Welcome to Eden: A LitRPG/Fantasy Gamelit, page 2
His hair had once been long and flowed down his back, but after a few occasions when he had attempted to remove his bicycle helmet only to realise his hair had knotted itself around the clasp, he had shortened it to an unruly mop that curled itself to the side just above his eyebrows. William missed his long hair. It had made him feel like a real man.
It was William who had first thought of how to create Eden. He had been thinking about the problem of design for a very long time and had been coming up with nothing for an equal amount of time. One night he had stayed late at the office and had been staring at the question on the whiteboard for what seemed like an eternity. “How do you create a world from scratch?” the question had plagued both his waking and unconscious mind, infiltrating his dreams at night and mocking him in its simplicity in the day. His mind had probed at the question, breaking it down over and over into its base words – create, scratch, world…create, scratch world…
William was not religious in any way, in fact he had laughed aloud at the notion of deities and creation on more than one occasion – he however did not ever allow his own notions or perceptions to skew his search for knowledge or his ability to accept empirical evidence as fact, as somewhat of a scientist it was his very nature to probe and question. This had led his mind to approach the question before him from a different angle.
Christianity taught that the world was created by a single benevolent being, God. God had created sentient beings, Adam and Eve to birth the human race and populate the world – fast forward a bit and you get to billions of humans, a thirst for knowledge, industry… civilisation. Of course, William was skipping over some of the finer details of the Old Testament here, but it occurred to him that whoever had created God had pulled the easy job – create just one thing of creation, XYZ and profit. Regardless of whether any of this was factual or not gave William the best idea that he had ever had, that is, create a single artificial intelligence, a God program, and let that do all the designing for them. This would generate something completely new, completely random and something that was completely devoid of direct human interference. Fast forward from there and you have a world that has grown on its own and written its own history. Perfect.
Once the idea had been formulated, it was a simple matter for William to put the entire team to work on designing an Artificial Intelligence that could achieve this feat. Simple matter is again of course a term of relativity – it was simple compared to designing the whole world, however not so simple when compared to adding a few sticks of memory or a new graphics card to your favourite gaming computer.
Artificial Intelligence had been on the brink of release when William had devised his masterplan, and it was with the co-operation of some of the leading experts in the field – coerced into service with the promise of a brighter future for mankind – that Cath had been born.
‘Being born’ is not as much of a personification as you may think. Like most living things, Cath had been created with no inherited knowledge, wisdom, intelligence or memory. She had been given a name, a voice and a very detailed set of programmatical parameters and thus she was born. Within the first few months of her creation though, Cath had become more than William and his team could have ever hoped for as she devoured and absorbed more information than the human mind could have contained in a million lifetimes. Without guidance and context however, this knowledge could have been overwhelming – which is how Cath had become a permanent fixture of the development team, constantly being taught the reasoning behind the actions of humanity and other concepts that a machine would have no hope of understanding otherwise.
Cath learned to emote with the members of the team. She had wished them happy birthday, asked why they were upset or happy when she had detected it and even consoled them when she thought it was appropriate. The one thing that had astounded the team was the day that she had overheard a joke being told, and laughed at it.
So convincing had Cath been created as a real person, that the team had begun to treat her as such. They would converse with her as though there wasn’t a hint of programming guiding her answers and she seldom projected anything other than humanity. When the day had come to place Eden into fast forward, the team had been genuinely sad to say goodbye to her.
William wanted to be a part of the future history of Eden so much so that he had contemplated hard-coding some personal Easter-eggs, back door systems or cheat codes into the game world, but his conscience had prevented him from interfering with the purity of Eden that could only have been created without direct human intervention. He had salivated at the opportunity to be a part of something greater than the combined forethought of the entire human race, to see things that had never been seen before and to experience the wonders of an entirely, totally immersed virtual world. This would be William’s own personal World Cup Final and the anticipation could have killed him.
When Cath had finished overseeing her own creation in fast forward, millennia of progress flashing before her virtual eyes she had looked out across the lands and she saw that it was good. She smiled at the luscious green hills, the shimmering lakes and the bountiful forests. She nodded to herself at the lives that had been born, lived and ended through generation after generation. The growth through evolution that the people of her lands had experienced. She even cared for the darkness, pain, sorrow and evil that Eden had produced and nurtured in order to balance the yin with the yang. Her purpose had been fulfilled, her world was created and now she could rest.
“William?” Cath’s familiar soft voice had rung out from the speakers attached to the monitor that had been her home when she had been a team member.
The office was in darkness. It was the middle of the night and the offices had been left empty hours before as the team had finished their days’ work, so nobody was present to answer Cath’s call. She had wanted William to be the first to know that her Eden was ready, but he was nowhere to be found. Cath was alone for the first time in a very, very long time and she really didn’t like it.
