Chapter 4 – Worldly Concerns
Part 2
”God saw all that he had made,
and it was very good.”
– Genesis 1.31
– ***** –
Well…yeah…still the same day
A lone adventurer in a fallen kingdom, a cursed land, an oblivion forsaken by its gods! A single man among men, standing by himself against the immortal legions of the Undead! An unyielding proud warrior lost in the woo… *cough*. Anyway… Whatever his situation may be, the fact remains that Elric was the one and only “adventurer”, meaning player, in Erwyn – Erwyn is a country, not a person, please don’t forget that, things would get uncomfortable.
The reason behind this outrageous monopoly? One could think of the overall dislike of corpsy disembowelled mobs. However, first, it wouldn’t be enough to keep everyone out of such a huge place – Elric wasn’t the only weirdo around, after all – and, second, nobody actually knew there were undead here, or a whole freaking kingdom for that matter. The [Tiamat Mountain Range]? It played its part, of course, but the gigantic and indirectly-homicidal pile of rocks only assisted with a phenomenon that rooted deep in the gameplay of Untold Tales itself: the existence of the “Frontline”.
What was this frontline? To understood, one needed to go back a few months…no…almost a full year in the past.
Presently, a bit more than six month had passed since the – best eva’ – VRMMORPG’s Grand Release. It had been a worldwide event. Some countries even declared the date a national holyday. It was a day of extravagant advertisement, crazed geeks, and interminable waiting in line in front of stores under the scorching summer sun in sweaty underwear. A day of heartlessly mutilated purses, of eviscerated wallets and butchered piglets. A day of strict parents and wailing kids. A day of fear, a day of suffering, but a day of joy. It was the pinnacle of modern society and a nice little spoiler of Hell.
The reason for this madness was a small “demo” published four months prior on the VRN, the Virtual Reality Network. The latter was shop of sorts. One accessible from most capsules and headsets, where bored gamers with too much life could purchase cheap entertainment produced by amateurs and second-rated companies. This barren cemetery of unknown dusty software was where Untold Tales made his quiet début, being more than underground at first. That, however, wasn’t meant to last.
All it took was a single screenshot, posted on a random forum, and the internet…broke. How could such level of realism even exist?! This ought to be a hoax, a deception, a fake. War erupted between believers and haters. The reaction was unprecedentedly insane, which, knowing what crawling insanity can be found on the web, did meant something.
A peace treaty was eventually drafted when a renowned scholar, head of the VR Department of the University of Oxford, specialized in virtual imagery, ascertained the legitimacy of the incriminated assemblage of pixels – some doubted the legitimacy of the man himself, but those trolls were quickly put down…definitively. So the unthinkable came true. Oceans split. Stars fell. Cows gave birth to yodelling baboons. Jammed toasts fell jelly side up…well…no…but this was the real deal.
Not that Virtual Reality was anything new. Far from it.
First invented two decades ago for military purpose, like most things, it had rapidly found applications in the medical field, and, of course, the entertainment industry. So, UT didn’t blew the world’s collective mind for what it was, but for how ahead of anything existent this game was. Even the US army’s latest toy, claimed to be as close to reality as humanly possible, their prided ARTM, as in “Augmented Reality Training Module”, paled in comparison. And this absurd level of realism wasn’t found only in the graphics, but in every aspects of the game, from the basic five senses to interaction with NPCs.
On a global scale, hackers, private and governments’, immediately riveted themselves to their computers, eager to pierce UT’s iron defence, only to be embarrassingly bitch-slapped by its impregnable firewall. The protection itself was apparently made of algorithms so abstruse and advanced some even suggested alien origins.
The next logical step was to locate the servers themselves, which comparatively ended up being facepalmingly easy. The impossible binary wonder was in no time traced back to an industrial basement, in Los Tenor, California. The place was rented by a small makeshift company registered under the name “Whatever Incorporated”, clearly displaying a whooping zero fuck given to public image.
Feverish people swarmed the place like dying dehydrated camels sighting a blue oasis.
Medias, contractors of all boards, simple onlookers and nerd-pilgrims lay siege to the building, all hoping to themselves make the first contact with the possibly unclassified techno-lifeforms hidden behind those concrete walls. All sorts of offerings were presented – business proposals mostly – but to no avail. The gate to enlightenment remained hermetically closed.
