:10/01/2251:

6:42 PM

I shut down the encryption as soon as I had read the letter for the third time and no sooner had I shut it down than the voice of Other Me... Synthetic Me... echoed in my head. After what I had just read, I had a sudden urge to disconnect entirely. To log out of the Axis and find an escape in the real world, or what was left of it, until I could get my head back on straight. 

"Shittt."

Startled, I instinctively looked around, back and forth and behind me. Hearing disembodied voices, even when they were my own (hell, especially when they were my own), was not the easiest thing in the world to get used to. "Huh?" I started. "You saw through the encryption?" came the first thought out of my mind.

"Oh, no. I... well, you actually, remember reading the letter. So I do too. That's how it works... I guess."

I pinched my nose, "Jesus. Just... fuck. I'm not sure how to feel about all of this. I'm not sure how to feel about you."

The voice sighed softly, "Ya, I'm right there with you. Remember, what you're feeling, I'm feeling too. Not out of empathy or anything stupid like that, but because, I guess, I am you. Really."

"Other me, that's creepy." I paused, "You're creepy. Do you have even a tiny idea how creepy that was to say?"

"Yes... I realized that just after I said it. I'm quite a bit creeped out by myself too right now. Which is disconcerting, I have to tell you."

We both paused and stared for a few minutes, letting the silence grow as we attempted to get our thoughts together. Finally, I just shook my head. "No, just no. This is too meta." I frowned, wishing I could have frowned at her instead of the empty wall in front of me, "Look, I'm done with all of this 'Me' and 'Other Me' crap, I'm done with being the guinea pig for whatever mad scientist happens to be nearby on any given day. I'm... I'm just done." I crossed my arms, "From now on I'm just going to call you Maggie. God, no. Not that. No, I think I'm going to call you Em."

"Actually, I was just thinking the same thing. Em should work all right. I'll admit, I would prefer Maggie, but Maggie freaks you out I see and, in turn, Maggie freaks me out. So whatever."

I blinked, trying to put it all together in my mind again for a solid minute before violently shaking my head. "No, no. Like I said. To fucking meta for me. I've got almost three decades to deal with all that bullshit, so that's not what I'm going to worry about right now." Thinking, I came to a decision, "I'm going to download the comfiest bed on the market, and then I am going to sleep. It the morning I will wake up, I will log back into the game, I will be ecstatic about all the sweet new Artifact loot, and I will absolutely not spend another minute talking to myself about the fucked up nature of this fucked up reality. Period."

"Suits me just fine. Personally, I'm going to dissect that encryption program as much as I can. Thank god for Wiki-How. I don't seem to need nearly as much sleep as you do."

I was already scrolling through catalogs, searching for luxury mattresses. "Not helping, Em. That's Not helping."

"God, I noticed. We're so touchy! I mean it's just facts, after all. And it's not like I'm not the one who forced my way past the overrides and kept the nutrient injections operational." She huffed for a moment, clearly peeved. "You'd think that we'd be just a little bit more grateful. Fuck."

I absolutely refused to justify that with a response, simply staring pointedly at the download bar climb to full. And then, when I finally had my 300 credit, luxury, king sized bed with all the frills, I sullenly buried myself in the nest of blankets and shut out the rest of the world.

:10/02/2251:

09:43 AM

I woke up after a fitful night of vivid dreaming. My exhausted mind had seemed to bounce between nightmares featuring spiders with human faces, and boring, mind-numbing drudgery as I dreamed that I was Em, checking my own vitals and reading what had to be the most boring set of instructional papers ever created by Man. 

I had thought logging out of my Axis Room and going through my ingrained set of stretches would set my mind at ease, but that seems to, again, have been overly optimistic of me. The entire time I was beset with the strangest sense of loneliness, as though a part of me had been ripped out and dropped just out of reach. It was distracting. And the fact that I kept staring out the plate glass window and wondering how many actual humans were even out there. How many people, like me, woke up every morning and actually looked out upon the poisoned clouds that slowly were creeping by, or were the population metrics I had been taught instead accounting for just the synthetic minds of a long dead race.

