Beyond the gate there was a fast flowing river at least five hundred meters in breadth. The other side of the river lacked any settlements. A complete wilderness loomed there in the hilly terrain.
A few enthusiastic groups of people were crossing the bridge to the other side and disappearing into the vegetation, while other wearier groups were returning, some of the members sporting injuries and torn clothes.
“Let’s cross the bridge,” Sam said.
“Are you sure it's safe?” I asked. The ancient bridge was unstable, dangerously swaying and bouncing up and down as the people passed over it. I recalled that the carriage driver did not have high opinions about the bridge either.
“Of course,” Sam said. “Don't be worried. It's a bridge in a game world. No mortal perils here, at least not real ones.” But after speaking this he made a face, frowning and looking away as though inwardly debating if that was true. But he shook his head and put on a carefree expression. “Come on.”
Sam led the way and I followed with a fearful heart. The river water below was wild. Anyone who fell into the river would drown in moments.
“You can ask me your questions,” Sam said to me as we slowly made our way along the bridge. "Nobody to eavesdrop." We were the only ones on the bridge at this point.
“How did you bring me into this world?” I asked.
“Um, I will answer that after sometime,” Sam said. I grimaced at him. Hadn’t he told me to ask questions?
“Okay,” I said, “maybe you can tell me why you and the bartender were talking about dying.”
“Well, this is a game world,” Sam answered, even as the onslaught of a rather strong breeze made us hold the ropes of the bridge tight. “If you die you go down to your previous level. And after dying a certain number of times, with no levelling up in between, you go down to level zero and have to start afresh.”
“What do you do here, anyway?” I said. “How do you make money?”
“I sell information about easy quests to new players,” Sam replied. “They get to level up faster and in return they pay me real world money. I am also constantly looking out for bugs in the game world that players can use to their advantage and once I find such bugs, I sell the information to high level players for good money.”
“Okayyy,” I said, wondering about the legality of that. The bug thing seemed like a gray area.
“I would like to inform the developers about the bugs,” Sam replied, reading my thoughts, “but they don't pay any money. They just said 'thanks' the last time I assisted them."
We reached the end of the bridge and stepped into the forest.
“Now don't be scared,” Sam said. “We have to go a good deal deeper into the wild to run into Eviluns. This is the only the edge of their territory and they are seldom encountered here.”
“Eviluns?” I asked.
“These are races that are the opponents of the players,” Sam replied. “The players can kill them and earn points and level up. The race of elves are Helpers. Then there are the Neutral Ones who assist the players on occasions, but would also work with the Eviluns. They are not included in the town square monument.”
Sam kept on leading ahead. We had come a good distance from the bridge. Finally we reached a spot where Sam stopped and stretched himself. Not far away a hill began.
“Are we going to climb that?” I asked.
“Why not?” Sam replied as he marched towards the hill, kicking small plants aside that grew along the way. I followed him.
Though initially I thought climbing the hill would be a futile exertion, after a while I began to enjoy it. We had ascended perhaps a quarter of a mile when my brother pointed at the base of another hill.
“Right there,” Sam said. “You see that boulder?”
I peered hard and saw what would be a big mass from close up.
“What about it?”
Sam smiled as though the boulder was the greatest achievement of his life.
“What that boulder hides is the reason why you are here,” Sam explained.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Sam began to recount his experience, a drunk smile at the edge of his lips.
“Some time ago, I was on this hill with a hunting group and we were just exploring the place, hoping for some quick kill and cheap loot. For a moment I stared at that boulder. It was a little bit to the side at that time. I thought I saw a small fissure next to it. And then, just five seconds later the fissure disappeared, making me doubt my eyes.
“I forgot all about it in the next few days. But I was here a second time a few days after the first incident. Once again I was staring in the same direction. And guess what? That fissure appeared again, even though just moments ago it hadn’t been there. But before I could point it to my friends, the fissure was gone in seconds. That night I could think of nothing else. The fissure would just not leave my mind. There was a little voice inside me saying that what I had seen was important.
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“So the next day, I visited the boulder, alone. I waited there for hours but the fissure didn’t appear and finally when I was on the verge of giving up and returning, the fissure came into existence. It was a crack in the hill that led a considerable distance inside. But before I could take action, within five seconds the fissure vanished. I thought I had seen some kind of a glow deep inside in the darkness and I promised myself that the next day I would enter the fissure in the five seconds that it was open and explore it. I was seized by curiosity. I couldn't help it.
“The following day I went again to the spot at around the same time in the afternoon and waited there. The moment the fissure appeared, I jumped in. Mere seconds later, the fissure closed behind me. I should have been very afraid, but I was not. Filled with a strong sense of exploration, not the least bit of fear touched me even though I was certain that it would be a full twenty four hours before the fissure reopened.
“My eyes caught a dim light deep inside. I followed this light to its source. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the source was an old man's glowing body. Every cell in his wrinkled body seemed to be emanating white light. The man was lost in meditation. A sage. His unkempt long gray hair flowed down to his shoulder. His skin color was a peaceful blue. I didn’t know if he was an NPC or a player. I have a spell called sight that I can use to get details of others, but when I focused my sight on him, zilch, no info at all.
