"But it is now the game's world!" the elf-girl said.
There was a moment of silence. We looked at each other.
"What do you mean by that?" Hew asked.
She pointed at Tom.
"He already thought that I am an NPC. He thought that they are NPCs," she said, pointing at Alice and the Lynx. "But we are not. We are real."
She took a deep breath, but before she could continue, Tina asked her with an accusing tone. "What did you do? How did you do this?"
Taken aback, she filled her lungs with air, but before she could answer, Tom interjected.
"This is not possible; no world can become a game's world. You are confused!" he laughed. "You think you told him the story, but that's not the reality. It is what you were programmed to think, but it was the other way around! I still think that we are in a virtual dream. You think you are oh, so old, but your years do not count, they are virtual, those are only memories created for you in this virtual world." He snorted. "How do we wake up? Is this all like some escape room game? Should we simply wait, and they'll take us out if they see that we do not enjoy the game?"
The elf-girl opened her mouth to reply, but no words came to her. She became defensive, visibly struggling to find arguments.
"And Bounty County?" Mike asked, turning towards Tom, who shrugged.
"It's in bad taste to mix the situation in Bounty County with this new dream interface version. They need to think of a better plot," Tom remarked.
"I didn't do anything besides telling Thorwal my story," Julietta finally answered Tina. "Is telling the story something that could trigger the transformation of this world into some game dystopia? I don't understand what happened."
I exchanged a look with Alice and the Lynx. They were clearly confused, angered, and frustrated. The Lynx placed a paw on the elf's shoulder, and she glanced at him, afraid, but his look reassured her. Seeing that nobody was accusing her anymore, she calmed down sufficiently to continue.
"Let me explain how this happened, how I lived through it. Once you hear the story, maybe you'll start to believe me."
After a short pause, she continued. "I don't know if you remember Dreamland's beginning phases or if you were old enough to be interested, but more than a decade ago, when everything started, it was already one of the greatest open-source projects of its time before it grew to what it is now. They made the game conform to Thorwal's books. It wasn't exactly like the book, but a good approximation, and it had tremendous success. After a while, they contacted him for a follow-up schedule. There was a need for a new release, something new to the story. So he asked me to invent some story, but there was no need to invent; I told him what I learned further from the world."
The elf-girl was now sitting and appeared relatively calm.
She looked at us as if to assess the threat. The Lynx, right at her side, nodded for her to continue.
She moistened her lips and continued.
"The updates became more frequent; he wanted to know a lot of detail, saying that if we were going for the real story, it was easier that way. We already had some divergence and had to correct that part of the story, which was unpleasant enough. He remarked that for any divergence over time, the problems would only grow, and you always needed to correct and make up for it.
As you know, there was one main instance, which became the hardcore version, and many instances with different levels of difficulty where one could play and try different outcomes while the main instance followed the storyline. All these smaller parallel instances were synchronized periodically. There were updates, once every six months or one year, to adjust the game world to the story Thorwal was writing.
People weren't very happy with these resets, even if they could keep their characters because some parts of the background story changed.
Then the big one-world project started, which became the hardcore version of the game, just after the appearance of the dream interfaces. People were having fun, and the ruling class was happy that the plebs had found an occupation that kept them busy. There have been discussions about whether to let the game story go differently than the book or to let the book be written first and force the story after it. These discussions had started since the first main version and lasted for years, and with the big one-world project, it was decided to let the game run and see what happens. Basically, Thorwal's world story being written by the game. For a while, I found it strange to see that what was happening in the game also happened in the real world. Thorwal was getting old and had lost his passion for writing; he was happy to see the game writing its own story.”
"When did this happen?" I wondered.
"I'm not entirely sure. It might have coincided with the launch of the one-world project. My visits weren't frequent, and I didn't gather enough information to investigate thoroughly. Thorwal's explanation was that the game was so accurately mirroring the world that it resembled reality. After he passed away, I had no one to discuss my observations with. Then, one day, I encountered some players, and that's when I realized that something was amiss. I began to wonder if I had made a mistake and ended up in the game world instead of the real one. Was my portal now leading to the game world? Because suddenly, I encountered things designed for the game in that world."
"What things do you mean?" Mike inquired.
"Things like the adventurer's guild offices. Municipal offices have been converted into them uniformly throughout the world. That didn't exist before. There was also the strict codification of levels, the introduction of numerous new skill scrolls, and a more defined structure in the magic classes. And then there were the silver shrines. They were designed to maintain peace in cities and prevent players from causing chaos. These were changes we had to implement in the game to make it function."
"How did people here react to these changes?" Hew asked.
"They didn't seem to notice or understand them," she replied, shaking her head. "When I asked a local how long they'd had a silver shrine in town, he told me it had always been there. But it hadn't. I knew that it hadn't been there. Furthermore, locals behave strangely when interacting with players, as if they don't notice when they do abnormal things."
"Which is what I've been saying: you're in the game world," Tom concluded, squinting at her.
She continued undisturbed.
“However, this changed once the main silver shrine in Silver City was destroyed. It seemed as if the other shrines got their magic power from it, and with the loss, they gradually lost their functionality. People started to react and even inquire about demons coming into the world to 'play'. How do you explain that with your game theory?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He shrugged.
“Your theory seems too far-fetched,” he countered. “How do you explain that they brought in player characters who have been developed for almost ten years, including their mercs? All these humans created suddenly through some magic?”
She shook her head.
“That isn't quite true. At the time of the one-world project, you couldn't bring any hero into the game. You had to choose from the available ones until you found the one suitable for you!"
