First three chapters of the Admin book (Patreon)

Chapter 1

So, I died. I know, I’m shocked as well… heh.

Okay, by the tenth time I repeated the joke, it had lost much of its luster. By the hundredth, such a thing stopped giving me a sardonic grin and a nervous chuckle, and I was even able to figure out exactly what was happening…

I was really dead.

But, rather than the void I was expecting, or even some kind of celestial judgment, it was like I was stuck in purgatory or even limbo. Not dead and yet not alive either, I was conscious, but there was nothing in my surroundings but a whitish endless nothingness.

I never expected the afterlife to be so… monotone.

I suppose I didn't have much time to think about what happens after death to know better? It’s not that I was religious either, but neither am I a rabid atheist. I never thought about it before, and never before wondered philosophically about ‘what's it like?’. Not because I was against it, I simply didn't have the time. Just work, home, work… I had spent my life like I was running around in a wheel like a hamster.

And then I died.

Or not quite, I guess, seeing that I’m very much still aware of my surroundings, but I was sure that I was dead. My last memory, before waking up here in this void that is, was a glance in the car's rearview mirror, then a sharp squeal of brakes and a jolt that seemed to knock me out of my body.

I guess in a way it did, that one bump really did knock me out of my body – ha!

Well after that… There were no tunnels with a light at the end, no stairs to the sky, not even angels or demons to welcome to the afterlife – I really didn't felt myself dying…

But like all isekai stories, after the meeting with Truck-kun, the encounter with an unknowable entity of immeasurably greater power came later. Like, right now.

“Are you ok?” My gaze, which was just floating around in the white nothing, was now focused on the figure of a man also floating in that whitish nothingness – a man very familiar to me. He was bearing bad news, however, the reason why I was just ignoring him for the past five minutes.

“Almost," I waved my hand in the air. "It's not every day you get news that you were literally smashed into mush in an accident.”

“Believe me, it’s not something I do very often either, least of all to the person it happened to." My companion grinned grimly.

Well, I might not have entered the afterlife, technically speaking at least, but here I am getting an offer from a ROB… Well, he’s definitely Specific, and only technically Omnipotent, but he’s definitely a Bastard.

“All right, I’ll bite, it’s not like there’s anything else I can do." I sighed, "Well? Do tell me, what am I getting myself into?”

***

The humans of the twenty-second century were… Well, they were almost the exact same as the previous ones. They were still slowly evolving, struggling for resources, and busy inventing ways to diversify their life… Mostly by making expensive distractions to how shitty their life usually is.

New brands of cars, new kinds of food, new computer games – whatever a single soul can desire and whatever the consumer has enough money for.

Finally, recently, came the ultimate diversion – Full immersion games. Well, only the rich can afford the newfangled capsule necessary for its full capability, the rest having to use a neural network. It was hard to find someone who hadn't tried them at least once. More and more were created in the last two decades – but the high cost of entry prevented it from truly entering the mass market. But they still made a lot of money, as it was not an easy market to get into.

I wasn't a programmer, so I didn't really know exactly what made these games so complicated – I can only assume that the problem was the nervous system's reaction to external stimuli? Never mind, I was just a sales manager – my introduction to such games was only on the player's side, not the developer’s, there’s no way I can understand something like coding.

Anyway, despite the fact that this niche promised good profits and had existed for a long time – no major player wanted to get into it. Whether it was because of the specifics of work, its needs for huge labor-intensive and expensive development or something else, a total of two games every few years were the totality of its release. And even then, the promise of infinite possibilities of full-immersive gaming remains out of reach.

One or two decent games a year – that's all the enthusiast could count on, their dream to run across the fields of another fantasy setting, to shoot a dragon with a huge ballista, mere fantasy. All the releases of newer games, nothing more than like the disappointment of mobile games… very expensive to make mobile games, but still just as boring to play yet weirdly drawing in a lot of profits.

In other words, the market was ripe for the picking for one willing to create the vast world… easier said than done.

Those mobile games equivalent? Yeah, they cost an arm and a leg to make, even with all its restrictions. Creating a vast world with infinite possibilities, might not have the same difficulty as landing on the Sun, without dying horribly, but it might as well be… That is, until three months ago.

Theomachy, one of the companies in the running for the title of a mega-corporation, made a shocking announcement.

Of course, people suspect that it’s only a matter of time until a major company would take the plunge and enter into the market, but whoever they were expecting, it certainly wasn't Theomachy.

Sure, it was a giant in the electronics and IT sector, but what people knew about them was that they’re mostly a player in the Military Industrial Complex with a division for home electronics. A strange combination I know, one that has supplied an endless amount of conspiracy theories, but that’s not the point. What’s important is that Theomachy is a financial giant among financial giants, maybe even the largest, most valued and most powerful company in the world. For them to and suddenly create a computer – or as they properly say, a neuro game? Especially for a small niche of players at that?

Well, questions were definitely raised. Questions about whether they’re creating a way to train soldiers better… which just raised the hype even further. While ‘military-grade’ is an oxymoron, the Theomachy has accrued enough faith that people believed that they would create the greatest quality game possible. And then one of the directors suddenly announced that he had always been a fan of games and had spent almost his entire share of the company on the production of one.

Oh yes, it was a smash hit – and most importantly? It was an amazing PR move!

Especially when leaked documents – probably on purpose – revealed that the project had been secretly developed, almost more secretly than the new generation of hacking software for the security services. And that it had been in production, just imagine, for almost thirty years… Which might ring some alarm bells in people’s heads, but then it’s the bleeding edge of technology, so of course it would take that long!

It began to be developed even before the technical possibilities for its implementation were found!

Oh yes, saying that people were excited was a severe understatement. And from the horn of plenty came more and more details – each one more incredible than the previous ones.

Of course, if any game company would start their game announcement with words like ‘our game world is bigger than the Solar System’ or ‘I don't think your grandchildren could ever fully explore the world of Tenebris Orbi’? Then the first thing players would ask themselves is whether the developers were lying.

But it was the Theomachy – they had a reputation for doing the most impossible and unbelievable things.

They were the biggest company in the world, worthy of being called something like a megacorp, worthy of a cyberpunk world. And they did release a load of documentation and even some early concept work… and not even just stills or pre-rendered cutscenes!

Besides, their size and history of excellence, people just wanted to believe in such a possibility, their imaginations running wild with possibility, an event worthy to enter the pages of history. Perhaps in the section on the history of information technology – and maybe even in the annals of the great events of mankind.

Well, that was a digression – the important thing was the fact that such an announcement created a large amount of waves, making even the laymen salivate. It didn’t take long, as the release date for the game to come closer for the sales of capsules – incidentally also produced by Theomachy, to jump a hundredfold within a month.

Of course, I bought one myself and looked forward to diving into the promised wonderland.

That was until a fortnight ago at least, when I was involved in the accident – after that… well I have more critical things to worry about. At least that’s what the bastard said happened, as the last thing I remembered were a harp bang and the squeals of tires – I definitely didn’t remember the two weeks between that and waking up in this void.

Two week later and two days before the launch of humanity's most breakthrough game – I woke up in a whitish void, clearly thinking that I had died… Man, I must’ve wanted to play the game more than I thought if even having a literal afterlife experience, it’s the thing I kept coming back to. The bastard in front of me absolutely talked my ear off about it, after I signed an NDA of course, so I guess it was just stuck in my mind.

Speaking about the accident, it was a head-on collision, the truck's autopilot failed, and the brakes also failed – a freak accident – and I was smeared into a thin, slim pate under a multi-ton steel giant, almost completely. By some horrifying miracle and strange mistake of nature, I was left with my head and a bit of my upper shoulder girdle intact.

I suppose hoping for a miracle that I would survive with such a grievous injury was a bit silly of me. But, in some strange way – a miracle did find me.

Through an old friend of mine – the bastard in question, a manager of a regional branch of Theomachy – who, because of some cosmic joke, was in urgent need of a human being. More specifically, a human brain, but that obviously sounds a lot creepier than it actually is… and what Theomachy wants, it gets.

So, one dead bastard that coincidentally died with a pristine brain later – that’s me, by the way – and here we are. As to how this experience came about? I got no fucking clue, the bastard’s explanation went straight above my head, but that’s not the point.

The important thing was that, in a sense, I was still alive.

The more interesting question came after that.

Why did Theomachy need me?

And oh boy, was it a doozy.

***

“So you're saying," The words that came out were sounding more shocked than when I discovered that I was now a disembodied mind floating in a void. "That the game doesn't exist?!”

Speaks more about my priorities, really.

“It did!” My companion shouted with no small amount of vehemence before he fell silent, looking down defeated. “It did exist, we worked so hard for it…”

“And… " I glanced at my friend, who looked more defeated by life than me – and I’m the one that’s dead!

Now that I took a closer look at him, he ‘s wearing a slightly crumpled gray shirt and worn brown trousers, with traces of deep exhaustion in his eyes. He really looked sleep-deprived as well… Man, this graphic system rocks. “What happened?”

“Sabotage," My companion muttered, defeated, looking down at the virtual ground beneath him as if wishing for the ground to swallow him. “Someone got in the system somehow and erased all the data of the game. They deleted everything! Old, new, spare, backups, and old backups, everything, right down to the concept art! They’re all gone!”

“How…” I was baffled and shocked by the admission and outrage. “How did that even happen!?”

