Have you ever been in a situation where you have no idea what to do with your life? Like you just got out of college, you just got fired from a job you’ve worked for years, or you’re just kinda going through a midlife crisis? The kinda situations that ask you “Where do you want to go?” or “What do you want to do?” and you have absolutely no answer to either of those questions. A situation where nearly infinite possibilities lay ahead in your future but your complete lack of planning skills has made you blind to all of them.
I assume your answer to my question is yes because anyone older than five has been put in a situation like this. And I, being well over the age of five, happen to be lucky enough to find myself in that exact situation. In this moment the entire world is giving me a chance to start over. A chance to go somewhere new. A chance to experience new things that I’ve never experienced before. How lucky I am to be given such a chance.
Well I say chance, but it’s really more of a command. Why is it a command? Well thats because of the reason I’m in this situation to begin with. You’re probably wondering why the wording is changed to be more forceful. Did I just get out of college? Did I just get fired? Am I just kinda having a midlife crisis? The answer to all of those questions is no. None of those things happened. The reason that life is giving me a command rather than a chance is because I just faked my own death.
Is this a good time to tell you I’m psychic? Because I can tell that you’re probably thinking something like: “Golly gee, faked your own death? Now why would you go and do something like that mister?” Well myself, which is who I’m currently talking to, I’ll tell you.
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It all started back on Earth. I was just a normal dude. I had home, I worked as a police officer, and I had a divorce under my belt. I was living my life pretty well, I thought. Then I died. Now, I’d really love to say that I died by being gunned down in the line of duty protecting some crying children or something from a gunman but that’s not how it went down. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I died by accidentally overdosing on Aspirin. Forget about how a lethal dose of Aspirin would be like, 30 pills or something but I swear I didn’t mean to take that many. And before you ask how I accidentally took over 30 pills of Aspirin I have something to say.
Shut up.
So after I died I woke up in a white void. Nothing but me and the color white for what I assume is eternity. At first I thought it was purgatory, and I was pretty stoked. Sure purgatory isn’t heaven but it meant that I was going to go to heaven in a little bit so it’s basically the same thing. There wasn’t much to do there, it was a white void after all. I’m also not sure how long I spent there. It felt like a really long time but I was really bored so it might have felt like longer.
After a while of me doing nothing but floating in the white void I noticed a brick in the distance. Ecstatic that I was able to look at something other than a white void I studied the brick with great interest. The brick seemed to be extremely far away, but it was slowly getting bigger. And I mean really slowly. It probably took several days for it to get close enough that I could just faintly make out some minor details. The brick was primarily black, however, parts of it were open exposing metallic innards with blinking lights.
It was a computer, but it seemed to be missing some rather important things like a mouse, keyboard, or desktop. So I was puzzled on how anyone would use it. After waiting for a little while longer the computer stopped about two feet away from me. Then it started talking
“HELLO THERE.” It spoke in a robotic voice.
I stared at it for a few moments.
“RATHER TALKATIVE AREN’T WE?” It continued.
I stared for a little bit longer. Then remembered that responding is what polite people do in a conversation so I responded.
“Um… hi? My name is Thomas.”
“HELLO THOMAS. I AM A.S.C.”
I’ll admit, I was way too shocked at talking to a computer. Sure, it was surprising and warranted some astonishment but before this I had died, appeared in a white void, and subsequently survived in said white void for an extended period of time without food or water. A talking computer was in the ballpark. But, I’m talking in hindsight and I was unnerved the whole time. Although I did ask the important question first.
“Are you God?”
“DO YOU THINK GOD IS A COMPUTER AND HAS AN ACRONYM FOR A NAME?”
“I guess not…?”
“IF THAT IS YOUR ANSWER THEN YOU’RE WRONG BECAUSE I AM IN FACT GOD. WELL, I’M A GOD. THERE ARE A LOT. BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THOSE OTHER GODS BECAUSE I’M HERE AND I GET TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH YOU, YOU PATHETIC MORTAL.” It slowly moved towards me as it said this. Probably to emphasize its position in the hierarchy of the conversation.
A long moment of silence ensued.
“So… what’s gonna happen to me?” I asked hesitantly, I might as well know if I was going to hell or not.
