Chapter 2 – Make a choice.

When I woke up my head was blazing with pain. My eyes were closed, but my brain seemed to be pulsing. “Jesus,” I said, bringing the palms of my hands to my eyes and trying to rub the pain away. I wasn’t sure what happened; I just remember touching the orb, hearing a voice, and then nothing.

“Craig, are you there? What happened?” Nothing in response. “Craig, you still there, buddy?” still nothing.

I tried to stand up but my whole body ached. I finally took my hands away from my eyes and opened them. “Aagh!” I closed them suddenly as intense pain flooded my head again. “Okay, calm down, Andrew, calm down,” I told myself.

I wasn’t in immediate danger; I assumed if I had been, I’d already be dead… and I wasn’t, I think.

“Deep breaths, stay calm. Okay, let’s try that again,” I said to myself. This time, I slowly opened one eye. The pain still came but not as intense; it was getting more bearable.

“Okay, okay,” I repeated to myself as if it were some chant that would fix whatever I had gotten myself into.

I took a slow deep breath and slowly opened both eyes to see words hovering in front of my eyes. The electronic glow of the letters caused my eyes to water, and I squinted slightly before raising both palms to rub my eyes again. When I opened them, the words were still there.

Welcome to the Tutorial Crawler- Andrew Dawes. Do you wish to proceed with initiation? Yes/No

“What the…” I trailed off as I tried to figure out what I was seeing.

The interface wasn’t solid; it wasn’t on a panel, it just floated in the air directly in front of me. As I stared dumbly at the words, I began to move my head from side to side and the words followed. It was almost like I was wearing one of those VR headsets I had played in a mall in Houston before the drop. I would move my head side to side and the words would move in whatever direction my head moved.

“Wha… What is happening?” I muttered to myself as I lifted my left hand and swiped at the floating words. My fingers passed through the words harmlessly as they immediately reformed. I spun around looking for anything or anyone else in the room, trying to figure out exactly what the hell was happening, but I didn't see signs of another person. Aside from the interface, the room was empty. It was dimly lit with what seemed to be fluorescent lights, but I couldn’t see any fixtures. The room was approximately 30 ft X 30 ft., and aside from the lone stainless steel metal table I was lying on in the middle of the room, I didn’t see anything. Empty grey walls surrounded me on all four sides, and that interface just hung in the air in bright white letters in front of me.

“It's okay. Just select yes, and we can get started.” A female voice said.

I jumped, assuming someone was in the room with me, But I hadn’t seen anyone, and I had looked over the whole room several times by now. I spun around a few more times as a tinge of panic began to set in.

“I’m not in the room with you. Just select yes, and we can get started,” The voice said again.

“What is going on here?! Who is talking?!” I yelled, “Where am I? What did you do with Craig?” I was panicking now. I got off the table and started to inspect the walls and corners of the bare, grey-walled room.

“I’m not with you, and we can’t really get into this here, but you need to select yes,” The voice said. “The Initiators purposefully don’t share information with the participants early to try and limit the number of successful entries. All you need to know right now is that I am here to help you; it’s a long story, but I am the AI assigned to be your guide. Select yes, and I can tell you more as you proceed.”

“What the fuck is going on? Who are the Initiators? A.I. like the kind that makes weird cartoons, or the kind that kills everyone in that Terminator movie?” I yelled at apparently no one.

“I know you are panicked, and none of this makes sense,” the voice said. I'll share what I can as I am sure you have many questions. My name is Tiff; well, that’s what you can call me anyway. I am an A.I. that has been assigned to a participant in the reaping of this seeded world,” Tiff said.

I looked up as the words continued audibly in my head, trying to figure out if the voice was coming from a hidden speaker or something.

“You are one of the first participants drafted upon activation of the seeds. You will be allowed to participate in the game to claim the rights of reaping if you accept. If no participants enter the game, the Universal Council will be forced to forfeit rights to the government or entity that initiated the seeding. In this case, the Lacertines were the initiators. Believe me, It is not in your planets best interest for them to control the reaping,” Tiff said.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

My head spun as I listened to this disembodied voice fill my thoughts. What is happening? I have to get back to the settlement and tell everyone about the orbs, I thought.

“You can’t get back to the settlement, and even if you could, it would not help. Once the reaping has been initiated, a countdown starts. It will not stop until the game is complete and the victor has been assigned reaping rights,” Tiff said.

“You can read my mind?!” I said as I looked around frantically.

“Well, yes, kind of…” Tiff said, “As I said earlier, I was assigned to you, so I have a direct neural connection. How else could I help if we could not communicate directly?”

