On the next day a large crowd had gathered at the center of Telon. Tonight a great festival would be held to celebrate the founding of the Cult of Truth. Nowadays it would be more fitting to call it a religion, since it had grown really large. In 'Ascension a role playing group had stuck strictly to the rule, to never fall out of their character's roles to improve immersion in the game. They had found a backward village, where there were few enough players, that they were able to enforce the rule.
Those who did not adhere to the rule were kicked out of the village. It can be a heavy turnoff to hear people talk about real life sports events while you want to enjoy the world. After the game changed to virtual reality, the popularity of this play style become very popular. So many of the people who just passed by before actually joined the community and settled down. In just a short time the village grew to a town and soon the whole surrounding area belonged to the newly formed Cult of Truth.
The cult had started collecting taxes to pay for enforcers, who chased non role players out of the ever expanding territories. At the borders guards were posted, who informed travelers of the rule and everyone who wanted to enter had to promise to stick to their role. While a few players were annoyed at the restrictions, many found it a preferable style of living in the game. Since the enforcement was strict, the atmosphere of the place was far better than anywhere else outside. Players of course still continued their normal conversations in private, but in public retained their proper image.
The cults area stopped expanding, when the territory had reached around a quarter of the continents area. Then a kind of balance was formed between those who accepted the strict rule and those who wanted to at least be able to talk about real life issues every now and then. Of course there were also many who stayed for a while for a vacation or a few adventures, but never settled down.
Over time, the cult also began to grow in political power. Players are usually freedom loving people, so other laws than the role playing rule could not be enforced. In the end, the cult developed into a religion, mainly focused on the role playing. Once a year, a great festival would be held on the founding day. It took place in the original village, which by now had grown into the capital of the country, Telon. Huge masses of people came to celebrate. The festivities began with the speech of the high priestess of the cult, when the night on the anniversary arrived. After that, the crowd would chant a hymn and then the week of celebrations began.
My guild's headquarters was in the cultist lands, because we preferred the immersion the rule offered. The technology of the VR capsules had come a long way, but still could not reach the sensation of the real world. The role playing helped to bridge that gap. When compared to the lands outside, everything seemed more real. One thing I observed was, when the festival was held, that gap seemed to become yet a tiny bit less. It may have been my imagination, but the game worked a bit different at that time.
And so I started experimenting. Tried things during that time, that could normally not be done. Until the day two years ago, when I earned the 'Insane' title.
Of the 'irregular' elements light and dark, only one could be used by a player. First you had to attune yourself to either light or dark. A player could attune themselves in different ways, but all took time and effort. Most chose to attune to light. For one, normal adventurers tended to fulfill 'just' quests, and with a certain amount of good deeds usually came the option to start walking the light path.
Light is not necessarily good, nor is dark evil. There are tendencies though, and there are also many who consider light good in a cliché way. There are actually some fanatics, who condemn dark in the game, but they are a minority.
To attune to dark is more difficult. Being a bit cynical I would describe it as requiring a personality. The game never offers those, who straightforwardly fulfill ordinary 'good' quests, the dark option. Only those, who walk their own strange path in the game receive the option of the dark path. That basically just means anything not related to leveling or questing. Of course certain classes like thief thrive in the dark and can attune early on.
The paths offer certain abilities and those are as always the real reason people attune to one side vs the other. Light offers protection and healing among more nuanced advantages. Dark offers increases to hiding or increased damage output by exploiting weaknesses.
The attunement I chose was light. My character is an elven sorceress and would definitely profit from dark. The increased protection and some self healing, although weak in comparison to a priest or paladin, offered enough defense for me to carefully engage in melee, too. Normally even light attunement is only a minor buff and not sufficient for a caster type player. But since I practice martial arts in real life I am more capable in close combat than most and am able to pull off this sort of hybrid build. Another reason I decided to use light is, that my guild did a lot of great achievement quests, that tend to improve your light attunement and that made it more worthwhile to go light. Once we cleared most content I did have a lot of free time to just explore the world or do side quests. I started to get more interested in the possibilities of the dark, but switching would have meant to start again from scratch, and that was not worth the effort.
