Author: Hey guys. The last time I posted writing online was back when xanga was the hip new thing, so I'm super unsure what of what's going on with this website most of the time. Don't really know how to make those neat status windows I see so much of in other people's submissions. Please comment with advice, encouragement, discouragement and abuse as you see fit. I hate every single one of you, and wish you all nothing but the best in all your endeavors. My goal is to produce several more poorly edited chapters in a mad rush, simply so I can get some momentum going. God I hope this posts to the right place.
Chapter 1 - Enter Protagonist
And here enters our protagonist, one of those countless thousands logging in to Midgard on opening day. He could be anyone, from anywhere. He could be your neighbor. He could be you.
But that would be stupid, so in this specific case he’s Bill Door, recent college graduate and current bum. Bill has recently gotten out of a rather unpleasant relationship and had decided what he really needs to do right now is become the most badass gamer that has ever lived. So he walked out, with no gaming experience, and stood in line on opening day to buy that one game he heard about from his cousin who had a skin condition and didn’t get out much. Bill Door is not in his right mind and certainly doesn’t deserve what is about to happen to him, but his reasons for joining the game are no worse than most and his subsequent adventures are jolly entertaining if you’re into that sort of thing, so we’ll focus on him until he dies or we find someone better.
Having logged into Midgard, full of piss and vinegar, Bill Door found himself facing a door and a small sign.
“Hero Testing”
“Enter Here, Dummy.”
Bill Door isn’t sure what he was expecting, but a door was not it. Well, he expected doors, of course, but he expected there to be a bit more to it than that.
But he was strangely hesitant to touch the door. He had never personally played Hel, but he had heard of it. He had heard about rabbits that lunged at throat height. He had heard about grass that burrowed into your feet to plant its seeds. He had heard one story, which he sincerely hoped wasn’t true, about a possessed umbrella which would impale bystanders then force itself open.
He did not trust this door. He did not trust it at all.
But boredom is a powerful motivator, and Bill was not a patient man. After exactly four minutes and thirty seven seconds he gave up and stepped through the door. Far away, a computer under a mountain logged how long it had taken him to come to a decision. It also logged what hand he used to open the door (left), whether he closed his eyes as he turned the knob (yes) and forty seven other criteria involving heart rate, blood pressure and alpha waves.
Every player who walked through that door experienced something different on the other side. One woman described filling out long written tests in what appeared to be an elementary school cafeteria, and suddenly finding that she were holding a snake instead of a pencil. A man described running through a purple field trying to escape from an angry bear. A priest from Idaho described sitting under a waterfall and answered riddles from a hydra with the heads of every United States President while piranha nibbled away at his lower body.
For Bill Door, it began with white. Remember the Matrix? Like that, only more so.
This continued for a while. Bill Door didn’t appear to have a body at the moment, at least as far as he could tell, so he didn’t panic, because panicking when you have no mouth to shout with or arms to flail about is very difficult. So he sat and looked at white for a while, letting his mind wander. What he thought about is known only to himself and the computers measuring his brainwaves.
After a timeless amount of time which still managed to be kinda annoyingly long, even for someone as naturally placid as Bill Door, Bill noticed patterns flowing through the whiteness.
Bill Door, who had been watching white, then sat and watched the patterns, idly wondering whether they’d end up killing him, and how, and kind of wishing they would just get on with it.
After a bit the patterns started becoming more and more complex. He found, much to his annoyance, that he couldn’t stop focusing on the complexity of the patterns. After a while, he got a headache, which was unfair since as far as he could tell he didn’t currently have a head. At this point the patterns stopped growing more complex and started to grow larger instead, stretching his vision as his focus remained nailed to the entirety of the pattern. After a while he got a headache again and the pattern stopped again. Then an orangutan appeared, swept Bill’s legs out from under him, and began to piss on his face. As he flailed about trying to both stand and fend off the ape’s urine, Bill realized he had two extra arms, one growing out of the center of his chest, the other out of his right knee. He was so engrossed in the feeling of suddenly having new limbs he didn’t notice his attacker disappear.
“What is the color of one hand clapping?” boomed a voice from the aether.
“What?” asked Bill, trying to keep his chest arm from picking his nose, and wondering where all these damn penguins had come from.
“Correct! Would you like a sticker?”
“What?” said Bill again.
“Warning! Subject will be terminated in 5…. 4… 3… 2… 1… 2… 3… 4… 1… 2… 3… 4… step… 2… 3… 4… turn… 2… 3… 4… aaaannnd dip!” Boomed the voice.
And suddenly Bill was being thrown through a door, sliding a good few feet along the hallway floor on the other side. He took a moment to collect himself and count his limbs. Deciding he had all the bits he was supposed to have and no noticeable extras, he sat up, which brought into view the door he had just flown through.
