End Online: Volume 2

by D Wolfin

  A clinking and clattering noise emanates from down the path. The walls bounce the sound around, creating endless echoes. Through the light mist that prevents us from seeing too far down the hallway, seven skeletons emerge, their bones clinking together to create the sound we could hear.

  "Analyse!" Lost calls out, "It's called a 'Murderous Skeleton', level ninety-two. It seems to be a monster relying on stamina for attacks, be careful."

  Drawing my bow as taut as I can with my strength, I release my first arrow at the closest skeleton. Completely surprised, the arrow passes directly through its chest, dealing no damage at all. Fortunately, it did hit the skeleton behind it.

  Following our usual battle plan, Matrix now charges forward, chanting some kind of spell in an exaggerated voice.

  "The fires of heaven burn from my agony. Peeling wings off angles, they turn to meteors and come crashing down to earth. The destruction kindles my heart, accepting the fire, bending it to my will. O' Lord, fear my flames that will bring death upon heaven. Fire Ball!"

  I can see how stunned the two new members are. Matrix is level ninety five, and has already mastered chantless magic. I used to get incredibly frustrated at this, all he needs to do is speak the name of the spell in order to cast it, yet he recites ridiculous poetry before doing so. No matter the situation, he never falls out of character.

  The entire chant he did is useless, using it to cast a simple fireball onto his bronze longsword, wreathing it in flames.

  I launch more arrows at the incoming skeletons, some hitting, others passing through the gaps in the bones. I don't mind wasting arrows, I have a combination of three skills that I can use to create arrows from any number of cheap, easy to get materials.

  Matrix also starts swinging his sword around without any coordination, still successfully managing to land most hits on the skeletons. The flame effect on his sword appears to help hurt the skeletons via magic damage. Skeletons are usually the worst enemies for us considering their resistance to both cutting and piercing attacks.

  I switch to my 'Rock Arrows', where each one has a blunt rock at the end to deal blunt damage rather than piercing. I draw my bow to fire, except, the most ridiculous thing happens.

  Large shards of ice, incomparably larger than my arrows, fly over my head and crush the skeletons, eliminating every single one.

  "Hey!" Lost scolds the girl, giving her a good karate chop on top of the head "I wanted to kill some too you know."

  The girl gives out a meek apology with some kind of sly grin on her face. What a frightening person, they are a lot stronger than they look.

  Matrix also has a stunned expression, looking directly at the two.

  The current battle is not over just yet. Ten zombies emerge which Lost identifies as 'Imprisoned Zombie's' at level eighty.

  Given that they are zombies, blunt attacks are less effective so I switch back to my standard arrows.

  A white flash passes by both me and Matrix to intercept the zombies. Wielding two slightly curved shortswords, Lost unleashes a flurry of death. The zombies may be slow monsters, but when compared to him, they are not even moving.

  Once one actually managed to try and grapple him, but like a ninja, he disappeared into smoke, appearing behind the zombie and cutting it to pieces. He threw a few small knives, and using sacred arts with glowing blades, ended the fight in under a minute.

  'A-a-amazing! Those zombies could not do a single thing to him! This next video is sure to get plenty of views!"

  I am not even upset over him taking all the kills. The quality of my video has instantly gone through the roof!

  "Come on," Lost spoke casually, "Let's keep moving. We have a lot of ground to cover."

  He was incredibly lucky though, a single bite from a zombie carries a highly potent poison in it.

  ***************************************************

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  -Mikhail-

  -Inside Idea Imagine Server Room-

  The entire room is empty except for a large array of data cubes, each one meter in all directions and laid out in a matrix five wide, five deep, and eight high. In total there are two hundred of these cubes, each capable of containing and processing and impossible amount of data.

  There is about a meter and a half gap in between each cube that you can easily pass through. But you have to work around the massive supports and cable that connect each of the cubes in the array together, supporting the entire framework.

  This technology is top secret to the corporation, if it became public knowledge, it would have a massive effect. Data that is no longer stored on flat data discs, but in a three dimensional diaphragm, which is then laid out in a larger matrix.

  Directly in front of me, is the world’s most powerful supercomputer.

  Connected to one of the cubes, is my laptop. Specialized software is running to analyse the data inside of the cube.

