by D. J. Bodden
The “me” on the ground stood and looked up at me, or at least in my direction since I didn’t have a body. I could feel myself being drawn back in. There was a rightness to it, and I could always come back and try a new build later. A prompt came up.
<<<>>>
Please choose a name:
<<<>>>
“Alan Campbell,” I said, using my real name. The other me’s lips moved at the same time.
“Are you sure you would like to create Alan Campbell the Imperial?” came the announcer’s voice from before. “Once you create a character, you will not be able to change your racial identity or name. Please confirm.”
“Yes,” I said. My character smiled, arms spread out, and leaned back, falling from the rock. I dove after him.
Then there was darkness.
WIND RUSHED BY MY EARS. Orchestral strings and an ethereal choir swelled until they filled the darkness. I blinked, twisting around to find myself high in the air above a peninsula twice the size of Spain. Deserts and chains of jagged brown mountains in the West, a single, massive peak in the North, and endless oceans all around. The Central and Eastern lands were rolling plains, hills, farmlands, and forests, while the South was overgrown with dense jungles surrounded by swamps. Seven sprawling cities resolved as I descended, then several medium-sized ones, and the land became divided by winding silver rivers and roads as fine as hairs. The music flared, then the terrain was zipping by, and I was streaking like a fighter jet toward the eastern edge of the world.
“The year is 1094 A.I.C—Anno Imperium Conditae,” the gruff male voice boomed. “A time of peace in the lands of Eldgard. Or so it seems.”
Men and women dressed in exotic fabrics argued, haggled, and drank wine from bowls made of silver and gold. Tradesmen plied their craft. The city grew. I watched a merchant slip a city watchman a handful of coins to let him through the gates. On the walls, watching, an officer in a gold breastplate laid a hand on his sword hilt, righteous fury in his eyes.
“Years of trade and diplomacy have weakened the Empire. Her citizens are corrupt, her Legion untested, and her mighty generals have faded into legend. Meanwhile, the barbarians living in the wilds beyond our borders grow stronger.” The scene flashed to the seven cities, showing each in turn. “The winged savages of the Barren Sands grow fat on caravans to the fabled glass city of Ankara. The Wodes of Rowanheath shore up their walls and raise their young men for war. The Tanglewood is overrun with monsters, the Bleak Sea teems with smugglers and pirates. Stone Reach speaks of trade agreements where before there was tribute. Even the gates of Glome Corrie, once our staunchest ally, have been barred to Imperial tax collectors so that only the Hvitalfar remain faithful to New Viridia. Or do they placate us? What mischief do they plot in the great libraries of Alaunhylles? In the Storm Marshes, the Dokkalfar teach their children forbidden histories and dream of an empire of their own.”
Blue banners with gold embroidered griffins unfurled from tall, squared stone towers, and I felt my heart swell with the music.
“You are a son of the Empire. The blood of heroes flows in your veins. Will you feed off the carcass of New Viridia, or will you stand and bring the light of civilization to the peoples of Eldgard? Peace never lasts,” the voice warned. “Your destiny begins today.”
I stooped like a hawk for the center of the city.
Oh hell yes. I mean, I was there to do my job and save the project. I’d be debriefed and have to write reports. Osmark would chew me out, and the Board could push for my termination. And that was all hoping the experience didn’t damage my brain. It wasn’t likely, and Jeff would keep a close eye on the readings, but it could still happen. I should have felt apprehensive.
I was going to be the first gamer to successfully play V.G.O. This was going to be—
I fell the last foot and landed on my chest, barely avoiding bouncing my face off the white marble. People stopped and stared. I was unarmed, winded, and still in my cheap-ass clothes, as Jeff would have put it. It turned out this was just like any other first day at work.
THERE WAS A PAUSE, during which I thought someone might comment on my falling from the sky, or start screaming. But then, like magic, the crowd started moving again. No one helped me up. One guy even stepped over me, and all I saw were his sandals. I got to my feet, wiping my hands on my pants, and looked around.