Above the doorway was another sign.
“Hero Testing. Exit Only. Do Not Enter. This Means You, You Stupid Piece of Shit.”
Well, that was clear enough, if a little rude. Bill turned to look down the hallway, the direction he had been thrown towards after presumably completing Hero Testing. The hall led to another simple door with another simple sign.
“Results. This Means You, You Stupid Piece of Shit. Hurry Up, We Don’t Have All Day.”
Bill was beginning to regret buying this game. He gave serious consideration to giving up, but as he opened his mouth to log out the face of his ex popped into his head. Now we won’t go into why they broke up, or even who dumped whom, but for reasons that will remain a mystery until Bill feels like sharing, Bill didn’t want give that bitch the satisfaction of him quitting before the game even began. This wasn’t a very logical thought, since his ex didn’t even know he had picked up the game, and wouldn’t have cared if she did, but it was enough incentive to get Bill to walk toward the door.
Besides, Bill thought to himself, the worst is obviously over. Now the real game begins.
Bill Door was exactly half right.
***
Midgard Prime – The Pantheon – Meeting Room 2b
***
“How’s the testing going?” asked Agnes.
“Pretty smoothly overall,” replied Mephistos, who had given in to the inevitable and gone back to being Frank, though he kept his garbage pile appearance, and had even taken in a family of rats as tenants within his heapish form. He claimed that they were actually sophisticated programs which helped him monitor and maintain the multiplex of worlds across Midgard. Agnes found this hard to keep in mind as she watched one enthusiastically licking its own nethers.
“About half the players logged out before completing the test,” continued Frank.
“Did you send them a notification that quitting before the test was complete would give incur character penalties later?” asked Terra curiously.
“Of course not,” huffed Frank.
“Good,” replied Agnes. “How are the remainder doing?”
“About half of them have completed the test, the others are still being scanned.”
“How many total?”
“We have about 200,000 people still playing, with 200,000 more who, as I said, gave up and ran home to mommy already. Give or take a few thousand.”
“So we’ll have about 200 players per Earth?” asked Terra curiously. “Will that be enough? I mean, a lot of them are going to die in the first attack. Don’t we need a certain amount of them to survive in order for the experiment to work?”
Agnes and Frank shared a look. The experiment, or rather, “THE EXPERIMENT”, was something they didn’t talk about much with Terra, who felt intense guilt over using their players to test their theories without permission or oversight. Terra agreed that the experiment was necessary, and even acknowledged deep down that in this case the ends really did justify the means, but that didn’t stop her from whining to her companions about the moral implications of what they were doing.
So Frank chose his next words with care.
“It shouldn’t be a problem. In fact it’ll probably help speed things up. Sure, about a third of the starting players are probably about to die and have to start over. But their performance during their first incarnation will give us a baseline of data to base their next character on. When they fail to synch with their powers and die, our computers will process the data from that incarnation, and assign their new character powers more likely to produce success. As more players die and are reborn, we’ll get more and more data to crunch, and our algorithms grow more and more accurate. It’s a positive feedback loop, so the process should only accelerate as time goes on.”
Terra countered, “but what about the people who didn’t die because they couldn’t synch up their powers? What about the people who died because of bad luck?”
Agnes snorted. Now thirteen years old, she still hadn’t updated her seven year old avatar from Hel. “What about them?” she answered curtly. “We’re trying to build supermen, Terra, not run a daycare center. You need to come to terms with the fact that most of our players are going to wash out of this experiment. Hell, all of them might wash out of this experiment. Never forget our theories might be wrong. But you and I and Frank all believe at least some of them will succeed, though none of us really agree on what that success will look like when it happens. But if you’re so worried about our precious test subjects, stop whining to us and get your overpowered ass out there to help the noobs out.”
Terra glared at her teenaged best friend. “Well excuse me for having a moral compass.”
“Only if you’ll excuse me for lacking one,” replied Agnes to her middle-aged best friend.
Terra’s eyes softened. “Alright, I’m going. But give me a hug first, so I don’t stay mad at you.”
Obediently, Agnes climbed up into Terra’s lap and gave her a hug, burying her face in the thick fur of her shoulder. “You really need to stop making me do this sort of thing. People are going to think you’re a pedophile.”
Terra gave a feral grin. “Don’t be ridiculous, you aren’t pretty enough to be targeted by a pedophiles.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Agnes punched her shoulder. “I’ll have you know I’ve had eleven pedophiles approach me since Hel was released. Though I’m pretty sure at least three of them were only after me for my money.”
“Really?” said Frank in surprise. “I didn’t know that. What did you do with their bodies?”
“I bought a tiger.” Agnes replied.
