“Fucking cunts, man!” a young teen says as he takes off many of the virtual reality equipment on him, stepping out of the omni-directional platform he stood on.
“Died?” asked a voice near him. His older sister, her virtual reality setup still donned.
“Yeah…” the teen said, walking to the nearby wooden table and downing an entire water bottle. He continued, “Stupid fucking fetch quests, man. Why did they even fucking add it into the game?” he gestured wildly, watching the tv as he does. An infomercial for some other air-fryer company.
“Dunno,” his sister replied, “The testers definitely didn’t want it in the game either, since that was what all of the starting quests were like back then,” she motioned a swing of her invisible blade, fighting something.
The teen keeps watching the infomercial, biding his time before he could finally respawn.
“Can you please carry me, T?” the teen asked his sister. She nodded. “Thanks,” he said.
Fucking bandits, he thinks to himself.
He no longer has a Shard.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Six people sat around a booth in a restaurant, arguing amongst themselves.
“No, you fucking listen to me,” a particularly Bostonian-American accent interjected. “We all agreed to do purely fantasy! We put it to a goddamn vote, for fuck’s sake!”
“All? The fuck do you mean ‘all’ of us, you fucking idiot?!” shrilled a feminine voice, “We didn’t want that to be the setting for the game! Didn’t you guys watch that new Cyberpunk show on Netflix?” she brought out her phone, showing the many great reviews of the show, “That’s the shit right there!” she continued, “That would’ve been so good for the AI to use as a base, and we had the idea before the show even came out!”
The muscled, large, but quiet man beside her nodded, eating one fry at a time.
“You want our game to ride off of the popularity of a show?” A brunette on the other side of the feminine voice said, clearly rolling her eyes. “Pretty sure you know how that could backfire on us, right?” she poked and prodded at her burger, cleanly cut in half and with no bite in it ever since she noticed the pickles.
“Guys, guys,” a man with a goatee interjected, holding out a hand, “Calm the fuck down, we’re disturbing the other customers.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
They all turn to look at the customers. Many eyes are staring at them, annoyance present in their expression.
Goatee mouthed a “sorry” to the rest of the patrons, before returning his attention to the group. “Alicia,” he said, looking at the woman, still holding her phone as she scrolls through the reviews of the show, “Timmy.” The large man looked at the goateed man, still eating a fry. “You guys fucked up, and you both know that.”
“Our game’s getting better reviews though,” the last person, a man with glasses and a man bun said out of the blue. The others scoot closer to him, looking at his screen. He read it aloud.
“World of Lyaveist was a relatively basic game during its open beta,” the review began, a look of ‘I told you so’ being sent to Boston by Alicia. The review continued, “With elements stemming from worlds of fantasy – magic, skills, and many, many Gods – it was quite a let-down from the get-go despite the beauty of the game and the intricacy of its history, with many bugs that should’ve been patched out from the beginning, but it seems that they have opted for a worldbuilding AI rather than one that could’ve fixed bugs.
However, this is to its benefit. The AI has gone in-depth with its NPC’s, making them more convincing than any other game I have come across in the past year. As I wandered the continent, coming across many notable characters along my travels, I couldn’t help but be immersed wholly into the game. It seems rather obvious to say, but they were real. Realer than the actual, living people who act like boring NPC’s I meet in real life. I even married one just for the fun of it! His name is Jorge, and he is from The Emerald Isles. Kill him and I will hunt you down.”
“Oh, it’s that general store guy! I met him once,” Goatee said, “He sorta looked like me too,” he ran his hands along his goatee. The others ignored him, Man Bun continued reading.
“But with the full release of the game – no bugs, thank God – and the new twist imposed upon the Continent, completely turning on a heel and implementing futuristic tech along with its already fleshed out system of arcana, skills, and dungeoning, it is no wonder that players have already found wonder and amazement at the now-sullied world of fantasy that they have once experienced first-hand!
A new skill tree was implemented, Technomancy, with various other additions that elaborated more on the nature of the Shifting. ‘A sudden gash in the sky appeared,’ an old, tattered encyclopaedic book I found in my travels wrote, ‘A roiling dark-grey mass hurtled from the sky, Shards flaking off of it and landing all throughout the world, they grant anyone powers never before seen in the Continent.’ Should you be lucky to find one in your travels, I’ll pay good money for one!
All in all, World of Lyaveist is truly one of the best games to have been released in the past decade!
9.7/10.”
All of them are quiet.
“Okay,” Boston spoke up first, “But like... That’s not the point.” Alicia groaned, frustration present in her face.
“It’s getting better reviews than when we stuck to that stupid fantasy shtick, Jeremy!” Alicia yelled, her hands thrown into the air, as she stared at Brunette. “And you fucking know it too, so don’t say shit, fucker!” she scooted out of the booth, grabbing her brother’s – Timmy’s – hand. “We’re going back, you guys can kick some sense into Jeremy’s head for all I care.” Timmy reaches for the fries, grabbing his to-go bag and tossing all of his fries in it. Timmy waves them all goodbye. Alicia’s head sticks back into the door into the restaurant.
“You should be thankful that we only combined the two worldbuilding AI’s together.” Her head returned out the door.
They leave the four behind.
Brunette stands up, leaving as well, her heels landing audibly on the wooden floor of the restaurant.
The three remain. Man Bun sighs before opening his mouth.
“Let’s go back, yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Boston and Goatee in unison.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
They all leave the university-run restaurant, making their way through the university grounds. Goatee and Brunette walk into the library. Man Bun goes back to his dorm room, eating Brunette's burger as he walks. Boston sleeps on the hammock right outside of the view of the restaurant, under some trees. The two siblings, Alicia and Timmy, go to their respective afternoon classes.