“I have no idea!” My friend clutched his head, and I could see his hair roots trying it best to prevent itself from being rooted out. “Believe me – security is very interested in this right now, and they’ve been breathing down everyone’s neck to find if it’s someone inside the company! My colleagues that had returned from this ‘interrogation’ looked like ghosts! It's so bad in the head office, I have no words to describe it.”

After getting everything out of his system, he finally stopped and sighed once, twice and a third time before continuing, this time with a hint of despair in his voice. “It's a total disaster. Zero. Nothing. Nothing of the game survived!”

“Yeah…" I held up my hands and wiped my eyes, wiping out virtual spittle – no such gestures were necessary in my current existence, but my human reflexes advised me to do so.

“I don’t think I need you to imagine what would happen if in…” My friend glanced at his watch, then looked at me, his expression much more grave than before. “In twenty-four hours, suddenly the biggest, most hyped, and most powerful company in the world would come out and say that what seemed to be literally a gift from God turned out to be a lie, wouldn't it?”

“I could imagine it, more or less…” I raised my hand and ran it over the back of my head, in a nervous gesture. “The stock price is going to drop quite nicely…”

“Stock price?!” The voice of my friend, however, threw me off my train of thought and made me look up at him and find horror in his eyes before it was replaced by a bitter understanding. “Ah yes, that’s right, you do not know …”

“Know what?”

“The thing is…" He sighed, his expression as if he had swallowed a bitter lemon, before continuing on. "The company’s in serious debt…”

“IN DEBT?! THE THEOMACHY?!” That single word made my whole body shudder. It’s like hearing the news that the sky has fallen down. “How many trillions does your company get yearly?!”

“First, it’s not mine, and a lot," My friend brushed my question aside.

"Do you have any idea how much this project cost?! Thirty years of development of a multiplayer neuro game, with its whole staff of developers, most we even have to train ourselves and there were thousands of them, and with the secrecy on the level of some spy action movie… We were spending a country’s GDP each year just to get the game off the ground!”

“And they just decided to put the near-monopoly on electronics on the line?! For a game!?” I felt my eyes pop up on my forehead.

“Listen, I'm not discussing my bosses’ bosses harebrained idea, okay!?” My friend shouted back,

“They thought they'd make it, something to be written in the history books… And damn it, they did! We had it in our hands! The things that I saw… it was beautiful. And now it’s gone.”

After a rollercoaster of emotions, even teleporting to my side at one point and shaking my shoulders, he was finally calm enough. “It was supposed to be a historical event – a historical event! Textbooks were to be written on it! Books! Entire sections of science books would have been written about our accomplishments!”

“Okay, okay, okay. I get it." I pulled away sharply, deciding not to argue with the words of my friend, and then shook my head, lest I broke something.

"Okay, I understand, the situation is completely fucked, everything is falling apart, world crisis and other scary words, but …”

I exhaled and finally asked the most important question. “Where do I come into the picture here?”

“You… " At my question, my friend suddenly froze, and then shifted his gaze sharply to me, making me recoil by the intensity of emotions I could see. Behind my friend’s eye lies insanity, and yet also full of hope

"You're our last hope.”

I blinked.

“No, that’s wrong." My friend nodded, "You're our only hope.”

Then, as if a switch was flipped, my friend stood up straight, and I could feel the seriousness of the situation.

“Tomorrow at six p.m. at UTC+0, the most incredible thing since probably the discovery of America will be launched and… There’s nothing.” My friend exhaled, then fell silent, allowing me to take a break from the previous bout of madness, and him to collect his thoughts.

“And we have no options, no other options to save the company, and probably a huge chunk of the global economy. Our mainline product, Tenebris Orbi, one that we have sunk into unimaginable debts for, right now only has its name to show for our three decades of effort. That cannot be allowed to happen." At this point, he paused. Why? To build the tension? To steel his own determination? Or just to prevent himself from breaking down in tears?

“The company heads are in shambles, and some board members are preparing themselves by retreating to their bunkers. The development team has either fled to Brazil, or are currently being ‘entertained’ by the Security team, but that’s too little too late. There’s no game, and if that situation stays the same tomorrow, there would also be no company.”

How about you get to it already!? Sensing my irritation, my friend coughed into his fists.

“We have all exhausted all options in how to solve this situation and have found none. Nothing. Nada. Kaput. And so we decided on a gamble, a one in trillion gamble on the roulette. We have all put our hopes on zero, on you.”

“Thank you very much for the compliment, if being compared to a zero is a compliment…” I exhaled, before continuing on.

“Okay, the speech’s all grand and all, and your situation is all creepy and sad, and I'm saving the world from the international crisis of the fall of Theomachy, who doesn't want to be the savior of the world. But what exactly can I do? And what is in it for me?”

As they say, if you can do something, never do it for free.

At these words, my friend hesitated, then sighed. “A salary of a million a… A month? A day? A second? You name it, and I'll get you whatever terms you want.”

“What the hell do I need millions for here?!” I spread my hands around, pointing at the white nothingness around me.

“Speaking of which, where am I anyway?!”

“Well, before I answer that, how does your surroundings look like to you?” Suddenly, my friend asked me a strange question, making me frown.

“Same as for you? Blank white, endless nothingness, with our bodies just hanging in the air?” I answered back, somewhat glibly.

“That’s wrong, actually." He replied calmly, "I'm not in ‘there’ with you. I’m actually communicating with you through a dedicated chat line, through typed messages.”

At that moment, I blinked, after which I looked into my friend's eyes – the same brown as I remembered them… No, wait, they were a little more gray… Yes, exactly as they are now!

I suddenly blinked, realizing that the color of my friend's eyes had just changed in front of my eyes – and then I looked more closely.

Time itself seemed to begin to stretch for me. Gradually my gaze began to cling to one detail and another in his eyes – every vein of color, every little blood vessel, every little blood cell running through the arteries and veins – and behind them… What is that?

‘That’s wrong, actually. I'm not in ‘there’ with you. I’m actually communicating with you through a dedicated chat line, through typed messages’.

Behind the blurring features of my friend's eyes, I saw lines of typed text hanging in the air, as if from an old messenger, white background, with black letters marked in the background…

“Stop that! You’re hurting yourself!” A familiar voice shouted, and I felt as if I was shaken, instantly the trance that I had unknowingly delved into. “You almost burned out your brain and restraints! That's enough!”

“Okay, okay, got it!” I immediately responded in a slightly panicked voice. I almost killed myself doing that!? "What was that all about?!”

My friend looked at me, a look of concern on his face, before sighing. How could I see that if my friend was actually just lines and text… Okay, stopping that train of thought before I burn my brain somehow.

“Well, yes, the second part of the story… Your brain. So, legally, you didn't have time to leave a will or leave money for your own funeral?” I only nodded, after all, I hadn't planned to die at only twenty-six at all – it was obvious that I hadn't left a will.

“Well, in such a scenario, the State was supposed to take care of your funeral – but Theomachy has a few connections… of the legal type!” He immediately hastened to add, causing me to wave my hand. I think I can see where this explanation is leading to…

“So, anyway, you know about the attempts to create an AI, right? They are, in general, successful – but the resulting AI is usually still very limited, both by the volume of information they can handle and by its… lack of creativity. Well, technically speaking, in both senses of the word, they’re amazing artists and creators, capable of creating the most amazing works of art in seconds, but they lack initiative. They could create the most breathtaking of vistas, but without someone to direct them, the result could range from abstract art to absurdist to photo-realism. And so, even if there are a thousand of AI, you still need a person that will direct them… Nobody who's tried had succeeded, the normal human simply can’t keep up.”

My friend finished with a sigh – I wonder how that expression would look in writing. Shortly after that, my friend continued.

“But then, we realized that the human brain is the perfect tool to use, but then we ran into the problem of creating an AI capable of imitating a human. The cart before the horse… And then, in that manic time, we found the answer. Why bother creating an AI that can imitate a human, if we can digitalize a human brain instead? Only to find that we cannot do so without killing the person.” I don’t like where this explanation is going… It can’t be!?

“Wait, was Theomachy the one that killed me!?”

“What!? How did you come to that conclu… oh right. No, the Theomachy didn’t kill you, now let me continue. Digitalizing a human would kill them, and that’s where you come in!”

“I mean… " I slowly tried to chew the information that was just given to me, "You made me into an AI?”

“Sorry if you much prefer being dead to digital immortality!?” Immediately, my friend reacted with a shout, before stopping himself and taking a deep breath. “Sorry, my nerves… but I guess even if you or I complain about it, it’s already a done deal. The scientists – well, the ones you don't write articles about – did their mumbo jumbo with your brain and here you are! The most powerful AI in the world at the moment!” My friend tried to cheer me up, with mixed success.

“I mean, I'm… an AI now? Connected to the coolest digital network of the greatest electronics giant in the world?” I looked my friend in the eye.

“Well, essentially? Yes," he easily agreed with my suggestion, causing me to sigh and pause for a few moments of reflection as he continued speaking.

“You're not a robot – you feel emotions, desires, and your personality is intact.” My friend smiled faintly. “You know, the guys had to work very hard to keep it that way.”

Well, my life has been quite the roller coaster ride so far, so let’s just ignore that little tidbit that just rewrote my entire perspective on the world., “C’est la vie, I suppose. So, what is my role supposed to be? You haven’t exactly explained that.”

“Well, as you may have realized by now, you're not just an AI. You're an AI with a personality, the first digital human, and as you may have noticed, your perception is slightly different from… Others.” Trying his best to choose a word so as not to say ‘different from the norm’, my friend was silent for a moment before shaking his head.