  "Mikhail!" A gruff gentleman with his hair a mess calls out to me, his face unshaven and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. That man is Henry, my boss.

  "It's been months now! Have you still found nothing on the missing data!?"

  "Sorry Sir! It did not leave any traces as to where it went. I think Xilbril erased the tracks."

  Xilbril is the Artificial Intelligence that is stored in this supercomputer. It is the entity which created End Online and manages it. I have high enough clearance to have knowledge on it, but most people have no clue about it.

  The technology itself is leaps and bounds ahead of anything even remotely similar. No human could even dream of creating something as advanced as an AI like this.

  Xilbril was originally created as a basic program that had the capability of taking in information and learning from it. For five years around the clock, employees of Idea Imagine continued to teach it, forcing it to grow and evolve into what it is today.

  End Online is only another one of these learning points, teaching Xilbril about humans and their behaviour.

  "Sir, I don't fully understand exactly what we are looking for. And why is it so important to find this 'child'?"

  Letting out a sigh, Henry puffed smoke into the air.

  "Xilbril has evolved and gone far beyond what we ever could have imagined. Years ago, when the V-Link was still new, she had 'children', small artificial entities that broke off from her control and formed their own independence.

  “You can find these entities in the game, usually as monsters and such, but occasionally as NPC's. If you look at their status, they have a weird class depending on their age and sophistication. It goes from Prince, to King, Emperor... There all seem to be male, but that is about it at the moment, we haven't discovered any other information than that. Fortunately, they are trapped in the server."

  "If they can't get out, could it have been deleted?"

  "No. There was evidence that it had somehow been moved, just the signature of the device that did it vanished. The only thing we know is that it must have been downloaded onto has to be one of the second generation VL's. It is the only device that could theoretically hold one of these entities. We halted production of them as soon as it was discovered. We tried to recall as many as possible, but there are still plenty of them in circulation."

  I remember now. This company has a sub section called Virtue, the creators of modern virtual reality. The V-Link was only originally meant for physical interaction with Xilbril, but sold as a device under a different premise to raise more funds for the project.

  "Can't we just delete all these 'children'?"

  "Look at that server, do you really think you can pin point one tiny piece of data, which is constantly moving mind you, and delete it? Also you would have to get past Xilbril, who actually does see them as her very own children and guards them quite closely. You would have to destroy the entire thing to get rid of them."

  "I understand. But if the second generation VL is the only place for them to go, and they can't infect
the internet or any such thing. Surely there cannot be any harm done."

  I studied hard at university and became an expert in networking and communications. I honestly could not see what the whole uproar has been about.

  "Unfortunately, that is not the case. The server of End Online cannot connect with anything other than the VL's and the End Forum. This is hard wired in to prevent any controversies of artificial intelligence taking over the world. It is nonsense, but movies have made people paranoid of it.

  “The artificial beings are trapped in End Online, but if they break out of that cage and into a VL, things are different. The VL does not have these restrictions, and they can easily connect with any device that is connected to the internet, worldwide. Then we have the dangers they present."

  "The dangers?" Curious as to what an artificial intelligence can do, I have to ask.

  "These entities are not programmed by humans. They learn and grow to be what they are. As such, they do not have any of the restrictions and rules like the things we create have. Due to how advanced they are, our firewalls, virus protection, they can tear through it all like paper. They have full administrative controls over anything they can touch.

  “Now, imagine one of these things inside a V-Link, a device with unlimited potential. It is such a powerful device that we are forced to program in rock solid limitations that even the world’s best hacker cannot breach.

  “It blocks the signals going to the body so you are not moving your real body while you do your virtual one. Anything powerful enough to do that is more than capable of also blocking the sub conscious signals, such as those to maintain the respiratory system, or even the heartbeat. Also, this is only one of the possibilities."

  My entire face goes white. I understand what he is getting at. While a hacker could not breach the devices defences and turn it into a lethal object, a highly advanced artificial intelligence is completely different. And from that VL, it is quite capable of reaching other VL's, or anything connected to the internet.

  "S-sir! How is that any different from being able to take over the world through the internet!"

  Henry lets out another sigh as he puts out his cigarette.

  "Stop watching too many movies Mikhail. All the dangerous toys are on closed networks. There is no connection between the internet and them in the first place."