The Omen, page 19
part #5 of Eden's Gate Series
“I did… And yeah, there is one thing I wanted to summon you about. It seems like it could be game-breaking for Reborns.”
“Game-breaking?” Dr. Winston navigated to the bed, sat down, and gave me his full attention.
“So, a group of weird NPC fanatics unearthed a runestone and forced me to close my eyes and touch it. Thing is, I didn’t will myself to bind to the stone, but I ended up binding anyway.”
“Ahh,” Dr. Winston said. “How long did you touch it?”
“I don’t know, several seconds. But I distinctly didn’t want to bind!”
“Were you thinking about binding? Did you pray?” he asked. “Were you wondering why they were trying to get you to bind to a runestone?”
“Pray? Hell, no. I guess I was thinking about why they wanted me to bind or whatever, but I didn’t try to bind.”
Dr. Winston nodded. “Seems to be working as expected.”
“Forcing me to bind when I don’t want to bind is working as expected!?”
“Forcing you to pray is working as expected.”
I squinted my eyes and shook my head. “What…?”
“When I was debugging the world, this particular instance came up, actually. Your mind is essentially in the game, but the game is always listening to your will. If you think of your character sheet appearing, your character sheet appears. If you will certain magic spells, they are cast. And there is a thin line between ‘will’ and thoughts.
“If you placed your hand on the runestone during a stressful situation and continuously thought about binding, it’s quite possible for you to misfire a ’bind runestone‘ thought and bind there.”
“And you can’t fix that? In your perfect world?”
Dr. Winston chuckled. “I could fix it, but I don’t want to fix it. Those sorts of things are part of what makes a perfect world—what keeps the world in balance.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Dr. Winston smirked. “Do you realize how powerful you are?”
I raised an eyebrow. The only time I had felt powerful was when I was high on kroka in the Sands. If I compared myself with some of the others I met—the Queen Faranni, the army generals, Dryden Bloodletter, Meijir—I felt pretty weak. “I’m only level 22.”
He sighed. “Reborns have a tremendous advantage over NPCs in that they can’t die, so they need some counter-weakness to prevent them from being unstoppable machines and giving little meaning to NPCs. While it’s difficult, there is a chance that you could be forced to do something against your will, such as praying—binding as you call it—or accepting a quest that you don’t want. Either would be extremely difficult to do, so I’m surprised that you’ve had it happen to you already. Why not run away or fight your way out of the situation?”
“I was surrounded by a large group who had already taken down people who were clearly stronger than me. It was either bind to the runestone or die.”
Dr. Winston grinned. “That’s exactly the type of danger that I want to see. It’s working as intended.”
I twisted my lips. “I’m not sure how I feel about that. What’s preventing someone from binding me and holding me prisoner?”
Rupert creased his brow and rattled his head. “Nothing, of course. You could just as well take an NPC prisoner, couldn’t you?”
“Yeah, but as a Reborn, I could be imprisoned for eternity! That’s not cool.”
“Eternity?” Dr. Winston chuckled.
“And what if someone forced me to bind to a runestone, then killed me over and over again. Spawn camping a Reborn could be a serious issue! Have you died in the game yet? It would be torture.”
Dr. Winston rolled his eyes. “You’re going to force me to give up secrets that I want players to learn on their own, but in this case, I suppose I’ll make an exception.” He placed a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Remember when you were stuck in that prison in the Sands and were so desperately trying to get out?”
I nodded. “How can I forget?”
“Well, how did you get out?” he asked.
“I ended up binding to the runestone, which caused the bars to open.”
“Which left you bound far away from home, right? A trap.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“You didn’t try any other means of getting out?”
“Ugh… I tried breaking the bars and yelling for help, and then I actually tried slitting my wrist, but I couldn’t.”
Dr. Winston grinned. “Exactly what I was hoping to hear.”
“That I tried to kill myself?”
“That it didn’t work.”
“What do you mean?”
The doctor straightened his shoulders and started motioning with his hands as he spoke. “One of the biggest problems with games back on Earth is the lack of consequences. The person behind the screen never felt fear when playing the game, so they rarely had to carefully consider the actions they took. They were like gods who could always press the reset button. In the worst cases, players would kill themselves over and over to advance in the game. In multiplayer games, players would purposely act disruptive to the game, because—why not? Death meant nothing.
“In some of the worst cases, players would throw themselves at monsters, quickly die, only to respawn again with the monster retaining all the damage it previously took. Players could die again and again until the monster was unfairly slayed. Players could get themselves in a sticky circumstance, and instead of using their minds to get themselves out of the situation, they’d simply throw themselves off a cliff to return to their last saved location.”
I was quite familiar with what he was talking about. The majority of games I had played had similar systems with little consequence.
“The players didn’t care about their characters. They didn’t care about death. In fact, death was often a method for them to proceed. And… maybe that’s just fine for a game, but it’s not for a world where people are living their lives.” He took a deep breath. “In Eden’s Gate, after a Reborn dies just once, they realize how painful and real death is. It’s inherently embedded into their mind that death should be avoided whenever possible, which causes them to make more realistic decisions.” He lifted his finger and pointed towards my dagger. “Go ahead and try to kill yourself now.”
