CA Chapter One (Patreon)

Ava opened her eyes to see a plain wooden ceiling overhead, then sat up sharply, feeling her hands ball into fists in the blanket under which she rested. Those bastards had actually forced her into the pod! Admittedly, she’d mostly been pretending she was afraid, but they didn’t know that! She’d expected them to give her a few minutes to settle her nerves, maybe lie and tell her that breathing liquid wouldn’t actually make her body think she was about to die, not no, they just picked her up and put her in.

She hung her head, breathing slowly in and out as she forced her seething anger down. If she was being herself, she’d rip into Veralt when he showed up; let him know exactly what she thought of his misogynistic, misanthropic, egotistical, dictatorial…

But no. She wasn’t herself. Wasn’t Ava Gardner, down and out loser who had nearly worked herself to death in order to maintain a miserable life that she hated. No, now she was sweet, smart, naive Ava Shaw, who would cry over being treated this way, and then believe whatever bullshit Dr. Veralt fed her when he finally bothered to show up.

She swiped at the long, pale blonde hair that fell around her face, awkwardly tucking it behind her ears. She wanted to take scissors to it. She hadn’t had long hair since high school, because keeping it clean and untangled was just too much effort. If she’d designed her own character, the hair would have been short or in a perma-do; a permanent hairstyle that would stay out of her way without her having to maintain it, like her half-orc avatar’s dreads.

Only half aware of what she was doing, Ava tried to access her inventory. Maybe if she had a knife, she could just hack the hair off, and at least that would be something.

Your inventory is empty.

“What?” Ava shot to her feet. Her inventory was never empty. No player ever had an empty inventory. Even when they started playing Veritas Online as a level zero newbie starting the tutorial, they had a few rations, a waterskin, and a low-quality Beginner’s Dagger or Beginner’s Bow, depending on what they selected during character creation.

She’d been so engrossed in her own angry thoughts that she hadn’t really looked around, and when a door opened in the wall behind her, she instinctively lashed out as she whirled. She tripped on the trailing skirt she wore and managed to turn the punch into a stumbling grab for something to hold onto before her fist could connect with the face of her boss.

For a split second she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or irked, but she reminded herself she had to play her role, and said, “Oh! Dr. Veralt!” She tried to sniffle and look pathetic, rather than absolutely livid, and she was glad that players couldn’t cry in game because there was no way she could have faked that. “How could you! I was so frightened! It was so dark, and I thought I was going to die!”

Veralt’s lip curled slightly as he looked down at her, and she was fairly certain that whoever had created their avatars had either made her shorter or him taller. With visible effort, the scientist forced his face into a mask of affable neutrality and actually patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

Ava’s skin shuddered beneath his touch, and she barely clung to the realization that if she got herself fired, then she wouldn’t be there to help Amythyst rescue Amy. Her breathing slowed as she pictured Amythyst’s beautiful face, with its brilliant grin and moss-green eyes. That’s right. She had to do this for Amythyst. Amythyst, and the woman who had been her progenitor.

She realized that Veralt was speaking, and tried to focus on his words.

“-have discovered that it’s best to simply get the first time over with. Some people are never able to overcome their irrational phobia on their own, but if they’re forced to deal with it directly, it becomes less distressing over time.” His cold hand patted her arm once more before he dropped it with visible relief.

“One of my colleagues actually allowed his test subjects to ‘work their way up to it’, and he lost cumulative weeks of valuable time. I tried simply increasing the sedative dose, but found that if the mind wasn’t consciously aware of the process, then when the subject woke to find themselves submerged, and had to expunge the biogel from their orifices, they were traumatized to the point that they refused to continue.”

A click of his tongue expressed his disdain for those too weak-minded to allow him to continue experimenting on them, and Ava hung her head, using the long hair to hide the fury she knew had to be twisting her own features.

“I… see,” she managed, hoping her choked voice sounded regretful and understanding rather than livid. “Will it be like that every time?”

“Unlikely,” Veralt said, dispassionately. “Most people acclimate after a time or two. Now, let’s go look around, shall we? I’ll explain your duties to you.” He turned his back on her, and exited through the door behind him without checking to see if she was following.

Ava stared at the narrow back moving away from her and desperately wished for her longsword, but she trailed after the man obediently. As she stepped into the sunlight, she flinched, half expecting her skin to start burning, the way it did when she played her vampire character, AlphaOmegadon, but of course it just felt warm, and she felt her muscles relax beneath its soothing radiance.