People dressed in tunics and more stately togas moved past. Their clothes were clean and well made, the women’s hair pinned with delicate brooches and clips, while the men’s hair was usually oiled and styled. No one made eye contact. It didn’t make sense. V.G.O. wasn’t just supposed to be immersive, it was supposed to be the most advanced AI simulation ever made. There were supercomputers that could pass a Turing test with only a fraction of the computing power Osmark stored in the vault. I didn’t see the same face twice, so these weren’t filler characters or anything; they all had histories, personalities, and as many lines of possible dialogue as a real human being. I thought it might be a cultural thing, but they seemed comfortable enough talking to each other. “Excuse me?” I said.
An older man with a heavy gold clasp fastening his toga at the shoulder glanced at me, then looked away. I didn’t understand. I looked down in case I was still the invisible spirit from character creation, but I could see my body just fine. I’d apparently skinned my knee, which stung the second I laid eyes on it, just like in real life, and that made me grin. I caught a woman’s eye and opened my mouth to greet her. She curled her upper lip in disgust.
It hit me. I was in the wealthy part of town, wearing ill-fitting, torn, dirty clothes. A closer look at my shirt revealed it was called a Rough Tunic (shoddy). Within minutes of literally landing inside the most advanced video game ever made, I was being discriminated against by NPCs. And it made perfect sense. It was as real as things could get. I didn’t know if it was funny or sad.
“Why aren’t you disappearing?” a man’s voice said.
I turned and saw a portly man in white robes pointing at me with his mouth open. He snatched his hand back as I faced him, as if I might bite. He was wearing an Imperial blue- and gold-embroidered stole, like a priest. Maybe he’d help me. “Hi! Could you...”
He ran away. He actually ran away from me. A radius of a few feet had opened around me, like unholy ground. I wasn’t dangerous. I wasn’t foreign—I was a son of the Empire, that much had been quite clear in the intro. My skin was dark, but I saw both lighter and darker pass me by without pause. I was just poor. It was something I’d never experienced, and it sucked.
But hey, that was the game, right? Run a few quests, get some loot, buy better gear so I could hobnob with rich assholes. The fate of the world hangs in the balance, I told myself with a grin. Robert liked to tell people he came from nothing. Maybe this would make me a better person.
“Hey, Alan, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you. Do you have any idea where I am?”
“New Viridia,” Jeff said. “You’re in the capital of the Empire.”
I nodded, looking around. I was in a flat, wide plaza made of tightly fitted slabs of white marble. The white stone shone in the morning sun.
“Is V.G.O. in real time?” I asked.
“It is now! Kronos synched the clocks so the transition would be less jarring.” I heard him clicking to another window. “You also have to eat, drink, rest, and protect yourself from the elements or you’ll get sick. Pain and smell are about normal, but—and this is interesting—taste is at 115% human standard, so the food’s going to taste amazing.”
“Poop?” I asked.
“Nope. No bathroom breaks. If only the real you was the same.”
A waist-high stone wall and cast-iron railings ringed the plaza’s outer edge, and, beyond it, I could see the city from the intro cut-scene, with hundreds of buildings between me and the outer wall.
“So how does it feel?”
“It’s crazy, man. Aren’t you seeing this?”
“Yeah
, kind of. It’s hard to follow on a flat screen.”
I’d never seen anything like it. I mean I had, in real life, but never in a game where you could open every door and see the interiors, move things around, probably get into a fight with the owner for trespassing. The Ancient Rolls had been like that, where NPCs had homes, jobs, and people they hung out with during the day, but even the capital city of Cloudrim only had eighty-two people in it.
I gripped the railing and leaned forward, looking down at the city below. The residential buildings were three, sometimes four stories tall, and some of the temples and civic buildings were massive even by real-world standards. I could see open-air markets, parks, and a few major avenues wide enough for a couple of car lanes—or I guessed horse carts and wagons in this case—though most of the roads were much narrower. “So, how many people in New Viridia?”
“About two million,” Jeff answered.
I believed it.
An oversized hand gripped my shoulder. “Are you lost?”
