Jasper heard the knock at the door and he couldn't help but smile. He had been waiting for this moment for quite some time, and based on the information he had access to on his screen everything was pretty much ready to go.
The office he had been working in for the last 4 years was nothing special, he was pretty sure that it was an old apartment that had been refurbished, though this was based purely on what he knew about the main branch of the game company, Weird World Computing.
Jasper was working for the Scandinavian branch of the company, which sounded prestigious but the branch consisted of two people, himself and Martin.
While the main branch of Weird World Computing was focused on making actual games, the Nordic branch had the thankless task of creating template worlds for the next games. It wasn't really the most interesting job in the world. Ever since Deep Dive Gaming, also known as full Virtual Reality, had become mainstream almost everything had to be generated with AI thanks to the complexity of the worlds. This approach to development always resulted in a lot of small issues, along with a couple of major errors, which would need to be fixed, something which usually took months. Though, if Jasper's idea worked he was about to shave a lot of time off the development cycle.
Jasper got up from his seat and adjusted his bright red shirt which he was wearing over a white t-shirt, it was formal enough for work, but casual enough that he didn't stick out when he was out in public. He had his long brown hair neatly tied up in a ponytail to keep it out of his face while he was working, and he couldn't help but think it gave him an elegant look.
Opening the door he was greeted by his favourite person. Celeste was about a head shorter than Jasper and as usual, she sported her thick blonde hair in a long pixie cut, which in Jasper's mind looked like she had just woken up, though he knew for a fact that the hair was deliberately styled. Celeste's bright blue eyes shone with an eagerness that was infectious as she looked up at her husband.
"Is it ready?" She asked while pushing into him for a hug. Jasper didn't hesitate, returning the hug and adding a quick kiss before nodding.
"Yup, it should be ready to go." He explained, pointing towards the Deep Dive gaming stations that had been set up for himself and Martin.
Thanks to modern developments the setup for those stations were little more than a helmet and a beefy computer, which meant that it was expensive, but didn't take up too much room in the office.
Celeste was quick to make her way over to one of the helmets, taking a seat in a comfy chair, while Jasper took the seat opposite her. "I know that I have been vague on the details, so let me just go through the basics with you," Jasper said, knowing that if he didn't, his wife would plug herself into the game with the neural helmet before he had a chance to explain things.
Celeste looked at the helmet she had already picked up and then at her husband. "Fine... but please make it quick" She said with mock sadness, though she did put the helmet away and turned her attention to him.
Jasper smiled as he explained. "Last year you told me to try and make my work fun, and I absolutely took that to heart, which is why I have created my own little game for managing the bugs that keeps popping up. In short, we will go into the game as gods and fix or flag any bugs we find. The world will be a fairly generic fantasy world, though it will be populated with NPCs." Jasper said, and Celeste did her best to listen, though she knew that her husband could get a bit caught up in his explanations, so she made sure to look out for any tangent he might get distracted by.
Jasper continued after a quick sip from the water bottle he kept at his desk. "I have scaled up our stats, and we will have access to some godlike abilities. However, to make sure that it is still a game for us, we are not omnipotent. You will only have access to the divine domains you choose and you will not be equally great in all your stats, so please, try and think about what kind of character you want to build." He explained, doing his best to not skip anything major.
Celeste raised a hand. "Yes?" Jasper wasn't sure if the hand raising was a result of Celeste working as a teacher, but he appreciated the fact that she had listened enough to ask questions.
"Do we level up?" She asked.
Jasper nodded. "Kinda, though we will go over the specifics later." He answered, before returning to his introduction. "What we do isn't permanent, the people over at the main branch will probably have the opportunity to delete some of the stuff that we create, but it will take time for them to do so. As such, we have a resource for making permanent changes to the world as well as one for making temporary changes. Any other questions?" Jasper didn't want to dive too much into the names of the stats as the game would be presenting those.
"How many domains do I get?" Celeste followed up, having clearly focused on the fact that she would be getting great, cosmic power.
"You will be getting 3." The programmer answered with a smirk, which made Celeste grin.
"Anything else I should know?" She asked, clearly eager to get going. Jasper felt her eagerness infect his mood and he gave her a smile in return.
"We have about six months to fix the bugs in the game, to fix a bug try removing it or incorporating into the game world. We will only really be able to play on weekends, so around 24 sessions... Wanna do character creation together or apart?" He asked.
