by Aaron Jay
I was going to make Arneson, Pulling and Maya pay for sticking me in here.
I opened the book and began reading.
An early iteration of The Game was designed with the thought that people would have to play it directly without AIs mediating the experience. No avatars. People would combat the wild nano using actual skills and their own nano-enhanced bodies. Engaging with the AIs and nano and forcing them into the paradigm of video games was the key insight. My father realized that getting them to follow any set of rules and behavior was the first step in getting any control at all. It was estimated that over 60% of the coding, imperatives, AIs, and nano had begun as part of gaming and entertainment before the Singularity ran off the rails. Even large parts of the rest of the AI and nano had been cribbed from those sources. It was the easiest way for groups to get their hands on high tech and exploit it. Like when the Westboro Baptist Church unleashed a horrible transformative plague on the world using a badly hacked kit originally put out by Disney to temporarily sculpt your little girl into a version of one of their princesses. Instant Elsa with both perfect pitch to sing “Let It Go,” and some cryokinetic powers. The design was bad even before the church hacked it. Afterwords, it was a horror. My father realized that interacting with the nano in the paradigm of a game--the more cliched the better--was actually the path to saving the world.
Hardcore Playmode Tutorial was the original training program developed in the hope of allowing just about anyone to turn themselves into an archetype that Gygax and Tolkien would know. The hangup was that you had to actually master the skills. Want to reforge Narsil into Andúril? You better know how to use a smithy. Want to gather herbs? Better learn some practical botany. I had to master the skills I wanted to use in the game.
Remus brought me the manual. Maybe he is part of the tutorial? Looking at the .readme I saw that I wouldn’t be able to alter my character sheet or unlock any of my skills or attain any achievements here in jail. But, I could obtain the underlying expertise that would let me use those skills when I got back in the game. The tutorial was educational, didn’t have to connect to the game, and was certainly designed to make people useful members of society. You can’t get more useful to society than saving it from destruction by wild nano. Time to learn what I could. I wished I could set the slider to an even stronger time dilation.
At the beginning of the book was a list of skills from which I could choose what to begin studying with the tutorial. The list was as endless as the skills one could attain in the game.
Even with time dilation it wasn’t possible to choose everything. There was an estimated time to learn for each choice. It was measured in hours to achieve basic competency. Time dilation and two months in real life gave me what seemed like a large pool of--let’s call them Time Points to spend.
I started figuring out skill packages that made sense for my equipment and build. It was just like at Roll Up. I could spend the next two months working on my spatha/sword work. But, even with time dilation I didn’t have enough time to get much past beginner. They say it takes about 10,000 hours to really master a skill. I could get a single rank in a few skills or delve deep in one. I didn’t think there was one skill that would make up for the two months I was stuck in here. Or was there?
One skill leapt out at me. Ever since I had entered the game with my luck handicap, I had wondered how I could overcome this particular thing. Most other things I believed I could figure out. Blacksmithing. Martial arts. Tracking. Stealth. An endless list of weapon masteries and styles.
I needed to learn this. It would take most of my time in jail. There would be just enough time left over after my big purchase for something called “basic adventuring skills” that looked like a light intro to surviving out in the wild. Thinking of some of the other quests left, I also grabbed herbalism.
I pressed the button.
Training began…oddly. I found myself in a wood floored studio. Along the back wall were shelves containing a number of long, rolled, flexible mats, a basket containing coiled straps and dozens of blue stiff rubber foam blocks. One wall was mirrored from floor to ceiling. The front of the room had a large mural of a Hindu goddess.
Happily, the room was full of attractive women wearing tight clothing. They took the long mats and laid them out on the floor and began stretching and warming up.