Then, two years ago I held a ritual beneath the main festival ground on the Cults anniversary. I had set up two great artifacts, a holy sword and a dark attribute ring on two opposing sides of the chamber. At the time the crowds started chanting I drew on the light power of the sword. When my aura was soaked full by the light, I drew on the dark of the ring. Normally one of those two would push the other out, but this time the light stayed in my body, while I drew the dark in. The two clashed against each other, and I used my suppress aura ability, that is usually used for hiding, to dampen the conflict. I continued to draw on the dark until it equaled the light. Then, suddenly the two forces stopped trying to expel each other. They still fought each other inside me, but none of them was pushed out. I had to continue casting suppress aura since then, or I would lose health.
Normally it would have been impossible to attune to both light and dark, but I must have fulfilled some rare circumstances and gained the 'Insane' title. From then on I was attuned to both. Sadly, it proofed more than useless. To keep my health up, I constantly had to activate suppress aura, which cost some of the mana I regenerated. Whenever I used any light or dark ability the other side would flare up and I had to suppress it with even more mana. That meant, that most light or dark spells effectively cost me more mana than others, while I also had to take more consideration of my mana because of the reduced regeneration.
Of course, I never would have given up what made my character special, and instead of trying to get rid of one aspect, I tried out ways to work around it. The amount of mana it cost me was less than 10% of my regeneration, but the increased consumption when using light or dark spells was much more severe. In the end I adopted a style more focused on melee and spells of the other elements.
My high end level and equipment allowed me to continue performing adequately, if I used a few spells in between. Performance in a group or raid is mostly dependent on the teamwork and proper division of roles, since the scaling of a character's strength is not that great in comparison to most games. That worked to my advantage, because my personal ability was more important than the maximum output of my character's skills. The downside however was, that as a fixed mana cost I was unable to outgrow the constant drain.
A bit less than a year ago from now, a new update was brought out, that increased the realism of the game. In addition a new capsule was available, that increased the sensory perception in the game. While it was still a far bit from reality, instead of just moving your body in the game, you became more aware of the body itself. Which was really weird. Until now, the difference between my own male body and the body of my female character was mainly in size. From then on it gave me the impression of being someone else. I shortly considered changing my character's sex, but the sensations were still pretty bland and I chose to live with the changes.
Along with those updates came new perceptions. Before light and dark were mainly about their bonuses, but from then on they started to influence what one could see. The difference was minimal for those with weak attunement, but for those specialized in one, new information was available. A temple of the light started to have a golden aura, a NPC lying would have a flicker in their aura or deep shadows in a cemetery might speak to someone, depending on attunement.
For me things just became plain weird. Light and dark never existed in the same place, but they often bordered each other. It did not feel like they fought each other, sometimes it almost seemed like children playing with each other when one dashed forward and the other back, staying close to each other but always separate. Really bizarre was when a priest spoke with a confident, genuine voice and at the same time it seemed as if he was spouting out blasphemy. Once I got a quest, where the remnant of a soul wished to go into the light. I had heard of the quest before, but those who could see and talk to the shadow did not see the bright light nearby, while those who knew of the light could not direct the invisible shadow. I was able to direct the soul remnant and saw it disappearing. To my detriment I got a dual improvement on both my aspects and with that increased mana consumption.
Stolen novel; please report.
The world seemed distorted. I often wondered if the combined scenery of light and dark was different from simply combining the two. I wanted to hide the fact that I was attuned to both and avoided talking about the effects. My guild mates were curious why I constantly used Suppress Aura but I never bothered explaining and made it a game to invent ever new ridiculous reasons. There were quite a few attempts to guess at the reason but the closest they came was, that it had something to do with my rarely using holy magic. Luckily, many players who had taken to role playing had developed interesting peculiarities, and mine was by far not the most out there.
