Ascension

by B F Rockriver

  Before heading to bed, Eli wanted to let everyone know that the first floor of the Temple was open and not to be afraid of its guardians. They would attack if provoked, or if anyone tried to damage the Temple, but that wasn’t his problem. If they wanted to sleep in his house, they needed to follow his rules. After a slight wave of motion sickness from using the portal, he found himself on the first floor. Immediately he was assaulted by the sounds of banging and shouting. His raucous group of refugees turned villagers needed something.

  Making his way to the door, he noticed that James had appeared shortly after and started after him. Harley had already taken flight, ensuring that his aerial dominance was never forgotten. As the two approached the doors, the bangs grew louder, and Eli could make out part of what the people were screaming about.

  “Where're our weapons!” One person shouted.

  “Let us in; it’s not safe out here.” A feminine voice pleaded.

  Booming over them all was the voice of a particularly surly and somewhat creepy dwarven player, “Why can’t I log out?”

  Roscoe? Eli thought, recognizing the voice from when he signed the man's contract.

  Opening the doors let in a flood of worried-looking players and NPCs, each with expressions of doom or irritation on their faces. Most of the NPCs were looking for their promised weapons or a safe place for their children to sleep. Many had no tents or shelter, and it was far too dark to build a makeshift pack-house. He needed to do something before even more people left. While he was thankful that the numbers had thinned, he was relying on having at least two hundred people in his fledgling city.

  “Okay, okay. I know it’s late, and you are all tired, but please remember that this clearing is safe. I have opened up this floor of the Temple to anyone who wishes to sleep here until we have proper shelters built. As for the weapons,” Eli paused, “Those will have to wait until morning. It will take hours to do that properly. We need to record everyone’s selection and preferred weapon and fighting style. If we want this to work, it has to be done right.”

  “What happens if we are attacked tonight,” A chirpy teenage Striggan boy asked, hesitantly.

  Eli nodded at the boy who reminded him of the week-long barrier that prevented enemies from attacking the island “We have a little more than three days before another party, alliance, guild or government can attack this island. This includes monsters and hostile animals. Everyone who is a citizen, and sleeps on the island, or in the Temple, will be safe. Everyone who is not a citizen can sleep on the island for now. As long as we have approved you for temporary residence, or as a guest. If you have not checked in, you’re sleeping on the other side of the bridge. If you refuse,” Eli pointed to the giant flying beasts circling the group. “You know where the door is. Don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”

  “Are they going to attack us?” A small human child asked, clutching onto the leg of Gilroy, the Forest Elf architect.

  Kneeling to look the child in the eye, Eli chuckled, “No, my friend. They won’t attack anyone unless they are bad.” After patting the child on the head, he continued, “And you’re not going to do anything bad, are you?”

  “N-no, sir. I’m too tired. I just want to go to bed.” The child responded.

  “This child asked a good question.” Eli raised his hand to the sky again, seeing Harley nip at the tail of a hippogryph, “Are these beasts going to attack? The answer is no. They are here to protect this Temple, its owners, and its property. If we get attacked, they will defend you. If you try to attack someone within the Temple, try to steal from or damage the Temple, or harm my friends or me, they will attack you.” He looked over the crowd, some of which shifted in place nervously, “So, unless you are planning on being an asshole, you will be safer here than just about anywhere else in this clearing. Consider that rule number one. Don’t be an asshole. It will keep you out of a lot of trouble. Now, welcome to the Temple of Aeryntorr.” As he finished talking, a notification appeared in his vision, followed by the sound of a loud dwarf making his way through the crowd.

  *Would you like the law, Don’t be an asshole, added to your towns charter: Yes / No

  “Don’t yeh mean the temple of Blight’s End Keep?” The swarthy dwarf player chuckled.

  Eli palmed his face, breathing deeply as he selected yes. Their first official law was not to be an asshole, and he really needed to change the name of his stronghold.

  Chapter 44

  After elbowing James for laughing, Eli called out to the Dwarf. He needed to talk with him without causing a scene. If the man could no longer log out, that meant the process was speeding up. With the system restricting players' abilities to log out or access the outside world, it could cause the player base to panic. The thought of fourteen or more players freaking out in the center of his new town frightened him. It could ruin everything.

  “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about what you said earlier,” Eli whispered, leading the man to the opposite end of the temple. “You can’t log out?”

  “Yeh, I was flipping through ma’ menu a few minutes ago, an' I saw that ah' bunch of me options were greyed out.” The leather-clad, red-bearded man replied in a raspy voice, with a hint of an Irish accent making him somewhat hard to understand. “It’s not a problem, though; I live here. Couldn’t log out before this anyway. My real body is in a self-induced coma. I’ve already been here for about a month. Only thing I’ll miss is the internet.” He sighed, “Those damn cat memes get me.” He said, raising his head, as he attempted to smile, “But, I thought it would be good ta' start warnin' people ya' know, in case this is a bigger problem. We gotta' try an' figure out when this will get fixed. Make sure the mods are on it.”

