The Conduit Read online

  A set of steel armor gleamed from a rack, complete with a breastplate, bracers, greaves, boots, pauldrons, gauntlets, and a helmet, as well as a shortsword and a shield. The next was a set of sleek leather armor pieces with a pair of daggers to replace the sword and shield. The third was a hooded robe, which was matched with a staff and a book covered in arcane symbols. Out of the way, on the floor next to the exit, was a plain leather backpack. I went for the backpack first. Rather than having to physically strap it on, I saw a message pop up on my interface.

  Equip in backpack slot? [Y/N]

  I focused on the ‘Y’ as the trainer had told me, and saw it become highlighted. Instinctively, I made a clicking motion with my right index finger and immediately felt its weight on my back. That was convenient! I focused on the new backpack icon that had appeared on the interface, and clicked it open, seeing that it contained various items such as a flint&steel, some food, torches, a waterskin, and even a bedroll. It appeared that it could hold items larger than the container itself, so I didn’t have to worry about being too constrained by nasty, mean old physics. To test it out, I reached into the backpack and pulled out the bedroll. The way it was packaged, the bedroll barely fit through the opening. The only physical limitation of my inventory appeared to be that the object must be able to fit through my backpack’s opening.

  Turning back to the equipment, I was surprised to see that it lacked stats. I surmised that the protective value of the equipment was determined more realistically than non-VR games. To test it out, I took one of the daggers and swiped it towards the suit of metal armor. The dagger rebounded with a dull clang. I repeated the action against the leather armor, and while the leather resisted the blow, the dagger left a shallow cut where I’d struck. I was afraid to repeat the experiment with the robes, expecting that it wouldn’t be difficult to reduce them to tatters. I replaced the dagger into its leather sheath, and thought about which set to choose. I was curious to learn magic, and wondered if I could still perform it while wearing steel armor. I walked over to the set of steel armor, grabbing each piece and equipping it the same way I’d worn the backpack. I also equipped the book and staff, jamming the rest of the equipment into my physics-defying pack before heading into the next room. I was immediately greeted by a system message and a detailed class description.

  You have earned the achievement: Packrat! For cleaning out the class selection room, you gain +5 additional carrying capacity to your backpack.

  Excellent! I like freebies, and it appeared that most players assumed they couldn’t take everything and run. I checked my backpack’s capacity and saw that I had 55 storage spaces instead of the original 50, although only 30 or so slots were free due to the starting items I’d grabbed, as well as the supplies that were already in the pack. I checked the second message.

  You have chosen the class: Battle Mage

  Battle Mages excel in casting defensive buffs, then pummeling their foes with powerful offensive magic. They are also known to carry melee weapons and get up close and personal with their enemies. They are less able than Mages to perform the complex rituals necessary to cast long-range spells in combat due to their heavy armor. But their survivability is leaps and bounds ahead of the typical Mage. Similarly, Warriors are more adept in close quarters combat, but the Battle Mage’s access to spells gives them versatility that a Warrior could never hope to achieve.

  Accept class: Battle Mage [Y/N]?

  I stopped and thought for a moment, wondering how many class combinations there could be. There couldn’t be too many, right? Then again, I imagined a barbarian might wield the sword with no armor, a monk might wear the robes but carry no weapon, and a beastmaster might wear nothing at all, except perhaps a helmet. There were likely many combinations, and I was curious as to how many I might encounter. Being a Battle Mage could fit my playstyle quite well. I wanted to use magic, and it always frustrated me how squishy mages were. Ah, to hell with it. I clicked yes.

  You have learned a new word: Shield. Check your spellbook and practice to gain mastery.

  You have learned a new word: Bolt. Check your spellbook and practice to gain mastery.

  You have learned a new word: Force. Check your spellbook and practice to gain mastery.