“Your brain essentially could ‘take’ the lines of code of computers, and interact with it directly, those zeros and ones and render them – giving you information it takes from your memory, worldview, thinking. Well, you get it.”

“So now when I type message prompts, you see… something else entirely. Your brain now is essentially a super-computer, the best there are in fact, we actually had to create some very impressive software to even allow me to communicate with you in real time. An anchor, or limiter, if you want to call it.” My friend replied, making me sigh. Yeah, life only got weirder and more confusing every second. But again, nothing to be done about it, at least it’s better than just dying?

“Well, that's just the way it is. It’s the best we've got because if we take the limiters off – you won't even be able to communicate with you. The speed of thinking would be incomparable, a millennium in a second. If we’re, if you're not careful with that, you could burn your brain – that's why you're wearing the limiters now. Well that, and just so you can have a chat with a living human being," My friend smiled faintly, making me nod and wave my hand, showing him that I was ready to listen to him further.

“Well, you have two gigantic advantages over any other developer – advantages that the Theomachy is counting." My friend smiled sourly at me,

"One, as I’ve said before, the speed your brain is running now? We literally can’t quantify it, or at least explain to you in a way that would make sense. A bit of slack in the limiter and you would be literally thinking faster than the smartest human in the world, a complete removal? Well, it would probably scramble your brain right now. But when you finally get a handle on it? The term time abyss would probably be apt.” Jeez, that’s a scary thought.

“Second is your perception, and control of software. In fact, what are you doing right now? You are looking at the world from within the code, as your brain indifferently analyzes zeros and ones, your brain renders it into something you can understand and familiar with. And your control? Let’s just say that there’s not a firewall in the world that you cannot breach with but a thought and edit the code literally with a wave of your hand, creating the most complicated modules by simple words…”

“Are you sure?” I frowned, I really didn’t think that I’m capable of such things, increased speed of thought or not.

“Let's just say you weren't actually registered in the corporate messenger, the thing we’re chatting in right now, you did it yourself… Without even noticing it, you had created a profile by bypassing the strongest firewall in the world, and all without alerting anyone.” My friend even smiled a little guiltily as he excitedly listed out the perks that I now possess, making me slow down for a second, then brushed the thought aside.

Clearly, the number of totally unbelievable events I felt had exceeded the allowable limit and those had ceased to surprise me at all.

“Okay, let's say that I’ll take the job…," I sighed, "I still have a few more questions – and first among them… Why me?” I looked into my friend's eyes as I asked.

“Why not?” He grinned sadly as he answered. “I always thought you were a cunning, good actor, and you’re definitely a good problem solver…”

“Trouble with classes missed or with girls getting mad at you is not in the same league as saving the biggest corporation in the world!” I sighed.

“And who says that? Even the smallest anthill can be a mountain to some people, and vice versa. Though, if it was a matter if Theomachy or I had chosen you specifically for this job? Not really, your accident just happened to come up by chance, and because I knew you, questions arose, and it all followed from there… Yeah, so the stars aligned – and you just happened to be at the right time and in the right place.”

Luck? That was the reason that I’m here now? Well, I suppose it was also bad luck that I would suffer an accident, so this is just a rebalancing of the scale.

“They're scared, the directors? They’re scared stiff, and panicked, without hope – they’ll cling to any rope they can find to hang on, either by their hands or by their neck. And then, you came along, the silver bullet – even I didn't expect it to work myself, but here you are, and they think they've got a chance.” Now he’s grinning like a madman… man, He really needs some sleep.

“Tell me what you want and what you require, and they'll get it. Money? Girls? You want to beat up a primary school bully you had back in the day? Ruin his life, even? Or perhaps you want to cover up some crimes? Done and done. If you want it, they'll give you their shares of interest in the company just to convince you.”

I thought for a second, then nodded, "I want to live again. In the real world, I mean, I want my life back.” Perhaps being a ghost in the machine would be fun and all, and the rewards Theomachy could give were equally just as so. But without a life in the real world, what’s the point?

“That’s… quite hard." He paused for a second, before continuing on. "It's… well, you see, the condition that your body came in… we just don't have the technology to restore it. It just doesn't exist – in nature.”

“So discover it then, or create your own solution." I felt a wave of utter indifference wash over me as I talked,

"If I'm about to do something incredible… Why don't you do it, too?”

He was silent for a moment, then nodded briefly, and then fell into a silent state for a few seconds. I stopped next to him and continued to watch his thinking posture. He suddenly perked up after about ten seconds and then looked at me confidently.

"Ten years. They said that it would take them about ten years to make you again… During that time, though, you’ll have to work for them.” Oh, it seems that he was speaking to someone?

“Well…” I didn't even bother pretending to think for a long time. “It's not like I have much choice in the matter, is it?”

“Yeah, sorry about that." My friend said guiltily.

“Okay, so… What am I supposed to do?” I looked around at the empty void, not really sure what I was supposed to do with it.

“Well, to put it simply… you’ll need to create Tenebris Orbi. And before you complain, I’ll still need to explain some more!” My friend preempted my complaint about having to create something that the largest company in the world needed thirty years to create.

“I know what you’re thinking, asking you to create the entire game in one day is impossible, the greatest AI or not. So, you don’t have to create all of it, just enough to fool the people that had been sold ‘the most incredible and expansive thing you've ever seen in the world of neuro games, Tenebris Orbi, expect the unexpected’. All the while not giving a single player a reason to think that this game is being created on the fly, two steps ahead of those who play it.”

I blinked, then glanced at my friend, expecting him to apologize now for the silly joke.

He didn't apologize.

I was silent for a few seconds, trying to digest what was said, before I nodded slowly, with pressure, "Okay… Tell me you’re not dropping me at the deep end of the pool without a life vest at least?”

“No, of course not, you’ll have the best of the best that the company can give. A fleet of network engineers, the internet, and lastly, best of all, lots of AI. Some of them can create images and some can create music, whatever you want. They're all the latest generation and would handle the NPC’s scripts, and pretty much any script and code that you want. Though I suppose from your perspective, it would be something else entirely.” He chuckled weakly, and me? I’m just glad that I don’t have to code the damn game myself.

“These AIs are actually classified military grade stuff, but the situation is such that you have to use whatever you can. You can use any methods you want to occupy the Player’s time. You can bray like a mangy dog, you can tell and do whatever, you can lie – you have the absolute authority to just make it all work, keep the players happy, and keep the company above suspicion.”

“That already sounds a little better," I sighed, "So, in that case I get that I'm seeing the world differently now, but what about a creator toolkit? I mean, some sort of race editor, object list, catalog – well, anything like that?”

“You've been given full access to all the game's source files – not that there's anything left inside…” My friend sighed.

“But how would interacting with them look like for you? No idea. Like I’ve said before, everything is in your hands – literally anything you make would be the ‘game’. We have no way of doing anything from this side – well, at least not fast enough to avert disaster – we have truly handed full-control to you. ”

I, on the other hand, paused for a moment and frowned – I’m essentially flying blind here. But if it’s as he said it is – I should already have full control of the world, everything is already in my hands.

And so, I lift my hand in front of me – and willed for the ability to change the world.

I tried to strain my brain, then imagine in my head something that would fit in my perception of what I was about to do… After a moment a whitish circle filled with a multitude of incomprehensible symbols, alternating as if in a mad dance, rose above my hand.

Huh… I wonder where exactly I got this particular representation of magic? Okay, never mind. Let’s try my hand in editing… No, creating something.

After which a dozen of lists appeared before my eyes – with lots of categories and internal charts, images and pages.

“You have entered the catalog!” My friend shouted happily, obviously looking at the multitude of tables floating in front of me at the moment, or however it would look like on his side. “And you don't waste any time – you already have two ready-made effects, and… God, you already have thirty categories for the catalog?! It’s working!? We’re saved!”

“Yeah," I nodded, after which I instantly dismissed everything in front of my face, satisfied after making sure that it all seemed to be working exactly as it should. “Okay, so… I agree to your conditions.”

Help to restore my body will be allocated to me, the payment is satisfactory and the task ahead of me is already laid out, even the chronology of events… So there was only one last question left.

I sighed and looked into the eyes of my friend as he was busy celebrating. “I understood that whoever these cyber-terrorist had deleted everything, but is there anything still remained? Anything at all? I could use all the help I could get here…”

“Well, yes actually.” My friend nodded, and I couldn’t help but celebrate it myself. “There's not much left, but the basic support for connectivity functions, communication with pods and operating protocols…”

“No, no, no, no, that’s not what I’m talking about – I don't need the technical details, I don't understand them anyway," I brushed my friend's words aside. "From the game, I meant. Maybe some character design, or character classes, maybe even some effects – in general, anything I could work with…”

“Oh, that's…” My friend hesitated for a second, then smiled guiltily as he gestured at the white nothing around us. “What you see around you, is all that's left of the game.”

I looked around at the whitish nothingness in which I continued to hang, unable to distinguish between the top and the bottom.

“If it makes you feel better," He added, "You can ignore any copyright, so you can just copy anything from popular fiction – they'll cover that too…”

“Alright… " I let out a sad sigh at the amount of work cut out for me and then looked at my friend with perhaps too much heat. "When do I need to finish all this? What’s my deadline?”

