Admin: First Day (2) (Patreon)

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!”