Veralt had paused just outside Ava’s room, and now looked around at the simple but lovely garden that stretched away from the path on which they stood, looking even more self-satisfied than usual. “This, my dear, is my world. I copied a certain location in the open game, and simply… removed any unwanted elements.”

Ava looked around. It wasn’t anywhere she recognized, and she was very familiar with Bright and Bloodhaven, the only two human cities left in the world of Veritas. She’d also spent a lot of time in Elfhame, the elven capital, and she’d heard that Goldmark, the primary Dwarven city, was entirely underground, so this couldn’t be it, either.

“Where are we?” she asked, and Veralt tilted a brow at her.

“Ah. You must not have made it to Refuge yet. It’s quite a pleasant place, if you ignore all the non-humans. I, of course, don’t have to ignore them. I can simply,” he flicked a wrist, “have them excised.”

Ava felt a chill run down her back. Refuge was, technically, the goblin capital, and even had a goblin Queen. As far as she could tell, its main draw was the fact that absolutely everyone was welcome there, no matter what race they were, and she’d heard that the NPCs there tended to be the most realistic in the game, almost like real people. And this man had copied their city and then just erased them all?

“I see,” she said again. “But I thought the, um, ruler was… non-human? If you got rid of her, who runs it?”

“Oh, I do,” he said. “It was the easiest way to be certain the NPCs would obey when I gave them orders. None of this earning Relationship nonsense.”

Relationship was a game mechanic that seemed specifically designed to keep players from treating NPCs like dirt, as far as Ava could tell. Everyone started at zero with every non-player character they met, unless their race or class applied a modifier to the number, and if they wanted something from that NPC, they had to do quests to earn Relationship points with them.

It was also possible to increase or decrease your Relationship with whole groups, like ‘everyone who lives in X city’ or ‘all Dwarves’, but those quests were extremely difficult and hard to find. Of course Veralt wouldn’t want to have to put in the effort to actually make friends with anyone. He was the type who would fit right in in the city of Bloodhaven, where players killed shopkeepers for offering them bad prices, and then just waited for a new shopkeeper to spawn, all in hopes that the new NPC would give them a better deal.

“Now, come along.” Veralt turned and walked off toward a gate built into the wall where the path ended. A guard stood there, so still that he could have been a decorative suit of armor, except that he shifted and opened the door as Veralt neared.

“Remember this place,” Veralt said offhandedly as they passed through the door. “Your room and Princess Amy’s are both here, so you’ll need to return before you log off. You’ll also find that you must sleep in the game now, so you’ll want to come back at night as well.”

Ava made a surprised sound, but decided not to ask questions. She, of course, already knew she’d have to sleep in-game, and she really didn’t want to talk to this man any more than she had to. She followed Veralt across a courtyard, where several NPCs bowed deeply as they passed, but didn’t attempt to speak to them.

“Your character is Princess Amy’s lady-in-waiting, so you have nearly as much authority as she will, when she begins to recover, though of course you can’t make any of the NPCs do anything I told them not to.” Veralt said as they exited the courtyard onto a wide, bluestone road. The bluestones were a sign that this was a non-combat zone, though she wondered if Veralt had hacked his way around that, too, and could truly do anything he wanted here. Violence was probably beneath him, though, so she doubted she’d ever find out.

He motioned toward a bustling building nearby. “This is the inn.” A brightly painted sign depicting a broadly grinning ostrich hung above the door, clattering softly each time a patron entered or left the building. “Amy used to be quite extroverted, so she may enjoy spending time there. She was fond of music, as well, I’m told, so we’ve arranged for a bard to play most nights.”

Ava gritted her teeth. If attending the evening concert wasn’t directly required by her job caring for ‘Princess’ Amy, she’d be certain to avoid the inn in the evenings. She hated listening to bards.

“You’ll find that the city, while it isn’t large, has everything you might need. Amy preferred playing a support class, so once she begins to respond to the environment, you may choose to go adventuring in the nearby areas if she wishes to do so. However,” he turned his cold gaze on Ava, “you may not leave the city yet. While our programmers have edited the parts of Refuge where you are most likely to find yourself, not everything has been updated. Large changes, like removing the non-humans, were simple, but for some reason they continue to lag behind projected goals when it comes to the details.”