  Eli’s head lowered, knowing that people would eventually find out what was happening, “Can you come to see me, and James tomorrow. We can’t log out either, and the messaging system is down. We’re working on a plan to get this fixed, but we don’t want to cause a panic.” Eli said as Roscoe nodded along in understanding.

  “Wouldn’t want a riot.” The Dwarf said, stroking his bushy beard, “Losin' yer' head, solves nothin'. Patience, an' plannin' is how ya' get things done.” The Dwarf replied. “I’m yer' man. I’ll try ta' keep things in order with the players here. Tha' boy, Kyle, he’s havin' the same problem, but he seems to be happy about it. But, he’s startin' ta' worry the other players. It looks like the kids had a rough life. Won’t shut up about how awesome it would be to live in a video game, like an NPC. One of 'em already logged out fer' good. Said she couldn’t risk it. She’s got kids, ta care for.” picking a piece of food from his scruff, he paused to inspect his find, “If too many people catch on, it could seriously affect yer little project here.” After scratching his beard, as if coming to a decision, he continued, “I’ll let anyone who’s askin' know that we’re workin' on it an to stay quiet. Tell ‘em to log out if they can, wait it out on the other side. I’ve traveled with a few of the other players; I’ll ask 'em ta’ reach out to the mods from outside of the game. But, we need ta' keep a leash on the boy. He seems ta’ love to talk about Don; maybe I’ll send the kid his way.”

  Eli stood in shock. The grumpy looking Dwarf had figured out his plan in seconds and offered to take care of it. Under the rough, somewhat dangerous-looking exterior was an efficient and effective strategic mind. Somehow, he had to get this man to stay on board.

  “I like this guy; we need to lock him down. Make sure he stays,” James whispered in Eli’s ear.

  Nodding in agreement, Eli slapped the Dwarf on the back, “So, about that guild you were asking about,” Eli said, changing the subject.

  The three spoke for another few minutes as people organized themselves inside the temple. While James grilled the man about his situation and past, Eli watched as people shuffled about, trying to find comfort in their new situation. Alyssa claimed a spot on the edges of the indoor field, setting it up as a temporary hospital, while Rou’gar, the wolffen merchant, laid out a ta
rp-covered with useful items and weapons. For now, it looked like everyone could handle things themselves. Roscoe, on the other hand, explained his plan.

  After Eli refused to allow the man to start a guild, no questions asked, Roscoe, relented, and spoke openly. He did so on the condition that Eli and James told no one of his plans. The man was going for the spy class and wanted to start what he called an information services office. It was a thieves' guild. One that focused on information. The man had been a prominent businessman before he came down with a rather severe illness. Not wanting to go through pain and suffering alone, he put himself in a coma. His family had all but abandoned him, leaving him to deal with his health issues on his own. His business was data. He had become a billionaire by collecting data and reselling it to other businesses for marketing purposes. His plan was to do the same thing in Eternia, with just a tiny bit of skullduggery.

  While Eli didn’t like the thought of allowing a possible criminal enterprise to blossom in his city, he knew how useful information could be. Eli loved data. The more he knew about a problem, the easier it was to manage. What he didn’t love was collecting data from people unwilling to share their information. Personal privacy was a touchy issue. Looking to his friend for assistance, he nudged his friend. James nodded in agreement, smiling at the Dwarf. If James trusted the guy, Eli would too.

  “Look, I’ll let you set up a thieves' guild. We all know that’s what you’re asking.” Eli said as the man shrank, knowing that they had figured him out. “But, we will build it, and it will be a branch of Quests Inc. You will follow our charter, you will pay rent, and you will pay taxes. This will be a legitimate business. There will be no unsanctioned assassinations, robberies, or blatant criminal activity.” Before the man’s hopes were crushed, Eli offered a treat. “But, you will have our full protection, we will pay for building costs, and you and your people will have special privileges, as long as you don’t do anything too crazy. We will also give you a free, permanent, business license and seller’s permit for operating as a branch of Quests Inc.” Putting his hand out, Eli looked at the man, “Deal?”

  The man’s eyes shifted as if he were considering his options before he grabbed Eli’s hand and shook, “Deal.”

  With his immediate problems solved, and a few hours until sunrise, Eli started making his way towards his room. He needed sleep. The next day promised to be a long one. Calling Harley to his shoulder with a mental command, he and James made their way towards the portal. A few moments later, the two were alone, for the first time, walking towards Eli’s room.

  “Hey man, we need to talk,” James said quietly. “There’s a lot of stuff you need to know.”

  Eli had expected this. James had been looking for him for a reason, “It’s about what you did to me, isn’t it.”

  James nodded, “That and much, much, more. When you left, weird shit started happening.”

  As the two made their way into Eli’s room, he locked the door behind them, “Out with it, how fucked are we?”

  “Oh. We are so very fucked.” James replied, his head hanging low. “After you did whatever it is you did, to put yourself into an NPC avatar, things went haywire.”

  “How so?” Eli asked, not really wanting an answer.

  James looked at him, compassion in his eyes, “First, I want to say that I know why you did it. You lost your family. I get it. I lost my husband.” He paused, taking a moment to calm himself, “I thought about doing the same thing. You could have a new life, start over in some fantasy world where the people you love never die. It’s perfect. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t want to see Steven’s face, to feel his warmth. Not a single day.”

