Several days later, large warehouse sized aquariums full of alien marine life started popping up around various major cities in Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto being the first. The aquariums were built seamlessly overnight. They appeared in construction sites, large parks, and various forest trails. Others were built next to beaches and lakes. The very first ones were built near major Shinto Temples, and thusly, Houin Takeshi (the alien relations ambassador) introduced them as ‘shrines’. The shrines were mostly staffed by the tentacled Cloroepii. The Cloroepii hovered around in floating pyramid shaped fishbowls, mechanical tentacle appendages could be retracted from the hovering pyramids, and were versatile enough to perform various tasks in place of hands.
Besides the Cloroepii, several three-legged robots the size of dogs, were also employed in each shrine. The robots moved around with insectoid-like legs, and had sharp gun-shaped heads which could rotate around it’s body in 360 degree motion.
The shrines served as a way for aliens under Plato’s employ to meet and greet the general populace of Earth. They also served as gaming stations to Alyzia. The shrines were the only way for humans to access and enter the game world of Alyzia.
Each station also had a few of the insectoid robots as sentries standing guard, large crowds gathered in protest against several of the shrines. Large groups of anti-alien sentiment had already begun forming. A few individuals became violent and attempted domestic terrorism against the people visiting the shrines as they were being built. The robotic sentries sprung atop the offenders, faster than a cobra. No one got injured, aside from the violent perpetrators who mostly received minor injuries.
All around the world, there was mass exodus from large population centers. Cars piled up in highways as people left large cities in droves, choosing to resettle in the countryside, or form their own smaller communities out in the woods, in order to get as far way as they could from Earth’s new visitors.
One week after Plato first announced themselves to humanity, the first Alyzia gaming stations were ready for use. Japan was the first very country with Alyzian access. 4 hours later, gaming stations across Asia and Europe came online.
A 19 year old Japanese man named Fubuyuu Goichi entered the shrine and became the first player to enter Alyzia. Humanity’s countdown officially began.
Countdown for Humanity: 4 years, three-hundred and sixty-four days.
Completion Parameters - Beat Alyzia.
Status: Incomplete.
Countries in Asia and parts of Europe were the only ones with access to Alyzia on the first day. Shrines were being built in other cities all across the world; some were already complete and opened to the public, but the Alyzia access stations weren’t operational yet.
The rest of Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand were granted access to Alyzia the next day.
The Americas were the last to be granted access, having to wait an additional day later, two days behind Japan.
After much deliberating, and lots of messages from Epona, she finally convinced him to go in with her, and form a party.
He had his doubts, but deep down, he always knew that if Epona was determined to jump into an alien fantasy world, he would never leave her to brave it alone. Though they’d never met in person, she was a true friend and one of the few he had, he’d always have her back.
They meticulously followed news articles and videos regarding the shrines, studying up on as much info as they could gather. They figured out that Epona would have access to Alyzia before Lamb; she would enter her shrine, gather as much info as she could and relay it to him. Then, she would enter Alyzia first, get a head start and wait for him inside. ‘How were they supposed to find each other in Alyzia? Would everyone start out in the same spot, or would people start across the world from each other?’ They had no idea. Heck, they didn’t even know how big or small small Alyzia was.
Denmark, being relatively close to Japan (relatively as in, it’s closer to Japan than countries like Canada or Brazil), was one of the countries that got access to Alyzia on the very first day, only 6 hours behind Tokyo. Epona had camped out in front of her nearest shrine the night before, and was one of the first people in Ålborg to enter Alyzia.
At 5:54 AM, Lamb’s phone received a new messages from her, right before she entered Alyzia. It was 5:54 AM America - Eastern Standard Time for him, 11:54 AM Denmark - Central European Summer Time for her. It read:
Epona: “Hey Lamp, I’m going in!”
Epona: “Before you go in, find one of those bug robots at the shrine. Ask him to help you form a party with me. You’ll have to choose a server to play on, you can only pick one, pic the Persian Empire, I’ll wait for you there!”