No, no. It was just some practical joke, I decided. It had to be, right? Reason the first, Alley and Gray could A, be hazing me one last time before letting me move on from being the noob little intern or B, they could be mad scientists and Syndicate agents from hundred of years in the past whose life work resulted in fucking my own life in particular. Occam's Razor, right?

Reason the second, and this one was the far more compelling of the two - if Em was really a perfect reproduction of my consciousness, personality, and memories, then why the Hell was she so bloody Fucking annoying? Ya, that ain't me. No way.

I felt better as I finished my stretches and started reconnecting the cabling into my brain. The strange loneliness bothered me, eating away at my thoughts and making me rush despite myself, but I blanketed myself with the relief of not having to fall for juvenile pranks for a single second longer. 

I barely paused in my Axis Room, staying there just long enough to trigger my login and guzzle a cup of coffee. It was a relief, having chosen not to think about the previous night's letter for a moment longer, and I didn't even want to look at the console or be reminded of those memories. Instead, I jumped toward the console and into the game without even considering the fact that I had died. Or the fact that I was still bound to the Portal Stones of the fallen Undercity.

I hadn't even loaded in properly before the string of notifications began assaulting me.

You have Died. Unable to locate Bind Point. Respawn location set to [random] Congratulations! Items in your inventory have been upgraded to Artifact quality! Congratulations! Clothing has been upgraded to Artifact quality!

I blinked as my surroundings started to fade into view. I was laying uncomfortably against a willow tree, and the bottom half of my body was soaking in smelly, muddy water. Looking around, the light of the sun barely made it through the canopy of branches overhead, though almost everything below the green branches above me looked brown and dead. I jumped when I thought I saw something move in the water, not thirty feet away by the large spindly tree rising from the Marsh, and as I moved I became suddenly aware that I was sprawled across a narrow bank of dirt. To either side of me, the water seemed to grow deeper and deeper.

One (1) lost item was left in an area that no longer exists! Item, [Mouldy Orange] has been returned to your inventory.

Ya, I thought as the notification danced in my vision, just what I always wanted. Artifact quality rotting fruit. 

But I thought I glimpsed another streak of the movement against the water, this time even closer. I didn't waste a second longer but shifted into the black feathers and beady-eyed form that carried me into the sky. The transformation didn't shed the stinking marsh water from my legs, however, and I felt the weight of that moisture carry with me as I ascended into the sky above.

Breaking past the canopy was like traveling from a twilight forest into a magnificent summer's day. The light swelled and burst around me, rotting branches and vines immediately replaced with the bright blue expanse of unpolluted sky. I enjoyed myself as I flew, searching for the end of the trees below me.

And yet no matter how long I flew, the trees seemed to go on and on. An eternal blanket over an endless world. After hours of unbroken, unwavering flight, still I could not see an end to the vegetation below me, and I grew concerned as I watched exhaustion debuffs starting to stack up into unsustainable levels, and I started to waiver.

"Maggie, dear," Em finally spoke. Proving that she was, in truth, more than just a fevered dream from the night before. "I hate to interrupt. I know we're going through kind of a... thing... right now. But, really, I think you should stop and check out that Orange in your inventory."

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

I flew for a few more minutes, undecided whether I should ignore her on principle before another exhaustion debuff was added to my running stack. Finally, I allowed myself to drift down and land in the branches of a looming tree.

Skipping down through the branches, after a few minutes I found one that I was fairly certain would hold my Nymphian weight. I quickly transformed, even as I panted, cursing the fact that the ground looked to still be soaked in water and likely also teaming with unfriendly wildlife.

Still, going through my interface I decided that I finally had a second to check out the stats on my newly upgraded equipment, as I had to planned to do immediately before I was sidetracked by the random spawn location.

Out of spite, more than anything, I decided to leave the Orange for last.