That was news to me.
"Why not? How did they explain that?" Mike wondered.
"They said it had something to do with the way the world had been created. It took a couple of years just to prepare the various artificial intelligence tools that should work on creating and programming the world. Once the world was created, all they could do is place requests to the overall system controlling the game world and work with the answers it provided."
"What about the legendary players and their mercs?" I wondered. "I know of Cala, who is almost on par with them. Let's take just one example: was it in reality Cala who killed King Elefteares or not?"
I didn't want to ask about Alice directly, but Cala killing King Elefteares should be an event that even she should have heard about, even if Elefteares was king of a small Kingdom.
She turned and looked at me.
“You mean Calamity Lara the Assassin? She was probably the person who killed him, and if not, everybody knows that she did it. That is the common memory.”
"I am Cala's merc," Alice suddenly said. "Do you want to say that my ten years of memory with Cala is all made up?"
The elf-girl shook her head, but she was interrupted before she could answer.
“Exactly; how are players integrated into this world?” Michael wondered at the same time. “I also had a character named Spartacius. Does he now exist? And how did he come into being?”
“I did create a character,” the elf-girl explained, looking at Michael, “and I saw that characters were made out of real people living in this world. They were transformed by some magical means and controlled as characters. Your characters are real persons from this world that you... possess, yes, that is the word, possess, while the mercs, they are normal people, normal mercs fighting for them."
She turned towards Alice.
"I suppose that your memories with Cala are true memories. They could be spiced up with some memories from the game environment, but mostly true. Just as a curiosity, have there been any changes in Cala's behavior some time ago?”
Alice shook her head.
"Cala had always been unpredictable, but her loyalty was the one constant in her life. She had started to buy a lot of clothes lately, but every woman can have her fancy moments..."
A smile escaped me at her mentioning the clothes; that had been my personal contribution.
“But who would do this, and why would they do such a monstrosity?” the Lynx asked the true question.
Julietta shrugged. “I don't know. I only witnessed it happening.”
“And nobody questioned this, what you call integration?” - Tom pondered.
She shook her head. “No, as I mentioned, they were unaware of the changes.”
"I was in the game, and it's true that I noticed some awakening, in a disturbing manner, as if the NPCs were becoming real people, but it happened gradually, not suddenly after the Silver Shrine was destroyed. Why is that?" - I queried.
She smiled.
"Magic doesn't work like electricity, where cutting the cord means no more power. Even a mote of magic holds tremendous power. I believe the Silver Shrines were somehow essential to what occurred, but their destruction didn't cause an immediate collapse. If there had been a spell of such magnitude, it wouldn't vanish abruptly but fade gradually. It also depends on whether everything relied on the Silver Shrines or not. These are aspects I couldn't investigate; I simply noticed a possible correlation between these events."
“Oh, well!” I chimed in. “What about the angels? In the game, there were angels who could resurrect. They can't exist in the real world, can they? Do they exist here?”
“It's interesting that you ask about them. They didn't exist, and then suddenly they did... for a while,” she replied with a quizzical expression. Seeing my inquiring face, she began to explain further.
“In older times, I wasn't aware of any angels in this world. Yes, there were stories and myths, but that was all. And I'm talking about a couple of hundred years. But more recently, I've heard rumors, all sorts of rumors. I haven't witnessed any angels or their deeds, but lately, I've heard about resurrections performed by Isera, the green angel, in the name of Nohekhta, the green Goddess of the Woods. Our Goddess! Then I heard that Cala the Assassin had killed the angel!”
She turned to Alice. “Can an angel die? Do you know more about that?” Alice nodded. “Yes, Cala told us the story. She did kill that angel at the request of Tenebra, the angel of death, who had somehow ambushed and blackmailed her into doing it.”
The elf-girl raised an eyebrow. “I didn't know that. It seems as if there had been some infighting among angels.”
Alice shrugged.
"I don't know anything else," she said
I thought of Tenebra! It stirred up a sense of unease, sending shivers down my spine.
As I delved into Cala's memories, I noticed an intriguing shift that occurred around the time of her resurrection through Tenebra.
She had been more unhinged and cruel after that. Well, not quite true, Cala had not done those things, but strange thoughts and wishes had suddenly multiplied in her head. Like biting Alice's shoulder to find its taste. Or letting those slavers almost kill Spartacius. And that did happen when I was in the lead! I wouldn't do it now, why did I do it at the time? There had been something that was pushing her to go even closer to the edge.
At the time, I had not been aware of the turmoil in her heart, but now, sieving through her memories, I saw things in a new light.
Could it be that Tenebra had somehow influenced Cala's mind? Interestingly, the strange occurrences seemed to have ceased after Cala had left this world together with me. In my world she had been much at peace and happy.
“What are you thinking about?” Alice asked, noticing my brooding demeanor as she approached.
“I'm pondering Tenebra and her schemes,” I replied. “What is she truly? She appears to be a damned, soulless creation of the integration...”
A chuckle interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to see Julietta's peculiar eyes fixed on me.
“Hah, soulless creations! That's rich coming from a demon!”
Her words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. After she spoke, I detected a flicker of fear in her eyes.
“This girl speaks her mind before thinking things through.”
She was suddenly sweating, and her lower lip started to tremble.
"What's wrong with this girl?" I asked myself. But I had no head to think at her; her remark had hit the mark.
Turning away, I fought back the tears welling in my eyes. I didn't want them to see me cry. It was just a thoughtless remark, but it hurt more than I could bear.