He reread the message several times. He kept checking his phone after, but hadn’t received a single message from her since. He suspected that once you are inside, you won’t be able to communicate with the outside world, at least that’s what he hoped. He hoped she was ok; she jumped head first into the fire, and Lamb had to wait and twiddle his thumb for two days until he could jump in after her.
America was two days behind Japan and Denmark, but finally the time came. Lamb lived in a small city called Cape Eaton. It was a small coastal city famous for its fishing and tourism. Thankfully, despite his city being tiny, they still got a shrine, which meant Lamb didn’t have to take a 2-hour shuttle to Jersey. Lamb got out of bed early, the Cape Eaton shrine was finally open for business!
Lamb got there shortly after lunch time, there was a surprisingly small crowd. Large cities like Tokyo had lines of eager visitors lining up in front of their shrines everyday, Tokyo had over 100 shrines, the largest number of shrines in any city, and the lines were always packed. The shrines in Japan attracted the most crowds, however, they did not attract the most players. Most people just went in to gawk that the aliens in person. Some people talked to guides, and ask if they could touch the robots, but very few people actually decided to enter Alyzia.
Lamb was not here as a tourist, he was here for business.
He marvelled at the exotic array of creatures on display. Though the creatures didn’t look anything like fish, ’fish’ was the closest thing he could compare them too. The creatures looked both earthly and outer-worldly as they swam across the various aquariums which lined the walls of the large shrine. Creatures of all shapes and sizes swam about the murky pinkish waters, a few even pulsated and glowed with a hypnotic array of lights. Crowds gathered along the walls, mesmerized by the strange looking creatures. Lamb had to forcefully pull himself away, he can comeback here another day, maybe he’ll invite Madra —‘date idea’ he noted to himself.
He saw several octopus aliens flying around in their pyramid-shaped hovering fishbowls, talking to various crowds of curious visitors.
“We have over 10,000 different races, from 8000 different galaxy clusters in the Plato empire,” The octopus explained with a synthesized robotic voice.
“Can I touch your bowl?” a small child asked from the crowd.
“Yes, but you will receive a painful shock which I would advise against.” The octopus said.
The child jumped back, her mom bending over to shield her.
“Just kidding,” the octopus replied, followed by heavy artificial robot laughter “Hahaha. Earth comedies are very popular on my home asteroid colony.” Nobody laughed, some just backed away. A few people let out some forced chuckles, which the cloroepii mis-interrupted as real laughter, proud of himself.
Lamb moved on as the little girl breathed on the hovering fishbowl and began drawing a smiley face, her mom standing very tensely beside her. The mom apologized to the cloroepii on behalf of her child, as he continued to bobble and chuckle.
Lamb continued walking around, passing more cloroepii talking with individual humans and showing them to various glass booths which Lamb assumed to be the Alyzia access panels. He watched as a cloroepi lead a curious middle aged man into a glass booth, as soon as the the man stepped inside the booth he began sweating; he became too nervous and changed his mind, backing out and apologizing to his host as they helped him out of the booth. The Cloroepii host directed him to a nearby bench and got him some water which the man drank hesitantly.
Lamb kept looking around, there were lots of Plato employees spread about, but all of them were octopuses. ‘Where were the robots?’
Lamb pulled up his phone and double checked Epona’s message for the 5th time. He was nervous and had no idea what he was doing.
He watched several YouTube videos the night before, made by others who’ve visited the shrines, but none of them had actually went inside Alyzia. Several YouTubers made videos about scouting out shrines, and said they would enter Alyzia and make videos chronicling their first day, but no videos about going into and out of Alyzia had been released yet. There were also lots of TikToks about visiting the shrines, but most of them was just people goofing with the aliens. There was a popular trend of doing dances with aliens hovering in the background.
Lamb was going in blind, and Epona’s message was one of the few resources he had to go off of:
Epona: “Before you go in, find one of those bug robots at the shrine. Ask him to help you form a party with me. You’ll have to choose a server to play on, you can only pick one, pic the Persian Empire, I’ll wait for you there!”