Robes of the Undercity (Artifact)

Chest; Legs

+5 Intelligence; +5 Willpower; +5 Charisma; +2 Stamina

Special:  30% Increased Poison Damage

The stats were... all over the place. To say the least. It had mostly caster stats, with a little bit of Stamina (which was common for most high-level armor pieces) and then it had an assassin trait - Bonus Poison Damage. It would boost my natural poison damage ability, I supposed, and I had heard of some druid spells that inflicted poison damage, so it wasn't exactly worthless to me. But it struck me as odd that such a high-level item would be generated with that kind of randomized, junk stats. 

I moved on to my inventory. I knew, based on the status update, that I had at least one other artifact level item. The key to my old apartment was gone, as was to be suspected, but in it's place was something far more interesting. 

Pickpocket's Key (Artifact) 

Amulet

+3 Agility; +1 Stamina

Special:  20% Chance to Autodetect Hidden Objects, Traps, and Doors

And now I got a rogue's amulet. I was tempted to just break the thing and see how much Luck I could get from it. Obviously, that appeared to be the stat that I was needing the most if the last couple of days were any indication. But the ability to see hidden loot and traps was too good to pass up, and if I were honest with myself, my stat situation was already something of a mess, and I couldn't really bring myself to destroy a piece of loot if I didn't have anything better to replace it with anyway. 

Quickly equipping the Amulet, I moved on to search the rest of my inventory. With the exception of the Orange, sadly, I didn't see any other beautifully updated items. And, finally, after as much stalling as I could possibly justify to myself, I went ahead and checked the stats of the Moldy Orange.

Moldy Orange (Artifact)

This Item begins a Quest.

Initiate quest? Y/N

I hesitated before clicking the 'Yes', figuring that it would annoy Em to no end. But really, there are only so many ways to procrastinate when you are sitting on a branch in the middle of nowhere, twenty feet off of the ground. And so I eventually gave in and clicked the final 'Yes' icon.

New Quest!

Plant the Moldy Orange in the ground.

Restrictions:  Must be 200 Miles from any settlement.

I laughed, then, as I read the quest instructions and restriction. Artifact quality quest, my ass. Still, I thought I knew why Em had wanted to mention this to me now. It was unlikely that I would find myself 200 miles from any settlement at any time in the immediate future - after I had made my way out of this blasted nowheresville swamp at least.

Taking wing, I slithered and flew down from the tree. Hovering over the swamp, but careful to maintain a respectful distance from the swirling waters, I darted my long, serpent form through the vegetation until I found a mount of sticky earth.

The orange popped into the dirt easy enough after a quick hop back into Nymph, and I buried it quickly while keeping an eye out for movement in the dark waters around me. Nothing happened for a minute, even as I patted the earth and sprinkled muddy water over the sickly little mound. I was even starting to fixate on what an absolute disappointment the whole quest was when I saw that the ground below me was starting to stir.

I sprung up, sprouting raven feathers before my feet were fully off the ground. Feather wings appeared to be faster, and I tore it out of there and up into the higher branches of the nearest tree before I even stopped to look at what it could be that was moving.

As my heart started to come back under control, I considered that I may have been a huge idiot. If I had failed to meet the conditions of the quest, and buried the Orange in a nest instead of the earth, I may either have lost the damned thing or find myself having to fight a nest of hungry alligators in order to get it back. It was a pretty shit move, all in all, and I watched the now throbbing mound of dirt with a mix of hope, fear, and recrimination in my heart.

Something seemed to spring up from where I had buried the Orange. It looked like a plant, at first, until it started to spread. Thick mats of sickly green and orange carpet seemed to spread across the mound, billowing out into the water around it and coloring the muddy water with the same shades of puss and rot. The contamination seemed to continue to grow under the murk until in the course of several minutes it was plain to see that the entire marsh below me had taken on the same sickly shades as had been growing upon the mound of dirt. 

The living carpet began to visibly grow and climb, enveloping entire trees in a thick coat of discolored slime. I was so engaged as I watched the trees around me swarm with the gross, mossy colors that I scant noticed that the tree under my feet had been contaminated too. It was only when the discolored slime touched my foot, burning like the tendrils of living acid, that I finally leaped away with a screaming Caw and took to the air. 