Two members of the city watch had walked up behind me while I gawked. They wore round bronze helmets with cheek guards and leather cuirasses, with strips of leather hanging from their shoulders and waists. Short swords were belted at their right hips. The taller one looked like his nose had been broken more than once, and was at least part Risi, with two sharp fangs poking up behind his lower lip. I instinctively leaned back against the railing. The shorter of the two held a knotted thong with several leather tails. She smacked it against her open palm. “Does your master know where you are, slave?”
I swallowed. This was turning into something a lot more serious than a good shunning and dirty looks. A semicircle of onlookers was forming. “There must be some kind of mistake,” I started.
SIX
THE HALF-RISI GRABBED my wrist and raised it. “No brand,” he told his partner.
“Doesn’t mean he belongs here,” she answered. “Are you drunk? Affka? Have you been doing drugs?”
“I’m sorry, officer. I don’t know what Affka is, but I’m very, very sober. I’m a citizen and—”
“Where do you live?”
“I... I’m not from around here.”
“Then you can’t be a citizen.” She looked at her partner. “Vagrancy?”
“Let’s just get him out of here.”
“Vagrancy’s against the law, Gork. He should pay—”
“Does he look like he has money?” the half-Risi asked, raising an eyebrow.
The female watchman clenched her jaw.
Gork grabbed me by the upper arm. “Let’s go.”
They led me out through the crowd of proper citizens, who were all too happy to look at me now that I’d been put back into my place.
ONCE WE’D PUT A FEW blocks between us and the wealthy section of town, the half-Risi patrolman stopped.
“I’ll take him from here,” Gork told his partner.
“Fine. Meet me back at the station.”
“I will.”
His partner peeled off, heading back into the upper city. Gork pulled me on, his grip never loosening. I got the feeling he wasn’t squeezing anywhere near as hard as he could have, but there was still no chance of me breaking free. Maybe I’d been hasty, picking a human starting character.
The further downhill we went, the fewer people stared. In fact, at some point, people stopped looking at me at all, and it was Gork who drew the most looks. We passed through a narrow tunnel in one of the ten-foot-thick stone-and-mortar walls and emerged into the outermost and widest ring of the city. Gork let me go.
I took a few steps back, then stood there feeling terrible about myself. If I hadn’t had to be there to save the project, I might have quit. Gork looked me over, his thumbs hooked into his belt, reminding me of Frank. “Are you crazy?” he asked.
“What?”
Gork spit on the cobbles. “The woman who dragged us over to the plaza said you were talking to yourself, and then we found you leaning against the railing. You planning on jumping?”
“No!” I said. “I’m just... I traveled here from a long way away.”
Gork nodded. “I thought so. Listen carefully. You see that hill at the center of the city? That’s the Heights. Rich, powerful people live up there, not people like us. Stay away from it.” He reached into a pouch tucked into his belt and pulled out two copper coins that looked tiny in his hand. “Here,” he said. “That should feed you for a day. Find some work. Beg, if your pride can take it. Get some clothes from a thrift shop or one of the temples. Bathe. Don’t let me catch you in the upper city looking like that again, and don’t talk to yourself in public; it scares people.”
I blushed. It’s hard to tell with my complexion, but trust me, from the inside it feels like your face is on fire. I took the money though. A prompt appeared.
<<<>>>
Quest Alert: Productive Citizen
You now have two coins to rub together! Work, beg, or steal your way to respectability so your meteoric rise through the ranks of the Empire can begin!
Quest Class: Common, Faction-Based
Quest Difficulty: Easy
Success: Equip a full set of clothes other than your shoddy starting gear.
Failure: None.
Reward: 500 XP
Accept: Yes/No?
<<<>>>
Just like that, I was reminded this was all a game, a challenge I chose to overcome.
“Thanks,” I told him, accepting the quest. “Are you my starter NPC?” Every player was supposed to get a starter NPC to guide them through their first moments in the game.
