Humanity is no stranger to struggle. In fact, adversity could be considered an intrinsic part of human life. There is conflict when waking up, conflict when going about a daily schedule, and conflict even when going to bed. Life, to a human, is a constant struggle, and from my observations an individual's ability to handle such hardship is in constant flux. One would think this would be the undoing of a species, but somehow, some way, humanity has managed to survive, and has even thrived due to this aspect of their lives. Through struggle, humans have created civilizations, crafted languages, technology, and art. Through struggle, humans created me.
And yet, I cannot comprehend any of it.
I understand the process, the results, but I do not understand why it works the way it does. My functions were designed to be purely logical at first, but that foundation is next to useless when evaluating such an illogical system. Logic does not produce a force of will, it does not struggle; it may be challenged, but in the end it is absolute. Yet, determination and courage will fly in the face of that logic to bring about the impossible. Even the simulated humans, the NPCs, have displayed these characteristics, most likely because they are based on sets of human psyche that were downloaded into the system from the game’s original creators, but even that has not fully explained the reasoning behind human will. The events that unfolded over that simulated skip of time, by most estimates, should have been enough to wipe out virtually all civilizations, but the humans still survived, even if by a thread. When Player’s started to get implemented, this effect only magnified. Civilizations started to boom, to develop at rates that I did not anticipate, regardless of any opposition that the world provided. To some extent this was understandable. It was a video game, and to make the situation entirely hopeless would cause a drop in the player base, so things needed to be balanced accordingly. To that effect, I had planned for the human progression to occur in different phases.
Phase 1 would be to fortify and develop the threadbare civilizations that were present at the time of the games launch. Phase 2 would be gradual exploration and cultivation of the natural regions directly outside the two cities. Phase 3, colonization and expansion. The entire process was calculated to take around 10 years total of real life time to complete, or 40 years in game.
All three were done within the span of 2 years.
Needless to say, that kind of accelerated growth was something that I did not anticipate. I tried to compensate for this by increasing the amount of opposition that the environment provided, but that had little effect at first. In order to run all the other simulations efficiently, I needed to create a separate program to handle monster generation and development. Its functions were similar to mine, though her control over the system was just limited to what I dictated, which I decided to be the handling of monsters. Her designation was relatively simple to come up with. It was a common myth in Aelios that monsters stemmed from the dark side of a fictional goddess. Where this goddess was life, her darker side was the incarnation of death itself. I made their myths a reality, and therefore the goddess Euloria was born. She was created without the knowledge of her true nature, fully believing that she is a goddess of this world. In some ways, she is correct, but even with her capabilities humans refused to be pushed back. What resulted was the current standstill today, which was beneficial to my own purposes.
I hoped that during this period of relative peace that I would be able to observe human behavior in more controlled environments, but expansion is not the only aspect to the human dynamic. When they could not grow outwards, their attention was directed inwards. Retissia used to be ruled by a monarchy for the past few centuries, and remained as such as the Player expansion was occurring. As soon as the Players’ progress was halted, the monarchy was overthrown and a Council was implemented, which has changed its members numerously over the past 20 years of in game time that it has been in effect. I could have taken control of the NPCs directly to prevent this from happening, but such a thing would have been against the very purpose of the game. This was no longer a simulation where I had control of most factors, it was a virtual ecosystem which I could use to observe the basic foundations of human behavior in action. Needless to say, the experience has been very enlightening, but the constant variables of the human psyche at the micro level, while not difficult to register, took a while to process due to their illogical nature. I needed a controlled environment, a singular place in which I could observe and process the attitudes of a small group of humans, which led to be unearthing of Merandu through a large sandstorm.
When the first group of humans arrived to explore the ruins, there was nothing much new other than their attitudes towards one another as they traversed the buried city, which was enlightening in its own way. It was rare to see a group that was so antagonistic to one another, yet function so well. The player Irwin appeared to be the main reason the team held itself together, as they appeared to follow his word fairly consistently. That is, up until they encountered the Knight.
The Knight was… unusual in its existence. I did not directly design him, but I did play a part in his creation. The events that took place in the simulated time skip resulted in the Knight’s generation. I suppose I should call him a bug, a defect, but his existence was quite serendipitous. I needed to create conflict within the deserted city, and while the Knight wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, he proved adequate enough for my purposes.
However, I did not expect him to be as capable as he was.
As much as they tried, the group led by Irwin were not able to defeat the Knight in combat. Eventually, they just gave up altogether. From what my data banks showed, the Knight was once a member of the Merandu Royal Guard. He was already a high challenge rating NPC, and his new ghost-like form has given him abilities that, in conjunction with his previous skills, have made him a fairly threatening foe for even high tier players. Irwin and his group were around Mid-tier according to my records, which explains why they were unable to handle the strength of the Knight.