I flew up, past the branches, through the canopy into the fresh air of the world above, terrified and focused on making sure that the burning wasn't spreading. I kicked my talons and spun in the air, trying to fling away whatever it was that had burned my flesh, screaming in the voice of a very startled crow.

And yet, I could tell that something had most definitely changed. The branches below me, for a good mile in every direction, had taken on the sheen of the green and orange slime. It was only from up here, in the full light of the sun, that I realized it wasn't just slime at all. Rather, these were the same colors, the same pattern, as I saw in the mold that had covered the orange.

And having come to that realization, I watched, transfixed, as the trees before me started to fall. They tumbled over like dominos like they had suddenly just lost the will to live, and instead of a canopy below me I could see the bubbling mass of Mold consume each tree and grow just a little bit deeper.

I turned circles in the air, hovering and darting back and forth as I watched. The body of a crow was not made for hovering, and I dared not shift into a serpent this high above the ground, knowing that the leathery wings seemed to have more stringent height limitations. It was from those swooping, pacing loops that I watched the Mushrooms as they started to rise from the ground.

At first, they were tiny things, so small I could barely make out what they were from my tiny, avian eyes. But they grew, and they grew, and they grew until they started to merge together into giant, towering structures that dwarfed the trees to each side.

I counted ten, giant mushrooms in all, once the growth had begun to slow, some standing some scant two or three stories tall while one of the others reached up until it could have easily been 9 high and a good hundred feet wide. The stocks were thick, leathery things - the bases seemed to spread out almost as wide as the heads, and the stocks gradually narrowed until they sprouted out in gigantic, sturdy constructions. And when finally I saw something that made even less sense than the sudden growth of the fungi, when I caught sight of what looked to be nothing less than a window in the side of a stock, that was when the quest suddenly updated.

Quest Complete!

You have founded: Mushroom Shantytown (Chaos)

I read the update over and over again. Wait, I thought, did that mean what I thought it meant?

"Oh, yes. Wait for it..." Em whispered into my head. The sudden, disembodied sound of my own voice was even more annoying than I remembered, but I barely spared it a second thought as I scrolled through the rest of the updates.

Congratulations! 

You have founded a settlement. Please give your town a name!

As the owner of this settlement, your Bind Point has been linked to the Town Portal (Locked). To change bind points you must relinquish ownership of this town!

Congratulations!

You have founded the first (Chaos) aligned town! As the largest (Chaos) settlement this town has been designated the current faction Capital.

Town type upgraded two levels from [Shantytown] to [Village] and additional options are now available in the Town Interface

As the first (Chaos) settlement, citizens will receive the following subtype based upon your class: Arch Druid

All NPC Citizens of this Capital will receive the racial subtype [Shifter] and have access to [Serpant] and [Wulfin] forms. Progressing in your class may unlock additional new forms for all citizens!

Achievement Unlocked!

Politician, Tier 3

Owner of a [Village]

Town menu interface options unlocked!

Personal bonuses unlocked based upon Town Prominence!

Town specializations unlocked!

Achievement Unlocked! (Unique)

Queen

Owner of a Faction Capital

Reputation raised with Chaos from: CHAMPION to: NOBLE

Special:  +400 Fame

I flew down and tested the top of the now fully formed mushroom city with my claw as I read, taking the risk that a fully formed town would not actually burn the feet off of anyone who touched it. Finding that the building was indeed safe, I hopped to a more central portion of the living construction and shifted back into a Nymphan form.

"Shit," I whispered, frustrated. "The old city was sacked less than twelve hours ago and now I'm sitting in the middle of the biggest stationary target in the entire world. That's just perfect."

"Well, any ideas on what I should label this doomed little town of ours?" I muttered into the air, not at all surprised that Em was listening.

"Spore-a-phrenia?" her... my... sarcastic voice responded. And I couldn't help but snort, in spite of myself. 

I thought for a moment. "No, I think I have something better. Let's see..."

Pulling up the town interface, I entered the new name of the Capital city of the Chaos empire.

Town name:  Dementia 

Town type: Fungi (Grown)

Terrain:  Swamp

Confirm?