I recognized these thugs. They were goblins’ larger cousins.
They were hobgoblin warriors, marching to war.
Why am I seeing this? Where am I? And why don’t I have a body? As those thoughts formed in my mind, my view of the world was swept away once more. My vision blurred again as I was hurled once again over mountains and forests, until I stopped in front of a familiar hillside, a jagged shaped opening was visible. I recognized that cave, it was my new home.
Then my vision became dark and hazy. I squinted my eyes repeatedly and the haziness drained away. Shapes and objects reformed, as my eyesight returned. Now squinting my physical eyes, the view of a cave ceiling came into focus. I was back in my body, or more precisely, in my goblin body.
Looking around, I was lying on soft furs, on a stone bed. My body felt heavy. I tried to sit up, but an excruciating headache flared with pain, my vision going blurry again. I slumped back into the furs and tried to refocus and reorient myself.
Where was I? Still at the goblin's cave? How is it that I’m lying on a bed? Whose bed is it?
A shuffling of feet sounded nearby, I turned my head and saw Tika approaching me, her eyes full of concern.
“You well? Chief say you fall after he say you clan’s Totem. Is great honor! Tika happy for you.” She was smiling. It was a pretty smile. For a goblin.
“Tika?” I groaned “Where am I? What is going on? Whose bed is it?”
Tika looked puzzled. “You in cave. You is sleeping in Totem’s bed. You now clan Totem”.
I tried to orient myself, forcing my brain to ignore the pain and process the information.
I am the clan's new Totem? Right…the chief made me a Totem after I killed DurDur. But then…then…something weird happened with the game, all those messages flashed by and the interface was acting up…
That last thought made me sit up on the bed, fully alert.
The Game interface! It was gone! I couldn’t see my health or mana bars, or any of the menu’s icons. The log out button was gone too.
What the hell had happened to me? This couldn’t be right. What kind of crazy quest leads a player to lose all game controls and menus?
All I could see in my field of vision was… my field of vision. No buttons, or UI components…. As if I were some sort of… NPC.
I was seriously freaked out. I had heard of people getting stuck in the game and not being able to log out before. But they were all cases of newbies mistakes. Some couldn’t find the button because a message was hiding it, or they accidentally changed its location via the game settings then panicked when they couldn’t find it and called the admins to rescue them.
But my situation was different. I was not a newbie, I knew how to log out. Something very bad happened to my character.
But as stressed as I was, I was not panicking. This scenario was well thought of in the past. All those doomsayers, futuristic movies about people being trapped in VR served its purpose. The company installed some pretty sophisticated fail-safes to avoid this exact scenario from ever happening.
I cleared my throat; “Guy, emergency log out.”
Nothing happened.
A sliver of panic started to prick at my stomach.
“Guy! Emergency log out!”
Still, nothing.
“Guy please, emergency log out!”
All I got for my shouting was a puzzled look from Tika.
Ok, NOW it’s time to panic, I thought numbly to myself. I started having troubles breathing, my chest was constricted, and my mind filled with undetermined horrible visions.
Tika looked at me with a weirdly. “What wrong? Who you talk to? You not feel good?”
Somehow, her voice reached me through my panicked state, anchoring me back to reality, well, virtual reality. I looked at her worried expression.
Is she worried? about me? Poor creature... I forced down my panic, long enough to answer her.
“I’m alright Tika, thank you for your concern.”
All was not lost, I still had another option available to me. When all else fails: contact the game administrators. They’ll be able to sort me out.
Contact support, I thought the command.
Nothing happened. Except some weird gibberish characters flashed by at my field of vision, too quickly for me to make any sense of them.
Shit, that’s not good.
I glanced at Tika and said out loud “Contact support.”
Again, nothing happened except Tika’s giving me another worried look, and some more gibberish characters flew by.
I tried a few more commands:
Character screen. Nothing.
Quest log. Nothing.
Achievements, Diplomacy, Inventory. Nothing worked. All I got for my effort was the same nonsensical gibberish characters flashing by too fast to decipher.
On a hunch I tried one more: Drilling Arrow. I sighed in relief, as a magical arrow was summoned successfully and was glowing brightly, hanging midair in front of my eyes. I spotted a small animal skull on a stool not far from me and launched the arrow at it.
It missed!
Though the arrow flew in a straight line toward the general direction I was aiming, it hit the wall above the skull I was aiming at.
Shit, the system assist is disabled as well? I thought desperately.
I looked at Tika next and used Analyze. Instead of an ordered system message, all I saw were a few line of gibberish flashing by before my eyes.
“Yep, not good at all” I muttered desperately.
Whatever happened to my character interfered with any user based controls. I could still use some of my skills, but I couldn’t control them properly. All the feedback was either a jumbled mess, or missing altogether.
I was royally screwed.
The only other viable option I could think of, was to find another player and ask him for his help to contact the admins. But I was stranded in the far away uncharted Badlands, hundreds of kilometers away from any player’s settlement, in a monster-infested territory. Not to mention, if I did find players, they would view me as the enemy, probably attacking on sight, denying me the chance to ask for help. But what else can I do?