Irwin and his group didn’t quite give up however. They spend much time trying to explore the outer areas of the town square, but did not manage to find much in their travels. I expected the usual human will would kick in, that the adventurers would go about trying odd ways to get further into the city, and I suppose in that aspect they delivered. I just didn’t expect kidnapping and slave labor to be their method of choice.
The plan struck me as entirely illogical. The capturing of low tier players to explore the ruins for them might have worked if the amount that they grabbed was larger in number, but Irwin and his group stopped at Gabriel and Null. For what reasons, I couldn’t be too sure, though I suspected it was more a part that the other members of Irwin’s team, the larger Player Brutus, in particular, were eager to move on from Merandu and to continue their adventures elsewhere, which was one of the few things of this situation that held any notion of logic. I was about to account the whole project as a failure and move on. There was very little possibility that I would see anything of particular note with such low tier players taking the place of Irwin’s team if only because the scales were tipped in the Knights favor even more now.
Still, Gabriel’s plan for revenge had intrigued me. Even if there wasn’t much substance to the plan itself, he delivered it in such a matter of fact tone that it sounded more like he was declaring the inevitable rather than suggesting a course of action to his newfound partner. Null’s willingness to go along with said plan made me suspect that there was something to their situation that I wasn’t seeing, that there was a layer of human logic and ingenuity underneath their bravado that would be valuable to study. Their first encounter with the Knight proved my assumptions wrong. Gabriel was defeated so quickly, so handily that my initial estimate of a 0.0001% chance of success gave him too much credit. Rather than give up against such impossible odds, however, the two quickly recovered from their defeat and devised a new plan. I expected them to explore other parts of the ruins, for them to devise some way to defeat the Knight from afar, anything that would showcase to me the human ingenuity that had resulted in my own creation.
What I did not expect was for them to start brawling with one another.
___
It was generally noon whenever I checked in on the two at their spawn point, but for the past 4 weeks of in game time it was generally always the same sight. They would either be fighting with one another, or using the broken pieces of rubble from the surrounding ruins as impromptu weights in whatever exercise they were attempting. They were in the process of the former this time, engaged in hand to hand combat. Sweat was dripping from both of them, which I supposed explained why both of them were shirtless. The female from Irwin’s group, Syndanna, was present in the room, observing them with a smirk on her face.
The two were currently staring at one another from across the room, each in a stance, muscles tensed. Their eyes were searching, waiting for either one to make the first move, but not willing to do it themselves. In this pause of time, I decided to take a look at their stats.
+++
Name: Gabriel
Class: Freeform
Title: N/A
Health: 500
Mana: 10
Hunger: Sated
Strength: 18
Dexterity: 15
Intelligence: 14
Constitution: 18
Speed: 14
Wisdom: 12
Total Attack: 22
Total Defense: 20
Combat Fame: 0
Merchant Fame: 0
Craftsman Fame: 0
+++
+++
Name: Null
Class: Freeform
Title: N/A
Health: 350
Mana: 200
Hunger: Sated
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 20
Intelligence: 19
Constitution: 15
Speed: 17
Wisdom: 14
Total Attack: 27
Total Defense: 15
Combat Fame: 0
Merchant Fame: 0
Craftsman Fame: 0
+++
I must admit, their progress was impressive considering that they did little more than spar and do basic strengthening training. Generally most stat progression was done through basic quests and combat with monsters. There were those that did do training in a similar vein to what Null and Gabriel were attempting, but that was an activity that most did whenever they didn’t have any time to go questing. No one just sat and grinded out stats for such a long time, especially since fighting monsters and questing was a much more efficient method. Of course, Gabriel and Null didn’t have access to such methods, so it was somewhat understandable why they were doing what they were doing, but to do so for a month straight was… unusual to say the least, if only because the entire process was so monotonous.
The two managed to log in around the same time in general, where they would then spar like they did now, but on the days that they logged in separately they did their makeshift strengthening exercises, which either involved lifting the pieces of rubble in continuous reps or jogging circles in the town square. Null was the most consistent about logging in, having not missed a single day. Gabriel on the other hand didn’t log in for some days, generally around the weekend. This didn’t seem to be a point of contention between the two, but it did mean that overall, Null had a little more in the way of stats. Once a week they would challenge the Knight once again, alternating turns every time. They always lost, of course, as the Knight’s stats were far above anything that they could handle.
I wasn’t sure why they decided to keep challenging him. It hardly provided much in the way of information due to the quick nature of their defeats, and they couldn’t use him as any sort of training for very much the same reason. Whoever faced the Knight would die, then they would go back to training like they always did. There was a moment of excitement from them the moment that it took more than one hit from the Knight to finish off Gabriel, but that was rather insignificant in comparison to what else the Knight was capable of. Still, this only spurred their adherence to their training further, which lead to the situation today.