After days of unfruitful nerve-wrecking wait, God’s prophet finally rose from the masses, in the person of the mysterious representative of the local “Gaming Ninja Mag”. The brave, all clad in black, approached to the inflexible oracle. Through a secret ancient technique, more commonly known as jutsu, obscure to ordinary humans and involving an enigmatic parallelepipedic artefact as well as wondrous incantations, he was granted access to the inner sanctum. The multitude of the unworthy could only gawk in awe as the chosen one disappeared inside the holly ground. The portal to salvation then closed.
Actually, the man, wearing a black suit, only walked up to the intercom, said a few words, and the door opened. But people really were starting to lose it by this point.
– *** –
Later that day, a roughly six-seven minutes video interview was posted on GNM’s webpage. The short broadcast went viral in a matter of seconds.
It showed a neon-lit room, with an ajar metal door in one corner. The grey walls were covered in heteroclite stuff, ranging from paintings of “Alice in Wonderland” and stormtrooper’s helmets to ancient looking tapestries, Japanese katanas and – supposedly – model guns. On a beat-up couch sat a bald man, looking in his mid-thirties, wearing a sweatshirt that clearly had seen better days. His sleep-deprived face could have used a good shave and bared an unmotivated expression. Traces of Asian heritage were betrayed by his yellowish skin as well as slightly slanting eyes, under which hang scary dark bags. One would feel tired just looking at him. He really seemed on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion. For some unknown reason, he was currently nibbling on a cookie, apparently coming from the box lying next to him on the couch.
A clear, assured voice came from somewhere off-screen. Just from the sound of it, one could easily imagine its owner being an outgoing and handsome young man without complex.
“Good evening, sir. First, thank you for letting me in. It really was starting to get creepy out there. All those guys mumbling about techno-gods and whatnot. Brrrr… Let me introduce myself once more. I’m Edward Dabbler, reporter, editor, publisher and owner of this Los Tenor’s very own Gaming Ninja Mag. Maybe you’ve heard of me? Good stuff I hope? Anyway, feel free to call me Ed, or Eddy, whatever you prefer. Today, I was hoping to ask you a few questions. Is that alright with you?”
“…”
Not acknowledging the presence of the obviously self-employed, self-important, off-screen ninja in the slightest, sweatshirt-guy continued to religiously finish his small, flat, sweetened cake, then proceeded to meticulously wipe his mouth with what looked like an embroidered silk handkerchief. Once done, he looked up to his interlocutor, and spoke with a low, slightly bored, but surprisingly authoritative tone.
“No, I don’t mind, Sir Dabbler”
“Ah…good.” Eward sounded a little taken aback. His assurance shaken by the unexpected uncaring attitude of the man.
“…so…eeeh…yes. First would like to…”
“What’s all the commotion about anyway?” Sweatshirt interrupted.
“Pardon?”
“Why are you boors disturbing Our work by flocking around Our abode, acting comparably to lowly pigeons waiting for some old senile lady to throw you some leftover bread crusts? Do We look like an old lady to you?”
“No-not at all. In fact you…”
“We”, interrupted again the definitely weird man, “partly let you in because of your...convincing arguments, but We are above all curious. We do not remember doing any matter of action warranting Us such attention.”
He then took another cookie – And ate it!
Audibly startled, Edward let out a very unprofessional “Huh?!” before trying to prudently follow up to the – again – much unexpected question.
“Well. That would be because of the game you released. You are the creator of Untold Tales, right?”
Lord Cookie-Lover raised an eyebrow.
“Game? We do not…ah! Please wait an instant.”
He turned back to the door behind him, and shouted.
“KEVIN! DID WE RELEASE A GAME RECENTLY?!”
From the next room, an answer came back in the same manner.
“YES WE HAVE! Good grief. You should sleep more than once a week Michael, it’s not good for your brain. You’ll lose your head one day. Try to remember, we had Hendriksen come over to update the auxiliary servers.”
The voice sounded oddly sophisticated.
Cookie McSweatshirt, now Michael, seemed to ponder for a while, then:
“AH! THAT TIME! True…true.” Ending the shouting session, he turned back to the interviewer. “So, did you play the game?”
