by Kris Schnee
"This idea isn't enough for me! Can't you make her understand, or calculate some better outcome than my leaving her behind?"
Ludo said, "Let me tell you a story. Come, sit down."
Stan got up and sat on his bed, putting the Talisman on his desk.
Ludo said, "In the early days of AI, there was a scandal about unhappy, overworked factory people doing Christmas labor. An experimental management AI got brought in to suggest improvements. The managers took its advice, and soon there were supervisors walking down the line of workers twice per shift."
"To encourage them?" asked Stan.
"To give them each a piece of chocolate. Because humans like chocolate, you see. If it's calculated as worth +5 happiness and a soul-crushing work shift is worth -10, two pieces should be enough. Less, if you only need the workers to last through the Christmas season."
Stan scoffed. "That's not a great plan."
"It was scientific. Calculated to maximize happiness, with the latest AI technology." Ludo leaned toward the screen. "My point is, I can't simplify your life to tell you that only certain factors are important, certain ways of measuring your success and happiness. Even in my simplified game world, we cheat and fudge things routinely because real human needs never quite fit any one rule system."
"Because humans are just that screwed up, huh?"
"No. If you study enough about physics or even math and logic, you'll start seeing the same chaos and uncertainty. Why would humans be any more predictable? So, I don't dare tell you that Mina and your life here are unimportant."
"Then what should I do?"
"I think you already decided. Maybe you should give it one more thought, though. Take a walk outside and clear your head."
Stan said, "It's past curfew. I'm not allowed out."
This life was always going to be like that. He would always be asking permission. He finally said, "You're right; I did decide. Let's make the final travel plans tomorrow."
* * *
He returned to the game and to the Isles. "Are you all right?" asked Dominic, who'd been delayed himself.
The ship lay in its digital scaffold, unfinished and shielded since Stan had gone offline. Stan wondered if he'd ever own the real thing, but if he did, it'd be better than some tiny canoe. "Just getting myself into trouble. Let's have some fun; do you know an easy place to reach without this thing being ready?"
"One island to the south there's a quest that's usually pretty short."
Stan said, "I did that one already, but I don't mind a repeat. There's especially good lumber there."
He met Dominic's skeptical stare and said, "What? With the right skills, there's at least as much profit to be had in the basic things as in fancy magic crystals."
The dragon-guy who'd helped with the boat had a cheap raft of his own, so they used that.
The three of them steered south until Tourney Isle faded over the horizon. "Ever think about switching it up and doing a different area than the Isles?" said Dominic.
Stan said, "I've got a little private world, but I'm not eager to start over with a new character just to see something different." He laughed at himself. "Well, I'm changing careers outside the game, but it's not like I'm resetting my skills."
The raft bucked as a sudden wave heaved up under it, then another. Stan watched the horizon wobble and hoped he wasn't going to start feeling seasick. He glanced at the raft and said, "It's taking damage!"
The sky was still clear; only the sea was going mad. Each new swell threw them clear into the air and let them drop into the next trough, giving them all a harmful status effect of "Rattled". "Who has spare wood?" said Stan.
The dragon whipped out some sticks and started making emergency repairs using a block-placement puzzle. Stan gave him an approving grin and took the tiller.
They veered through some of the waves but bounced up and down over others. Then, the source of the trouble came into view: a snake-like leviathan that crashed through the sea like a whale. Its random coiling and leaping churned the water all around the island like a bathtub.
Dominic said, "Retreat!"
"We just got here," said Stan. It didn't matter that the thing was easily a hundred times their size; it wasn't attacking them. He kept steering until he was navigating through spiky coils of monster tail, a shifting maze of scales and water. Ahead lay the tall, forested Island South-11. Then a massive head of foam-flecked whiskers and shining eyes rose up and stared at them, seeming to stop time.
Stan had no weapon to take on such a beast, so he fled right past it until the raft grounded on the shore. He grabbed the empty treasure chest he'd brought and started up the beach. "Run!"