“Well, let’s see… Now, that we were able to pull the Public Relations department’s hand a bit – we’re able to make it so that not all the players will join in at once. Something which should lighten your workload greatly – not having to look after so many Players at once."

My friend then sighed, and here comes the bad news. "But in, let’s see… Twenty-three hours and forty-four minutes, the first hundred thousand players will join in the game – and then one hundred thousand every twenty-four hours, until…”

My friend was distracted for a second before he continued on. “Till the full thirty-seven million, which should take about two.. But that's still… You know what, maybe we’ll worry for the first day first, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll agree with you there," I shook my head, a migraine thumping in my brain – which should be impossible really. “Because if I knew how big the number is, I would be horrified.”

Well, then, I guess I should start working as soon as possible.

“It was nice talking to you… even in such a strange circumstance." I looked around, at the same white nothing as before. A white nothing that I would have to turn into the background of the ‘last ‘game’ as the company touted.

 "Good luck out there, and do try to take off the limiters as much as you can, I’ll need all the help I can get… Oh, right, I almost forgot – do remember to send the AIs this way soon – we have a lot of work to do.”

“Got it," My friend nodded understandingly and then, pausing for a second, smiled, "Good luck.”

“To you too. Try not to piss off some corpo that you get removed.” I replied, and after a moment my friend disappeared – apparently, he turned had off the messenger.

Now I looked around, at the whitish something that surrounds me, which, in twenty-four hours, I had to turn into a kind of game. And then for the next ten years maintain it, develop and turn into something that works that millions of Players’ going to play and do their best to break…

I exhaled and clapped my hands.

Well, I don't have seven days to do it, but I'll definitely have to act strictly according to the manual as the good book had preordained…

Let's start by separating the earth from heaven!

Chapter 2

So, how am I going to create smoke and mirrors for an audience of a hundred thousand hyperactive players who have been promised the most incredible game of the millennium that actually isn't there?

Apart from banning everyone and pretending it was a random glitch in the servers – or something similar? I think that would result in my plug being pulled – literally.

No, no, let's think about it seriously.

Problem number one for starters – a hundred thousand players.

Creating one location in game that can hold a hundred thousand players is unrealistic. I don't know how well my mind acceleration worked, or whatever it's properly called – but I don't think I have much time. Even so, to get busy creating some gigantic location where a hundred thousand players where they aren’t just packed like some badly dressed sardines is a tough ask.

Ok, so maybe I should just create one starting location slash town each designed for… A thousand players, maybe? Then I’ll just copy and paste it a hundred times over and the job’s done!

No, no, that wouldn’t work, even a thousand is still too much – actually, even just two hundred players is already a lot, but I think’s that doable. Okay so, one town that can house two hundred players in the oven, and then I can just copy it five hundred times over!

But even so, there's still one glaring issue I need to solve – a problem of two hundred players being forced into one place.

The problem called curiosity.

The Theomachy had promised something ‘amazing, unforgettable, a new milestone in the development of the entertainment industry’. So, there’s no need to imagine how the players, given the opportunity, would definitely go in a frenzied search of hidden missions, secret artifacts and who knows what else. After all, all these enthusiasts have been weaned on stories of how some massive MMORPG contains game-breaking secrets in the most mundane of places.

So putting them in a huge field as a starting location will not work – it won’t be long before someone tried to escape from it, to explore the world around. And then discovering the fact that the world around them does not exist at all in short order.

So, barriers – what kind of barriers are suitable?

Invisible walls?

No, invisible walls aren't good… Though, maybe… I could just bullshit and say that it's a magical barrier that will be opened after some kind of event? Great, we have an idea there, let's mark it for the future.

So what other areas should I make? Mountains? Mines? No, someone's going to try to find an opening to crawl into to go to the out of bound areas…

Death Zones, then? Hmm, poison gas, lava rivers, something like that?

Also, an idea, but then for an infinite game, the players would have to be allowed to crawl over these traps, into another death-zone of course, maybe even a dozen of them just in case? Mark as another possible option.

What else… how about the sea? A huge, endless sea… Hmm, but someone will definitely find a way to build a raft or even a boat and sail on it. So, Monsters? In the water and outside the water, just another kill zone restriction, killing players who tried to leave the area – a cheap but workable trick.

Okay! Those should be a good starting point!

I clapped my hands together – my now existent hands on my now existent created body, thanks to my efforts in the character editor. Which I also created.

Ah, that’s right, the Air! I should start the player right in the air! What better way to create an atmosphere of a wonderful fantasy world than with soaring islands, a soaring city! At the same time, it also restricts player movement, you're floating in the clouds! If you want to escape – flag in your hands, jump into the abyss below and die!

At the same time, by placing numerous clouds around them, looking more or less natural, it should mask the invisible wall hiding everything below the hovering island, hiding the fact that there isn’t anything else, great!

Ok then, hovering islands, let's build on that idea!

“Who's the AI responsible for creating the models and who's in charge of creating the textures?” The realization that it was just my mind overlapping the lines of code contrasted sharply with hearing the quite discernible responses of the two AIs that had appeared out of nowhere.

"Us.” Even when there’s nothing to see, I could feel the presence of the two AI unmistakably.

“Good.” I tried to suppress the thought that I was now communicating, in fact, with Artificial Intelligence. While something that's not breaking news, cheap AIs simulating communication, with a voice synthesizer and a simple response generation system inside are a dime a dozen, so there was nothing strange about communicating with advanced AIs.

Even when it felt like talking to actual people than mere AIs… Is the Theomachy creating… Nope, not going there, my situation is already nightmarish enough, being a literal brain in a jar – no need to think more about it.

“Okay," I turned to the two space-blurring sexless figures assembled from the shadows, and ignored the shiver running my now existent back. "In that case, you are now the Sculptor, and you are the Artist.”

Both figures nodded at me, with one of the shadow beings gaining the name Sculptor while the other the Artist. And even when the two shadows looked exactly the same, I didn’t doubt that I could now exactly tell the two apart.

Wondering how that was possible – I simply shrugged, thinking the most likely option being that his mind just got some sort of 'name change accepted' and just took in the information from the AI… Never mind about that! We have work to do!

“Sculptor, Artist, I need you both to create a big flying island from you. Made of earth, and some rock, nothing special… and also clouds, white and pink, moving to make it look like they're real…”

Both figures nodded, then, after a moment, each of them looking at me for some reason? And in my mind’s eye I realized that my command had been carried out, exactly the way I wanted it, done in a split second. As if I had gotten inside each AI's head and personally prescribed them a binary code of what exactly I wanted from them… in the blink of the eye, literally!

“Good, so… Up!” A moment later I was up in the air, leaving the sterile, smooth plane below, and then, having gone up about… I'm going to assume seven kilometers, I stopped, a bare island with clouds surrounding it under my feet.

“So, which AI does the animations?” Another shadowy figures appeared out of the ether, And I know for sure that this was an unassigned AI, different from the two before.

“So you're the Actor now, I need to get the clouds to move at about this level… from horizon to horizon – slowly puffing and rising like normal clouds. Nothing superfluous to make they act like actual clouds, just enough to make them appear like one, no need to simulate the water cycle here.”

A moment later my whole field of vision was filled with clouds, but rising higher I could look at the calm carpet of clouds slowly and peacefully floating across the sky below me, and nodded. Great, the main problem of an empty world is now hidden from perception. Al that’s left is to create a reason as to why there’s so many cloud staying in one place non-stop… A concern for another time!

OK, now onto the islands.

A movement of the hand and a little mental effort and there in front of my eyes appeared a huge island floating in the air… One that immediately began to fall – but I immediately realized, and quickly overridden gravity for this lump of rock.

The great land mass continued floating in the air, stuck in place. Unlike the players, who, at least a few of them were bound to try to jump!

I could literally see it in real time… and the fact that they would crash didn't bother me much, unlike the fact that in their fall, they would see that there was nothing under the clouds!

“New plan, change the color of the clouds to a sickly gray with a slight greenish cast!” Let's say it's some sort of spell or something, then let the clouds do some pretty crazy damage when touched, literally dissolving the players… And all their equipment and inventory along with them. That should discourage anyone from jumping specifically to see if they can fly through the entire cloud row to see what's hidden under them! For the second time at least.

Hmm, but if it's just some sort of invisible killing wall anyway, what’s the point of having flying islands…? No, screw it, if I start doubting every decision I make now, then I won't be able to do anything, and I don't have much time!

A moment allowed me to move closer to the island, which was currently just a simple piece of rock floating in the air. Exactly what I would have wanted to see according to my inarticulate description…

“Huh, the direct linking of the brain to the electronics really does help me a lot.” I shook my head, then looked around at the many faceless and slightly unnerving shadow-covered, sexless AI figures. Three of their identities basically seared into my mind. “But the AIs here are amazing too.”

I did not get any reply or expression from the figures, shaking my head at what I’m expecting. The unfamiliarity of the situation was clearly affecting me – if I was already expecting an unprompted answer from an AI… Well, fuck it.

So, the flying island – if we've already decided to limit the player by placing some sort of curse affecting the clouds, then we'll cram everything into that aesthetic.

“There should be one among the AIs in charge of names, right?” After a moment, one of the AIs answered in the affirmative, somehow.

“Ok, I need you to place names for everything around, rocks and grass, islands and… And yes, a name for some mighty ancient spell, destroying this world, destroying the beautiful place of an ancient civilization and capable of killing the player in an instant. Oh, right, you'll be called… Librarian from now on, I guess.”