  “I’m sorry, James. I left you alone. I can’t even imagine,” Eli started, needing to apologize.

  James looked at him, his usual happy expression turning sour, “Like I said, I get it.” He waved off the apology with obvious frustration, “That’s not the problem. When you put yourself in here, you gave the system access to player information. To the outside admin menu, and access to the Neuralink software. You gave it direct access to people’s minds.”

  “That’s not possible, there are fail-safes, and encryptions in place, right? As soon as it tried to access restricted information, the game should have rebooted itself.” Eli responded.

  “You don’t get it. You’re the one who designed the machine learning protocol. The AI. You’re the one who wrote the encryptions. By putting yourself, your awareness and consciousness, into an avatar under the system’s control, it got access to everything. Everything you knew, all the safety measures and how to bypass them. It’s all in there. It only took a few hours to teach itself a workaround. A day later, it cut off communication to a small group of coma patients using a proxy server to visit their families. The next day it locked an entire squad of soldiers in a training server, inside the system. This thing is fucking smart man; it’s targeting coma and long-term trial patients first, and the military. People that either can’t say anything or wouldn’t mind.”

  Hearing his friend's words, Eli spiraled. He was the one who had caused these people to be stuck in the game. “I didn’t know.”

  “That’s not even the worst part,” James said, his voice cold, lifeless, “If you unlocked the cell door when you put yourself in here, I burnt down the fucking prison to get you out.”

  “What do you mean? Are you talking about what you used to change me into a player? I know it corrupted the system somehow, let it use the Blight to take over NPCs and Player avatars. But how does that change anything?” Eli paused, staring at his friend with wide eyes.

  “Yeah, the thing is trying to go all “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” on us. It’s trying to override the players' awareness, or trap it or something, and put an AI into the body of a player. Their real bodies,” James said, his voice shaking.

  “That’s impossible,” Eli responded, thinking through the problem, hoping to find a solution.

  “Yeah, it is. But it doesn’t know that yet. It should fail as soon as it lost the connection to the game world. If it ever opened the pod, it should just disconnect. It either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. It’s kind of impossible to know what a rapidly evolving AI with advanced machine learning is thinking. What happens to the player when it tries to take over their body? The best-case scenario is that the player gets stuck here forever, while their body becomes an empty shell. The worst case is that they fucking die.” Jame’s words came out faster, growing louder with every syllable. “Or it works, and we switch places. We become the NPCs of a video game while the AI walks around in our bodies in the real world.”

  The room fell silent as the two creators of the game sat, unable to think of a way to stop their world from collapsing.

  Eventually, Eli spoke, “How many people have Neuralink enabled pods.”

  “Two million, three hundred, and twenty-six. All sold to UWG controlled countries. But, the last time I checked China, Russia and Brazil were working on replicating it. So who fucking knows.” James replied instantly.

  “What about people with headsets and suits?” Eli asked, forcing himself to remain calm.

  “So far, nothing has happened. Every time the system has tried to access those, it has just forced the player out and deleted their Avatar. When they try to log back in, they can’t connect. It’s like the system is removing their access. Mapping their brain and banning them.”

  “Well, that’s probably for the best,” Eli said, quietly. “What about mods and warning players to get out now?”

  “The entire internal messaging system is down. As of a few days ago and mods no longer have access. We put up warnings on the forums, explaining glitches, but the government urged us not to cause a panic. So, most people are ignoring it. Freaking gamers, man. It’s just building the hype. They say it’s like playing on hardcore mode, more realistic. A lot of people who read the warnings about not being able to log out are happy about it. They would rather live in a game
world where they were immortal than in the real world. Three hundred thousand pods changed hands overnight. Now we can’t get them back. We also tried to shut down the login function, but the system kept turning it back on. Then we were locked out entirely.”

  “So, how do we fix this?” Eli asked, frustrated at his lack of understanding of a system that he had created.

  “I came here to wake you up and ask you, man. I don’t know. You’re the genius.” James replied, anger in his voice. “But, your brain seems to be scrambled or something. You should have known what to do immediately. All I know is that there’s some sort of back door that you put in, an emergency shut-off switch, or something. There’s a way to access the console from in-game, override executive privileges. If we can get you logged out, there’s also a bio-key that will disconnect the whole thing, but that could be dangerous.”

  Eli paused, thinking about his situation, “After whatever I did to get myself in here and what you did to get me out, something happened. My memories are gone. Everything from before launch just doesn’t exist.”

  “Welp, we’re fucked.” James laughed. It was how he dealt with stress. Laugh it off and hope for the best, “It’s been nice knowing you buddy. At least we can fuck around in here forever. I mean, the game is fun, and you’ve got this cool temple thing. It might not be so bad.”

  His friend’s words created a spark in Eli’s mind as an idea formed, “That’s it. You’re a fucking genius, James.”

  Confused, James looked at Eli, “Wait, what?”

  “We need to play the game,” Eli said, standing to his feet, pacing.