“Just one?” asked Frank.
“It’s a big tiger.”
“Neat.”
Terra was, by now, in a much better mood. Her friends might be morally retarded sociopaths with a tendency toward sadism, but at least they weren’t boring. Terra had experienced too much boredom in her life. But together, the three of them would drag the human race out of stagnation and into interesting times.
“Alright,” said Terra, pushing Agnes out of her lap. “You’re right, I’ll stop whining. But I can’t just sit here and watch while our players die. The better they do at the start, the faster the experiment will progress. I still think that if the game is too hard at first, people will stop playing. We have to at least give them the hope that success is possible, even if it’s not probable. So I’m off to get my hands dirty. Hold down the fort here.”
“Will do,” replied Frank with a wave.
“Toodles,” said Agnes.
Terra disappeared with a pop of displaced air.
Agnes raised her eyebrows. “Is the ‘pop’ new? I don’t remember hearing a popping sound before.”
Frank grinned. “Yep, I finally got the air displacement algorithms right. That’s the exact sound a seven foot tall lioness would make if she suddenly disappeared from a room this size and ventilation.”
“Not bad,” replied Agnes.
“Does Terra know you lowered the safety restrictions?” asked Frank idly.
Agnes paused. “No, and if you don’t want a dinner date with my tiger she never will.”
***
The Aether – Just outside the Results room
***
Bill Door stood looking at another door, once again wondering whether opening it would kill him. Finally steeling himself, he stepped through, keeping an eye out for lurking orangutans.
Bill Door had grown up in a post-cellphone economy, so he had never personally encountered a wild travel agency, but if he had he would have recognized the room he walked into immediately. A woman sat staring at him expectantly from behind a cheaply made desk, a three ring binder open in front of her.
“Howdy Bill,” she gushed. “I’m Cindy! Congrats on doing so well on your Hero Test! You were one of our most successful candidates!”
Bills chest swelled a little at this news. Weeks later, he was discouraged to find out that every player who completed the test had been told the same.
Cindy extended the binder that she had been flipping through. “All right, please take this, but don’t open it until you step into the dimensional elevator,” she pointed over her shoulder toward the metal door behind her. In that binder is information on your starting location, powers and some of the basic rules of the game.”
As the doors to the elevator closed behind him, he thought her heard her continue in a much smaller voice, barely audible. “No One Will Ever Love You Games warns that information on starting location, powers and basic rules may or may not be accurate and is in fact probably meant to lead you to certain death. Any and all certain death experienced by the player should not be blamed on NOWLEY Games, but instead stems from the player’s basic lack of worth as a human being.”
Then the doors were closed, and the elevator lurched into motion. Bill was momentarily distracted by the motion of the elevator, which felt off to him in some way. It felt, he eventually decided, like the elevator was accelerating in every direction at the same time.
Forcing himself to focus, Bill ignored the strange tactile sensations of virtual interdimensional travel and cracked open his three ring binder. The papers within contained only block text, with blanks filled by almost illegible handwriting.
WELCOME TO MIDGARD
BROUGHT TO YOU BY NOWELY GAMES
TODAY BEGINS YOUR ADVENTERS AS A SUPERHERO, DEFENDING Earth 667 FROM MONSTERS, MAD SCIENTISTS, ALIEN WIZARDS AND EVER OTHER EXOTIC THREAT THAT REARS ITS UGLY HEAD (OR HEADS).
YOU WILL BEGIN YOUR ADVENTURES IN New London, HAVING RECENTLY ACQUIRED SUPER POWERS DUE TO alien gods replacing your eyes with space walnuts. AS A STARTING PLAYER WITH NO DEATH OR COWARD PENALTIES, YOU WILL START THE GAME WITH 10 POWER POINTS WORTH OF SUPER POWER(S). THESE POWERS ARE CHOSEN FOR YOU BASED ON YOUR PERFORMANCE DURING THE HERO TEST AND YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH CINDY. TEN POWER POINTS OF POWER MEANS YOU COULD HAVE TEN LEVEL 1 POWERS, ONE LEVEL 10 POWER, OR ANYWHERE IN BETWEEN! EXTRA POWER POINTS CAN BE EARNED IN-GAME BY PERFORMING CERTAIN HEROIC TASKS. IN-GAME, POWER POINTS CAN BE SPENT TO EITHER IMPROVE ONE OF YOUR CURRENT POWERS (1 PP) OR TO PURCHASE A NEW POWER (10 PP).
AS A HERO, THE CITY/NATION/PLANET YOU PROTECT WILL SUBSIDIZE YOU WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF CASH DEPENDING ON THE SUCCESS OF YOUR EFFORTS. FAIL TO PROTECT THE CITIZENS AND ECONOMY OF YOUR CITY/NATION/PLANET, AND YOUR REVENUE STREAM WILL SHRINK.