“What? Why?”
“Just see if you can do it. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re resurrected as soon as you die. In fact, if you can kill yourself, I’ll give you… I dunno. A large sum of gold or something—enough to put you ahead of the other Reborns in the game.”
“Really? That’s not really fair.”
He let out a frustrated huff. “Just try… You can tell me whatever you need after you do it, and I’ll help you get ahead.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about getting an unfair advantage, but a little bit of extra gold would help with the village, and being able to buy new gear, new spells and such would help me level up faster.
I shrugged and grabbed my dagger, but as soon as I thought about what I was going to do, I started getting an uneasy feeling throughout my body. The pain of death was no joke, and I didn’t want to suffer it again. I remembered the suffocating, intense pain that I suffered outside Old Nambunga’s cave, the sound of my heart stopping, and more recently, the full body pain when I got my head bashed in during my escape from the Bloodletters’ keep.
Still, a suicide seemed worthy of a ‘enough gold to put me ahead of other Reborns’.
I grabbed my dagger and placed it against my wrist, and everything in my body was telling me not to cut. It was a similar fight-or-flight sensation that I’d expect to get if I were trying to kill myself back on Earth. I pressed harder, and harder, eventually breaking the skin. The harder I pushed, the more my body screamed, ’Stop!’ and the harder it was for me to cut deeper.
“Just jam the dagger in your throat. It’s easier,” Dr. Winston said. “Quick and fast.”
I swallowed. “My throat?”
“Try! You’re immortal, remember?”
“Okay.” I nodded and held the dagger out a foot or so away from my throat. Again, I got overwhelming sensations to stop what I was about to do. I concentrated hard, trying to avoid the voices telling me no. I took a deep breath, ignored my feelings, and slammed the dagger into my throat.
The cut didn’t go as deep as planned, and I didn’t hit myself as hard as I had expected, but the wound was deep enough that blood began dripping. I jerked the dagger out, and my health bar immediately started draining. Pain seared through my body.
You are bleeding and require medical attention. Bleeding is a damage-over-time effect.
I groaned and grabbed at the wound and watched as my health started to diminish.
“Now just wait,” Dr. Winston said. “Or you can hit yourself again.”
I shook my head and looked down, having little will to stab myself again.
Dr. Winston reached into his pocket and sat a bandage on the bed
The pain grew more intense as my health drained, and my heart started quickening as pain consumed my body. I knew I was going to die, and I didn’t want that feeling at all. More than anything, I wanted to live and not suffer another terrible sensation of death. I grunted again as the pain continued to worsen, then said, “No… I…” I reached across the bed, snatched the bandage, then quickly started tying it around my neck. “I can’t…”
Dr. Winston chuckled. “Killing yourself is difficult, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
He smiled. “If Reborns didn’t fear death, the world would be just like those chaotic games where players put themselves in the most unreasonable circumstances without a second thought—where they kill themselves just because they can. In Eden’s Gate, Reborns are programmed to fear the pain of death just the same as they would fear dying back on Earth. If a Reborn is in a situation where you have an alternative option to death, there’s very few circumstances where death would be the chosen option. That fear is something that keeps Reborns behaving realistically. A world cannot function properly when its inhabitants only fear is losing a few pieces of metal or gold.”
“It’s a little extreme…” I said as I finally managed to stop the bleeding on my neck, and I was a little annoyed at the realization that I had no chance of getting any reward. He knew beforehand that I wouldn’t be able to kill myself.
“Your feet will stop you if you attempt to jump off a cliff, knowing there’s no chance of survival. If you know for certain that an encounter with an enemy will lead to your death, you’ll spare yourself the pain.”
“So we don’t have a choice?”
Dr. Winston shook his head and raised his palm. “No, no. You always have a choice, but you simply won’t choose death. If you think there’s even a 0.1% possibility of survival during a dangerous encounter, you can choose to proceed, or if you simply don’t know what will happen, you can always take that chance. Only when you physically know that you’re committing suicide will you refrain from action, just the same as any sane person would on Earth.”
That would explain how I jumped off the cliff in Nestle Rock… I thought. Just knowing that I had a chance of survival allowed me to make the risky choice.
“There are exceptions though. A Reborn with an incredibly high willpower might be able to will himself through a suicide attempt—something an average Reborn would be incapable of. Also, if you’re put in emotional distress that’s greater than the pain of death, your body will no longer respond to your fear. You might will yourself into death’s way to save a loved one—if you love them enough—for example. Or had you been in the prison in the Sands for a few weeks, I’m sure you’d be exhausted, hungry, and in enough distress that your body would’ve allowed you to accept the pain of death just to get out of the situation. So that might further answer your question about Reborns being taken prisoner—it is very possible. But I don’t want Reborns to live an eternity of misery, of course. If the distress of being a prisoner ever becomes too much to endure, any Reborn will find the will to commit suicide.”