  I let out an audible “Hmm.” This system of magic was completely unfamiliar to me. What were words? Could they perhaps be combined into spells and cast to produce different effects? It did sound interesting. I decided to look into it later, after I was finished with the character creation process. It was time to move on. In the next room was a girl wearing leather armor, trimming her fingernails with a knife. She was sitting in a simple wooden chair, and behind her was a lone portal. She struck me as very pretty, with long dark hair and delicate features.

  She looked up and smirked at me. “It’s about time, what took you so long?”

  I squinted at her in confusion. “Who are you?” I was confident that I was still in the character creation phase, so I was really confused as to how there could be another player in the same location.

  “The name’s Alicia, it’s nice to meet you Alex!” She smiled, stood up, and walked over to me with her hand held out.

  I took her hand, giving it a firm shake. “It’s good to meet you as well. How do you know my name? Also, how did we end up in the same area for character creation?”

  First, she pointed above my head. “Your name’s floating right up there, silly! If you’d looked at me a little more closely you’d have seen mine too. Also, I’m not a player, I’m an AI. Every player is accompanied by a complementary companion. You’re a Battle Mage, so I’m a cunning rogue.” She added dashingly. “We’ll make quite the team!” My jaw dropped. This was the first I’d heard of anyone developing such an advanced AI, and she’d fooled me without even the slightest effort. She gave me a funny look, as if I’d missed something, and continued. “They tried creating non-player characters (NPCs) in the virtual environment, giving them inputs and outputs only previously known to humans. They could hear, taste, touch, see and smell. The programs spontaneously adapted and became, well, what you see here.” She indicated herself, giving me that funny look again. “We were supposed to ask players to collect 20 rabbit pelts, or 50 bear asses or whatever, but that was too boring, so now we get to play alongside the players.”

  I immediately saw a potential issue, “What if the player and the AI don’t get along? Are they assigned at random?”

  She shook her head. “No, each AI has a distinct personality which is matched to the player. You probably forgot, but there were a few questionnaires e-mailed to you that required your response before you could play the game. That was so you’d be matched to someone you’d get along with.” She smirked again. “That’s why I know we’re going to make a good team.” She reached toward my face, touching it. “Wow, you feel so real. They did an amazing job.”

  I felt much better, but also that I’d been overloaded with information. “Well, Alicia, I’m not sure I can match your unbridled optimism, but I like you already. Let’s do this!” Together, we walked through the portal, stepping into a swath of lush, verdant plains. Let the adventure begin!

  Chapter 2: Isolation

  I turned to Alicia. “Shouldn’t there be a town or something.”

  She shrugged in reply. “How should I know?” Suddenly, something caught her attention and I lost sight of her. A second later I heard a piteous shriek and saw Alicia proudly holding a dead rabbit, which was still dripping blood from a dagger wound. “Lunch!” I smiled at her encouragingly and took in our surroundings. We had exited the portal into a lush green meadow at the edge of a pine forest. A slight breeze ruffled my hair, bringing with it the coppery scent of the freshly killed rabbit’s blood mingled with pine. I noticed that a bar on my interface had filled up ever so slightly with the slaying of the sinister bunny. I tried to bring up my attributes, but received a system message instead.

  The Attribute panel will unlock at level 10!

  I was
a little disappointed, though I assumed the developers had a reason. Maybe they wanted players to get a feel for their skills and abilities before deciding where to allocate their points? I let it be for now, turning to Alicia. “Do you want to set up camp here for a bit? Maybe I should figure out how my spells work in case we find something bigger than a rabbit.”

  “Good idea!” She beamed. “I’ll try to find some materials for a basic shelter and a campfire, maybe set up a rudimentary crafting station. We should make some more waterskins in case we have trouble finding a water source nearby.”

  I nodded at her, having trouble hiding how surprised I was at her foresight and intelligence. I had assumed that the first AIs would be, well, less intelligent than I was, but she seemed to be a step ahead of me. Alicia skipped into the forest while I sat down and opened my spellbook. The symbols on the first page resolved into a basic description of spells.