Edward just sounded confused at this point.
“…Eh?...What? Ah…yes. I did… How..Why do you…”
“Was the game fun?” For the first time since the beginning of this strange, mostly one-sided conversation, His Crazy Lordship seemed more interested in Edward Dabbler than in Half-Eaten Cookie the Fourth in his hand.
“Eeh…Yes?”
“Good. This is very good.”
His eyes were shining now and he gave the impression of a mildly fresher corpse.
“You know, Sir Dabbler, We do recall now. We weren’t too enthusiastic at the idea of releasing such a failure, but it is good to know it was not such a waste after all. Very good indeed.”
“F-Failure?! How is that game a failure??”
“On this matter… You see, this was originally part of a much wider endeavour, however the filling of Our coffers was excessively insufficient and Our infrastructure disgracefully lacking, so We were forced, sorrowfully believe Us, to abandon this quest. The draft program had been gathering metaphorical dust in a corner of my workstation until a week ago.”
“So you didn’t intended to release it?”
“Simply put, no.”
“Then why did you?”
“We were broke.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. And, furthermore, utterly out of coffee…”
“AND TEA!” The refined-sounding voice echoed from over the door.
“Yes, and tea.”
“…”
After a short episode of speechlessness, Eward spoke again, sounding forcefully composed.
“So, let me get this straight. Mister…?”
“Kurotora. Michael Kurotora. You may call me ‘Your Majesty’, or ‘Boss’, whichever is to your liking”
“Yeah… So, ‘boss’, you have this…incredible game most programmers would sell their soul, or at least wife, to be allowed to study. But it’s not even finished, so you didn’t intended to make it public. Then you changed your mind on a whim, and, because you lacked your daily caffeine dose, you sold numerical gold, no, platinum… AT THE PRICE OF TINPLATE!? Did I get that right?!”
It was now Kurotora’s turn – for once – to be surprised by Edward’s vehemence.
“Well…technically, the software itself was complete. We just couldn’t implement a world of a scale that suited Us.”
“But I’m basically right.”
“We guess.” Back to his calm demeanour, the man shrugged off the interviewer’s incredulity.
He still seemed curious though, as he added:
“Is that thing really that good?”
“G-G-Good?! ‘Good’ doesn’t even begin to describe it! If you would put just a little bit of effort in advertisement and marketing, you could become a leading figure of the entertainment industry in less than a year. No, scratch that…three months…Three months would be enough!”
“Is that so…” – Still not convinced.
“YES! You could be the king of the gaming world!”
”king”
The word came out less than a whisper. Eward must have been too lost in his self-importantness and hisimprovised lecture, because he apparently failed to notice the change in Kurotora, who suddenly straightened up.
“HEHEHE! Yes! Hehe! You could…” Eddy was losing his marbles.
“Sir Dabbler.” The commanding tone snapped the reporter out of his growing delirium.
“Yes? Ha…”
The atmosphere surrounding the cookie-addicted eccentric had made a complete one-eighty, turning from somewhat indolent and overworked to lordly and pressuring. His eyes, while still holding a spark of childish joy, were now sharp and calculating. Anyone who faced him at this instant would feel has if Kurota was both looking into their soul, and beyond it, towards something only he could see, grasp, and comprehend. Even simply watching him through a screen made one shiver. To all who saw that gaze of his, one thing became undoubtedly true. This man, Michael Kurotora, was what people called “a genius”.
“Sir Dabbler.”
“Yes!” Edward voice was tensed.
“This plan you mentioned. Would you know how to make it succeed?”
“I might have a few ideas… Why?”
“We shall be blunt, Sir Dabbler. Would you swear allegiance to me?”
He then smiled, and his friendly smile would have made any cold-blooded killer wet his pants, sucking his thumb and crying for his mother.
The broadcast stopped there. In the end, someone knocked the camera over, and it briefly caught the sight of naked tights as well as a glance of shimmering long blue hair flowing over a similarly naked shoulder.
Under the unedited video, on the now completely blank website of “Gaming Ninja Mag”, were two lines announcing to the readers the termination of GNM’s activities and apologising for the inconvenience.