Giving my next order, I glanced at the hovering island, great, a place where the player can appear in is ready. But just a lump of earth hanging in the air didn't look like a place suitable for players, even if it is a starting location – which means that I need to add some things on top.

“I need an ancient building… something like an ancient temple? Yes, a large building in the center, with a bunch of ruined buildings in the corners. Yes! Make this island into the ruins of a temple complex!”

Gradually, my brain began to fill with the image of the emerging new models, created by AI probably, which I began to distribute around the island. The large temple in the center, colored white originally, grayed from time. So, let’s add some details, break the roof here, ruin the walls here, a crumbled ceiling there. There! That’s look much better now!

Okay, time to add names to everything… Uhh, what’s the word I’m looking for…

Thank you, Librarian, so it'll be ‘Mutilated Heavenly Stone’ – simple and tasteful, that should be enough lore for the players to chew at.

Hmm, what’s next… the most important thing is to channel the players' irrepressible enthusiasm, the first question they'll ask after realizing they're on a floating island is when and how they'll get out of here.

So, let's build pillars in the center… no, a non-collapsed room in the center of the temple. No, even better, make it underground with a passage that has collapsed filled with earth! Yeah, let them dig out the passage, it will definitely keep them busy for a while!

At the edges of the round room, we place columns and… Hmm, how about some secret writings on the walls? That would absolutely do well!

No, Librarian, I do not you to create an artificial language, only symbols which during examining could be taken for a language only in the end to result in nothing because the letters were somehow distorted by spoilage… So just some bullshit that would waste their time, it’s perfect! But what if they found some pattern though…

No matter, the main thing for now is just to do them, and we shall work out the specifics later.

Well, in the middle we are going to make a hollow… Hmm, maybe we should put water in it? Some kind of secret font or something?

"No!" A genius thought struck me. "Let's make it a source of the curse!"

The water, just created recently inside the room, was turned from its clear refreshing look into a grayish with a green hue viscous oily liquid by a thought. Ok, now let's add the player-killing mist from it – perfect!

A moment later I was on top of the secret room – great, now let's hint to the players that they definitely need to get down there and clear the source of the spoilage!

The answer from the Librarian came straight away – ‘Presence of the Enemy’? Ok, the name for the spoilage is as good as many others, let it be the ‘presence’.”

Great, now there’s a clear quest line where the presence has to be purged… It’s not enough though, it felt more like a bare 30-minutes quest, but what to add? Maybe some sort of barrier to the doors of the sanctuary to contain the poison gas? Right!

Enemies! How could I forget to add the hostile MOBs!?

One query, and a few seconds later a figurine of something that more or less meets my requirements appeared before my eyes. I don't know if I'd call it a demon or something, but it'll do for my idea, for now anyway.

The figure’s tiny body was half the size of an adult human average height, with a disproportionately large head with bulging eyes, and a completely bald body… Maybe add some big crooked pointed teeth inside the mouth… And the eyes would split apart to look around, and on the small hands attached sharp claws. Ok, the kind of starter mob is ready!

Let's call it… an Imp, no need to recreate the wheel here – now for the stats…

Starter players are not given a class or any skills – no need to add more work at this point. Let’s just put everyone in the same starting point! The starting players will, therefore, have a hundred health, a hundred mana and a hundred stamina. How about the stats, though?

The usual? Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Intelligence… Okay, Wisdom too. Maybe add Charm or something like that as well?

Ok, so we have Strength for direct damage, Dexterity for speed, Stamina for health and stamina, Intellect for ability power, Wisdom for… ability cost and extra stuff like cooldown time? And Charm for… Character response? Yeah, I guess – that will become a very important metric as soon as I start creating NPCs!

So, we're a little short, how about mana… Ah, screw it, I'll throw that in Stamina too.

So, six basic characteristics – not much, but enough to start with, perhaps we'll throw in bonuses, skills, or something similar? As soon as I get to creating them, anyway.

So, the starting players will have five in all characteristics – and they can distribute another five points at the start to customize their character. So the starting player will have about somewhere from fifty to a hundred hp, with the average damage from a punch of five to ten.

Crap, we will need to model the punch, maybe even some special attacking place on the character models where the blow does more damage, and where it would do less – and so many other possibilities…

Ah, right, the kill zone… Let's just write a temporary plug for a curse that it does one trillion damage per second – then a prompt for the ‘curse’ to be lifted, gotta remind myself to not forget to remove it.

So, right back to the Imp, I'd say it would be a level one mob, its health… well, twenty should be good – no, thirty! And damage in close combat, four… although, that’s a bit low since he has claws, okay, five. Let it be quite a dangerous opponent, from the beginning of the game, that can kill a player in 20 hits.

After all, they were promised an unforgettable adventure! Well, let them remember!

So, now let's create and distribute a few spawn points… Yeah – let the frequency be small, they should be enough for all players.

And for the starting task to the players, let's give… I do not know, something that would let them immediately understand that they are not just stuck on this floating island, also enough that they don’t immediately get out.

Maybe a quest to kill a couple of millions of those imps? With 200 players on each starting point, that shouldn’t take too long… No, wait, there’s a better idea than that!

The imps' spawn locations instantly changed from invisible and intangible dots in space to small clouds of the same gray-green color as the ‘cursed’ clouds. Now a name for the spawn point… A prompt after killing a hundred imps and then… Thanks, Librarian, kill 100 imps around the ‘Gate of Evernia’ after which a boss enemy will appear…

Level 10 and let's call him… Let's call him Big Imp, and increase his characteristics, maybe attach small horns to his head and also give him a special attack. Right, let's give him some kind of ‘magical arrow’ type attack, just change the color a bit and call it ‘imp charge’.

Great going! This one will have to be killed, and then the portal will close. Speaking of which, let's make sure the Gate is also getting the ‘curse’ as well, so players don't even try to get too close to it.

So, let's do a grand, twenty? Right, twenty of these gates on the island, and have everyone have a quick quest to close them, and a second one to figure out what's going on with the gates!

I’ll figure out the actual specifics later.

Actually, why don’t I just listen in on the Player’s idea and just choose from there? If I like one of their ideas by just copying it, it’ll let him think that they predicted my idea, rather than that this idea originally did not exist! Perfect!

So, what's next, hmm… Skills, I guess?

Oh yes, I had a lot of work to do…

***

All the Players that got the first copy of Tenebris Orbi certainly wouldn’t have any idea why they would be picked over everyone else. Not that they would care, being selected for being the first participants in Theomachy's new brainchild – is already a dream come true, so why look at the gift horse’s mouth? He certainly wouldn’t care to risk his place in a queue line that continued to grow with the game fully out of stock for the next six months. A position already being fought over with ridiculous sums of money – he was quite content with the current situation.

So, as he made himself comfortable in the gaming pod he had spent so much money on, a purchase he had to argue with his girlfriend with. Who completely disagreed with his priorities of monetary spending, absent all of that, the player momentarily shut his mind down.

After all, he had been promised something unforgettable – a fantastic adventure unequaled in the world. Big words for pretty much all games studios, but with very real weight when leaving the mouth of Theomachy executives.

And so, the player closed his eyes, eager to dive into the adventure he had been promised.

After a moment of disorientation due to the activation of the capsule, he emerged as a weightless spirit in front of the registration panel that now hanged in front of him.

Featureless clouds, an unhealthy gray with a slight glow of rotten green carpet, moved quietly across the sky beneath his feet. Along with the light of an orange, almost sunset sun, significantly larger than what one would expect on Earth in the sky, was all that greeted him besides the gray, uninviting signage before his eyes a moment later.

"Quite the Minimalist features, but it suits me just fine." The player only nodded, as he glanced at the registration plate.

Some forms were already filled in when he registered on the forum – and without very clear personal information, he couldn't even buy his capsule. But even so, the registration process wasn't over yet, requiring him to enter the future name of his game avatar… and just that.

There were no more fields in the tableau in front of the player, for the moment at least, so the player didn't ponder much either. Typing in the same nickname he had used during his time in the forum, 'Jim'.

After a moment, the table accepted his answer without any problem, which didn’t surprise Jim. For the first Players, there’s almost no possibility that their name would be taken already, it would be later when a new player needed to rack their brain in thinking up a unique name that hasn’t been taken yet. Jim wouldn’t be surprised to see some numbered name in the future.

What came as a surprise however when a table to edit his appearance or even his race didn’t pop up. There was no appearance editor in the game – nor was there a choice of playable races?

It made Jim frown for a second – hadn't the creators promised ‘thousands and thousands of different races’? It would be extremely lame if those races were in the game, but not for the players, forcing them to wallow as mere humans for the rest of their lives… Well, there’s the possibility that there would be quest lines to change that. I suppose the game developers want everyone to have the same baseline first…

Quickly dismissing that thought – at least he wasn't going to draw far-reaching conclusions solely on that fact alone, and so Jim took a closer look at his stats, the thing that he could actually affect for now.

Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charm – six stats in all, each with a starting stat of five, with five points available for distribution. No classes were presented for players, but a classless system was not yesterday's invention, especially considering the fact that it was the classless systems that gave the most flexibility in the choice of game strategy. So there’s a possibility that classes would be more of a player’s creation? Or would it be accessed in the game as well?

Jim’s imagination began to run wild as he imagined himself riding a dragon and destroying castles with a wave of his hands.