  Spells consist of at least two words. A ‘shape’ word and an ‘energy’ word. Each word has both a verbal component and a physical, gesturing component. The more accurately each component matches the intended word, the stronger the resulting spell. More complex spells may include multiple words, but those spells have more points at which they may fail, they will take longer to cast, and they will drain your mana more quickly.

  Okay, that made sense. I knew two ‘shape’ words, shield and bolt, and one ‘energy’ word, force. I first turned to the page for force, and let out a little laugh. Whoever designed spellcasting wanted to make the first few spells easy, because the verbal component for force was “New-tun-us” and the gesture was pushing forward, then pulling back with the staff. The word for shield was “Pro-tek-tas”, and the gesture was drawing a circle in the air clockwise, then counterclockwise. Bolt was “Ro-ke-tos”, and the gesture was the similar to that of force; bolt is cast by pulling back, then thrusting forward. After mumbling to myself and practicing the gestures, I was ready to try them out. I learned that the order wasn’t important. I could say “Force Shield” or “Shield Force”, or “Force Bolt” or “Bolt Force” and get the same result. I decided to make it a habit to say the energy word first, in case I needed to change my mind mid-cast. That way I could change an offensive action to a defensive one on the fly, or vise-versa. I also noticed that each cast drained a blue bar which would then slowly regenerate, which must be my mana. In addition to the mana drain, I also noticed that the color slowly faded out of everything around me with each cast. Worryingly, casting while wearing my heavy armor substantially drained a green bar which must be my endurance, and the more it drained the wearier I felt, and the harder it was to move. That’s why they warned me during class selection, I suppose.

  A cacophony of snapping twigs derailed my train of thought, as Alicia practically flew out of the forest. My eyes followed her, but I looked back towards the woods in time to see a lumbering behemoth composed of fur and claws barrel out after her. Immediately recognizing the danger, I scrambled to my feet. “Newtonus Protektas!” I shouted, gesturing towards Alicia. As the temporary barrier sprang up around her, she turned and stood her ground, her daggers flashing out in front of her, searching for her opponent’s flesh. I was already starting to cast Force Bolt, hoping the shield would hold long enough for us to take down the massive bear. “Newtonus Roketos!” The bolt rocketed out of my staff, exploding into the bear’s back and releasing a gout of blood. Its last swipe had shattered Alicia’s Force Shield, but it was no matter because the bear had turned and was now barreling towards me. I saw that it was a level 5 black bear, a very difficult opponent even though there were two of us. I barely finished uttering “Newtonus Protektas.” and gesturing in a circle before the bear started biting and clawing at me, but the shield appeared just in time. The sound of claws scraping against the invisible barrier roiled my guts, but it held firm. Alas, I was spent and dropped to my knees in exhaustion, almost colorblind due to my lack of mana.

  Fortunately, Alicia managed to sneak up behind the bear, sinking both of her daggers into its kidneys. The combat log showed that she dealt bonus damage from flanking as well as the backstab. Taking so much damage in such a short amount of time stunned the bear temporarily. All I could manage was one hefty swing of my staff to the side of its head, causing a loud *CRACK*. With a piteous roar, the bear fell to the ground in a heap. “Wow, that was close, where did you find that thing?” I asked after catching my breath. The barest hint of slivers remained of my mana and endurance bars, and I saw that Alicia was panting with exertion.

  She looked down at the ground sheepishly, “Well, I kind of figured we could take it, so I, uh, lured it out here.”

  I was speechless. We nearly died, I thought for sure it was an accident! We could have set traps or something! Oh well, all’s well that ends well I suppose. I rolled my eyes and said, “You’re insane. Did you at least get the supplies to set up camp?”