I shook my head. “Pain, death, suicide… It’s all morbid.”
“There can be no pleasure without—“
“Without pain,” I interrupted, bobbing my head. “Aaron already gave me the spiel.”
He huffed. “I suppose you would’ve preferred that I simply disable pain, right? And the only consequence of a death should be sad music and a screen that says, ‘Try Again’? I suppose I should’ve disabled player-versus-player and created a swear filter that prevents Reborns from hearing naughty words. Or maybe loot shouldn’t drop when you—“
“Hey, I get it…” I raised my hand as I interrupted. “It wouldn’t be realistic, and it wouldn’t be fun. But what if I’m taken prisoner and forced to bind there? Wouldn’t I just respawn in the same place even if I die? What if I’m killed, and someone is standing at my runestone waiting to kill me again? It just seems highly exploitable.”
Dr. Winston shook his head. “Not possible… Well… it’s possible, but it’s not something that you’ll have to worry about. If the game detects more than two deaths at the same runestone in a short period of time, you’ll become ‘unstuck’ and respawn at another runestone nearby. I implemented this feature specifically for players who enter an area that’s above their ability or who find themselves bound in a non-survivable location. There’s nothing stopping a group of monsters from setting up camp near a runestone, so if someone found themselves outmatched by the monsters—or nasty players for that matter—who are suddenly camped near their bind location, repeated deaths will trigger an ‘unstuck’, and that player will spawn at another stone.”
“You thought of everything, didn’t you?” I asked.
Dr. Winston shrugged. “I tried, but I’m sure I haven’t. That’s why I hope you and Aaron will let me know if anything goes wrong. In fact, there’s a bug I’m working on now, but it’s proving difficult for me to fix from inside the game.”
“What bug?”
“It seems a player may have been able to enter Eden’s Gate without transferring their consciousness fully inside. Sort of half-in, half-out. When they died, their consciousness in the game became corrupt, and whatever was left outside was disconnected.”
“Disconnected?”
“The communication stopped. It was registered as a full death in-game, and who knows what happened to their body back on Earth.”
“Can it happen again?” I paused a moment and wondered what had happened to my body back on Earth. If Rachel found me, I was surely in the ground already, but if not, it was a nice little going-away present for my landlord to clean up.
“Hopefully, not,” Dr. Winston said. “It’s happened only once and it was the player’s first day and first death. No other players have experienced a full death yet. I’m still trying to isolate the issue, regardless.”
“Good luck,” I said.
“Yeah…” Dr. Winston took a deep breath and stood up. “I suppose I should get going then. I’ll check in with Aaron and see if he has any feedback on the patch.”
“Any more patches coming up?”
“Only if necessary and few and far between.” Dr. Winston smiled. “One day you might reach level 100… or maybe even higher. We’ll have to make sure the game remains balanced. After all, you have an eternity in Eden’s Gate.”
I grinned at the idea. Sometimes the thought that I was going to live forever was lost on me. Even if there was pain and terrible death experiences in Eden’s Gate, I was damn lucky to be there.
As Dr. Winston put his hand on the door, he turned his head around. “Oh, by the way. You said that a bunch of NPCs forced you to bind to a runestone?” He rattled his head. “Why’d they do that?”
I raised my brow high and groaned. “They set me up to kill me in front of an arena full of people—wanted to expose me as being a Reborn in front of everyone.”
Dr. Winston’s eyes lowered as he homed in on me. “Did they?”
“Yeah, the guy had this eye thing, and then a fucking dragon showed up and scared the shit out of everyone.”
The doctor raised his chin slightly and whispered low, “It’s the Omen…” He shook his head lightly. “So soon…”
“What?” I asked. “You know something about all that?”
His eyelids shot up and he smiled. “I built this world, Gunnar. I know many of its secrets, but I don’t know them all… In fact, I love seeing how the world plays out and how the NPCs respond to Reborns.”
“Well what do you know then?”
He smirked. “I gave you a lot of free information today. You need to figure out things on your own, just like everyone else. It’s only fair.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Fair.”
Dr. Winston chuckled and raised his chin high. “How about this?”
I tilted my head in question.
“There can be no pleasure without pain, there can be no life without death, and there can be no order without chaos.”
“Ugh…” I groaned. “So, you’re some sort of soothsayer now? You’re starting to sound like the guy who forced me to bind to the runestone.”
He slumped his shoulders. “Oh, let me enjoy myself. I may not be a god in this game, but sometimes it’s kind of fun to play the mysterious robed... um…”
“Evil mastermind?”
“I’m not evil!”
“Some would disagree.”
Dr. Winston shook his head, huffed, and opened the door. “Have fun, Gunnar. I have some evil mastermind activities to take care of. Maybe I’ll nerf—” He scanned me up and down. “What do you use? Swords and fire magic? Arcane? Maybe I’ll nerf all of those. That should help balance things out.”
“Hey…” I whined.
Dr. Winston grinned, winked, and closed the door.