Ahem, anyway, back to character creation. A classless system didn't mean that the player needed to be an absolute all-rounder. In fact, it was usually the all-rounders who suffered the most in all the games Jim knew.

So without thinking too much about it, he threw in two points into Intelligence, two into Wisdom, and one into Charm. He didn't want to be a pure physical warrior, Jim wanted to experience what it was like to be a mage in ‘the most exciting adventure’.

Then with some surprise, Jim noticed that he didn’t have any starting skills and abilities either…

He was finding everything was already a little more strange than usual – but this time, too, Jim dismissed the thought quickly. A game with infinite possibilities! Before he clicked the coveted button – 'Start Game'.

***

I almost missed the arrival of the first players, as I tried to think of an appropriate name for the sword lying in the ruins of the ruined temple, almost buried under the rubble. If not for a message from the AI, which I've recently dubbed ‘Hound’ due to its function of alerting me to all sorts of events, that is. I quite likely would not have noticed the appearance of those until I came face to face with one of the players.

A moment later my body became invisible, inaudible, permeable and completely insensible – after which a sudden movement threw me towards the newcomers on that island where I was at the moment. Repeater, another AI, performed its task above all praise, not only copying the original layout of the floating island, but changing it within tolerable limits – I did not even need to particularly correct it.

Which was more an achievement of my networked mind than of my leadership, though.

Unnoticed, I appeared among the players – luckily I didn’t need to fear any of the players noticing me, my powers are absolute. It was especially important since this was the first and most important stress test of my efforts. If I could withstand the first influx of players – it would be much easier from here on…

At the very least, I should get a clearer picture of what I should expect from the players.

Taking a look at the Player that I’ve appeared next to, I wasn’t really that impressed by what I saw. He’s a short man, maybe slightly older than, maybe twenty-five? Above his head, I could make out without too much trouble his name, nickname to be exact – Jim.

I didn't look deeper into his personal information, as with my absolute level of clearance it was a matter of a few moments, but I didn't need it. And frankly, I was a bit ashamed to do so… his character status’ however I peered in instantly.

So seven in Intelligence and Wisdom, and six in Charm? I guess he decided to play the wizard…

I almost felt sorry for the guy – he did not know that the magic system doesn’t exist yet, so he wasted his points in Wisdom and Intelligence. Creating the skeleton of a skeleton of the system had been taking too much of my time to bother with secondary decisions like ‘what does magic even look like in this world?’ I just created proper gravity not two seconds ago, I have no time for something, relatively speaking, unimportant… Actually, I haven’t even created NPCs yet, so even his point in Charm was even more useless now.

I only felt more sorry for those players who had decided to throw all their available points into Charms – and there were almost a dozen and a half of them… They would be unfortunate, unhappy people for the first few days grinding…

Well, the hell with it, they’ll make their own fun. Jim himself looked around and took an uncertain step on the hard surface of the hovering island, checking if his connection was normal and if he had properly joined the server. He even took tentative steps to check if the ground beneath his feet felt real - I understand him perfectly.

Even after a dozen years of games of this kind, periodically the brain wanted to make sure whether the player's environment was real or not. Especially considering the fact that, even with all the restrictions imposed by various governments, neural-net connections could still transmit sensations to the brain, including very real sensations of touch, temperature, or pressure… Wait!?

My eyes widened instantly with panic – damn it! I mean, they're at a high altitude, the air here must be so thin! Which means… In a panic, I opened the game window, then froze for a second and sighed in relief.

I hadn't created air as a component of the world – but I hadn't prescribed the need for players to breathe either! So in the end, the problem had solved itself! I still need to fix it, though, so no chance for the player to notice that they didn’t need to breathe even underwater.

Quietly I snapped my fingers, fixing another concern with this creation – while the first players, having had time to look around, started making their moves.

***

Jim took a couple of steps, then sucked in the air of the fantastic place where he had found himself in. The fresh, almost mountain air had a light smell of flowers and… A barely perceptible smell of musty dust. What attention to details!

“AAAAH!” A sharp yell made Jim flinch and turn towards the source of the scream – after which realization came to Jim a moment later.

He was standing near the edge of a huge hovering platform – on a hovering island to be exact, and he could see the great expanse of clouds from his point of view. In fact, he could see the circumference of the Island, while ahead of them further inland were some ruins. Of course, some idiot is going to try to jump.

Rushing to the edge of the island, Jim's could see the figure of the Player swiftly drifting down towards the hovering green clouds below. Then, as soon as the player touched the clouds – his body was literally scattered into particles of dust that immediately melted into the air.

Jim shivered, of course it was just a game, and he understood that, but having just witnessed a death, all the more brutal and unexpected as the disintegration into atoms. He still allowed for a moment the thought of what it would be like if it were real – then made an internal note to stay away from the edges of the floating island.

Speaking of which – he glanced around, Jim could easily make out at least a few human figures, players, most likely. There were no nicknames or other identifying marks hanging over their heads, causing him to scratch his head. He supposes the game put great emphasis in gather information, that they wouldn’t let player easily know another’s name?

Still, taking the chance, Jim walked toward the lean, pale fellow standing nearby with short, black hair gathered into stiff unruly curls, drawing his attention with a wave of his hand.

“You’re a Player?”

“Yeah," He answered instantly, then looked down, embarrassed for a second for some reason. "Shit, I chose my nickname at random, but I didn't think what it would like to introduce… Well, my nickname is ‘Sad Cookie’, but given the stupidity of being addressed as such… just call me Sad.”

“Got it, oh, I’m Jim, by the way." Jim smirked, then looked around at the other players who were already going about their business, then hesitated for a moment before just getting it over with.

"Status!” he would be greatly embarrassed if nothing happens.

Luckily, at Jim's command, a small window instantly appeared in front of him, showing tabs for his characteristics, a map, inventory, and equipment slots, along with several tabs he was interested in immediately. Tasks, Skills, Abilities, Systems, and Characters – however, each of these tabs was inactive at the moment – but their presence made him breathe slightly.

So magic – or something similar to it – exist in this world after all, he just had to find it in game… Well, of course, what kind of shitty game has a stat for a skill that doesn’t exist!

That… Definitely calmed the guy down.

“Okay, well, apparently we're supposed to go explore this world inland." Jim grinned as he said this, pointing a finger in the direction of the cliff from which one of the players had fallen now two dozen seconds earlier. "Or we could always throw ourselves down and split into atoms.”

“Well," Sad grinned, "Inland it is.”

Chapter 3

There's no way I'm going to give fast travel to the players.

While I had no such systems yet, and wouldn't be making it anytime soon, I wouldn’t. Just seeing the Players spread around like ants, there’s no way I would have time to keep track of my players if I give them a method of fast travel.

I was distracted for just a second – well, okay, a minute watching the first players logging in, and almost missed the first battle in my created world!

As it turns out, one of the players’ spawn points on one of the other floating islands turned out to be right on top of a… what were they called? Ah, yeah, right, the Gates of Evernia, thanks, Librarian!

That is, their spawn point was also the spawn point of imps. And so, Players who had just appeared after their creation, were instantly face to face with a small demon that, obeying the algorithms the AI had created, thank you Commander, the AI in charge of prescribing the behavior of mobs!

Seeing their chance, the Imps took advantage of the players' momentary loss of focus by leaping upon the nearest target to damage whatever it could. Considering the difference in height, it was the stomach.

The player, who suddenly felt his stomach being disemboweled, virtually that is, and seeing the small creature's sharp claws digging into his flesh, erupted into a scream – from fear and surprise, but not from pain, though. After some very expensive lawsuits, even the most gruesome and unpleasant death could not cause the player much pain. And so, the worst the player could feel was nothing more than the unpleasant, sensation of something foreign entering his body, maybe accompanied by a slight prick.

It was even less painful than from a needle of a syringe.

But the horror and surprise did their job brilliantly, causing the player, forgetting that they were just in a game, to run away, panicking. And as the spawn was on the border of the floating island – he did not run for a long time, finding his feet had brought him to a cliff, his screams echoing as he fell to his death.

I congratulated my foresight for creating the clouds, seeing that a multitude of people had fallen to their deaths – without this creation, the Players would have already found out that the world is incomplete!

In any case, the players who were around to observe such a terrifying event, for the most part, did as their rational minds told them. Seeing a fellow human being murdered in cold blood, they immediately forgot that the Imps were just lines of codes imposed on a graphic.

With a shout of panic, the Players began running away – except for one.

The Player, either naturally brave, or was just someone used to playing Deep Dive games, rushed forward, taking advantage of the Imps own distraction as they were busy chasing the other Players. The player punted the Imp, sending it careening away to fall down the cliff at the edge of the Island, basically killing it, even when his kick didn’t do enough damage.

Hmm, I haven't prescribe killing enemies with environment items as a kill that brings experience to the player himself… Wait, I haven't prescribed any XP at all! I gave them parameters for leveling up – but not the way to actually level up!

Okay, I need to fix this quickly before the Player notice… What was your name again…

The player, after a moment of observation, pleased me with his quite sane nickname of ‘Sturm Stross’… Let's just pretend that's his name. Okay, now let's quickly put a stopgap measure quickly! So, maybe a hundred experience points for the first level… And an Imp is worth… five experience – and there you have it, Killing 20 Imps should take some time, right? I should have time to design a level 2, for now anyway.

There you go Sturm Stross, your five experience points, you've earned it.

I held my breath for a second to see if the Player notices the lag between the Imp dying and his exp bar filling, before exhaling a deep breath when I noticed that he didn’t.