  “Oh, yeah, I found all that stuff ages ago. I just thought we might as well have some fun. I was starting to get bored.” After that revelation, she set to work skinning the bear with her daggers. While humming a happy tune, mind you. On a more positive note, we both had advanced to level 2. I didn’t learn any new words, but I checked my spellbook and saw that I was gaining proficiency in the three words I already knew. In addition, my energy, health, and endurance all increased. Alicia had removed the supplies from her pack and stacked them nearby, so I started to set up the camp. After a short time, we had a campfire with a cooking spit, a rudimentary shelter, and a rack to dry the skins. There was so much bear meat that we decided to cut most of it into strips to dry over the fire and make into jerky. The game did a passable job of simulating hunger and eating. I could feel the emptiness in my stomach, and it was enough to bring the bear jerky to my mouth and pretend to eat to alleviate the cramps. I even began to feel full, and after a while pretending to eat seemed enough like the real thing that I barely noticed a difference. After having dinner, we laid out our bedrolls in the shelter and slept. Or, perhaps Alicia slept. After 20 seconds with my eyes closed, I exited the VRE and found myself back in my apartment.

  The chair had worked its magic, I didn’t feel cramped or uncomfortable at all. I did, however, need to use the bathroom, so I took care of that business. I also realized that it was 8pm and I hadn’t eaten in hours. I opted for a light dinner and checked the news. The internet was abuzz with the revelation of AI within Epic. Some people were excited, some were afraid, but most people seemed to think it was a good thing that the AIs were confined within the VRE. In searching for game-related news, I found there was quite a bit of grumbling at the apparent lack of towns and cities. Players don’t like it when their expectations aren’t met. However, other players who’d met up and collaborated had found the building and crafting systems to be remarkably robust. In just a few short hours small cabins had been constructed and some tribal villages had been founded. Alicia and I had not ventured far from our portal exit location, so it wasn’t surprising that we hadn’t run into anyone yet. Maybe it would be a good idea to pack up and go exploring tomorrow in search of one of these budding villages.

  Satisfied that all was stable in the virtual world, I checked my real-world provisions. I’d done quite a bit of shopping in preparation for my two weeks off, and had a seemingly endless supply of granola bars and bottled water, as well as instant breakfast shakes and microwavable dinners in case I was craving something with a bit more substance. I popped a generic meal claiming to be chicken into the microwave and tried to figure out where I was in this new world. This was a question on a lot of players’ minds, and some patterns had already started to emerge. Apparently, Epic and the real world shared the same 24-hour day/night cycle, and players found that the hours matched perfectly depending on where they were geographically located. A lot of the fledgling villages were concentrated on the east and west coasts of the United States, which wasn’t surprising. I was living in a small town in the Midwest, so it was unlikely that I’d find any villages nearby. Oth
er players had reported seeing landmarks like the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Lakes, suggesting that Epic simulated real-world topography. With the amount of data collected using satellite imagery, perhaps that was easier than creating a fictional world. Still, with such a low population density it could get quite lonely, but I imagine that’s why every player was paired with a companion AI. After finishing my dinner, I realized it was already 11pm, so I crawled into bed, prepared to dream of what the next day might bring.

  Chapter 3: Not so empty

  After going through my morning ablutions and eating a hearty breakfast, I made my way to the chair and entered the VRE, preparing to wake up for the second time today. In the game I awoke to the sound of a chainsaw tearing through a chain-link fence. Panicking, I shot up out of the bedroll, but as soon as the sound had started it stopped again. Suddenly, it started up again, and I noticed it was just Alicia snoring, slack-jawed and drooling. I grabbed her arm and shook her awake.

  “Huh, wha? Izzit mornun aready?” she mumbled half-coherently. With a yawn and a stretch she ambled out of the shelter, squinting at the rising sun. I followed her out, tossing a few branches onto the smoldering fire with a bit of kindling to get it going again. There was still a lot of bear to smoke, and I didn’t believe in being wasteful. It was no coincidence that I got the ‘Packrat’ achievement. For now, I grabbed a tasty-looking chunk, pulled my waterskin out of my backpack, and washed down the bear jerky with swigs of water between bites.

  “Oh, I forgotta menchun ih buh…” *cough cough* Alicia was interrupted by a choking fit, so I gave her my waterskin and she drank deeply, coughing a few more times to clear her throat.