The Tempering

A blind king at war with orcs and their half-dragon overlord faces the prospect of a war on two fronts he cannot win, but his insidious plan for victory may not turn out quite like he has planned.It is the far future and humanity has become stagnant. A device called the Interface enables all humans to link themselves to virtual realities and to download at whim any information that they might want. It is an existence devoted purely to leisure. But no one now remembers how to think for themselves. There is no need to learn or to gain knowledge. There is no striving for a better world, no need to improve oneself. No need to travel or work. Nothing changes, everything stays the same. That is, until Laurena Tyall asks the Interface a question that no one else has thought of asking for over two hundred years: what is it to learn? That one question changes her world forever and nothing will ever be the same again, or so she believes.