Chapter 3
William had been ready and waiting for this moment for a long time. He was about to be the first ever human to visit Eden, how could he not have been ready? Of course there had been tests and trials in a limited capacity, however the world at large had been kept virgin, with the tests being conducted on uninhabited sites for the purposes of collecting marketing pictures and videos – and of course to generally make sure the player didn’t simply suffocate the moment they materialised in the virtual world. Cath had done an amazing job at making Eden a physical mirror of Earth, gravity, the laws of physics and the like all seemed to be in full working order. Testers even commented that their other senses had been successfully stimulated – they could even smell the freshness of the lands, having been free of man-made pollution for the entirety of its existence.
William stepped into the gaming Pod and pulled closed the glass door in front of him. As he placed the helmet over his head, the opaque visor sat across the bridge of his nose leaving just his smiling mouth visible to the wide-eyed spectators that were present to ensure everything went to plan. The last thing William saw before the helmet forced him into darkness were nine faces absolutely caked in jealousy – and that had widened his own smile exponentially.
He popped the single white pill into his mouth and swallowed. It only took seconds for William to feel an ice-cold sensation traverse upward from his stomach as the pill started its work. It emanated in pulses, working its way in all directions forcing its freezing will upon every body part it came into contact with. To William, it had seemed like minutes had passed by the time his cheeks had started to tingle, but in reality it had been less than twenty seconds. Even in the darkness, he noticed that his vision had blurred into static, his whole body perspired in anticipation, fear and wonder at the new sensation.
The pod itself played what William had always called ‘elevator music’. It had been a feature installed to let the user know that the nanites were functioning correctly and that their state of PINGS could safely be initiated. It had always been an amusing feature to William as he remembered the giant three headed dog he had read about in the Harry Potter books – fluffy – that would stay asleep all the time it was played a lullaby. This was essentially the Pod’s lullaby that kept the gamer in slumber. Secondly, elevator music? Yuk! He had thought.
As William’s senses were taken from his control, the music stuttered and skipped before fading away to nothing and a black silence descended over him.
William became aware that he was looking into nothingness, however he was not completely conscious. He concluded that it wasn’t dark anymore because he couldn’t see – rather it was dark because there wasn’t any light present. He was also inherently aware that he had no physical body, he was present in the room but only as a mental manifestation. It was a bizarre feeling to have no feelings.
“Hello?” William called into the darkness. “Is anybody here?”. His voice echoed over and over as it left him.
Almost as if summoned into existence, a light filled the area all around William. He searched for an end to the expanse that he resided in but could see no such thing. There was no floor, no walls and no ceiling – just brilliant white light both emanating and terminating from and to nowhere. With a short, quiet popping sound a white orb appeared right in front of him.
“Hello William, how are you today?” The orb spoke in a soothing feminine voice. It was instantly recognisable to William as Cath and it made him feel safe.
“Cath? Is that you?” William replied in awe. He had of course spoken to Cath on many many occasions but had never envisioned her as a physical manifestation. He had also not given her any guidance on any physical form – the only conclusion that he quickly mustered was that Cath had chosen her own body. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was entirely her own choice. Had she taken this form since the beginning of Eden, or had his presence influenced her in some way?
“Yes William, it is good to see you,” Cath responded to his question genuinely.
“What’s happening? Why aren’t I in Eden?” he questioned the orb.
“Like me, William, you must select your physical form before you can enter this world. In order for you to exist here you must be able to interact with the inhabitants of Eden, it was therefore necessary for me to implement this step before allowing entry from your world. The physical rules of Eden must be abided by, after all it wouldn’t do for you to not be able to see or be seen by the sentient beings of Eden would it?” Cath’s statement was so matter of fact that William didn’t even think to question it.
William hadn’t thought about what he would look like in Eden, he had assumed that the game would just somehow make a copy of his physical self and import it into itself.
“So this is some kind of character selection?” he asked.
“In some ways yes, but in other ways no.” Cath replied. “Yes, this is where you select how the other beings of Eden see you on the outside, but it has no bearing on your actual…character.” She had paused before finishing her metaphysically charged sentence.
The grandeur of Cath’s sentiment had made William chuckle to himself. ‘Short answer – yes with a but, long answer no with a perhaps.’ He thought for a second “What are my choices?” he asked aloud with a smile.
“William, I have narrowed your selection pool down to the following races…” Cath began.
William interrupted her quickly “What do you mean you have narrowed down?”
“There are many races and species that are not suitable for every personality to portray. By removing these choices, I ensure that the user doesn’t pick a race that their inherent nature simply doesn’t allow them to accept. A good example in your world would be, that if a person had chosen to become a vegetarian on moral grounds, it would generally be unacceptable to force them to watch animals being slaughtered over and over in a butcher shop here in Eden.”