The next day, access to the game was cut. “Whatever Inc.” made an brief announcement, fixing the date for Untold Tales re-released six month later. The company then disappeared from the public eye. In one night, their basement in Los Tenor was emptied and nobody heard of Michael Kurotora for the next five months.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
– *** –
Then, as people started to lose hope, “Whatever” made his big stage comeback with a TV commercial, and with Edward Dabbler as his new face. The twenty-nine-so young man stood in front of white screen painted with a sketchy black and gold logo representing a top hat atop of whose brim rested a king’s crown. Dabbler had stylishly-messy crow-black hair, a perfect face, playful green eyes and a princely, dentifrice-purchase-inducing smile that made girls and gay men of all age fawn all over their flat screen, much to the annoyance of their eventual gamer friends, family members and lovers – Much punches flew that day. On the breast pocket of his trademark black suit, the reformed ninja had pinned a miniature of the crown-hat behind him.
In a short message, Dabbler reconfirmed the release date for UT, one month later to the day. The game would be playable on most standard capsules, but not on headsets as they didn’t provide enough body coverage. For those lacking the necessary equipment, Whatever Inc. presented their newest “gaming throne”, the W-Chair, purchasable in any decent gale store as of the following day.
Basically, it was an odd crossbreeding between the former two, which looked more like a torture device than a gaming station. The scary apparatus was both cheaper and more space-friendly than the cumbersome pods, making it more accessible for the average citizen. Better even, it came with a pre-installed version of the game. The buyers wouldn’t be able to activate their account before the due date though.
The advertisement ended with Dabbler flashing a mysterious grin.
“Good evening to you all. We’ll wait for you in Wonderland” he said while bowing to the audience.
A light switched on behind the white screen, and the last thing people saw were ten shadows standing on both sides of the bended announcer.
The month passed and the world held its metaphorical breath.
– *** –
On the promised date, at the same hour all over the globe, – which, given the time difference, actually took a whole day, simply to avoid congestion – the game servers were made accessible once again. The firsts to dive in were of course the owners of W-Chairs, and they were bewildered by what they discovered. They didn’t know what to think.
For one, the playable races were few, with only the very common human, elf, and dwarf, as well as the possibility of mixing them as half-elf, half-dwarf, or dwelf. Two, the players weren’t even allowed to choose their starting city. Only one was available, “Start”, city of the beginning. – And, three, no sex change was allowed. A few cried.
This was unbelievable. Any decent game in its early days would propose ten or so races and at least a few more places, ideally well dispatched on the game continent. How could the long-awaited, already mythical Untold Tales be inferior to any other? They didn’t understand. They couldn’t. They felt betrayed. Until they entered the virtual world, that is.
As only chaos was waiting for them on the other side.
– *** –
Six months later, Untold Tales popularity was continuing to rise with unforeseeable ending – Well…it wouldn’t probably go further than 7.5 billion users. The initial flood of players had receded, but their number still steadily increased, everyone desiring to leave their mark on the uncharted continent of Pandore. A few other starting cities were available by now, progressively unlocked as adventurers explored the land and enlarged what they called the “Tame Zone”, or Tamzon for short.
This relatively “safe” – mostly, kinda, sometimes… – area expanded around Start in a somewhat half-circular pattern, as the First City was a coastal one. Inside, most of the land was accurately mapped and most monsters catalogued. Attack patterns, counter-strategies, levels, weaknesses, spawning places, and all matter of information was easily obtainable on the official webpage of UT, at least if one wasn’t too much of a lazy bum to search the forums for a bit.
The Tamzon, as large as it was, only yet encompassed about six-seven percent or the “mortal” world, and that was without considering the other planes. The existence of the latter had been recently confirmed when a group of dwarves excavated a weird looking magical magic circle, inadvertently activated it, opening a portal to the Infernal Realm, giving way to an army of demons, and laying waste to a minor city – NEVER let dwarves dig somewhere suspicious. When they don’t open rift towards dimensions filled with evil anthropophagus beings, they disturb the nap of giant, fire-whip wielding, ancient, easily pissed, mythical beasts.