Celeste thought about it. "I would love to do it together if we can." She said and with that, Jasper made a couple of adjustments on the Deep Dive Server, and they both put on their helmets.
Loading into Deep Dive had been rough a couple of years ago, but with most of the growing pains worked out it was almost seamless. A digitized voice could be heard speaking as the world around the two players was still a void. "𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚞𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚍. 𝙳𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍. 𝚆𝚎𝚕𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎."
Then Celeste and Jasper found themselves standing in the middle of a white room. Celeste looked over at her husband and smirked. "Isn't this a bit boring?" She asked, though Jasper simply shook his head.
"Maybe, but honestly, I would rather not spend more time on this project than I have to. This is still an experiment, and it is more a hack than a feature. I am basically giving us access to some world edit tools in the game." Jasper explained.
With that each of them found a dropdown menu floating in front of them, they were displaying the six stats of the game. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. Celeste cleared her throat and Jasper knew that she was about to comment on the stats, he decided to beat her to it. "The main branch decides the core concepts. It is a fantasy world and they wanted something that most Pen and Paper players could relate to. Do you need an explanation on what the stats mean?" He asked, and Celeste just shook her head.
"Nah, I think I got this one. So what should I do to assign stuff?" She asked, her voice filled with mirth.
"Just touch the stat you want to be the highest one, then the next highest and so on... What are you thinking about building? A rogue character?" Jasper asked, he knew it was Celeste's usual go-to when they had pen and paper evenings, but he assumed that she would probably do something else.
Celeste paused a little. "I am thinking something Hephaestus inspired. God of crafting and all that." She explained, which didn't surprise Jasper either.
Celeste was very much a person focused on skills and crafting when she played games, and the way that she managed to express her creativity through her projects was just one of the many reasons why Jasper enjoyed her company.
"Well, I am guessing we are not going in as evil gods then," Jasper said, putting away the idea of playing the embodiment of death.
Celeste shook her head. "We can, but honestly, I tend to feel bad for the NPCs, even these temporary ones are so real." She explained, which Jasper could definitely relate to.
"I might go for Classic paladin Sun god then. Though I feel that is kind of boring." Jasper said, leaning back. There was nothing to support him, but thanks to this room having little to no programming, there was no gravity to really pull him down, and as such he simply floated.
"You could try recreating one of your old Pen and Paper characters. You liked your Wall mage." Celeste proposed.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Jasper thought about it for a moment. Magic wasn't part of the game yet, and he would be forcing it into the world if he decided to pick that Domain even though he had added it to the list of Domains, but he had liked that character that had specialized in prismatic barriers. "Huh, I could do that... Yup definitely doing that." He finally decided and picked Intelligence and Constitution as his two highest stats.
Celeste grumbled. "Why are my stats so low?" She asked and Jasper moved over to look at her sheet.
Celeste Stat Score Strength 13 Dexterity 10 Constitution 13 Wisdom 16 Intelligence 14 Charisma 8
"Well, they are just indicators. We are not treated like players so any check based on our abilities does not use your stats as a modifier, instead, the game takes 21 and subtracts your score, which is the difficulty class. The game then 'rolls' a twenty-sided die and if the roll meets or is above your difficulty class you succeed." Jasper explained.
Celeste paused looking at her stats, clearly doing the math. "So if I get a wisdom check, the game needs to roll, what, 5 or above? That is like 75% success rate, wait, meets it beats it, so 80%?" She said, clearly looking at the stats with some surprise.
Jasper nodded. "Yeah, it won't be like that for ordinary players, but it made sense for our characters." He showed her his stats.
Jasper Stat Score Strength 10 Dexterity 13 Constitution 14 Wisdom 8 Intelligence 16 Charisma 13
Celeste looked at the stats and nodded. "Looks like we balance each other out pretty well. What comes next?" She asked, looking at her stats with satisfaction.
Jasper smirked and swiped the stats up. "Next we get to pick our domains." He said as Celeste mimicked his motion with the stats window. A long list of domains suddenly filled both of their visions.