What was extremely odd, at least in comparison, were the two men who entered from a door at the opposite end of the room and who seemed to be the instructors. One was a giant of a man. Blond with hard angles to his features. His nose was sharp as a knife and his lips as thin as a blade. He was wearing clothes made from rough-hewn reindeer skins intricately engraved and adorned with buttons and beads carved from antler and horn. The other was swarthy, with a Roman nose and penetrating brown eyes so dark they were almost black. He was dressed as some sort of Persian nobleman, with baggy silks with gold thread embroidered throughout. Either the women were out of place or the men were. I was also dressed like a reject from what used to be known as a renfaire so I guess that made three of us.
The giant addressed the room. He had a thick Scandinavian accent.
“I am Lemminkäinen. I shall be one of your instructors in the ways of magic. This is my colleague, Mordecai”
“Shalom,” said the Persian Prince.
“We begin your path of learning the deep mystical mysteries. We shall guide you into the world of the occult and allow you to unlock the powers and energies of the cosmos and multiverse.”
“Get a mat, Miles. Class is about to begin,” said Mordecai.
I did so. I laid out the mat like the women had.
I heard one of them talk to her friend on the other side.
“I’m so glad I could make this class. Lemminkäinen is the best teacher. I feel it for days after his class. Luckily I can make it here before work.”
“Mordecai is good too. And this is the cheapest yoga studio on the west side,” replied her friend.
Yoga? I had chosen Magic as the skill to study from the Hardcore Tutorial. Now I was studying Yoga?
“We begin in Tadasana or Mountain Pose. Come to the front of your mat. Stand with feet even. Broaden your shoulders and open the chest. Watch your alignment. Head over neck over hips over legs.”
The women and I complied. Lemminkäinen spoke in a calm, soothing voice that still urged and encouraged.
“Take this moment to check in with yourself. Scan your body. Where are you holding tension? How are you breathing? Is your weight distributed evenly side to side? Front to back? What are you going to dedicate this practice to? What intention will you bring to your time here?”
I stood there trying to become more and more conscious of how I was standing. Whether my neck was resting centered over my shoulders. My core over my hips. My hips over my legs. I had no idea standing could be so complicated. Then we moved.
They instructed us through a set of poses that were supposed to flow from one to the next. We began in something Mordecai and Lemminkäinen called Viribhadrasana I or Warrior 1 pose. The women knew the names of each pose and their subtleties. What angle to hold your feet. Whether to keep your legs in line or spread them for stability. Mordecai had me move to the back of the class so I could watch the other students as I struggled to copy them. I couldn’t tell if the women were particularly skilled or if women just naturally look graceful to me. I would just find my way into a pose and then they would be off to the next. I’d realize that my hips were out of position and fix them, and then the class would be doing something new. Sweat started to flow out of my pores. My breath started to struggle. I felt awkward and clumsy and, as the sweat poured off me, even somewhat repulsive as the svelte beautiful women moved through their practice. Sweat dewed their clean features. On me it just pooled and stank.
From something called Warrior I we moved onto our hands and feet with hip bones high and arms and legs extended. This was called downward dog or Svanasana. It felt painful and awkward with your ass in the
air and your legs screaming as they were stretched. The balls of our feet were supposed to reach the floor in this pose but mine couldn’t. My hands began to slip as sweat made the mat and my hands slide instead of grip.
Trying to stay still in a pose would slowly build fatigue and strain, but just when I didn’t feel like I could maintain the awkward versions of these poses I worked my way into, Mordecai or Lemminkäinen would move us on to the next.
Round and round we flowed from pose to pose with subtle alterations. Up then down, then press up then flex the back then stretch the back and legs. Around and around from pose to pose. The muscles worked in each pose, then worked moving and flowing from one to the next. Sweat and strain. How was this going to teach me magic?
“Remember to breathe,” intoned Mordecai, his dark eyes taking us all in, missing none of our errors.
“Open your throat. Relaxed face and eyes. You are tensing up. Only tense and work the muscles that are working. The rest of you should be relaxed and active.”
They would make small adjustments in my form that would profoundly alter what joint or muscle or ligament was straining. Sweat poured down my face. My breath gasped. They urged me to breathe in time to the movement from pose to pose.