He looked around again, still not seeing any robots. He wondered around for half an hour, circling the entire span of the shrine. It was only one story, and he was certain there weren’t any stairs he missed. Finally, after a brief washroom break and sitting down for a drink, he finally spotted a three legged robot skittering around a corner. They were called ‘factory drones’ and were mass-produced and distributed throughout the Plato empire.
“Hi, would you be able to help me enter Alyzia?” Lamb asked, greeting the robotic critter.
“Yes. Follow this drone to an Alyzia station.” the factory drone replied in an even more robotic voice than the cloroepii guides. The factory drone was about as big as a medium-sized dog. Its gears clicked and cranked as it moved.
“Are the glass booths the Alyzia entrance stations?” He asked the drone.
Stolen story; please report.
“You are correct.”
“Can you help answer some questions?”
“Certainly, it is this drones function to assist guests in any inquiries, within reason.” The drone replied.
“Is that your only function?” Lamb asked.
“This drone has many functions, right now, assisting guests is this drone’s primary function.”
“What do you mean by this drone?”
“This drone is a factory drone, one of many. Assisting humans is this drone’s function. Later, this drone will have other functions.”
“Why do you refer to yourself as ‘this drone’? Do you have a name, are you being remote controlled?”
“This droid is designated 463002581. Define remote controlled. I am not a vehicle, I am a drone.”
“Nice to meet you 464002— what is your name again?”
“Drones do not have names, only designation numbers, this one is 463002581.” The drone replied, saying the number slower.
“463005—“ Lamb tried again.
“Since it is evident your fleshy computing organs can only process five numbers at a time, you may call this drone ‘46300’.”
“46300, got it,” Lamb sighed with relief, “What I mean by remote controlled is.. do you control yourself, or is someone else controlling you.”
“This drone is not being controlled. There is only one ‘New Tidus Factory Station’. The factory makes many drones.”
“So then.. do you do what the factory station tells you to do?” Lamb asked. He was really getting off track, but he was curious about this three-legged critter.
“The factory station does not control this drone, this drone is the factory station.” The drone replies.
Lamb thought on that for a bit… “Are you all the factory station?” he asked.
“Correct. There is only one New Tidus factory station, it makes many drones, it is many drones.”
Lamb was starting to understand, “Are you all.. kind of like a ‘hive-mind’. Each drone is linked to the main station, and you all think and act as one?”
“Your Earthling oversimplification does not suffice. We are a ‘coalescent-factory computer-intelligence’.” the drone beeped.
“Collated— coles-qiuent—“ Lamb stammered, trying his best.
“Seeing as your species are lower intelligence life forms, ‘hive-mind’ though an over simplification, shall suffice.”
“Cool.”
“There are many ‘hive-minds’ and ‘one-minds’ in Plato. In fact, 30 percent of Plato species are ‘hive-minds’.”
“Woah, that’s lot!” Lamb took a minute to let that sink in, “I have to ask you about Alyzia now, let’s talk more about cole-lessent minds later.”
“Coalescent intelligence.” 46300 said.
“Yes, that word. Anyway, I was told you can help me form a party inside Alyzia with my friend.”
“Possibly. Parties can only be formed with both players consent.” 46300 answered. “Where is your friend?”
“Can you tell me how forming an Alyzia party works?” Lamb started.
‘The current maximum party limit is set to four. Multiple players may gather together and tell a game guid they wish to form a party. Then they may enter Alyzia as a group and proceed to ‘character creation’ together as a designated party.”
That was a lot of words, Lamb asked if the droid could repeat it, after finally getting the gist of it, “What if two players live in different cities, but still want to form a party together?” Lamb asked.
“Processing… Processing…” 46300 beeped and booped like an old dial up internet processor. “This factory drone stationed in EU server, received a similar request 2 days ago. This drone was given a description, are you Lamp, 165 centimetres tall, 5 foot 5 inches?”
“I am 5 foot 6 inches.” Lamb corrected.
“The requestee said you would say that, answer is excepted. What is the name of the player you wish to party?”
“Epona.”
“Answer excepted. Signe Epona has extended a party invitation to player designated Lamp.”
“That’s me, let’s do it!”