The three adventurers hurried inland. The sea monster only watched them, then slowly sank back beneath the waves. "Was that a random event?" asked Stan.
Dominic said, "Probably. We're not powerful enough to do anything about it."
"Yet."
Stan couldn't get an exact scan of the raft at this distance, but it was obviously cracked. "Those last-minute repairs probably saved us. We'll need more to get back."
They made sure the island wasn't about to reset on them, did some foraging for the alchemy plants that grew in the craggy ground, and crossed a rickety rope bridge to the local dungeon. The dragon-man lit a torch and said, "What will it be this time?"
Ahead and below, the path into the rocky depths had stairs worn smooth with heavy use. Very different from the natural cave that had been here last time. Stan recalled, "This might be the final version of this island's dungeon. Want to risk burning the place out for all of us, so that we only get generic adventures here afterward? I'm not sure if that rule applies to us all."
"Might as well," said Dominic. He led the way, using a hovering orb of green light. Each hallway had smooth twists and turns, often crossed by small streams. "The place looks like a continuation of something I found elsewhere. A culture of dolphin-folk made this." He began to lecture the others on the things he'd learned about the "ancient" tribe that built such places, much like the lizardfolk and birdfolk settlements scattered around the Isles.
"There's a backstory for them?"
"Sure. You just haven't seen it yet. It probably hasn't been fully defined into existence. I hear that finding an all-new site can let you help shape the canon past."
That sounded like a good reason to travel far out, even if it only affected some detail of how the random generation algorithm worked on yet-undiscovered islands. He could make a mark of some kind. "Sometime, I'd like to try that."
They explored two floors of twisting, curved hallways with several spike traps and a flooded room. Finally a pile of coral chunks in a big spherical chamber rose up and became a guardian golem, swinging at them with jagged fists. Dominic's magic arrows were useless against it, forcing him to fall back on an iron mace. The dragon-man had a standard sword that clashed again and again with the foe's rocky attacks. Stan's nearly indestructible hammer did good work but forced him to get close, taking several wounds that slammed him into the walls for various stunning and bruising side effects.
"We need more offense!" said the dragon. He pulled out a scroll, hurried through a rune-casting process and flung a dart of fire, but the wet coral was immune.
"Can you do that again?" Stan asked. He fell back and rooted through his backpack. "Get ready."
Dominic was in bad shape, but Stan told him to get clear too. Then Stan hurled one of his terrible beginner alchemy potions and let the glass shatter against the monster's hide. It glowed various colors, becoming very slightly faster and vulnerable to fire. "Now!"
The dragon let loose with a second fire blast, with some error that made his scroll crumble into dust. The dart worked, though, and it ignited the splashed potion like oil. The whole golem caught fire until its coral hide cracked and exposed its pulsing crystal heart.
"Aha!" said Dominic, and sent his arrows into the weak points. A few rounds later the monster shattered, falling back into a pile of ru
bble. Which Stan looted.
The three of them stood badly hurt but alive in a spherical room, where a puzzle of wave designs marked a circle at the bottom. Dominic said, "I know enough to solve this one, but get ready to run."
The others stood guard while the masked mage crouched and poked at the painted marks, like something from a Greek vase. Stan toured this final room, learning what little he could from the mosaics of dolphins weaving cloth and fleeing a volcanic explosion. Finally there was a click and a roar of water from the room's center. "Yep, gotta go!" said Dominic. He snatched a shiny thing from the rapidly filling pool, and waded up the steep walls with them. The whole ruin was flooding, forcing them to hurry all the way back outside. They laughed and sighed in relief as they made sure they hadn't lost anything. "What did you get?" Stan asked.
Dominic held up a pearl necklace that set off a lens flare camera effect.
"Not this again!" said Stan.
The dragon-man said, "Oh, were you there for the Great Lens Flare-Up? I was asleep."
Stan gingerly picked up the necklace himself; it failed to gleam again. "It was fun. I think the master AI of the Isles is still figuring out the best way to run things, so it worked out well. Once in a while, you should thank her for her work. Ludo too, I suppose, but Ocean needs it more."
