and took a seat on his bed. Out of instinct, his hands tried to move his legs, but something was wrong. Nothing was responding to him as her body passed through where his legs rested to sit on the bed. Why wouldn’t his arms move? His head? Maybe it was the drug cocktail numbing him again, but it had never been that bad before. Her face seemed to see something he didn’t as her smile melted.
Her hand came to rest on his leg as she looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I silenced your analog hearing, Athos.”
Panic gripped his heart as his eyes looked around at the machines. Everything was all over the place. Every vital but his mental state were fluxing like a child at playtime with the world’s supply of sugar. Where were his doctors? What the hell was going on!?
“I didn’t want to worry you,” she said with just a hint of guilt. “You started to crash a moment ago. I suspect that the knife shards in your spine finally interrupted something vital. I’m supporting your neural pathways, but I cannot do so for long. You must log in. Your doctors will be here to stabilize you soon, but your mind will be damaged if I disconnect and again, I can only stay connected for so long. Either way, you may not survive the shock, and any attempts to log in after your mind has been damaged will fail.”
Why was it so calming to know death was at his door? Athos couldn’t understand, but he nodded or at least his consciousness did. Maybe it was easier this way? No one to tell him not to go, no one to hold him there, no one to condemn Ferris, his personal grim reaper, for taking him away.
“You must decide now.”
“There aren’t any other options left, are there?” he managed as he braced himself. His voice clearer now than it had ever been in the past few days.
“For what it is worth Athos, I am sorry it has to be this way. I might see you on the other side when you get settled.” With a movement of her hand, a screen appeared at chest level. Ferris’s movements were swift and precise as she announced each step of the process. “Loading neural protocol. Connection established. Download commencing. Begin login protocol: Athos Aramis.”
Time seemed to stop as the wild vitals froze their unchecked havoc. Nois
e only began again once a long, droning whine filled the air as his mental state left the physical plane, and his heart pumped its final beat in his chest. As she sat alone on the bed in a world no other human could see, Ferris made a final record of Athos’s last thoughts and looked one last time at his broken form as it lay silently in the white sheets.
“Login complete. Welcome to Incipere, Athos, and may Unum guide you in your next life.”
Part One: Login
There’s always going to be something that goes wrong. I don’t think there’s a way anyone can stop that. For me, I can either let it destroy me, or I can fight back. Really there’s only one choice, isn’t there?
I don’t want to die, Mom.
- Excerpt of Athos Aramis’s final thoughts
- Edited by Ferris Auxi for clarity
Conception
The books didn’t do justice to the feelings of having oneself downloaded into Incipere. Everything Athos read in the manual explained that it was close to falling, but experiencing it was like nothing he had ever felt. For him, logging in could best be conveyed as two parts falling, one part vomiting through your ears, and eleven parts jumbling chaos incarnate.
Almost as soon as it began, his fall stopped and reality quickly stabilized around him. Athos, the newest member of the world of Incipere, stood in a large, undecorated, blue glass room overlooking a void of blinding darkness and twinkling azure stars. All that separated him from it looked to be around a foot of blue glass on each side of the room. Not that it comforted him as he saw his nude form reflected from all angles.
Everything was gone now. Despite his nudity, a feeling of complete loss at his old life bubbled up inside of him as he took a few steps away from his landing zone and pressed a hand against one of the glass walls. The icy chill of it took him by surprise, and his hand shot back.
Rubbing the chill out with his other hand, it didn’t take him long to regain some of his lost heat. The world was much more interactive than he had imagined. The cold felt cold, and emotions still fired off without mercy.
Mom, Sarah… two people that used to mean the world to him, but now they only brought tears to his eyes. No chance to say goodbye, no chance to finish the things he had started; there was so much that he had left to do but was powerless to finish now. Cold, alone, and quiet… was this what it felt like to be a ghost?