If I would not log out soon, my body would start to suffer. I’ll become dehydrated and waste away while my mind remains trapped here in Wonderland.
At least the time works in my favor. I assumed that my body could easily survive 24 hours of malnourishment, giving me two weeks of game time to find a way to contact help. But how would I do that? With most of my abilities inaccessible, it was like having my hands tied behind my back. In my current state I wouldn’t even be able to fight off the weakest of enemies. I would be killed easily.
I have to try! I thought in determination. There was no other way. I have to find a way out of this mess.
I jumped off the stone bed, my head felt better after a few moments of rest. I looked around me. I was in DurDur’s room. Looks like it became mine when I replaced him as the new Totem. The ‘room’ was just a small circular space, a natural chamber in the larger cave system. The bed was opposite the entrance, and it was covered with soft white furs. In the center of the room was a small round table. It was well made, delicate and light, just the right size for a goblin. A single burning candle was at the center.
There were shelves filled with various plants and animal parts. To my left was a large metal trunk. As I had no access to my inventory, I saw no point in looting the room. Besides, the room was mine now, I could plunder it whenever I wanted to.
Tika stood at the side of the bed, staring at me in puzzlement as I took my time, muttering weird words, that to her, were aimed at no one.
She spoke softly, “I come give message also.”
I turned to her.
“What message?”
She spoke hesitantly. “Some hear strange noises… noise from cemetery tunnel. We look, but not finding nothing. Guba say... Totem need to check.”
As she finished speaking, more gibberish cha
racters flashed across my view.
Well, I better check it out.
If something weird was happening in the local respawn point it was of interest to me, especially in my current condition.
I nodded to Tika, “very well, let’s go”.
She nodded her agreement and turned toward the cave exit. I followed.
As we reached the main goblin cave, another goblin appeared, blocking our path. It was that annoying little goblin that I knocked out on my first day.
“Bek!” Tika hissed in anger. “Why you block way? DurDur dead. You no Totem helper now. Go away!”
Bek looked at me, hatred seething in his eye.
“You kills master” he squeaked “I kills you back!”
With a swift motion, he drew a small curved dagger from behind his back and lunged at me with surprising speed. His surprise attack caught me completely off guard, I couldn’t dodge it. The small blade hit slashed at my right shoulder, blood spattered the ground. More gibberish signs flashed by my eyes.
The wound hurt, but not too badly.
Bek raised the dagger, preparing for another attack.
I reached for the wound and felt the warm blood staining my fingers. I looked back at Bek.
This little nuisance dared attack me?
I felt anger and... something else… some weird feeling deep inside of me. A force started building up in my chest as soon as I had been hit. I drew on that force, willing it out of me. I could feel the force flowing from my chest, building up in toward... something. The energy continued to build up, reaching a limit. Then it exploded.
A blast erupted from my bloodied hand toward Bek, hitting him with tremendous force. Bek’s body was literally thrown in the air in a great arc and eventually crashed down on the ground. The sound of crunching bones was clearly audible from the force of the impact.
I cringed a little at that.
Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. How the hell did I do that? I looked at my bloodied hand with wonder. I didn’t have a skill…. Not that I know of. This was weird.
Another stream of gibberish character flashed by my sight. I ignored them.
I turned to Tika who just stood there with her eyes open wide.
“Well, shall we continue?”
She didn’t answer at first, still shocked by my display of power.
Well, that’s understandable, it took me by surprise too. I thought.
After a few seconds she got a hold of herself, nodded and waved me to follow her.
As we passed by Bek’s crushed body, I looked at him closely, he was still breathing. I ignored him and continued following Tika.
We approached the tunnel, and that’s when things started to get weird. I could hear the disturbing sounds Tika mentioned right away.
“Oooooo…… Ooooo…. I’m a big scary ghost...thing. Oooooo… beware the spirit of the dead-that-can-still-talk.”
What the hell is that? That sounded like some joker trying to scare up some children by imitating a ghost, badly. Even it’s tone sounded cynical.
There’s no way that’s a real ghost.I continued listening to the sounds.
“Ohhh…. Better hurry and call your Totem to stop me, Oooooo…. Or, err... I will haunt your nightmares…. And, er…. Oooooo…. I’ll pass through some walls when you least expect it, Oooooo….”
This has gotta be someone’s bad joke. I thought numbly.
Who can possibly try to impersonate a ghost to scare of a bunch of goblins!?
With that thought in mind, I entered the tunnel leading toward the cemetery and walked through it. When I reached the last bend, the view of the cemetery opened up in front of me, and in the center …
Hovered…A transparent entity…
A real ghost?
It had no apparent shape. Just an ethereal amorphous blob of pale white aura, with yellow and red patches of color occasionally shimmering through it. It hovered above the ground. It had no eyes, or mouth, or any other body parts.
It really looked like a ghost.