So what next? I'm supposed to be giving players skills, right?

***

Sturm, after kicking the incomprehensible creature towards its death, carefully peered out from behind the edge to watch as, barely touching the stream of painful looking clouds, the creature instantly turned to dust, immediately melting in the wind. And, hearing the pleasantly light sound of a bell, looked up at his status, which had changed a moment ago – a bit of gold was now clearly visible in the hitherto empty bar below his name.

It wasn't difficult to guess what the bar meant – the 5\100 value dangling beside it suggested easily that Sturm had just made his first kill in this world.

A moment later, though, a new message popped up in front of Sturm's eyes, ahead of his game status.

"You have unlocked the Unarmed Combat skill, current progress 1\100".

Sturm, looking at the system message, only nodded understandingly as he closed the drop-down message, then stared at the description of his newly unlocked skill.

"Unarmed Combat is the ability to fight solely with the strength and abilities of one's body. The effect of primary characteristics on unarmed combat is increased by 10%. Allows you to develop secondary skills relating to Unarmed Combat."

Sturm, looking at his acquisition, nodded. “Good…”

However, the formulas used in calculating damage and abilities were unknown to him, so whether ten percent was a lot or a little he couldn't say unequivocally. Judging by how easily he got the skill, it clearly not much, but any such skill was nice. And besides, he still has 99 levels to see if the skill was worth it!

"The developers didn't lie when they said the world was close to realistic as it can get." Sturm reflected on the fact that it was the unarmed attack that gave him access to the skill before looking at his surroundings, at the soaring islands in the distance,

"Well, in some respects."

After another moment, a new message popped up in front of him again, this time the content was much more interesting, in more ways than one.

"You’ve got the achievement ‘Interesting’. Someone disproportionately powerful is watching you – don't disappoint him."

Sturm hadn't expected for such an achievement to pop up, in fact he hadn’t expected any such thing at all, as his haunches immediately raised as he began glancing around to see who this ‘someone extremely powerful’ is. And, upon finding no one around, glancing up.

The achievement was extremely intriguing… and extremely obscure. Did it mean anything? Did it have any in-game influence? Unknown, but…

But what gamer wouldn't want to receive a new achievement?!

***

The achievement given to the guy – and by the way, I sent Jim one just like it – meant nothing, it was just my personal little mark on the players who had caught my eye, for further observation. Perhaps, as a little unique bonus without in-game influence for the two players who had led me to think about the urgency of closing the gaping holes within the game, like air or environmental kills. Well, skills too, for that matter…

Who wouldn't want to get a unique Achievement?! Even if there was no effect on anything – it was still there, and it was unique! It would be nice to have a nice art for it too…

Ok, well, things seems to be well in order – so, Watcher, have any of the players made it to the central temple yet?

After a moment, I got a somewhat unexpected answer – yes, a group of three players who had spawned near the entrance to the temple had already approached the first structures! I suppose random spawn points really does mean random! I’m just glad that none of the spawn points ended up outside the Island…

Flying to the group of players, I looked into their characters and found out, to my surprise, the group had converged into the typical adventurers' archetype. One of the three had more or less allocated his stats like a warrior, the other to mage – or scholar rather, given that he had raised his Intelligence by four, and his Wisdom by one – and the third had dumped all his stats in Charms!

I hate to have to tell the poor guy that Charm meant nothing, but I'm not going to.

“Do you have any idea what’s the story supposed to be here?” One of the guys' voiced out, distracting me, making me stare at the player who was looking at the ruins outside.

“No idea," Shrugged the guy with a ten in Charm, nicknamed ‘Jabberwocky’ as he answered,

"Betting on a demonic apocalypse in paradise… or its local version anyway.”

“Oh, fantasy post-apoc, there haven't been many of those lately," The last of the trio interjected, while I carefully wrote down all the players' thoughts that popped up. I mean, not wrote them down, but dictated them, turning the thought into a kind of record for the future.

After… I don't really know how long, I had more or less figured out the basics of how my body was supposed to function now and could even reap the benefits of my new existence a bit.

“What about Orania? That came out recently.” Jabberwocky answered, finally backing away from the wall, heading back to the group.

“Well, I suppose the theme there is not exactly post-apoc, I'd say it's just the standard ‘dark times coming’," The scholar shrugged – with a name like ‘Willie the Big Ring’ he’s really not spec’ed accurately. At least, I hope he's talking about some other ring, not the one I thought of in the first place…

And anyway, you guys are talking about the wrong thing – you're playing my game now, not Orania, and by the way, Orania was definitely a postapoc game!

“Okay, back to the game we’re tying to figure out guys, we're not playing Orania here,"

Surprisingly, as if reading my thoughts, the apparent leader, Jabberwocky, brought the discussion back. "It seems that we've got a big ruined settlement here, which means what?”

The other two players instantly smirked.

I wonder what?

The loot you get from these ruins mostly consisted of sand, dust, and dirt – I scattered a few copper and silver coins here and there… Which were of no use now – I just thought that in a fantasy game they were standard. Huh, maybe I should fix that soon, there is money and no merchants.

Well, I did place a piece of armor somewhere in the ruins – ‘ceremonial robe of a junior servant’ I think? The equipment however gives no bonuses, mostly because I hadn't yet figured out what abilities and skills players had, to give them bonuses on them.

There are some vials of ‘Holy Water’ scattered around, which was the quest item that was supposed to be what was used to cleanse the sources of curse in the underground vaults.

Other than that, there were some random bits and bobs – ropes, cords, crates, moldy bread, nothing special, and a sword which I had hidden on one of the islands, carefully deposited in the farthest corner of the rubble-filled building.

Whoever finds it will be rewarded with the sword, so far the only actual weapon in the whole game. A rarity!

However, the group of players, after nodding to each other, instantly went into the depths of the ruins, to comb the temple complex.

With that, I think I've managed, at least for the first ten minutes, to cope with the influx of players!

Great, so now we can get back to completing the quest lineup!

***

An hour of fruitful work later, I think I’ve managed to come up with most of the primary skills and had even issued the vast majority of them to players. Yes, while the primary skills I came up with were simply uninteresting passive boosts to players' abilities in certain conditions, affecting the bare modifiers of primary characteristics, it was honest work.

Secondary skills on the other hand, some of which I already had time to make, were about the same, only layered on top of the primary skill that only applied in an even narrower area. For example, in the primary skill of Unarmed Combat, I had time to come up with the secondary skill – Boxing, a skill applying a bonus to characters using brass knuckles.

Something which players were still far from using, due to the absence of the aforementioned items in the game itself. Then, I had an idea of implementing some kind of Martial Arts skills. But seeing that my knowledge about them stopped in about knowing that they exist, and that they’re a lot of kinds of Martial Arts, I placed it aside…

I didn't know much about boxing either, though, so the Boxing skill pretty much consists of things that looked like boxing that I saw in movies… so it might actually be nothing like actual boxing – but whatever.

My perception of time unknowingly began to slowly stretch, as it had before, but I was fairly certain that not even an hour had passed by the time the message from Hound found me pondering the complexity of Martial Arts.

And the message announced to me that on one of the islands, someone had managed to ruin the main quest!

Each island held two dozen bottles of 'holy water', which players had to use to purify an underground spring. It was more than enough, considering that only two were needed for the purification, but in the end it was not an infinite amount – since a holy water respawn point or something wasn't there either.

And in just an hour the players on one island managed to use up all the holy water! And not in the way to solve the quest, either! Not that there are quests really right now…

My first thought was that the players had somehow managed to drop it off the edge of the cliff, or maybe they thought that the holy water would protect them for the instant death. I had thought about that possibility, and was prepared to see some madman tossing themselves off the cliff after drinking the ‘holy water’.

But what greeted me after the move made me clutch my heart and then my head.

Jabberwocky, who by this point had managed to raise his levels three times, and had invested all his three rewarded stat points in Charm. Why, boy, when it’s not even a working stat?!

He had set up some kind of circle around himself with Players as he continued to pour out another bottle of holy water.

Not on the ground thankfully, at least they had not completely ruined the quest as the holy water could be poured back into the bottles. He was pouring out the holy water into a large bowl, which I remember could be found in some hall in the ruins… The AI, at my command, had created the bowl as dressing to create the atmosphere of an abandoned temple. In other words, it’s just a cosmetic item with no use whatsoever.

Surrounding the man were four more Players, dressed in ‘ceremonial robes of junior servants’ – judging by their stats, they were planning to play as mages. But right now, rather than hunting the imps, they were standing around in a circle reciting something in a language… that I didn’t recognize, which is a surprise since I’m supposed to gain mastery in all languages.

How could that happen? Given that it was transmitted, anyway, in code as zeros and ones?!

But listening a little more with surprise, and undercurrents of terror, I found that I seemed to know the language they were using at the moment.

It was the invented pseudo-language that I wrote on the walls of the underground vault!

I could guess the words, but not their meaning because they had no meaning – it was supposed to be a pseudo-language without meaning!

Jabberwocky, however, after pouring the last of the holy water into the large bowl, took a few steps inside the peculiar cross formed by the four players, after which… After which he knelt in front of the ruined and cracked statue of what I imagined an angel looked like, in other words it looked generic as hell. At least the AI created it exactly to my specifications?

It was that perhaps too generic an angel did something to the mind of Jabberwocky started speaking in a chanting cadence – like a madman.

