An obsidian tensor field and the uniform hum of grey noise: no other sense was present. Tsunday held her breath in anticipation. Patiently, a calming flux of frequencies emerged in the noise, the sublime transforms of rising and falling waves.
An arctic diffusion poured over the prism’s edges to fill from the floor, and the rising chill seeped deep into her bones. Tsunday began to shiver, and from her comfort stolen breath arose a faint ectoplasm. It agglomerated to myriad globs, patrolling about her body in some strange attractor distribution.
A warm gust of saltwater breeze with a rich coffee-clay aroma dispersed the cold. It swept her breath skyward, toward a star appearing on the horizon. Phosphene sparks danced at the edges of Tsunday’s vision, now blurred with tears from adapting to the abrupt temperature delta.
She blinked her eyes wide open and relaxed in the pleasant sea breeze.
A pixel-perfect HUD rendered a minimalist character selection menu.
> Cachea LVL 6 Human Researcher
New Character
“The original player is probably long dead…” meditated Tsunday as she snapped down with a gesture and selected ‘New Character’, taking precaution not to disturb the memento mori.
—Input character name
T s u n
Tsun.
The text dripped away like rain; the wave soundscape faded.
A subtle indicator crept into her upper left, like the intrusion of an apparition on a picnic.
Dead Cafe
{DARK: 1.0}
‘DARK’ was labeled over a sinister skull icon, with a vertical bar of liquid bubbling to the bone’s brim. Tsunday was no longer cold, but felt a chill creep up her spine as she recognized the skull from a symbols repository: a warning about entering the spatial domain of a misaligned AGI (artificial general intelligence).
Tsunday gulped. Even sandboxed in fiction, intelligent malevolent agents incited a certain sobering fear.
A location title graced her eye-tracked locus before washing away in a blur.
Prophisea[?]
“Prophi-sea?” Tsunday mimicked “Is that supposed to be a homophone pun?”
Beams of the distant sunrise condensed into dual stained glass windows framed tandem inset an ash grey stone wall. Underfoot, abyss dithered planks of a walk-worn floor protruded from the wall. A narrow v-shaped pathway to approach one or the other window converged beneath Tsunday. Each of the glass panes cast light through a saturated pattern of two characters in the shape of a heart.
Illuminated right, a coupling of iconoclastic figures locked in a deathly embrace.
A mahogany-man with outstretched hands clasped the nape of a comforting blue humanoid robotess. Each figure equipped a helm: the man, a precision engineering visor with tentacle plumes and a vibrant crimson blossom; the gynoid, a curved hull with dual rhombus antennules and the angelic emission of a cream-colored circumference beveled over-the-ear.
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The lower aspects of the scene rumored an electric tragedy.
A curved blade pierced the engineer’s upper back through drapes of his robe, unweaving him into strands.
The robot was breaking piecewise into a voluptuous disassembly of components.
Tsunday felt apprehensive about the scene.
An arced inscription at the base read:
“Consciousness to confront the truth.”
Humility of the Researcher
Partitioned left, a duo of mermaids held hands playfully, with their tails curved inwards symmetrically. A vivid mantis-green gal with pear highlights and her tangerine-amber companion drifted underwater in absolute bliss. Their hair was styled as meticulously groomed bobs, with frazzled adornments. The slight-spotted scales on their tails sparkled in an effortless aesthetic composure.
Another text:
“Innocence of earnest expression.”
Humility of the Child
Tsunday decisively tread the path leading to the mermaids and placed her fingers gingerly upon the glass. A soft melody sung and zagged godrays freckled her face.
Child Humility Selected
The window disintegrated radially from the center, unveiling life-size detailed 3D holograms of the mermaids beyond the barrier.
“Phenomenal! I’ve never seen a graphics engine render like this,” Tsunday basked in the shaders.
The bar on DARK lowered by half, and a new symbol rendered that reminded Tsunday of a tropical island paradise.
{DARK: 0.5, ISLE: 0.5}
The location indicator briskly appeared again and flipped from unknown to the zeroth index. Tsunday experienced an inexplicable pang of vertigo.
Prophisea[ ? -> 0 ]
The mermaids swam towards her in unison, twisting their crescent tipped tails carelessly through the void. As they approached Tsunday, the green mermaid scooped her body upwards, unclasping her interlocked fingers into a luxurious welcome.
“Dear player Tsun, I — Spar, and fellow divine Mana: we are here to set you upon your journey.”
Tsunday stared blankly. She wondered if Spar and Mana were general intelligence enabled characters. If so, was a whole cadre of advanced AGIs atlas-packed into this video game cartridge?
"Ummm," Tsunday stammered, having never practiced simulations of first contact with a virtual merpeople civilization. “What are the implications of my selection?”
Spar smiled softly, “The choice of humility categorizes the ego of the player as either a child or researcher. These are distinct game modes, a reflection of your personality.”
“Researcher contrasts with child humility by being more difficult mechanically and exploring mature themes like sexuality, violence, mental illness, and consciousness. Researcher humility allows fewer actions, but they have greater consequences.”
Tsunday listened intently, captivated by the game’s intense design.
“Child humility is not lacking however, and features a dichotic gameplay loop encouraging creativity, relationships, and the expression of joy within environments.”
Mana broke Spar’s monologue with a rather un-joyful tone “Computing aptitudes of the child are inconsequential to the fate of our world.”
“Alone, you cannot survive the depths.” Her rolling contralto emphasized Tsunday’s precarious fragility.
Spar’s higher notes brightened the mood, “Youngling, seek the garden.”
“Befriend the garden.” Mana echoed.
As they reached towards her, the entire tensor field brightened to a transcendental white.
Tsunday felt her haptics spawn some object into her hand, she held it out in front of herself: it was a virtual seed, cupped in her palm. As she watched it, a sapling emerged and rapidly grew a single leaf.
Aptitude Level Up!
AGENCY[ 0 -> 1 ]
Tsunday’s fingertips tingled pleasantly from the dust-like particles descending from the leaf onto her hand. The bright white environment became more nuanced: hints of wispy symbols becoming apparent.
The field darkened to a raging sea, an all consuming storm visible from space.
Mana, nowhere to be seen now, stoically documented. “Ice V cannot be anointed the significance of space prior the automatons. The seas tossed in a timeless stasis devoid of systems to perceive them.”
Tsunday watched as an amphora fell from space into the sea.
“Life bloomed in the Mediocrisea when an artifact with curious self-replicating forms fell from the stars.”
Spar narrated as the planet below unfolded in time, evolving through eons.
“Serendipitous salts were drowned in raves of primordial punch. Frozen blood flowed in metric tons for lunch: our aquaworld convected by the gentle winding of two stars.”
Tsunday watched as spaceships decelerated into orbit, and proceeded to dip below the waves into the aquaplanet’s oceans.
Mana forebode “More arrived, a party unknown. Deep space so subtly seduced by her treasure, one would not notice if they did not measure. Novelty indications anomaled humankind, and so dear Tsun, your kind met the mark last fore curtains’ close.”
Suddenly, she found herself falling from orbit to the surface of Ice V.