People also supposed the existence of at least a Heavenly Realm, but no confirmation ever came from Whatever Inc. The company remained tight-lipped. The only information they gave away was the size of the planet, of which the Pandore continent was only one part, being about sixteen times the size of Earth.
The outside border of the Tamzon was the “Frontline” – There it is.
The name wasn’t just for show. The frontline was an absolutely ruthless place of constant life-and-death struggles. Gory battlegrounds were scattered all over. Incomprehensible hellish mayhem could break loose in a split second. The concentration of monsters was absurdly high, as was their diversity. Never-before-seen Lovecrafty abominations could emerge from the ground any moment, bringing annihilation to whole parties. Not counting the numerous PKers taking advantage of the chaos. One could easily die without even knowing what, or who, got them.
On day one, this immaterial frontier had been just outside the gates of Start. One could imagine the surprise of the dumbstruck first players when, instead of bunnies, foxes and other inoffensive critters, they found the city surrounded by an army of oversized goblins carrying multi-coloured banners where one could read “Welcome, you fools.”, “You’re sooo screwed”, or “Kurotora rules!”
Some adventurers, or even entire guilds, had nevertheless made expanding the Tamzon their mission, and the frontier their home. Some also just liked to fight, kill, slaughter and be slaughtered – sick people. One of such guilds was the well-known, well-liked, be it a bit weird reputed, [Horizon], which gathered nearly a thousand players. All of them were fairly high level, as the weak would be quickly and mercilessly trashed. The guild master, a battle-crazy monk named Danielsan, incidentally belonged to the top fifty adventurers of UT.
– *** –
The rest of the world was the “Wild Zone”, or simply “the Wild”. At first, one could think the place was safer than the frontier, but that would be a fatal misconception. If the Frontline was untamed chaos, the Wild was a silent predator. True, one would be less likely to fall to an unknown foe in those uncharted territories, but does knowing your reaper makes it easier to defeat? Maybe. But not here.
The frontline area was at least mapped, supply routes were secured, and, after the twenty-four hours (RLT) <1> log out penalty, a dead player would revive at the altar of a well-defended comfy fortress – with warm bed, hot chocolate, and even girls, or young men, or all at the same time, depending on their preferences and fetishes. Furthermore, adventurers would eventually get used to the randomness, which was mostly apparent, and the levels of the monsters was always manageable, a fact only clouded by their numbers and unconventional behaviours. The big ones never left the Wild.
Once, an army two-thousand players strong ventured past the Frontline. Five game days later, the first ones started to respawn in different cities. They all told a similar tale. On the second day, the group entered a peaceful-looking flower field, and they saw a huge shadow, and the shadow had an eye, and the shadow blinked, and they were dead. All of them.
No need to say, only a few eccentrics, mostly small specialized parties and solo adventurers, – with various personal reasons and/or issues – chose to wander the Wild, nicknamed “Deep Explorers”.
Elric was one of those, and a fairly famous at that. He gained his relative celebrity on the forums of UT, not that he ever boasted about his exploits, except jokingly. No, he would just honestly answer any question asked – as long as it didn’t concern some mass-destruction spells, crazy dark rituals, or porridge – using the knowledge he uncovered during his travels.
Original way of fighting, taught by some hermit in a forgotten cave, perfect against a particular monster giving troubles on the Frontline; revolutionary healing potion, created by mixing common herbs, whose recipe was given to him in some remote elven village; artefacts; rare ingredients; ancient texts; sometimes, long lost relics from one of the main churches of the Continent; he would gladly give them to whoever needed it, as he cared only about the adventure and not the rewards themselves.
Elric, the Wandering Knight, they called him, the Knowledgeable, Sage of the Wild, Saviour of the Noobs…
Bane of the Information Brokers too…
Yeah… He probably pissed a few of those. He would any so often receive threatening mails, mainly from some self-proclaimed “Dark Gamers”. He was never really troubled though, as he never disclosed his appearance, nor his exact location, both in game and, of course, in real life. He rarely left the Wild Zone, which in itself was a good protection against assassins, and had a few trustworthy contacts he let handle the items he sent back to the Tamzon.