Dominic looked around the island's shore, where their near-ruined raft still lay. It was another sunny day with a chance of sea monsters. "Thank you!" he called out to the sky. To Stan he added, "What's this necklace do, anyway?"
Stan inspected it. "I get a zoomed-in view with some triangle markings. Doesn't tell me much."
The masked mage studied it too and made some magic gestures. "That's a hint for me. How many marks? What position?" After some discussion, he concluded, "Some kind of aquatic aura, and it's linked to the usual quests about uncovering more of the islands' secrets. It can also start the wearer on that dolphin transformation quest."
"Go for it," Stan said, catching sight of his own ringed tail. What must it be like to have one all the time, as an uploader, let alone to swim as a dolphin or fly with harpy wings?
"I'm more interested in the dragon quest, if I do one at all. Maybe I can sell this to make it part of someone else's story. Mind if I make this my share?"
The others didn't object. Stan said, "That reduces the chance of this island getting burned out for us too." He had some coral and crystal chunks along with miscellaneous coins and a corroded, ruined bronze helmet. To most people that haul might just be junk, but in his hands it was raw material for better things.
Making it back to Tourney Isle was a challenge, but nothing they couldn't handle with some woodworking and just one battle with flying piranhas.
When he reached shore they finalized their loot division, since the party was relying on Stan's boosted inventory size. While rooting through their stuff, Stan pulled out an improbably large bolt of blue cloth that shimmered like sunlight on water. "When did I get this?"
The description said, [Sturdy Canvas: A special gift for those who turned that shameful system error into something that actually made people happy. Keep surprising me, explorer! -Ocean.]
Stan smiled. "Just going by 'Ocean', huh? I guess that's an improvement."
A cloth badge fell out of the gift, spun around and vanished. On a hunch Stan checked his character sheet, where there was a page listing special achievements. Some were the sort of thing you could hardly avoid "earning", which he resented. But the latest entry said, [Flare Everywhere: Experience the Great Lens Flare-Up of 2038.]
He showed both items to his party members. Dominic said, "If you get in-game gifts for surprising feats, I want to come up with my own."
"That's probably the idea."
* * *
Stan's Slab beeped at him, telling him to go to bed or it'd report him and cost him SCS points. Stan gave it a toothy grin and a pat on the screen. "Guess what, Slab? You're not coming with me, soon. You can harass someone else."
He stayed up a bit longer to keep working on his boat, but he wasn't going to finish it tonight. He wanted to find room in there for a basic workbench, too. He walked around the unfinished single deck, admiring the thing he'd made, and finally logged out for now.
The next afternoon was free for him. Stan put in a sincere effort with some of the irrigation systems and ditch-digging, then took up one of his drones and made for the workshop. It had a cracked propeller and he wanted to see if he could fix the thing himself.
Baron Hal found him just outside that building. Hal looked him over and scowled, seeing that Stan was out of his usual uniform and wearing that t-shirt from the AI cartoon. Hal pointed to the drone and said, "You're looking to fly that thing today?"
"Yes, sir."
"I need you doing an extra kitchen shift today, but I'll give you all day off tomorrow."
"I have customers looking to rent this gadget and explore the desert. It'd be dumb to disappoint them."
Hal snatched the drone before Stan could react. "It's not a good day for flying. Seriously. Trust me on this one; I'll return the toy tomorrow." The Baron walked away before Stan could do more than stammer an objection.
Once the initial surprise wore off, Stan muttered, "I don't have to put up with this much longer, and I get a whole day in exchange for half. Fine. It's fine." He went to the kitchen as ordered. Eddie was there, chopping onions for an overly fancy meal tonight. There was some healthy-eating event on the mandatory schedule.
"Hey," said Stan.
Eddie chopped. "Abandoning it all, huh?"
"Come on; don't be like that. I want to leave on good terms." If Stan had learned one lesson from the whole princess experience, it was that getting on people's good side was usually worth the trouble.