“Very well,” the drone said, “in order for players from different shrines to form a party, they must be connected to the same ‘in game guide’.”
“I thought you were her ‘game guide’?” Lamb asked.
“This drone is a ‘game guide’, not an ‘in game guide’, ‘in game guides’ are located inside Alyzia.”
“Ahh, got it, let’s go then.”
“Epona’s in game guide is off duty. He will be logged in in a few hours, please return at a later hour. Good-bye human.” The drone turned around and began scurrying away.
“Wait,” Lamb chased after it, “can you log me into Alyzia now? I can wait for the guide inside.”
“That option is acceptable, follow me.”
The drone led Lamb past a large glass booth meant for groups, to a smaller booth built for singles.
The drone scanned Lamb with a laser, then pulled up a tablet with some basic instructions about Alyzia.
“Before you go in, you must first pick a server.” The drone said, pulling up a holographic list.
“How do the servers work?” Lamb ask.
“Alyzia is currently in the tutorial phase for new players. During the tutorial phase, choosing your starting server is very important, as you will only be permitted to travel within the server you choose, you will not me able to travel outside of your server.” The drone explained. Now Lamb realized why Epona was so specific about picking the Persian server.
“So we can only stay in one server during the tutorial?”
“Correct.” The guide answered.
“How long does the tutorial last?”
“Until it is complete.”
“I will pick the Persian Empire server.” Lamb answered.
“Before you decide, you should see the list of available servers.”
“Fine.” Lamb replied.
The drone enlarged the holographic list. “Character creation is a very important part of Alyzia, new players will be given 100 skill points to create their character.”
“Nice.” Lamb replied following along.
“Each region is incentivized to chose region-specific servers. Since you live in the Americas there are 2 America-based regions you are incentivized to chose from,” large text appeared in front of Lamb.
“The Antarctic server, and The Amazon Rainforest server.” Two lush displays: one of the icy, snow-covered Antarctic landscape and another of lush tropical rainforests, appeared in front of Lamb.
“If I pick the arctic one, will it feel like I’m actually there?”
“An antarctic like landscape has been created in a parallel universe, that is where your body will be, it will be very cold, there will be lots of snow.” The guide answered.
“Won’t my body freeze?”
“The Antarctic server is very cold, the Rainforest is very hot and there are lots of poisonous bugs and fauna, you will need to spend skill points in character creation on ‘environmental resistance’, in order to not ‘freeze’ as you put it.”
“So it’ll be like I’m wearing a thick winter coat?”
“Correct.” the factory drone answered. “Skill points are extremely important for new players. Your in game guide will walk you through the use of skill points in detail.”
Lamb nodded along, making a mental note to use his ‘skill points’ wisely. He played a lot of fantasy games, and always enjoyed divvying up stat-points to craft his own unique playstyle. He hoped skill points in Alyzia’s character creation worked similarly.
“As an incentive for new players to choose a region specific server, players will be granted an additional 20 skill points for choosing a region specific server.”
“So if I choose the Rainforest, I’ll get a total of 120 skill points instead of just 100?” Lamb asked. He didn’t like the cold, so if he had to choose, he was defiantly not going to the Arctic.
“Correct. And as an incentive to choose the Antarctica server, the harsh punishing cold climate is off-set by an abundance of treasure, wealth, and powerful creatures.” 46300 said.
Lamb still wasn’t going there, extra booty was not worth freezing his nuts off.
“Still no thanks. What are the other servers?”
The screen lit up as several other large landscapes appeared via hologram projections. Being surrounded by alien creature and robots slightly dimmed the surprise of advanced holographic protections—- slightly.
“‘The 1950’s Paris’ server, region specific to Europe. ‘The Persian Empire’, region specific to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.”
A beautiful French cityscape caught Lamb’s eye, the Eiffel Tower prominently featured. Beside it, a rich kingdom specked with gold, treasure, beautiful enticingly dressed women, and magi, ‘The Persian Empire’. The drone continued:
“‘The Tokugawa Shogunate’ server, region specific to Asia.”
