[Bubble Knight - ONSET 15/300 millicycles]
[Euphoria +3]
[Time Distortion +2]
[Enhancement {Immersion +2}]
Cachea was smacked like a voltaire eel by a rush of blissful euphoria. All his senses were enhanced: the conditioned air was softer, the egg enveloping him more biological, and the girl approaching more alluring. She fluttered approximate with dilated game-like animation frames.
"Hello Cachea, I am Fira." Her nuanced smile lagged Cachea's mind: she was unhatching into a sibling egg chair.
Wandering, mesmerized. Her eyes were perfectly proportioned: not too large to be chibi-bulbous, not too small to be photorealistic. Her smooth caramel skin tone… Cachea could not imagine such a beauty to be human.
Aw, so that's how it is then.
Was this some hack? He had heard rumors about players getting tricked by pirates with compromised love programs. He tensed up, ready to activate his dialogue combat shell.
The girl raised a finger: “I understand your caution, Cachea. I wish you to relax and accept my gift.”
Cachea intended to confront the situation with a stoic investigation, but all that came out was a thoughtless drool, “hyaah?”
Slightly embarrassed at his response, but warming up wit to the surprise encounter, “How do you know my username?”
The girl smiled again: “I heard that you built a sunshi. It’s anomalous for a human player who ventures without companions to gather enough resources for something like that.”
Cachea would have grimaced if it weren’t for the active euphoria effect. He recalled Subcivic’s release: his first days of gameplay pining to build a ship. He had suffocated more than a few times while foraging enough bendy twigs to craft small ship parts, and hauling them through the viscous water.
Still… his sunshi was an earnest investment, and already had a high return. Cachea reached his hands behind his head to rub his neck and shoulders in memory of the soreness.
“So I have.”
Fira grabbed out of her inventory a small capsule, a DELICIOUS_DIATOM. She offered it to Cachea. He reached for it, but she teased it out of reach coyly, her eyes sparkling. “I have a condition”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Cachea’s eyes narrowed, “What?”
The girl, now a serious monotone: “Consent to a legislative algorithm that you will not enact violence against me, or my vessel, for the duration of our relationship.”
“Easy, confirmed.”
The girl appeared relieved: “I’m hoping we can collaborate.” She delicately placed the consumable on the table between them.
Cachea’s lips hummed: “What does it do?” He downed the diatom absentmindedly.
The girl put her hand to her chin, feigning a pensive pose. It was a surreal juxtaposition compared to her earlier winking emoji dm. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before you consumed it?”
New Aptitude Discovered
ROLEPLAY [ 0 ]
Cachea’s aptitude tree appeared on his HUD and a new aptitude emerged from the narrative node.
[Agency->Narrative->Roleplay]
“A narrative child aptitude!” Cachea was ecstatic, imagining all of the novel possibilities for interaction with NPCs.
Fira, watching his reaction, seemed pleased. She stood up and bent over to ask face to face.
“May I join you, little embryo,” gesturing to his chair.
[Bubble Knight - COMEUP 35/300 millicycles]
[Euphoria +7]
[Time Distortion +8]
[Enhancement: {Immersion +5, Emotion +2, Creativity +1}]
[Visual Distortion +4]
[Ego Loss +2]
Her face was shimmering, fluctuating. Cachea was losing his ability to focus, staring intensely at subtle details in the cafe.
Fira was sitting in the same chair now, leaning pleasantly towards him, even stroking his hair.
"Cachea… roleplay in Subcivic isn't just donning a new persona."
“I’ve always admired psychonauts like you.”
The girl embraced him and placed two fingertips on the side of Cachea’s neck; she gently glided them up into restless strands of obsidian hair, to contact lightly with the interface behind his ear. The girl pushed memories to his mind.
The passing of a friend: desperate despair. Fortune lost in coy proportion to chance. Remarkable resilience and hope born of regret. A brilliant contradiction of inadequacy in the education of love.
Cachea blushed, he was not expecting such intimate data. He considered pulling away, but given the fidelity of her artificial memories he could not help but fall in closer.
Cachea glanced at the girl with a pleading expression, as though to ask if she had any more such evocative memories up her sleeve. She giggled coyly, and the input stream opened again:
She was a gothic girl dreaming of a romance novel. Her eyes were black hearts and she had short chestnut hair. She was wearing a Victorian dress with her golden filigree on display.
As Fira and Cachea departed the café hand-in-hand (or rather, Fira dragged Cachea along), their backs were illuminated by a neon sign reading ‘Hyperspace Roleplay’. It was a love-themed game café. Cachea smiled as he imagined the eyes of passersby reading their sensors to deduce that they were simple characters in a fictional love story.
He had never felt so alive. The girl was not real, the girl was perfect.