Chapter 3: Aporia
> Will you find your greatest glory?
> Will you be a falling star?
> Here you'll learn what nature teaches
> Here you'll learn more who you are
> - “The Legend of Everfree,” Daniel Ingram
> Equestria Girls - Legend of Everfree Soundtrack
When Sophia came to her senses, she found herself standing on a narrow beach nearly a mile long covered in white sand. The ocean that washed up onto the shore was a vivid turquoise that struck Sophia as strange until she leaned down and cupped some of the water in her hands and realized that the water itself wasn’t clear but actually had a light blue tint. Taking a deep breath, Sophia lifted her face to the ocean breeze, the scents taking her back to her time spent living with her dad on an island in the tropics. The sun that beat down warmed her face and the sounds of the waves were a rhythmic wash that hummed to her of sand and sea and paradise.
Letting out a long breath, Sophia opened her eyes and stared out to sea for a long moment before turning to take in the rest of her surroundings. Behind her, the beach ended abruptly at a line of palm trees and ferns with wide fronds that danced in the breeze. Sophia could see little past the tree line except more trees, suggesting that the point beyond the beach to be a thick tropical rainforest. Chances are the cool breeze would disappear as soon as Sophia entered the tree line, allowing the heat and humidity to grow uncomfortable.
Sophia glanced up the beach and spotted a rocky outcropping which jutted out into the ocean. Built onto the rock was a stone structure, clearly man-made, but worn down and in ruins. A fort, perhaps? Something about it gave Sophia a sense of deja vu, and she guessed it reminded her of the colonial forts she’d seen on some of the Caribbean islands as a kid. When she glanced in the opposite direction, Sophia found the beach veered around a bend and disappeared out of sight behind the tree line. She couldn’t tell if the beach actually ended or continued on.
For several moments, Sophia stood on the beach, taking in her surroundings and considering her options. When she had been in college, Sophia had taken a course in ancient philosophy, which had been one of her favorite classes and had almost convinced her to change her major. One of the ideas they had learned in the class was the Greek concept of aporia. Though loosely defined as a feeling of confusion or disorientation, aporia was far more complex, and was connected to how people processed their understanding of the world around them. Sophia liked to imagine it as an enormous puzzle. As a person grew from a child to adult, they learned about the world, asking questions and fitting the answers into their understanding of the world, like pieces fit into a puzzle. Slowly, the picture revealed by the growing puzzle would determine how the person would see the world around them.
There were times, however, when a piece would be revealed that simply didn’t fit into the puzzle as it was. It was then that a person had two options. They could either discard the new piece, refusing to accept that it was true because it did not fit their preconceived ideas. Or they could accept that their puzzle wasn’t correct, or at least that corner of the puzzle. Pulling apart the affected part of the puzzle was required to then refit it into a new pattern, where the pieces fit better and revealed a different picture. But it was in that moment before the new pattern was revealed, when the pieces were tossed and out of order, that a person was truly in aporia. Everything they thought they had understood was, at best, misguided and overly simplified, and at worst, completely wrong. Aporia was the disorientation that stood between a person’s perceived understanding of the world, and their new broader understanding with increased clarity.
Though she hadn’t gone on to get a major in philosophy, Sophia had been fascinated by the ideas she learned in that class, including that of aporia, and she loved seeing it play out with her students. It wasn’t uncommon to see a moment of complete befuddlement in her students a moment before their eyes lit up with understanding. On the other hand, every teacher had faced the struggle of reteaching a concept to a student who refused to accept the new understanding because it conflicted with everything they had been taught. To grow and evolve and learn, one had to be willing to accept those moments when the world didn’t make sense.
Now, Sophia realized she had a choice to make for herself. She could discard the pieces that she was being shown, which did not fit anywhere in the puzzle of her own understanding. She could continue to insist that she had to be dreaming, or maybe she was in the VR simulation and just didn’t remember waking up. She could push through, forcing the pieces to fit in a puzzle that had no room for them.
But the pieces did not fit. Sophia wasn’t dreaming. Her hands were wet from the water. Her feet sank into the sand. She felt the spray of the ocean as the mist was carried on the wind. These were more vivid than any dream could possibly be, and while VR technology had made great strides in the past decade, creating brilliant 3D images and immersive surround sound that could make a person almost forget they were in a video game, there was not yet the technology to add smell, touch or taste. This wasn’t an experience that could be replicated with VR.
Then what was the answer? Where was she, and how did she get here? It was possible she was hallucinating, but that didn’t feel right either. All that was left was the feeling of aporia.
With a sigh, Sophia turned away from the ocean. She was getting hot, standing in the sun, and so she decided to accept that she simply did not know. Perhaps finding out where she was would be the first step to figuring out how she got there. So, that would be her goal. Once again, she turned her gaze to the fort on the rocky outcropping. It was her first clue that there might be civilization nearby, so with a sigh, Sophia began making her way in that direction.
Sophia had only taken a few steps before she stopped and looked down. She hadn’t until that moment realized that she wasn’t wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants that she had worn to bed the night before. In fact, the clothes she was wearing were unlike anything she had ever worn before. They looked more like a costume in a fantasy movie or something she might see worn at the renaissance festival. Sophia poked at the pants of brown leather with a frown. “What in the world...?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
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Item: Simple Leather Pants.
