System File: Description of the Sphere (Version 1, 1st May 2019)

This description might be updated later to reflect additional info gained during the stories

Physical Description:

Basically the Sphere is a hollow world that has been constructed in a very special place – it is neither a regular planet nor is it a virtual world despite the fact that everyone inside it is administered by a “system” that creates virtual screens to handle everything including inventory in a way extremely similar to a MMORPG.

The Sphere is larger than a regular planet, but much smaller than something like a Dyson Sphere – the landscape on the inside is about ten to fifteen times the surface of Earth.

The group of entities that created the sphere sometimes pose as gods inside it, but no one really knows if every one of the sphere’s gods is one of the creators. It is quite possible that some of the gods are constructs and/or that some of the creator entities haven’t revealed themselves yet.

The highest point of the sphere is its center, the place where the suncore hangs. To the people of the sphere this is the normal sight – a silver ball that has circular “windows” through which they can see a smaller silver ball with more circular windows, through which they can again see an even smaller ball – like a fractal becoming smaller with every layer inside. The different windows or balls even rotate against each other, sometimes revealing more or less of the inner balls at any position.

This is how every core looks to them, only varying in color depending on the type of core. And destroying the core of a living being kills that being, but as long as the core exist it can be revived even if the body is destroyed.

Additionally they don’t wonder why they can see the core clearly despite it being a radiant light source that should blind them if looked at…

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The next object lower than the suncore is a black half-sphere that is only knowns as the “Darknight”. It rotates around the suncore once per day, absorbing all light from half the core and effectively creating a day/night-cycle for most of the sphere (with the exception being the areas around the poles). Nothing is really known about this object.

Below those two center objects, about halfway between the suncore and the surface area, is something that is called „the mists“ or „the clouds“ by the inhabitants of the sphere: tiny and barely visible dots in clusters of white. This is because they are lacking any indications of how far above those dots are – only very few scholars know that each of these tiny dots are large rocks floating there in clusters. Nothing is known of the mists either.

And then there is the inner surface, the place of the lands and the dark water. This is where a comparison with a regular planet completely fails.

The “Lands” are swimming on the “Dark Waters”. The size of each of those lands is between a very large island (like Madagascar) and a small continent (like Australia). Their drift on the water is rather slow – if a bridge is built between lands, then that bridge is usually stable for five to ten years before it needs to be shortened, lengthened or abandoned.

The Water (or what is called water in the sphere) is black instead of transparent and slightly acidic, requiring purifying before it can be used (including drinking it). There is no difference between the water of the “Ocean” and regular water (no saltwater) – in fact the river water is pushed up from the ocean below due to some unknown effect inside the lands.

Below the waters is the realm of the demons – depraved and low creatures that need to consume cores to live and that can be summoned to the inside of the sphere – usually by sacrificing cores from plants, animals or intelligent beings. Sometimes a demon even finds its way up from their tunnels without being summoned first, but that requires the power to survive surfacing from the deeps of the dark waters.

And then there are the legends of the Xenotics – creatures that live in areas even lower than the demons and are even more depraved, regularly focusing of things that are so low that even the lowest demon shudders when thinking about it…

Author’s comment:

The tunnels and halls of the demons are basically the hull of the sphere, and what the people of the sphere call lower than that is simply the outside with regular life – but they don’t know that.

They have been raised in believing the good things are in the light and the high points, with the suncore as the highest point of the sphere – and that if you go low, bad things accumulate – first the Dark Waters of the ocean (which is acidic and not life-giving and travelling by ship is very risky), then the demons (who demand sacrifices to live on and don’t care about simple life) and then the xenotics that they can’t even start to describe.

So yes, the people summoned from different Earth-Variants into the sphere have an added problem as they are not heralded as heroes…