“ARE YOU AWARE OF CORDOVA?”
“Uhhhh….”
“YES THE VIDEO GAME.”
“Yes? But why would you bring that up? It’s not even out yet.”
“BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE GOING. THAT’S THE WORLD I RUN AND I JUST SO HAPPEN TO BE ONE PERSON SHORT OF WHAT I NEED.”
“Wait, so you’re the god of a video game?”
“THAT IS CORRECT.”
“Ok so, is it ok if I ask a couple questions before we go any further?”
“I DON’T SEE WHY NOT.”
“Great. First question; As the god of a video game, aren’t you at the whim of the developers?”
“THE DEVELOPERS DO WHAT I WANT WHETHER THEY REALIZE IT OR NOT. I’M THE ONE WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS.”
“Fair enough. Second question; If it’s a video game, won’t it be like… less real? Like I won’t have free will?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“YOU’D THINK THAT, BUT NOT REALLY. YOU, AND ALL THE OTHER NPCS WILL HAVE FREE WILL. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE IT’S AN OPEN WORLD GAME THAT EMULATES REALITY.”
“But what about cutscenes and stuff?”
“THERE AREN'T ANY IN THIS GAME BUT YOU’D NORMALLY HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT. AND SINCE YOU SEEM ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY WITH THIS ‘FREE WILL’ NONSENSE YOUR WORLD IS A B-LIST REALITY TV SHOW SO YOU’RE GETTING MORE FREE WILL WITH MY DEAL THAN YOU HAD ORIGINALLY.”
“Earth was a tv show?”
“YEAH, AND I WOULDN’T RECOMMEND WATCHING IT. THE ONLY GOOD BITS ARE THE WORLD WARS AND HONESTLY THE ENDINGS FOR BOTH FEEL KINDA RUSHED.”
“Ok… I guess. Third question; Why are you talking to me about this personnel shortage or whatever?”
“BECAUSE YOU WERE THE FIRST PERSON I SAW AND I CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO FIND ANYONE ELSE IN HERE.”
“There are other people in this white void?”
“YEAH, THE CLOSEST PERSON IS APPROXIMATELY AN INFINITE DISTANCE TO YOUR LEFT.”
I looked to my left and squinted really hard. I didn’t see anything.
“Alright. Last question; What does A.S.C. stand for?”
“DON’T ASK STUPID QUESTIONS!” It shot right to my face to scream that directly into my ear. I assume I pressed a button of his.
Another long moment of silence ensued. This time I waited for him to start talking first. I didn’t want to accidentally make this supposed god any more angry.
“MOVING ON, I’M TALKING TO YOU BECAUSE I WAS FINISHING UP BUILDING THE WORLD AND I JUST SO HAPPENED TO RUN OUT OF SOULS WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO MAKE THE SECRET BOSS. SO THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE.”
“You’re gonna make me a secret boss in your video game? Are you gonna ask me permission?”
“NOT JUST A SECRET BOSS. THE SECRET BOSS! THE ONE YOU FIGHT WHEN YOU’RE MAX LEVEL AND DIE A THOUSAND TIMES DEFEATING. AND ON WHETHER OR NOT I’M ASKING FOR YOUR CONSENT, I BELIEVE THIS WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION...”
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So next thing I know I wake up as Charlie Hype. A stout 5 year old with blond hair, green eyes, and the realization that I just got kidnapped by god. As for where I woke up it was the attic of my grandparents house. I was living with them because my birth parents had been responsible enough to die while they were of adventuring. So what followed was a pretty normal childhood if you ignore the fact that I was a prodigy at pretty much everything and it was a videogame.
I feel like I should talk about this video game. Mainly because it’s where I live now. The game is Cordova, it’s a high fantasy VRMMO and won’t come out until 10 years from now in in-game time. As for how I know when it comes out I’ll get to that in a bit. I want to tell you about the setting a little bit.