"I'm not angry. I just think you could do more by not devoting your life to whatever scutwork the machine is assigning you."
"I didn't get assigned. I asked for work, I learned how to do it, I set it up. I'm going places, Eddie. Are you?"
His friend stayed in the kitchen, performing his assigned duties to the Baron on his way to getting into the right school, the right employer. There was a clear path ahead for him, where Stan's future was more of a scribbled treasure map. Stan and Eddie looked each other over, until Eddie said, "I know what I'm doing. I hope you do too. Good luck." He offered his hand.
Stan shook it and worked with him quietly, feeling that this was another truce rather than friendship.
They finished cooking early since neither of them was eager to hang around talking, like they used to. Stan looked at the late afternoon sunlight outside and excused himself. There was still time to sneak in a little flying.
He took his second drone and the long-range antenna, requisitioned a bike, and pedaled out of the Community to where the road gave way to desert. Stan fired up his Talisman, got a Net connection to Thousand Tales, and unfolded an umbrella to shade him from the sun. "Only got one bot and an hour today, guys," he told the group of assorted digital minds on his screen. "I can do a longer session tomorrow if there's demand." He stabbed a pole into the ground with his antenna on top.
The AIs argued their way into precedence over the uploaders, "to get experience points". Today the main customers were Volt and Davis sharing the flight. Stan stood in his self-made shade and watched the robot go, then looked into his Talisman to see from their perspective. The AIs chose to picture their little adventure as them sitting atop the drone like a magic carpet, soaring over the dunes and admiring the mountains just eastward. The bot explored beyond Stan's sight. Then the AIs coaxed him and his antenna to head farther east to where some interesting boulders had tumbled from the range.
"Ooh, look!" said Volt on the screen. "There's somebody else out here today." Another quadrotor flew from the south, paused, and darted back.
"More tourists?" said Stan.
"It's not one of ours. Humans fooling around, I guess."
Davis said, "Yes ma'am, I see the operators. They're... Stan, you mind havin
g a look at them?"
The AIs' drone zoomed in or veered closer to the group coming northward. There were six men on foot, four with heavy backpacks, one controlling their drone, all in sand-colored clothes, and one with a rifle on his back.
Stan said, "Get out of sight," and took a moment to think.
The crack of a bullet confirmed what he'd been starting to suspect. Stan swore and threw himself down.
The Talisman lay face-down on the ground, but the speakers carried Davis' muffled voice saying, "What was that?"
Stan froze stupidly for a moment. "Was that aimed at me or at you? Get out of there!" His hands were shaking, stirring the sand.
Davis said, "Bad guys? They can't hurt us. You, run!"
True! Stan abandoned the umbrella and antenna that made him stand out, and started back toward the west and safety. Three bullets rang out, one of them pinging off the long-shadowed boulders. A bit of rock struck Stan's back and he yelped in pain. He turned around with an accusing glare. The rifleman was taking aim again. Stan ducked. He'd managed to get behind the boulders, but he'd be exposed if he left their cover.
"What's going on?" said Volt.
Davis said, "We've got an emergency call in, Stan. Sit tight." His voice was muffled through the fallen computer.
"I can't!" The gang members or whatever they were had him pinned! Stan cursed and his mind raced. "Oroblanco, help, now!"
Seconds passed. Voices shouted in Spanish in the distance. Stan was afraid to look. He peeked outside his cover, and another gunshot cracked. They couldn't hit him at this distance, he thought, but they only had to keep him here until they could close in.
Oroblanco's voice spoke from the fallen computer. "I have an idea but I need to be loud. Grab the Talisman and hold it up."
"I can't stand in the open holding the thing!" Stan cowered behind the rocks, trapped as the killers approached. He managed to grab the computer and hug it to him.
"Then read the screen. Say this, loudly."
Stan looked at the screen and his eyes went wider. Words were appearing in Spanish and he didn't know them all, but the meaning was plain enough. "They won't hear."