Gork frowned. “Your...?” He scrunched his face up. “You know what? I don’t want to know. I’m just Gork, and I know what it’s like to be a bit different,” he said, tapping one of his fangs with his index finger. “You take care of yourself, Traveler. Remember what I told you about talking to yourself in public.” He walked away.
I clutched my coppers to my chest and headed downhill.
“Well, that was intense,” Jeff said.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching. I was in one of the narrow side streets, which was only wide enough for two or three people to walk next to each other, and currently deserted. “I’m okay,” I said, and it was mostly true. “Is that something you guys programmed in?”
“I’m hardware, dude. But no, nobody ‘programmed’ that in. There is no programming. It’s just people. We scanned thousands of brains to get Kronos’s personality database set up. A statistically normal percentage of those people were jerks.”
I laughed. “It’s always the goddamned meat, isn’t it?”
“Amen,” Jeff answered.
For all that, I did think Gork was trying to help, and he’d given me a path to success and acceptance, even if it wasn’t paved with roses.
Speaking of which, my heels ached. I’d never done this much walking without the cushion and support of a modern sole. Three-story buildings with narrow balconies rose on either side, providing shade, which was a good thing because, either from the stress or the warm air, my armpits and lower back were starting to get damp. A cobbled gutter ran down the middle of the street, but the sides were paved in flat stones, and those were a bit more forgiving on my feet, so I walked with one hand trailing along the wall. I felt the texture with my fingertips, smooth and warm if a bit dusty.
Most of the buildings’ faces were plaster painted over in shades of cream, yellow, or powdery red. In some place, holes had been knocked into the plaster, exposing the mortared, rough-cut stone blocks beneath, just like the fortifications. The doors were tall and thick, made of dark wood reinforced or sometimes just decorated with iron bands and spikes. Some doors were scorched but intact. The whole city felt heavy and permanent in a way modern plywood and glass never could, and I liked that, in spite of what had happened earlier. I could imagine living somewhere like New Viridia, even in the lower city.
I steppe
d out into another plaza, but this one seemed more diverse. Merchants peddled their wares from carts, stalls, and the doorsteps of permanent shops. Those nearest me offered trinkets, charms, pottery vases, wooden bowls and pitchers, candles and lamp oil, candlesticks and lamps, carved wood, stone, and bone dice, games and figurines, as well as an assortment of different decorative and functional knives, three-tined forks, and spoons. It was all junk to a gamer, the kind of stuff that weighed down your inventory but did nothing for your coin purse when you sold it off. But in V.G.O., I guessed, maybe one day I’d own a home, and maybe I’d want a fine clay pot with depictions of naked men hunting wild boar from the backs of giant lizards, with spear, bow, and hounds. I smiled at the artist’s imagination.
Several groves of a half dozen palm trees were planted throughout the plaza, ringed by outward facing cast-iron and wood-slat benches. Triangular orange sheets had been strung from the rooftops to the trees, offering slices of shade to the crowd as it flowed around the islands of green. I moved with them, clockwise around the palms, jostling and getting jostled without a second thought. Leather goods, from water and wine bags to smiths’ aprons and decorative bracers, an array of flasks, phials, and phylacteries to which the proprietor ascribed all manner of magical powers... I paused at that. Everything was so real, I’d forgotten there was magic in V.G.O. That didn’t mean the vendor was honest. The man’s eagerness and the paucity of my wealth had me bobbing along with the crowd once more. Finally, I reached the corner of the market I’d been subconsciously searching for, the one that made my throat ache and my nostrils twitch.
Food. I’m not what you’d consider a comfort eater, but I’d had a hell of a day. I’d slept badly, puked, stressed in the real world and stressed here, and then got perp-walked to the bad part of town—though it smelled like the best part of town right now.
I pushed my way toward it. I could smell herbs and spices—rosemary, thyme, oregano, and coriander seeds—the thick, slightly bitter aroma of olive oil; the wholesome scent of just-baked bread; and the bright, pungent, and sour odors of fresh cheeses. A sharp tang of fried peppers, onions, and garlic wrinkled my eyes. I pushed through into the old-world equivalent of a food court.