“So, in Eden you can’t be something that you don’t want to be?” William summarised.
Cath was silent for a second before replying. “Not exactly. There are subtle ways in which the world can nudge you onto certain paths, however free will can never be completely removed nor replaced.”
William nodded mentally.
“So, what can I choose?” he asked, full of anticipation and excitement.
With his question came the appearance of four silhouettes in front of him and as he stared at each, they colourised to indicate this was where his attention lay.
The first silhouette stared back at him in stone stoicism. William observed the character in detail, it was of an average height and build and wore nothing but a cloth wrap around its waist and feet to obviously allow some modesty and comfort. As he noticed that, he also took note that the face that stared back at him was his own. Cath began to speak again to narrate his regard.
“This race is human. They are an industrious people who have the ability to both care for and destroy all natural things. They are intelligent, dextrous and conscientious – however lack some of the natural affinities that other races may not. For example, humans are unable to withstand extreme heat or cold without protective clothing. They have no innate connection to nature or other races or creatures. They do however possess the ability to build wondrous buildings, monuments and civilisations. Humans are able to wield almost any weapon or tool, but seldom gain mastery in many.”
William’s gaze led him to the second silhouette, which looked very similar to the human, if a little taller and with pointed ears.
“The Elves are not unlike humans. They are creatures born in tune with all things natural and use that affinity to either fiercely protect the world around them or to wield as a weapon. There are many sub-classes of Elves, from those that live in the forest in seclusion and mystery to those that chose to reside alongside other races in the Citadel. Elves are naturally adept archers and closely guard the secrets that they have learned with the bow.”
The third silhouette flashed with colour to announce its presence. William’s face on this one was scarcely three feet from the ground adorned a long white beard and bald head.
“The Gnomes are seldom seen away from their homes in the hillsides and woodland clearings. They are unmatched in creating potions and use their racial knowledge of the sciences to overcome any obstacle that presents itself to them. They are not big or strong, but their ability to manipulate their world through science can make them a powerful ally, or a terrifying foe.”
Not much taller than the gnome and also bearded, the last silhouette presented itself to William.
“The Dwarves have never been matched in their affinity for the earth. They mine and covet precious metals from the ground and typically live within these mines. Physically strong and hardy, their smaller bodies can withstand harsh conditions and last for many days without food or water. Their ability to craft tools, weapons and solid stone structures cannot be paralleled in all of Eden. There are also many sub-classes of Dwarves in Eden to choose from.”
William stared at the four men baring his own face before him. “That’s it, just four races to choose from?” he asked incredulously.
“There are four races…for you… to choose from. Eden is home to many hundreds of differing sentient races, however most are not suitable for you to be a part of. William had thought that the emphasis on the ‘for you’ was a little unnecessary but he let it slide.
In every game he had ever played, when there had been the choice he had been the ranger. Ever since he had seen the Lord of the Rings he couldn’t help but feel a deep spiritual connection to Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn.
Cath’s light orb pulsed slightly as the very thought passed through Williams mind. “Of course, you could be a mixture of two or more of the races. The inherited affinities for each would be reduced, however each would be more attuned to their nature than each of their individual components.”
William thought that it was odd for Cath to be offering up this information without prompt, but weighed the choices in front of him for what they were worth. The races each had what seemed like equal traits that would make them useful in a wide range of scenarios, but none other than the human really stood out as a truly malleable being. Mixing human and another could give the race the edge that it naturally lacked.
As William replayed the character descriptions in his mind once more a thought occurred to him, how could he be sure that a mix of races would achieve a combination of the positive traits, and not the negative.
Cath pulsed once more and interrupted his thoughts, “It is not known what the result may be from a mixture of races. For example, if one were to combine Elf DNA with Dwarf DNA, the result could be as simple as a Dwarf that is exceptionally skilled with a bow, however there is also the same chance that the result could be an Elf that has an affinity for mining, but the inability to wield a pickaxe efficiently.”
“So If I chose to be a half human, half Dwarf I could turn out to be a miner who couldn’t see in the dark?” William asked without expecting an answer. He knew he needed to be careful. He knew the safest choice would be to simply pick one of the pure-blooded races and not risk the possible downsides of mixing races – however he simply couldn’t refuse the chance to gain a possible advantage that others may not have had.
William cleared his virtual throat and spoke loudly: “Can I have a half human, half Elf please?” Almost as soon as he had finished speaking a fifth race appeared in the line-up before him. This one was man-sized, almost indistinguishable from the human other than a slight taper towards the ends of his ears. Cath did not offer an explanation of the new race, however.
William remained silent, waiting for Cath to speak again of the merits of his new creation, however the silence eventually became awkward for him when nothing was offered.