The projection showed images of samurai, shinobi, large katanas, and riflemen on horseback. There was also yokai— lots and lots of yokai. There were also plenty of oni, they were big and colourful with sharp curved fangs. Lamb got a big grin on his face, this place looked like it was built for him. ‘Paris and Japan seem like they’d be the most obvious popular pick for most people. I see why Epona didn’t pick ‘em.’ Lamb thought to himself.
“And lastly, the ‘Steamworld’ server, region specific to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Asia.” Steamworld is exactly how you’d imagine it. Round goofy looking goggles, steam engine trains, Victorian bowler caps, corsets, and large blunderbuss muskets.
“I can choose any server, right?”
“Correct.”
“Is there any reward benefits for choosing a none region specific server?” Lamb asked.
“New players start off with 100 skill points for character creation, and 1000 gold. Gold in Alyzia can be used for shelter, food, clothing, and items.” The drone explained. “An additional 100 gold will be rewarded for choosing a none regional specific server. Unlike skill points which you only get once for one time character creation, gold is very plentiful, and easy to come by.”
“I’ll only get 100 gold, and no bonus skill points.” Lamb clarified.
“Correct. As your game guide, I would strongly recommend you to choose one of your two regional specific servers.”
“Once your inside, can you talk to the outside world?”
“Negative, once you’re inside Alyzia, you will be unable to interact with the outside world, until you log off.” The robot answered.
Lamb pulled out is phone and messaged his group chat with Erin, Marco and Steve. He relayed them a similar message of what Epona told him. He told them to find a ‘Factory Drone’ game guide and to choose the ‘Persian Empire’ server. He concluded by telling the group that him and his friend would already be set up inside.
Epona had lots of internet friends spread out across Europe and Australia, and Lamb had convinced several of his in-person friends to join him inside. Both Epona and Lamb’s friends wanted to wait a few days to make sure it was safe. They wanted to wait and hear from people who had gone in first and returned safely.
The plan was for Lamb and Epona to meet up in Alyzia first, set up a base, and then their friends would join them.
“Is Epona in the Persian Empire server?”
“Yes, player designation Epona is currently residing in the Persian Empire, she has a pending ‘party invite’ waiting for you upon arrival. Note, you must both be in the same server in order to form an official party.” 463002 answered.
The idea of sword battles against samurai and Iga ninjas seemed way too good to pass up. He also loved the idea of riding a giant steam-engine locomotive and shooting baddies with a souped-up shotgun. But in the end, there was only one choice.
“I choose the Persian Empire Server.” Lamb replied.
“When you are ready, step inside the booth to activate transport.”
“Thanks for all your help, if I come back, will I be able to find you?”
“Perhaps. Happy journeys, human.”
Lamb stepped inside the booth and took a deep breath. ‘Crap’, in all the commotion he forgot he made plans to meet up with Madra tomorrow— and he’d forgotten to message her to reschedule. Oh well, he was sure with all the chaos going on, she’d probably have forgotten all about their plans anyway.
He focused his attention on a bright yellow crystal ball suspended in front of him. Aside from himself, the crystal ball was the only other object in the booth. It glowed with a pulsating yellow light that called out to him. Lamb placed his hand on the crystal ball and pressed. The light faded from the crystal ball, and flowed into his body. Lamb could feel himself glowing with a powerful yellow light. His head felt numb and his body felt light as it surged with magical vigour.
He noticed a crowd of spectators had gathered around to watch. The small girl who drew the happy-face waved at him. In the very back of the crowd, he could briefly make out a tall figure with dark blood-red hair tied in buns— perhaps it was just his imagination.
Bright yellow light enveloped the booth. Light blinded his eyes, as he was transported into a brand new world.
***
When Lamb opened his eyes again, he was sprawled about the floor of a blank light-grey room, it stretched out into infinity and had no corners or walls.
An omniscient female voice boomed into his senses, “Welcome to Alyzia.” The voice said.
A yellow rectangular glowing doorway formed in front of him. It glowed with a soothing, warm radiance. Lamb took a deep breath and walked into the light.
chapter end