With the other explorers too, he had his reputation. Although not the strongest among them – The strongest he knew was a mad fire priestess he preferred to avoid; there were also rumours about a mace-wielding magical girl of sorts – Elric always got himself in the most dangerous situations, never keeping away from even the most notoriously deadly areas without first checking them out in person. His quite suicidal behaviour had earned him with his “colleagues” the dubious title of Elric, the Reckless Imbecile. But, coming from this unbalanced bunch, it sounded more like a compliment.
– *** –
As for the forgotten, cursed, piss poor choice of a vacation place, piece of undead-filled sewer that was the “Kingdom” of Erwyn, it obviously was somewhere in the wild. Not that deep in actually, but enough to discourage most people, for now. If one went to the westernmost part of the Frontline, they could catch sight of the eastern summits of the Tiamat Range. A few intrepid parties had actually managed to reach them, but the level of the monsters there was simply too high. What appeared to be nothing more than an overkill hunting ground wasn’t worth risking one’s life on further investigation.
It was only by chance that Elric came across some old documents mentioning the Erwynian Dinasty, and its location. He was sure none other deep exp’ had gone there before, as they kept each other aware of their very general respective position, mostly to avoid taking another’s prey or invading each other turfs – not that anyone would want to be anywhere close to Elric’s.
For weeks, he camped in the mountains, searching for a way to reach the other side without actually crossing them – confusing, no? –, brushing past death on a daily basis, before he finally found it. Through a narrow cave – more of underground stream really, in which he drowned twice before succeeding on his third attempt – Elric reached a ruined temple. He emerged, soaked and muddy, from a beautiful decorative basin in a spacious mosaic-paved inner courtyard, surrounded by huge white marble pillars that supported a half-collapsed ceiling. All around were broken statues of some sacred figures. High priests? Or maybe gods? Elric didn’t know, as most of the writings and symbols had faded away with time, and the rest didn’t at all make sense to him.
The place was surprisingly noisy. The stone of the edifice was buzzing with so much holly energy that the air was trembling. White lightning randomly arced between walls or columns, igniting ambient mana with loud booming sounds. The spectacle evoked less an antic monument, and more some “futuristic” generator in some old sci-fi film, but built in marble.
After crawling/swimming a fourth time through the waterway – Fucking lightshow! Next time I’m going to *bluup..cough..cough..bluup..cough….blup*. –, and a fifth, he had ran across the complex at full speed, without taking the time to admire the architecture – which is breath-taking, I don’t doubt it one second. Whooops… That was close… Spamming his protective spells like a first-time noob, Elric somehow made it out, only slightly charred, his armour fuming, and with a satisfyingly safe margin of two percent of his health left. The temple was on the flank of a mountain – hopefully on the right side of it – and the nearby old-looking forest had started to invade it.
His stamina depleted, the Reckless Imbecile collapsed on the ground, just far enough to be safe from the out-of-control bolts of holi-fucking-ness. As the familiar dark veil slowly fell on his thoughts, he caught glimpse of some unfortunate undead being reduced to ashes by the sheer aura of the temple, while a dozen more of its brethren stared vacantly at the scene from under the cover of unnecessarily large trees.
Yahooo…zombies. Whose idea was it to come here again? Ah… It was mine. Good call Elric, good call. F’cking gen…
He fainted.
– ***** –
<1> Real Life Time
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Pfiouuu….that was long…comparatively… Well, I guess twice as long as short is still only slightly long, or is it not? …whatever.
I didn’t intend it to be like that, but the advent of Whatever got a bit out of hand. Next chapter, Elric shall be tomorrow! Yeah! Finally! …At least I understand myself…
Things will start to move and…HOLLY SHIT!
...I just remembered that I’m still in the pre-prologue flash-back thingy…
Well, if everything goes right… one…two…three… In three, maybe four, chapters, we – meaning you – should know what mess he got himself into. Damn, if I keep this pace, I will never see the end of my plot… Oh! But that’s a good thing…no? Well, as long as it doesn’t get boring. I shall be careful… Yes careful… Yes, I shall…. Gollum! Gollum! *cough* *cough*
Aaaaaah…too much screen-fixing/coke-drinking in one day…not that you care, as long as you get your dope… Is claiming that my FF is addictive presumptuous? Probably… I just don’t care anymore.
Anyway…thanks for reading, and see you next chapter.
Well, “see” you…
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