“Having come to this world without a mind, like children, and without a purpose, like the hapless, we ask help from the all-knowing inhabitants of heaven.” Then he bowed his head and then poured all the holy water in the bowl on the standing statue.

I, on the other hand, watched with an emotion on the verge of horror and admiration as the holy water flowed down the statue's cracked features and pretty much ruined the ‘main story’ for 200 Players.

No, of course I'm pleased when players start to take my creation seriously… But you're taking a wrong turn somewhere, guys! No, you’re in a different country entirely! Where's your genre awareness, the necessary ability to metagame?! Why would you discard a Quest Item so easily?

I understand that you were promised an incredibly fulfilling world, where every action has a consequence, but… Oh, that’s right, that's exactly what you were promised – and my function is to make sure you don't doubt that's exactly what you're getting.

Okay, I get it.

Watching with aloof acceptance as the last drops of the Quest Item got poured… Wait, that's right, damn it! Quest items! I didn’t put the ‘Quest Item’ tag on the bottles of Holy Water! In fact, I haven't even introduced the concept of a quest item…

All right, Jabberwocky, take your well-deserved achievement and…

And now it looks like I'll have to come up with a system of NPCs, something I need to do urgently… again.

But until that system is in place – well, I'll just have to earn my bread myself…

***

Watching the droplets of water dripped onto the floor and the dozen gawkers watching his little impromptu ceremony, Jabberwocky felt a seed of doubt in his mind.

No, of course they were promised something incredible and other epithets, but Jabberwocky wanted to check it out for himself.

A couple of other players who had unlocked the Linguistics and Perception skills had managed to decipher some of the writings in the underground chamber. Though they had to be extremely careful not to get caught up in the instant-killing mist, they had made a very important discovery. Whilst the mists were dangerous, they would dissipate away from the holy water carried in the hands of these researchers – allowing them to find from the texts that the writing were some sort of summoning ritual.

Whatever the people, or whatever else the local inhabitants on this island were, tried to invoke in the underground shrine, one could easily guess that things had not gone the way the summoners would have liked. The strange oily liquid in the center of the temple room – with clouds of the poisonous mists seemingly coming out of it – were clearly the reason for this.

Attempts to use the liquid in any manner only met with catastrophe – it was impossible to empty it, and any careless touch would lead to instant death. Only the holy water could contain the effects of the poisonous mist for some time – but that was a temporary half measure at best. No, they need another way to solve this puzzle.

After making a couple of attempts, and observing just how futile their attempts to physically remove the liquid, a council was convened to make suggestions on exactly what the players should have done. At the very least the deaths were not in vain, they were able to narrow down the revive time to being two hours.

All the players, of course, already had a quest to ‘destroy the corruption’, the completion of it probably unlocking the next area. But seeing as how removing it by physical action was impossible for the players, and no one had found magic in the game so far, it was decided for the Players to search for unconventional solutions.

It was then that Jabberwocky came to a peculiar idea. If the poison mist was all the result from a failed summon, what about trying to organize a successful summon, but diametrically opposite in direction?

It was the most efficient and sensible idea, at least so far, in the Player's council. So after only a couple of minutes the ceremony was organized, all leading to this point.

And so Jabberwocky watched with bated breath as he watched the holy water, the anathema to the poison mists, poured over the statue. For a few seconds nothing happened – a few gawkers even managed to open their mouths to speak out about what was happening – or rather, what was not

They didn't have time for it, though.

A moment later a message blinked in front of Jabberwocky's face, but even he had no time to read it, for the message was instantly swept away by a new one – a huge, colorful one. It appeared at the same time as the sound of the shattering glass – so loud, it was as if the sky itself had shattered at the same time.

"ATTENTION! AN ACT HAS BEEN COMMITTED AND ITS CONSEQUENCES WILL AFFECT ALL EXISTENCE!" Simply, but very conspicuously written in gothic script, colored, the words in the box in front of him took all of Jabberwocky’s attention.

After another moment, almost unnoticed by all the players distracted by the menacing message, the angel statue twitched slightly.

Then a rumble resounded, a sound that no Player could ignore, some even, perhaps by experience, took a step back even when the danger was not apparent. But all of them watched as the stone angel, no larger than the average woman, took a step off the pedestal. The statue pulling itself away from the stonework to which it was supposed to be attached to and took a step forward.

Even Jabberwocky himself, watching such a ridiculous thing, involuntarily recoiled, even when he knew with all his rational mind that this was only a game event.

With his rationality finally taking hold, however, he pulled himself together, staring agape at the statue that, moment by moment, began to transform. Her skin began to lighten from its previous marble-like color, with the hair taking on a golden color, and the stone wings to slowly gain liveliness, its stony exterior chipping to reveal the skin beneath.

The four players who acted as attendants stepped back with careful and cautious steps, while Jabberwocky, the possessor of the highest Charm, and thus best suited to communicate with the NPC, stepped forward. After which, after a moment's hesitation, he fell to one knee.

The angel, appearing before all in all its glory, an androgynous creature with marble white skin, golden hair, and eyes that had no whites, pupils, or irises, only a sunburned glow in them. Two snow-white wings held aloft behind her – or his – the angel was androgynous, as was said earlier, shoulders, held the angel aloft barely touching the ground, hovering just an inch or two above the ground. It was not enough to count it as flight, but enough to create a rather unnerving appearance for the players.

Crouching down on one knee, Jabberwocky eyes were bulging as he opened his messages before glancing at his achievement with great interest.

***

Oh yeah, boy, you certainly piqued my interest! That's a hell of a thing to do!

You also gave me the idea for the quest items, which I was working on while the colorful effects Actor was hurriedly coming up with, were still in play. The headache I was feeling were a warning, let's not do that a second time!

At least I should give hints to players now!

Okay, as I, taking control of the Angel, took another step I looked around at the players, and at the name and level hanging above their heads. The Players were mostly of first and second level – oh, there’s one already in the third level! Geez, did you spend the entire time before now grinding?

Judging by the progress of his quest, he himself managed to close two Gates, well done!

That's how you should play it, and not waste quest items on fuck knows what! Don't you have access to the forum or the chat at least?! Why would you waste time… Oh right, there isn’t one… Ay, to hell with it – to heaven, I mean, judging by my current appearance!

What's done is done! So, slowly I look around at the group, internally trying to work out an emergency plan for the NPC to use the AI I'll be posting here later. I then glanced over at Jabberwocky, who is crouched on one knee in front of me.

Oh yes, you have a lot to atone for!

However, whoever character else I was playing – and I had no idea who I was supposed to be playing! I can't exactly start smiting when they haven’t done anything wrong, and they did ‘summon’ me using holy water not blood… The things I'd do as a demon…

So shifting my gaze and restarting my voice modulation – thank you for that, Herold!

I began to speak.

***

“And who…” The voice of the angel, and there was no other way of describing the being – sounded more like the murmuring of a stream or the sound of a violin than a human voice.

"Has summoned me?”

Jabberwocky, correctly perceiving the silence in his surroundings as his cue, answered without raising his gaze. “It was a ceremony performed by our common decision, but I assume that I can take full responsibility for it.”

“So…” Judging by the faint sound, the angel had shifted the position of its head in space, and was now looking at Jabberwocky himself.

Jabberwocky, obeying his impulse, looked up to gaze into the eyes of the summoned NPC and was immediately struck by how perfectly matched the creature's features were. Not surprising given that it was the product of the efforts of numerous game designers, but seeing such a thing first hand, it was still hard to resist suspending his surprise.

“So tell me…” The angel let a slight smile play on its lips, colored of a pink sunset, "Why did you summon me?”

“We…” Jabberwocky made an answer, though his confusion was shown by his halting speech, perhaps from a product of being talked to by a perfectly beautiful model.

 "Wished to know… where we were. Among many other things.”

“Oh, yes…” The angel paused for a moment as if thinking, which is a great attention to detail for an NPC, acting as if it’s a living, thinking being. "You are in what was formerly known as my garden… that's why you were able to summon me.”

Jabberwocky nodded, it is as he’s expected, a cliché story. “What… what happened to this place?”

“A misfortune," The angel replied calmly, "A great misfortune… Yes, you cannot call War… of Great… Pain in any other way than misfortune. My apologies, I am not accustomed to speaking in your language, so please forgive me for my hiccups.” The angel replied with the same slight smile.

“I understand,” Jabberwocky nodded, what a cliché name as well. “The War of Great Pain…”

Noticing the angel shake his head slightly, Jabberwocky stopped. “Something wrong?”

“My knowledge of your language is imperfect – I'm afraid what I've just said doesn't convey the essence correctly.” The angel shook its head slightly.

“But it's just a thought of an academic nature, worth considering further only if I need to talk about it anymore…”

“Of course," Jabberwocky nodded, "In that case, if I may ask one more question… Why are we here?”

“Why?” The angel, now looking visibly somewhat taken aback, looked into Jabberwocky's eyes, making him flinch slightly from the strange glint of the angel's own glowing eyes,

"You're not here for 'why'… You are here for the 'reason'. And the answer to that question…”

The angel sighed slightly, overcoming the misunderstanding borne out of miscommunication, but Jabberwocky didn’t mind, he’s getting his answer anyway.

 "Because you cannot survive in other places. Yes, this world is full of… Wonders and, at the same time, dangers… Dangers you cannot overcome as you are now.”

“I see…” Jabberwocky exhaled and looked at the angel seriously. "Then I beg you, share your power with us!”