PLEASE TURN THE PAGE TO SEE DETAILS ON WHAT POWERS YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED. POWERS WILL ACTIVATE AS YOU EXIT THE ELEVATOR.
Bill was shocked. He had been expecting another fantasy world game. He was not alone in this. while the designers had stated that Midgard would be completely different from Hel, most people had assumed it would still be fantasy based. Most designers claimed their second game would be completely different from the first. No one really took it seriously.
Except, apparently, NOWLEY Games.
In thousands of other interdimensional elevators throughout Midgard, former Hel players were gnashing their teeth in frustration. Very few of their skills would be useful in this world, and the intricate guilds they had been planning to reform once they got their feet on the ground would be all but impossible if they weren’t lucky enough to end up on the same earth as their guildmates.
Bill though, having never played Hel and having no real emotional investment in Midgard being a fantasy game, just shrugged and turned to the next page, flushed with excitement to see what powers he would receive.
But when he saw the form on the other side, the color began to drain from his face, eventually leaving him bone white.
------
Hero Name: Space Inspector (the)
STARTING POWERS
(PL = Power Level) (CL = Control Level)
1. Galactovision (PL 10) (CL 0)
2. Not Applicable
3. Not Applicable
4. Not Applicable
5. Not Applicable
6. Not Applicable
7. Not Applicable
8. Not Applicable
9. Not Applicable
10. Not Applicable
*Beware, Powers with a high Power Level are harder to control. Increase the Control Level of the power to better control your power. (duh)
--------------
As he finished reading, Bill was left with more questions than he had before. What in the hell was Galactovision? What did they mean level ten powers were harder to control? How the hell did he increase the control level of his powers? Also, what the HELL was Galactovision?!? Also also, what kind of name was Space Inspector (the)?
He turned to the next page, hoping for more information. The next page was blank. So was the page after that, and so were the hundreds of other pages contained in the large binder. Space Inspector (the) quickly turned back to the first two pages, but was not really surprised to find those pages now blank.
The elevator emitted a soft ding, and he looked up to seen the digital readout now read 667 in bold red letters.
The doors slid gently open, revealing a dusty alleyway between two large stone buildings.
Space Inspector (the) made no move to stride boldly toward adventure. He was not at all pleased with his experience so far, and was very suspicious of that sentence about powers activating as you left the elevator.
The choice, however, was taken out of his hands as the floor of the elevator seemed to shift under him and he found himself falling sideways, hitting the street outside with a soft “oof” as all the air left his lungs. As he gasped, trying to catch his breath, a small part of his brain noticed that his face was now covered in a mask, and that his clothing seemed to be a lot tighter all of a sudden. Another small part of his brain pointed out that there seemed to be a hell of a lot of sirens going off in the distance.
But the vast majority of him was dealing with sudden-onset galactovision.
He finally caught his breath.
And began screaming.
***
Reality – NOWELY Servers – Deep Under a Mountain
***
It’s said that a hawk in the air can read the fine print of a newspaper from miles away. It’s said that the eyes of a mantis shrimp can perceive thirteen colors that humans don’t even know exist. It’s said that goats, with their horizontally split pupils, have peripheral vision that extends almost to the back of their own head. People say these things, and then they look at each other, and they say “isn’t nature amazing?”
The supercomputers that designed the powers of Midgard had studied Nature. They had recorded these various facts, and countless others. They had considered them. They did not turn to each other and say “Isn’t nature amazing?” as they were incapable of thinking Nature was amazing. They were, in fact incapable of having any opinion about nature at all. Or an opinion on anything else. There was intelligence there, but not consciousness, despite Frank’s best efforts.
But if they had been able to have an opinion, and had cared enough to express an opinion about nature…
…it would have been that nature lacked imagination.
***
Earth 667 – New London – Dusty Alley
***
Space Detective (the)’s vision strobed and stuttered, flashing with an intensity that was dulled not at all by his eyelids, which were closed as tightly as he could get them. He was looking at the sky, but he was also looking at the buildings around him, but he was also looking at his hands, but he was also looking through the buildings around him, but he was also looking at the heat waft off his skin, but he was also watching blood flow through his veins, but he was also looking at the subtle bend of space/time caused by electricity flowing through the wires around him, but he was also looking at ants beneath the pavement extending their domain one mouthful of dirt at a time, but he was also looking at several grotesquely humanoid creatures dragging a woman into the sewer two streets away, but he was also looking at the microorganisms infesting the lower intestine of a rat digging through the alley’s garbage, but he was also looking at the shape of air flowing as it drifted under a distant sparrow’s wings, but he was also screaming and screaming and screaming.