“Okay, okay.” I stammered as I tried to take this all in.

“Tiff… was it?” I asked.

“Yes, you can call me Tiff.”

“Hi Tiff, I’m Andrew Dawes.”

“Andrew Timothy Dawes, Age 30, race Human. Former engineer, current member of Settlement South Town Texas, United States of America,” Tiff said.

“Jesus, do you know my social security number too?!” I exclaimed.

“435-62,” Tiff started.

“Okay, stop, I get it. You know everything about me,” I said, looking up at the ceiling.

“I have an extensive database. As a guide AI, it’s imperative that I provide you with the information necessary to be successful in your crawl,” Tiff said

“Crawl?” I asked.

“Crawl is the most common colloquial term used to describe the events leading up to the reaping. While this is definitely a life-or-death situation for you, many galactic citizens see this as a game. For them, it’s a way to bring fame and fortune to themselves, their families, and their home worlds. Citizens of galaxies across the universe can join the crawl for a chance to win the right of reaping,” Tiff said.

"Where exactly am I?" I asked, starting to settle down a bit.

“The event takes place in a procedurally generated dimension," Tiff began, "The Dimension is everchanging, and two crawls are never the same. You cannot escape the crawl and must progress to survive. The generated dimension is vast, and time works differently here. Since you cannot escape and you are here against your will, it is commonly referred to as a dungeon, although this particular dungeon is approximately one-quarter the size of the universe as you know it.”

I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. A few minutes earlier I was living in a crippled world where it was already hard enough to survive. Things weren’t easy, but I had a life; I had found purpose and a community. Now, I found myself in a completely foreign place, being told that I was part of some galactic dungeon initiated by aliens who wanted our planet for its resources. It was all happening too fast. At the same time, if what this AI was telling me was true, then billions of lives were still at stake, including possibly my own family. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing if there was a chance, any chance at all, that I could help.

I wasn’t exactly a man of action in my life up until this point. I led a normal, nondescript life before the drop. After the drop, I dodged one fucked up situation after another until I found a place to lay low and survive. I realized in this instant that I wanted to do more than survive. If there was a chance for me to do something remarkable, then why not do it?

Participants have 30 seconds to finalize selections. A loud robotic voice said over an invisible P.A. system.

“Shit! Okay, I can’t just stand by and watch as Earth gets reaped or whatever; I have people I love down there.” I said, “So help me, Tiff, this better not be a trap,” I muttered as I looked at the word “yes” and heard a digital “Ding.”

As I mentally clicked yes, a woman materialized directly in front of me, startling me and causing me to scream.

“What the..” I shouted as I fell off the table.

I quickly pulled myself up off the ground and only now noticed that I was completely stark naked. “AAAGH!” I screamed as I cupped my hands over my crotch and huddled closer to the ground.

“Why am I naked?! Can I get some damn clothes?”

The woman smiled, obviously unaffected by my lack of clothes. She had blonde, shoulder-length hair, light, piercing blue eyes, a small frame only a little over 5 ft tall, and she was beautiful. She wore a skintight dark blue body suit. There was an electronic glow around the seams. It was like a space-aged suit that you would see in some sci-fi movie.

She seemed very confident, and if she was unnerved by current circumstances in the slightest, she didn’t show it, and here I was, naked, crouching on the ground. Still, even in my current state, I couldn't help but notice how incredibly beautiful the woman was. My brain sometimes does this thing where I fade out of reality and play scenarios in my brain. The scenarios are usually related to what is currently happening, and reality seemingly never plays out the way it does in my head.

Currently, I was naked on the ground, in a strange place, apparently entering a dungeon where I would probably be killed by aliens, or monsters, or some weird combination of both dreamed up by a super AI that built this all just to make sure that some interplanetary government could legally take a planet and kill its inhabitants. In my mind, though, I saw this woman in the regular world, prior to the drop, in some Jeans that had just the right number of tears in them, just tight enough: a Taking Back Sunday T-shirt and black Converse low tops. We were at a bar, and I finally got the nerve to buy her a drink. She laughed at my jokes; she thought I was charming, and I felt like a king. Damn, it felt good to embrace these mental escapes.

When I looked up, the woman’s clothes had changed to the exact image I had in my head. The only difference was the description above her head.

Tiff, level 50 A.I. Guardian

Class - ???

Race - ???

“What the..” I stammered.

“I assumed you would be more comfortable with this appearance,” the woman said.

“Tiff?” I said, confused.

‘Hello, Andrew. Nice to meet you in person. Now, let's get started,” she said with a smile.