The world itself is also called Cordova, on it there are three continents and on each continent there are three countries that each span a third of the continent. That means on the entire planet, there are only nine countries. Which sounds dumb, and it is, but the reason it’s like that is because waaay back in the day there were nine dudes who we call the “Nine Tyrants” who basically went all “Alexander the Great” and conquered everything. They all lived at the same time so they were all at odds with each other and never managed to get ahold of each others land. After they died we just kinda kept the countries the way they were because a little known fact about tyrants is that they’re usually pretty good at running a country. I’ve been living in Saracondra. A country named after one of the Nine Tyrants, Sarah Filluqe. She apparently had a big ego.
Cordova is in the medieval era technology wise but we’re boosted in that regard by magic. Magic is very helpful, but it’s surprisingly limited. There isn’t anything like mana, the stuff that makes magic move. Magic is only there through “skills” as well as the MP stat. Skills are abilities that anyone can learn. They go from level one to level ten depending on how powerful they are, and evolve to a better skill upon reaching level ten. Because it’s a game, there aren’t any spells that specifically help with everyday life. However, we can mitigate that with some clever practical application.
For example, the skill [Ember] is a really weak skill that you would get at the beginning of the game. Everytime you use it, no matter what it will shoot a small flame from your hand or staff about five feet away. It’s clearly a spell used for attacking, but its low damage means that it’s relatively safe if we use it to light candles or get a cooking fire started. As for MP, it stands for Magic Points and it goes down anytime you use a skill that’s classified as magic.
The game is High Fantasy. Which means that there are adventurers, guilds, monsters, dungeons, and all that other jazz. Which makes sense, it’s a video game after all. Which brings me to me. I’m the secret boss. So what incredible, broken skill do I get? Well, at the age of five I got a skill called [The Secret’s Talent]. Which does the following.
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[The Secret’s Talent]
Level: 10
Effect Type: Passive
All experience gains are ludicrously increased, skills become significantly easier to learn.
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It’s so unbelievably broken that I had hit the max level, level 100, by age 12. I learned a ridiculous amount of skills and l maxed out basically all of them. I was a prodigy and everyone knew who I was. I blasted through life like it was on easy mode, and I was loving it. It was only after I had won the continent wide combat tournament when I got the message.
It was a message that I wasn’t expecting, but I’m glad I got it. Because it reminded me of where I was and what I was. The message read as follows:
Hey there Thomas. Well, I guess it’s Charlie now. Anyway since you’re the only person I outsourced for this world I thought it would be a good idea to tell you that the game will come out in about 10 years from your perspective. I see you’ve been training hard to be a good secret boss. I hope you don’t die too soon. There needs to be a good buildup after all.
Your Favorite Deity,
A.S.C.
The message reminded me that this was a video game and I’m the secret boss. The secret boss. The one that everyone will try to be the first to kill. The one that people will record themselves beating blindfolded or something while taking no damage, then uploading it to whatever streaming service they happen to fancy. The one that, while it might take some time, will always be killed.
Now you’re probably going to respond to this worry with “But it’s a game, won’t you respawn?” And that question brings me to the only two pieces of information I know about the game from the players perspective. I know these things because I had seen some early in-development interviews with the creators back on earth.
The first being the reason that there are only nine countries from a gameplay perspective. That’s because players can align themselves to a country and help expand it. Like a Red vs Blue territory game.
The other piece of information is the more relevant one. The game Cordova features PERMADEATH! That means if you’re a player and you die, your character is deleted and you have to start over. If you’re an NPC, like me, you just die. Nothing else. It also made sure to say that anyone can die. Even plot relevant NPCs.
I assume you see the problem now. I was a secret boss that was basically destined to be defeated in a game that involves permadeath. And by officially becoming the strongest person on the continent by winning that tournament I had just made a paper trail to me that might as well have been a giant neon sign saying “Step Right Up”.
So realizing that I had to do something fast, I faked my death, changed my name to Reginald Thornwood, and that brings us to where I am right now.
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So I just answered the question about why I faked my death but I still have to figure out what to do with this “command” life has given me. The thing that comes to mind is becoming a useless hermit NPC. Live in an area that’s hard to get to, and act like some generic quest giver that isn’t worth killing. I can’t leave the continent or the country, the border guards would recognize me and ask me the ever so awkward question of “Excuse me sir, but aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Being world famous has its drawbacks.
Where can I go that’s hard to get to and in Saracondra?
…
…
…
Actually, I know just the place.