One hour of this and I was wrecked. They ended the round of practice in a pose called Savasana or corpse pose. It was lying on your back like a corpse and I thought the name apt, as I was dead tired.
After a few minutes of quiet rest we sat up cross legged and were encouraged to say “Namaste” to each other which was some sort of benediction or invocation and then the women got up, cleaned and put away their mats and left chatting with each other about smoothies and something called Lululemon clothes. The two teachers went out a door in the other end of the studio and locked it behind them.
My breath still panted in my ears when I was alone in the room. What was that? It was a great workout but how was this going to teach me magic? What was I supposed to do now?
Confused and exhausted, I started to leave via the door the girls had used when Remus appeared and growled at me.
“What? Class is over. I don’t know what the point of working out in here is anyway. This won’t let me cast magic. I need to learn to fight. I need to learn to recognize and collect herbs and ores and things. This tutorial is borked. Plus, I am exhausted.”
Another bevy of women started coming in and getting set up for another class. He growled at me.
“Remus. I’m tired. I need a chance to rest.”
Remus once again deployed his patented “you are an idiot” wolfish grin. He lunged forward and bit my leg, drawing blood, and I fell back onto the floor.
Remus Wolfbrother has bitten you for 1 hp of damage!
“Goddamn it! Why did you do that?” I asked.
He ignored me and looked extra intently at my wound. I looked too. It healed before our eyes.
“Yes. I healed. So? It still hurt.”
Another deployment of “you are an idiot” wolf grin.
“I don’t understand your point,” I said.
He started in to bite me again.
“Wait! Give me a second. I can figure this out. You don’t need to bite me. Let’s see. You bit me. I healed. Well, before that I wanted to leave. You don’t want me to leave? More than that? I was saying I was tired. Then you bit me and I healed… Oh… I am an idiot. I don’t need a day to recover really, do I? Ok. Virtuality.”
I got back onto my mat. The same odd instructors from before entered.
This time we began in something called Balasana or Child’s pose. We were instructed to lie on our shins draping forward over our bent legs with arms stretched first in front and then back by our sides.
“Come into your body. Feel how your breath changes where you feel the pose. Relax down into it. Feel the earth support you, pressing up as you press down,” instructed Lemminkäinen in a rumbling Finnish accent.
As I breathed in, the expansion of my lungs altered the curve and shape of my spine. The weight of my back resting on my knees and legs pushed all the breath out of my lungs at the bottom of my breath. As we sat in this pose my mind focused more and more on my body.
In contrast to the women in the room, I could barely do the beginnings of these poses, but Mordecai told me that this was not about ego or competition. If I could find as much of the pose as I could, and feel it working without risking injury, this was success.
“Extend into the twist on your exhale. Lengthen and open your spine on the inhale,” murmured Mordecai in his Persian accent. “Feel your breath becoming hotter and hotter in your belly. We are going to cultivate heat in your breath in this practice.”
And we did. Sweat once again poured down off me. The subtleties of the poses were explained to me. Move your arm farther forward. Keep your hips in line with your shoulders. Rotate your leg more. Keep your knees aligned even if one wants to move farther forward.
Whenever my mind wanted to think about Jude or the Eastmans, thankfully my attention was redirected back to my body and my breathing.
In the beginning, I often needed the straps or blocks to help me stretch or balance.
“Awkwardness is worthwhile. It helps you destroy ego. Falling is a chance to learn humbleness,” Mordecai told me, his dark eyes holding a smile in their depths.
Once again we ended in corpse pose or Savasana. Class ended. I looked to the exit but Remus was still there so I just stayed in Savasana, Corpse Pose, recovering until the next class began. As long as my mind could handle it, I could stay here. Virtual reality makes recovering a matter of moments. I didn’t have to worry about recovery time, eating, lactic acid in my muscles or repetitive stress injuries. I just had to keep my mind focused. Given the turmoil and stress of my life, staying focused on yoga was like water in the desert.