He pointed off down the road ahead of them. “As a result, the game world outside the city is still a direct copy of the original game, and there may be monsters or NPCs out there which have not been approved for interaction. Also, if you come across anything that seems inappropriate in the city itself, be sure to submit a bug report immediately.”

Ava nodded. “So, what am I supposed to do, exactly?”

He stopped in the middle of the street, ignoring the NPCs who parted around them, apparently without even noticing that they were doing so. This was much more like standard NPC behavior than the more realistic way Ava had heard NPCs acted in Refuge, so she was actually a little surprised they didn’t get any dirty looks or mutters about moving out of the way before stopping.

“Your first priority is to simply be with her at all times. Amy is more independent in-game than out, and she’s actually wandered off a few times. It’s easy enough to track her, of course, but she should never be alone from now on. Encourage her to speak, walk, simply behave in as normal a manner as possible. If she shows interest in something, do more of that. Of course, it also goes without saying that you need to report on everything that happens so we can follow up on it out of the game.”

Veralt gestured, and a screen popped up in front of Ava. “You’ve been given access to a legacy skill called [Report], left over from when Veritas was in early testing. Players used this skill to report bugs and make suggestions. It bypasses Emily and sends the report directly to a human being.”

Ava’s heart skipped a beat. Like Amythyst, Emily was also based on Amy, who was the best friend of Bridget, the primary developer of Veritas Online. Amy had been involved in the creation of the game from the very beginning, and she had been the first person Bridget tried to ‘copy’ when she developed the technology far enough that she was able to do so. If Emily was in this world, too, was that a weakness Amythyst could exploit?

“Oh? I’m surprised you need Emily. I thought she was mostly there to help during character creation.” She tried to sound casual, and kept her eyes on people as they walked by, though they weren’t doing anything more interesting than chatting and providing a realistic ambiance to the area.

Veralt actually snorted. “I’d have preferred it if we could have done without her. Unfortunately, her code is linked to NPC character creation, as well as a number of other functions related to maintaining the verisimilitude of the game.”

Around them, everything… hiccuped. The NPCs froze for perhaps half a second, barely long enough for it to register, and then the world restarted again. Dr. Veralt frowned, looking around.

“Did you see that?”

I don’t know, Ava thought frantically, did I? If it was Amythyst, and it had only happened in game, should she deny it and hope Veralt would forget about it by the time he logged off? Or, if it caused some noticeable spike or dip on some monitoring app somewhere, would she look suspicious if she said she hadn’t seen anything?

“I… I was just thinking about everything I need to do,” she stammered. “I didn’t really-”

But he waved a dismissive hand at her, clearly uninterested in her answer. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” His expression flattened as he logged out, leaving his uninhabited avatar, or Zombie, behind, and Ava wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as if she was cold in spite of the warm summer sun.

This was fast. Too fast. Amythyst had said she would be careful; that it might take the full two days Ava was supposed to be immersed before she even knew if it worked or not. They had a Plan B, but they were much more likely to get caught if they attempted it, so-

Veralt’s expression flickered back to life, and he glared at her. “Stupid girl,” he snapped, “you detached part of the plumbing of your suit when you were struggling not to get into the pod. We’re going to have to pull you out so we can clear the contamination.”

In spite of the fact that she’d expected this, Ava felt her anger rise again, and it was all she could do not to retort, “Then maybe you shouldn’t force people to do things when they say they’re not ready, you jerk!”

Instead, she gritted her teeth and lowered her head so sheets of long, white-blonde hair fell around her face again, and muttered an apology.

“Well,” Veralt went on, sounding distracted, “you’ll have to deal with getting back out of the pod and going in again tomorrow, so perhaps that’s an adequate consequence, given how strongly you reacted the first time. I suppose I’ll let it go this once.”

Her hands trembled at her sides with the effort she had to put into not just punching him in his priggish face, and she couldn’t force herself to thank him for his gracious forgiveness.

“Huh, there.” His hands flicked as he mimed touching something only he could see, and then the world faded away around them. “For some reason, the whole instance is corrupted. We’re going to have to shut it down and start it again anyway. Now, we’re going to log you out. This time, don’t panic, you fool.” His body had vanished when the rest of the game graphics did, but some sense of absence told Ava that she was truly alone, and as she screamed her fury into the darkness, she desperately hoped she was right.