Domain name Domain Description Alacrity Quick bursts of explosive speed. Beasts Control and transformation of animals Blood Manipulation and power through vitae Death The undead and the final end Deception Illusions and general lies, includes stealth. Earth Minerals, Stone and Gems Endurance Stamina and general fortitude Fertility Growth in plants, people and animals Fire Warmth of the flame Health Healing and sickness prevention Journey Movement over long distances Knowledge Anything found on the wiki and beyond Loyalty Leadership and organisation Luck Fortune both good and bad Madness The manipulation of a constant mental state Magic Sorcery and spells Melee Hitting things with weapons Might Strength and power Network A connection of nodes, be they trees, tech or people. Night Darkness and visibility manipulation Passion Feelings and inspiration Range Bows, Guns and anything that hits at a distance Sun Light and the burning righteousness of the day Time Seeing iteration and looping time itself Tinkering Engineering and creation of magical objects Water Anything from seas to the rivers that flow Wealth Prosperity and manipulation of goods Wind Tornadoes and power of the sky
Celeste took a step back, though being in the white room with no physics enabled she didn't get closer to any of the walls. Jasper laughed a bit sheepishly. "Yeah, I know, it is a long list. I have just been feeding the AI words that I would like to see as Domains, and it has sort of aggregated a lot of them." He explained Celeste cleared her throat.
"Still, it is pretty overwhelming." She said, which made Jasper nod.
"It is just for us, and not that player-friendly. I could trim it, but I don't think that it will be used in the future. If it is, I will have Martin clean it up." He said with a wicked grin.
Celeste gave the list another look, trying to ignore the things that didn't relate to her character concept. "I only get to pick 3?" She asked, clearly getting inspired to build a multitude of characters with the domains in front of her.
Jasper laughed at that. "I mean, I can unload this and we can start with more if you wanna do a 'Goddess of the Elements' type of thing, but the reboot is super slow, so we will have to pause for today and start tomorrow." He explained, which made Celeste groan.
"Fine! I will stick to my original concept." She grumbled analysing the list once more. "Okay, I think I have narrowed down my options." She said pulling her husband over so she didn't stand around talking to herself. "Tinkering is probably a must-have. I get the feeling that you might have created that one directly for me." She said, raising an eyebrow, which made Jasper smirk.
"What? Think of you during work? I would never." He teased.
"Anyway, I am thinking Time, Wealth, Network, Knowledge, Earth and Journey," Celeste said, slowly starting to parse them out. "Time is mostly because Time manipulation sounds really cool... though might not make sense for the character... I could portray her as some kind of cosmic clockmaker?" She shook her head, clearly unsure of what to pick already. "Wealth would probably be a good idea... you know, to ensure that we have the things we need to craft stuff, I think it will help me sell my goods as well." She said slowly looking over the other options. "Network could be fun if I get to wire up terminals of various complexity." She said, which made Jasper wince.
"Sorry, sweetie. The main branch wants this fantasy. They are not going to be happy if we start making sci-fi tech." He explained apologetically.
Celeste seemed relieved. "Great, one off the list. Then there is Knowledge, which would be great for knowing about the world and creating massive crafting tomes. That could be quite fun." She said, having always loved those huge books that were almost the size of a person. "Earth would be great for some kind of smithing-styled character, pulling out metal and gems and forging them. Maybe I should pick Fire with that one... no... no I am not going to add to my list. Lastly, Journey will probably be fun if I wanna build vehicles or just options for us to travel." She paused again, unsure of what to pick then sighed.
Finally she refocused herself. "Not gonna lie, I kinda like the idea of the clockmaker. Tinkering with things. The only question is what would fit best with Time and Tinkering. I could take Knowledge, going for that great unobtainable knowledge that drives people insane." She said, making Jasper clear his throat.
"I was also kind of considering Knowledge. Not that we can't have things that overlap, but if it helps make your decision." Celeste smiled and nudged her husband.
"Guess I get to go with Journey then. Kind of a journey through time, creating my legacy through artefacts of power. So that will be Tinkering, Time and Journey for me." She said picking the three domains.
Jasper nodded along. He had been looking over his own list of Domains and had boiled it down to three domains as well. "I think that mine is a lot more clear. I am going with Magic, Knowledge and Endurance. Endurance for the shield stuff." He explained though Celeste had guessed as much.
With the domains picked Jasper looked at his wife. "Ready to get into the world?" He asked, she looked at him a bit confused.
"Isn't there anything else we need to do?" She asked and her husband made a noncommittal noise that she knew from experience meant that he made things sound easier than they were.
"You get powers within your Domains and you have the stats I talked about before... But the game is going to prompt you for a choice when you load in, so nothing for now." He explained, very proud of what he had managed to accomplish in just six months. He just hoped that they could make up for the work that he hadn't been doing.