2 Armor
Durability: 20/20
A basic pair of pants, made from simple leather. For when you don’t want to be naked in public.
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The appearance of the screen in Sophia’s vision caused her to let out a startled squawk and fall back, tripping in the uneven sand and landing on her butt. Despite her movement, though, the screen remained right in front of her vision. It looked similar to the screen that had been on the wall in the empty black room, but this one was smaller, and it floated right in front of her. She tried turning her head, but the words turned with her. A sinking feeling entered Sophia’s gut and she groaned. “You have got to be kidding me.” Suspicious, she narrowed her eyes at the screen. “Exit.”
Instantly the screen vanished, leaving her vision unimpeded again, but Sophia wasn’t relieved. “You have GOT to be kidding me. A video game?” Glowering, she pushed herself to her feet. “All the mysteries of the universe, and I get stuck in a fucking video game?” She pursed her lips, considering, then sighed in resignation. She decided to put off further investigation until she reached the ruins, mostly because the sun was working its way high into the sky and she thought it wise to find some shade before the heat became too oppressive. So, once more Sophia headed off in the direction of the rocky outcropping, this time at a slightly faster pace.
The closer Sophia got to the ruins, the stronger the feeling of deja vu she felt. Had she been there before? She couldn’t place it, but something about what she could see felt distinctly familiar. The ruins were made primarily of stone, with no sign of the canons that she had seen at the forts built by the colonial Spaniards. And Sophia wasn’t an expert in architecture, but she didn’t recognize the style with which the fort had been built. Despite being made primarily of stone, it lacked the stocky, fortified appearance of a medieval stronghold. The walls curved into a circle, though parts of them had crumbled, and it looked like a third of the fort had fallen into the sea when the rocky outcropping had crumbled beneath it. The windows were wide arches, not the narrow slits that were used to protect defending archers while allowing them to shoot at attackers. And it looked to Sophia that there had never been a roof at all, as if the entire fort had been open to the elements. The stone was white and textured, but as she got close, Sophia realized that what she had assumed to be marble-like stone carved with intricate designs was actually dried and white-washed coral, still with the grooves and designs of its original state.
Frowning, Sophia climbed the last few feet and reached the base of the structure. It was much larger than she had originally assumed, possibly a hundred feet across, and she stood in the shade of the tall wall, pressing her hand against the coral that made up the outer defenses. Despite the obvious age of the fort, the coral showed no sign of erosion, which surprised her. Coral wasn’t actually a stone at all, but the skeletal remains of tiny aquatic animals. It wasn’t very sturdy and Sophia couldn’t imagine it standing up to the elements well in the long run. Yet the coral itself seemed to show no sign of degradation, rather of falling over or crumbling due to the erosion of the rocky ground beneath the structure.
Sophia ran her hand over the rough surface of the wall as she moved around the fort until she found the wide opening that she assumed to have been the front gate. There was no sign of a door, not even hinges or metal plates. Sophia was beginning to wonder if this fort had actually been built for defense at all, but if it wasn’t, what was its purpose? And why did it feel so damn familiar?
With a sign, Sophia slipped inside and found a block of wall that had fallen over, sitting down to rest in the shade while she took stock. She started by looking down at the shirt she wore. It was a sleeveless tunic of the same leather as her pants. Poking at it, Sophia muttered, “Inspect?”
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Item: Simple Leather Tunic
3 Armor
Durability: 30/30
A basic tunic, made from simple leather. Goes well with pants.
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No surprise there, Sophia thought. She started to do the same for her shoes, a pair of low-rise boots that came up to just above her ankles, but she stopped and reconsidered. Instead of speaking, she tried to summon the information with a thought.
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Item: Simple Leather Boots
2 Armor
Durability: 15/15
A pair of boots, made from simple leather. Useful when you don’t want to step in muck.
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Sophia nodded, pleased with her discovery. “Now to see what else I can do…” She pondered for a moment, then decided that if this was a video game similar to Realms of Destiny, then maybe the commands would be the same. She started by thinking ‘character’ and was pleased when a new window popped up.
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Name: Sophia
Race: Human
Class: Unknown (level 1)
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Stamina: 100%
Attributes:
Presence: 12
Mind: 12
Spirit: 16
Power: 6
Agility: 8
Endurance: 10
Essences:
Animal - Tier 0 (0%)
Demon - Tier 0 (0%)
Power - Tier 0 (0%)
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Accompanied with her stats page was an image of a hexagon that illustrated the strength of her 6 core attributes: Mind, Spirit, Presence, Power, Agility, and Endurance. The attributes were familiar to Sophia, as they were the same ones that Realms of Destiny had used, but the hexagon was new. Sophia wasn’t sure if it was simply a pictorial representation of the numbers, or if it represented some other aspect of the game. As for the attributes, it had been a long time since she had been a 1st level character, but Sophia was pretty sure that the numbers looked about right for a newbie. What wasn’t normal was the fact that she still couldn’t see her class. What kind of character was created with the animal, demon, and power essences? Sophia had no idea, and she wasn’t really looking forward to finding out. It was different when she had been playing a game, when she could start over at any point. But if she was stuck here? If this was real?
“Minerva better hope I don’t get my hands around her skinny neck…”