The most disconcerting thing was the voice. Well, it seemed like a voice, but it was just incoherent babbling. There were certain sounds attuned players were able to hear, but some must have overlapped in a strange way. Sometimes I got a little bit frightened, I would actually go mad if this became any more intense. It is not actually that bad, but if you spend a considerable amount of time in VR and see different things from anyone else, that you can't share it does something to you. I would still consider myself (mostly) sane.
When the sun dropped beneath the horizon the central square of the city had become filled to the brink. In the center a huge stage had been set up. At the back of the stage stood the cathedral of truth. It was an impressive building, that racked high into the sky and stood out among anything else this town had to offer. A group of templars in uniform exited out of one of the big side entrances of the cathedral. Each one held a torch and headed to different locations to light up the lamps that had been placed there. Normally only a few, big lamps would lighten up the central square at night, but at the time of the festivities the number was increased by a lot.
The templars took a while to make their way through the crowd and I used the time to head to the back of the square, to my own house. I had purchased it a few years ago when the prices in the center were still reasonable because it was positioned so close to the center.
I lingered for a while at the entrance. The atmosphere was really enjoyable, which was why I had strolled around at all. Sadly I could not take part in it because of my other plans.
The templars finally finished their work and headed back to the stage. There they built a circle around a huge bonfire and together they put fire to it. Slowly the crowd stopped talking and the noise dropped drastically. Then, as the fire started to work its way up the wood, the main door of the cathedral was opened. The high priestess of the cult came out of the cathedral, dressed in a heavy ceremonial garb and stepped onto a central podium in front of the bonfire.
I took that as a signal and opened the door to my house. A few bystanders looked at me in an irritated way, because who would leave right as the main event was to begin. No one bothered me though and I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. As I made my way to the cellar I could hear the amplified voice of the high priestess speak out to the crowd.
In one of the rooms in the cellar I opened up a cabinet and pushed away the bottom shelf. Then I stepped in, closed the door behind me and climbed down a ladder. I stepped into the tunnel I had a golem dig out and followed it along.
I had taken great care to avoid detection, so I had built it deep below the ground. Even in the game most would not be pleased by having a ritual room right beneath the center of their beloved cults main square. Once I reached to room I opened a lid on the wall and could hear the dampened speech up above. Then I waited for the time, when the chanting would begin.
In the center of the room a circle was drawn on the ground. Going with the symbols of this world I had decided on a heptagon form. Inside of that and had connected the dots with each other. At the end of each corner I had positioned a pedestal with an artifact on top, each according to one of the elements. I took out a torch, and casted fire on it. Then I walked around the circle to light seven torches at each of the corners. My need to conserve mana had forced me to become practical, so even when I didn't need to restrain myself, I had grown accustomed to use more efficient methods like this instead of lightning each with my magic.
In the center stood a small desk. At its back hang one more torch on the side. I walked into the circle and lit it up, then placed the torch I had used till now into the holder on the other side. While the ritual itself didn't require it, the atmosphere seemed more fitting. On the desk lay three more artifacts. One was a low level item without any requirements. The second one would grow together with the level ups of the player. It was weak when compared to high end gear, but very useful for someone who still had to reach maximum level, because it did not have to be exchanged every other level.
The last one was the hardest to come by out of all the others. It had a level requirement that exceeded the maximum level players could reach at this time. I had Falariel craft it by using only materials from the highest raid tier. Normally the level requirement would never be above maximum player level. It was however possible to increase the quality of an item, which would also increase its level requirement. Falariel was only happy enough to create something so out of the norm. If the level cap would ever be raised, having such an item around might be useful. It had not happened so far, but high level players often have too much money on their hand...
My goal for this ritual was to remove the limits the game had placed onto my character. The low level item stood for freedom. Anyone could use it. The second for scaling. One of the greatest issues in Ascension was the poor scaling of characters with level. The third was intended to plain out break the maximum level and allow myself to go beyond.