We worked on balance. Standing on one leg, the other tucked up foot against thigh, arms clasped in prayer at my chest for five cycles of breath. No matter what kind of pose we worked, whether for balance, or strength, or opening hips or chest, we were constantly admonished to be aware of our breath. To breathe and cycle our breath as we moved in and out of poses. Tree pose to Eagle or Garudasana.
“Relax your throat. Breathe. Find your focus point.”
Slowly the awkwardness of this new pastime started to leave me. Downward dog became an old friend where I could rest and relax as I flowed through the rest of the practice. It had been awkward and straining but I came to realize it was actually the break, the release from other efforts. I could scan my body and make subtle adjustments to my arms or spine or breath. I could connect more deeply with my body and how it rested on the earth and how the earth pressed upon my body. Thoughts of the wager, Jude, or my father would intrude, but slowly I got in the habit of redirecting my mind to my form or breath.
Remus had me stay in class for what seemed an endless set of iterations before he gave me permission to leave. Then he led me to a copse of trees. We camped, or, should I say, glamped. I could have called up a five-star hotel or a Tuscan Villa or an Island Lanai but Remus wanted us to stay outdoors. That first night it was a pre-constructed pavilion of spotless white. The food came out of a wicker hamper and was the best thing I had eaten in years. I thought that I’d have trouble sleeping and would be unable to stop thinking about Jude or the wager but I slept like a log.
In the morning it was back again to the yoga studio.
I learned that the basic flow of Mountain pose to Warrior to plank down to Cobra, or similar ones called Sphinx or Upward dog and back into Downward Dog was called Sun Salutation.
The first class of the day always began with rotations through versions of Sun Salutations. As the day progressed we’d work into twists and deep stretches. Or variations of the plank that were harder than basic push-ups.
After the first day, I didn’t have a fully stocked campsite ready and waiting for me. The campsite that Remus led me to needed to be set up. Tents with collapsible poles would need to be erected. I had to cook us
dinner from packaged meats and ingredients. A cookbook was thoughtfully provided along with utensils and a camp stove. My efforts were sub-par. Remus was certainly not impressed and let me know it, but I noted that he always finished his share and whatever of mine he could get out of me.
As the days passed the classes become more and more advanced. New variations were added that created deeper stretches, different counterpoints. Extending a leg or spider walking your arm behind your back enhanced an asana or pose so you needed more strength or more profound balance or flexibility.
We began to do poses where we balanced on our hands, or head, or just one leg while contorted this way or that. If falling removed ego the classes were a lesson in humility.
“Bend your knees. Rest your hands on the floor shoulder width apart. Lean forward putting more and more of your weight onto your hands. Bend your elbows more. Now rest your shins and knees on the backs of your arms above your elbows. More. Now lift up.”
And for a few moments I was crouched, balanced with my entire body supported on just my hands, my legs resting on my elbows. My entire body a ball resting on the angle of my crooked arms, my fingers splayed and holding up my entire weight.
As I learned the names and became more and more comfortable with the details and subtleties of each pose I moved farther forward in the class. I was no longer placed in the back row. The odd Sanskrit names became familiar.
With some competency came some impatience. At the end of one class while lying in child’s pose I asked my teachers, “When will we learn magic?”
Lemminkäinen stopped and examined me as I looked up from my pose. I was missing something in his assessment. “Don’t hold your breath,” was his curt response.
Mordecai and Remus seemed to concur as they gave me flat looks. I returned to practicing my yoga.
After classes, setting camp and cooking became more and more my responsibility and required more knowledge and skill. Sometimes Mordecai or Lemminkäinen came with me to my campsite to show me how to build a fire pit or another survival skill. I moved backwards from pavilion to tent to a rain cloth strung over a hammock. Finally, I constructed a lean-to out of branches. Slowly, I was acquiring a host of skills that the game system would handle for most players but I would need to do for myself.