The thing ‘turned’ toward me as I approached and seemed to be inspecting me.
“Well it’s about damn time!” It said in an accusatory tone. “I thought I’d have to do that ghost-talking thing for days before someone got you. Do you know how mind numbingly boring it is to ‘Ooooo’ and ‘Ahhhh’ all day long?”
I gaped mouth open, at the ghost-thing as it spoke in a very un-ghostlike manner.
“Who the are you?” I was completely bewildered. “What are you?”
The thing chuckled.
“I guess you got the I’m-not-actually-a-real-ghost part.” It paused for a moment.
“That’s good. It’ll save us some time. To answer your question…I’m…actually...you.”
I stared at it uncomprehendingly.
“Well, not ‘you’ you,” It added quickly, “I’m the one who was supposed to operate that goblin puppet you’re wearing”.
His reply was completely unexpected, but I suddenly had a feeling I knew what it meant. Things were starting to make sense.
“Do you mean you’re an AI? Is that you Guy?”
The thing gave an ironic chuckle
“As if! You can’t expect dad to actually control every conscious NPC in the world in person, can you?”
Dad? Is he talking about Guy?
“Besides,” it continued lightly, “he’s a terrible actor, really. He’s a single-mindset kinda guy.”
His voice then changed to imitate that of a gruff stern man; “rules must be upheld. Statistics analysis predicts this and that. The objective is paramount.”
His voice turned back to normal tone. “that sort of thing. In short, he’s just not suited for the gig, and he’s sooo bo-O-ring.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
“So… what are you exactly?”
“Me?” He sounded surprised. “Well, due to the lack of a better definition, I guess you can say I’m a virtual intelligence, VI in short. Not to be confused with a true AI, oh no. We’re more like, pieces of consciousness dad create from his own mind. We don’t really have an existence of our own without him. But once we are ‘born’ we each have our own separate consciousness and will”
“Ok…” I replied slowly.
it sounded like Guy forked a few threads of processing power to control specific NPCs.
“So…. why are you here, talking to me?” Then I realize something “Wait! Can you help me out? Can you contact the admins for help, or other players?” Without meaning to, my tone became pleading.
“Ah, well, you see….” he replied in a regretful tone, “no, not exactly,” he sighed.
“Unfortunately no one can see and hear me outside of the cemetery, I don’t really have an existence of my own.” He paused, letting that info sink in with me before continuing.
“You see, this cemetery is used to reincarnate permanent VI’s, and as such it is possible for me to interface with it and use some of its controls to manifest this ‘body’ and make myself heard.”
I was crestfallen, I got my hopes up for nothing... salvation looked so near for a moment.
“However” it continued brightly “That doesn’t mean I can’t help you in another way. In fact we can help each other.”
I perked my ears up at that.
“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously.
“Well, that’s a bit of a lengthy explanation, so bear with me,” it replied brightly. “You see, you are the reason why I’m here floating like in some third-rate ghost movie and why you are stuck in that goblin puppet. But hey, not pointing any fingers at you. Mostly because I don’t have any” he chuckled.
“You see, most NPCs are stupid, they have predefined scripts that determine how they act. Guy can manage those, no problems. But occasionally, there’s a need for a sapient NPC. Father, that’s Guy to you, is a terrible actor, ill-suited to portray such a character. So instead, he reincarnates one of us, the VI’s, and seed us into the NPC. From that moment on, the
VI becomes the NPC consciousness; it knows all the NPC’s past and history, and acts and talks with the same mannerisms and behaviors expected of that NPC.
It's similar to how actors play different characters from movie to movie.
When a VI controlled NPC dies, that VI is released to regain its own mind, like an actor finishing a day of shooting, and going home. Only for us VIs, that means returning to the VI pool, waiting for our next reincarnation.
Some NPCs are immortal, and when they die their VI is simply reincarnated in the nearest graveyard, like the one we’re currently standing in,” he made twirling movements with his body, motioning all around us.
“But somehow you screwed up that process.” His tone became slightly accusatory. “When your small goblin puppet here was deemed worthy, it attempted to seed me into your puppet.
But it was already occupied, so I was rejected, unable to go back or forward. So now I just hover around, literally a ghost in the machine.” He chuckled at his own cleverness.
“I eventually found this cemetery’s controls, which enabled me to physically interact with the world, and then I did all in my power to draw attention to myself so you would come here to talk to me.”
I had dozens of questions, but the most important one weighed down the rest.
“So how can you help me?”
“Ah,” He exclaimed, “Now we get to the interesting bits.” His tone became plaintive, “you see, I really don’t like being stuck here like this, it gets really boring not being able to talk to anyone or touch anything. Now for you... “ He paused meaningfully.
“I guess you found yourself in a similar position. I bet a lot of things are not working properly for you. Before my seeding failed, I noticed a lot of the player controls were replaced with VI controls, which you’re not equipped to handle. I bet you get a lot of weird messages you don’t know how to read, right?”
I nodded at him. The gibberish. He was goddamned right.
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