Of course I had no idea what or even if the ritual would accomplish something in the end. If everything went wrong I might as well be dropped to the lowest level without the ability to level up anymore. Still, I considered it a kind of duty of a magic user to experiment with the unknown, even if it entailed risks. My last "successful" attempt had brought me nothing but headaches, but did´t deter me from continuing on.
The sudden silence felt strange when the high priestess had spoken her last few words. It only held for a short bit however, as soon the crowd up above began to chant. The sound seemed to vibrate through the concrete of the ceiling and not arrive through the small shaft that had let me hear the speech till now. For the short time of the chanting everything seemed to vibrate more intensely. All sensations seemed more true somehow. In addition to that, light and dark in the room, which had been behaving normally until now began to dance. The flickering of the flames seemed to follow the rhythm of the words. The shadows began to circle around the heptagon in the middle.
This was the first time I had performed this ritual since the last great patch and the resonance shocked me deeply. But I also grew excited in hope of a possible success. Using my abilities as an enchanter I drew on the power of the artifacts around me. As an enchanter you could pull out the magic in items to put it in yourself to get a buff effect. The effect was short lived, and usually much too expensive to use. In addition to that the effect was weaker than on the items, so it seemed wasteful. But today I went all out.
First I pulled in the basic four elements: earth, water, fire and air. The chanting outside vibrated with the power increase the elemental enchants had on me. Then came spirit. My senses seemed to stretch out, to perceive every corner of the room. And the light and dark around me jumped up in anticipation.
Then I added light and dark simultaneously. They were placed on nearly opposing sites of the circle to my two sides. My right arm drew in the dark, my left pulled on the light. I completely released my hold on suppress aura. The two flared up in my body, and violently jumped at each other while I drew in even more of their power from the artifacts. My health started to drop and I began to feel a dampened version of pain course through me.
Finally, while completely charged I looked down to the three items in front of me. I drew in the power of the low level item, then the level up item and finally the above max level one. And while the pain slowly increased I fell into the rhythm of the chants as I held my hands to the air, but instead of the words of the cult I chanted: "Break away my limits!"
Always with the same timing: "Break away my limits!"
My health started to deteriorate. I did not actually need my mana, because I did not use any regular spell, but I continued to leave the elements free reign in my body.
"Break away my limits!"
Something began to draw on my mana, and rapidly. I was shocked and also exhilarated. The stress overcame the pain and let it fade out. I continued to chant and chant.
"Break away my limits!"
The shadows around the circle sped up their dance. They spun around quicker and quicker that I began having trouble to see the walls of the room. The lights in the center grew brighter and brighter as if to press out the shadows. Then, when I could not even see the walls at all anymore the shadows began to fall towards the center. The flames grew to an enormous size but still could not disperse the dark.
"Break away my limits!"
Then suddenly both stopped their fight and descended on me like a whirlwind. The pain inside of me began to burn me. And then everything felt REAL. The pain, my surroundings, which I could hardly perceive anymore, because all around me was almost nothing but light and dark, all drawing into me at a rapid pace. I was scared out of my wits.
"Break away my limits!"
Why did I continue chanting? I was lost in the moment, dropping to my knees, my stomach cramping. But still I chanted, even as my throat burned with every word. My arms were still painstakingly stretched out above my head as I grew the worst headache I ever had.
"........."
No more voice would flee my mouth. All around me was... a singularity, me inside and nothing beyond. I was shaking on the ground, finally drawing in my arms around my legs. Everything hurt like hell. Having one sensible thought I reached out to the last bits of mana I had left and clamped it down on myself. I could not even move, but still focused on nothing but this. The singularity seemed to split up. I hardly even saw anything but it felt like I was returning somewhere.
Ever pressing down on the two antagonists, space around me reformed and the war within me slowed down. But even though they were no longer ravaging my body I still felt like I was mangled. Finally everything had calmed down. I had closed my eyes, only focusing on the suppression. Everything felt wrong, but was still dulled out by the ever present pain.
A cold wind blew over me, making me shiver.