“I tapped the sage on the shoulder—or attempted to anyway. My hand went right through him! What was he exactly? I was spooked but I tried to wake him up from his meditation by speaking to him, but it was like talking to a statue. There was nothing for me to do. I fell to my knees and realized I had made a stupid decision entering the fissure. The fissure was just another bug. Some codes gone wrong. Was the sage the by-product of a bug too? A partially created NPC?
“My stay stretched for an hour and my impatience abounded. I considered logging out and wondered aloud, ‘Should I just go home?’ and guess what? The sage spoke! ‘If you wish,’ he said in an ancient reverberating voice. A portal appeared in the air and through it I could see my room— the one in the real world! I could not make any head or tail of what was happening. The sage still had his eyes peacefully closed, but he spoke again. ‘You can go home if you want.’
“I stepped through the portal and found myself in the real world. There I discovered that my body was still in the pod! It was at this point that I realized that my consciousness had somehow acquired a material form which was the reason I was able to exist outside of my body. It was a mind blogging experience. The portal was slowly closing. I made a quick decision and flung myself back to the abode of the sage through it.
“ ‘This makes no sense,’ I said.
“ ‘What?’ the sage asked.
“ ‘How was I able to go to the real world through that portal?’ I said. ‘I am in a game world. I need to log out if I want to return to the real world.’
“ ‘There are no game worlds or real worlds,’ the sage said. ‘There are just different realities. I was able to connect this reality with the other reality in which your body is. It is as simple as that.’
“ ‘What exactly are you?’ I asked the old man. ‘Are you a player? Or are you an NPC?’
“ ‘Hmmm,’ the sage said, ‘I am not a player and I am also not an NPC. I am not of this game world and I am also not of the real world that you have come from. I am a free living entity, dwelling in this game world for some time. I have been around for a long time. I am older than memory. I can pierce and connect fabrics of different realities. I was there when Man first learned to talk, and it was I who assisted the beak people from Tisridunia to come to your real world and construct the pyramids. Without me Alexander's empire would have been much smaller, and there would have been no Great Wall in China. I walked on the moon centuries before Armstrong; I have seen the little beings living in the underwater oceans of Saturn's moon, Encledus, and I am much welcome in the many secretive civilizations of the Andromeda galaxy.’ For a while I kept looking at the peaceful old man, my ears refusing to believe his impossible words.
“I would have been glad to accept that he was lying if not for the astounding experience I had just had minutes before. Maybe he was some supernatural entity? Maybe the big claims he was making weren't false? I was spooked and caught by awe at the same time.
“ ‘Now I do not think that you want to return home with my help?’ the old man asked me.
“ ‘No,’ I replied. I had no wish for my consciousness and my body to have separate existences in the real world.
“ ‘In that case, allow me to return to my meditation.’
“The ancient man stopped speaking. His eyes already closed. The shine of gold dust on the ground caught my eyes. Where did it come from? I was positive it hadn’t been there before the sage had created the portal. The luster of the gold made me pick it up in my hands. But then I recalled that this was only game world gold. It could be converted into real world money but the process was long and tedious, not worth it. Besides it was just a handful. I could make much more just selling tips to new players.
“I threw the gold dust away, the image of my real world room still stuck in my mind. I recoiled as the gold burst into flames mid air and formed a portal leading to my room. After a few minutes the portal disappeared and gold dust fell back to the ground. I picked up the gold again, realizing that I would have the powers of the old man if I used it. I could just think of a place while throwing the shiny dust and a portal would form leading there.
“ ‘Can I keep this?’ I asked. No response from the meditating man. I decided to experiment with the gold, to see if it was possible for me to create an intra game world portal to transport me outside the fissure. But that experiment failed and I surmised that the gold was only meant for transportation to different realities.
“I filled a pouch with the gold dust knowing that I would get plenty of opportunities to use it in the future. I logged out for that day but the morrow I was back online at the fissure reopening time. I couldn’t just leave my avatar with the sage forever.
“I had a temporary spell which allowed me to lift heavy objects easily. I was able to move the boulder over the spot the fissure appeared, to prevent anyone else from discovering it. The gold remained with me for the next few days. I didn’t use it much. I even forgot about it for some time. Then yesterday night I had this dream of you soiling your pants when we were kids—”(I rolled my eyes at Sam’s words) “— so I decided today morning that I would try out the experiment of visiting you and it apparently worked.”
“So that’s it?” I said, once my brother had finished his narrative. Sam nodded earnestly.
I thought about what he had said.
“So the gold allows direct movement between the real world and Dharti?”
“Apparently,” my brother replied.
“You are not making this story up, are you? I mean an old man from the time of the pyramids, talking about his connections with sentient extraterrestrials in the Andromeda galaxy!” The sage could have as well declared that he was God.
Sam grimaced.
“Well, you are in Dharti because of his gold dust.”
That was a valid point. It was still hard to comprehend. I could feel the hair on my body stand up thinking of an ancient supernatural being capable of playing with different realities.
A scary scenario came to my mind.
“What if these so called Eviluns are able to go to the real world through such a portal?” I asked, and even as I put forward the question, I realized it was indeed a very concerning one. I imagined all sorts of monsters creating havoc in the real world like some science fiction movie. A chill ran down my spine.
“That’s the reason why I put the boulder on that fissure,” Sam said, “it’s very unlikely that the fissure would be discovered. The boulder covers it and even if someone removed the boulder, they would have to wait for an entire day for that five seconds when the fissure opens— hey, look they are fighting a monster!”