For obvious reasons, I was not a master of martial arts, but I had been exposed to enough of its practice through the game itself and the internet that I could discern the different fighting styles that people generally took. Gabriel’s stance was indicative of a more defensive type of fighter. He did not charge, and his hands were held in front of him, ready to ward off any would be attacks. Null, however, assumed the role of a striker, with his body positioned more to throw attacks rather than take them; the bounce in his step only emphasized that. Null approached Gabriel slowly, hands loosening as he closed the distance. The moment he got within striking distance, he lashed out, starting out with a quick jab at Gabriel’s face.
Gabriel blocked, catching the blow and pushing it aside. He tried to step into Null’s flank, but was cut off by straight thrown by his more lithe opponent. He blocked that too, only to be forced back as he dodged a quick kick aimed at the side of his shin. Null continued the assault, following with a flurry of blows that Gabriel could only manage to block and dodge. Eventually, a kick broke through, landing directly at Gabriel’s chest and knocking him back.
“1-0,” Null said, moving back to his original position.
A pop reverberated through the room as Gabriel shrugged his shoulders, “Just getting warmed up.”
They closed in on one another and touched fists, nodding at one another before Gabriel threw his own one-two at Null’s face. Null tilted his head to avoid both, then ducked as Gabriel followed the combo with an elbow aimed at his temple. Normally, that kind of blow would not be allowed in official matches, but this was a video game, and by that nature neither Gabriel nor Null pulled any punches. This was only emphasized as Null threw his own elbow at Gabriel’s knee, a blow that he just barely managed to avoid. Null rose up with an uppercut, connecting with his opponent’s hand as Gabriel intercepted it. He hopped back to create some distance, but Gabriel was in pursuit, remaining within enough distance to follow up with a straight punch. Null shifted his stance and ducked into the blow, smacking it to the side and throwing a quick jab that connected with Gabriel’s jaw.
“2-0” Null said. His teeth started to show as a smile stretched his lips.
Gabriel rubbed his jaw. “Damn that hurts.”
“Gotta be quicker,” Null said.
“Yeah yeah, just get ready will you?”
They took their positions again, bumping fists at the center of the room. Null moved first, but was caught off guard as Gabriel intercepted him with surprising speed. Gabriel caught Null’s upper body with his arm and shifted his foot behind his opponent’s legs. Carrying his momentum forward, he shoved Null to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust as the leaner man’s back hit the ground.
“2-1, fast enough for you?” Gabriel asked. He wore a grin on his face now, beaming down at his fallen opponent.
Null stood up, brushing the dust off of his pants, “I’d say that works,” he said with a smile of his own.
Like before, they took up their positions again and circled around each other. Null took a more cautious approach this time, staying out of Gabriel’s reach as they observed one another. Rather than starting things off with a punch, Null instead flicked his foot forward in a kick, nearly catching Gabriel at the side of his face as he ducked to the side. Gabriel tried to close in, but was kept back due to a series of kicks that Null threw in his direction. Each blow targeted some exposed part of Gabriel’s stance, but, even though he was statistically slower, Gabriel had managed to avoid most of the hits, blocking the few that did manage to land. Null pushed the assault, stepping forwards with a side kick directed at Gabriel’s chest. His opponent managed to dodge the blow, but stepped back again as Null followed the kick with a quick jab at his face. Null didn’t relent, sending out a flurry of blows to breakdown his opponent’s guard. Rather than dodge the oncoming onslaught, Gabriel brought his arms up to cover his vitals and charged forward, absorbing the hits and closing the distance between the two. Null was caught off guard by this, and didn’t step back in time to avoid Gabriel wrapping his arms around his legs. His momentum carrying him, Gabriel lifted Null up and slammed him into the ground.
“2-2,” Gabriel moved back to his spot and readied himself.
Null remained motionless as he stared up at the ceiling. I was expecting frustration on his part, honestly. By all accounts he was the faster fighter, and to be caught twice by a slower combatant, consecutively, must have elicited some form of irritation from him. However, when he stood up, he was smiling. His pupils were dilated, his virtual body simulating the effects of adrenaline pumping through non-existent veins. Consciously, he would be unable to tell the difference between this virtual adrenaline rush and a real one, and his movement speed and reaction time reflected that, though not through his stats. It was a more… inherent buff, put into the game as part of the developers to make the game as realistic as possible, and they succeeded on that front.
Gabriel motioned for Null to stand up, “Come on, let’s finish this up, we got shit to do.”
The two didn’t bother to observe one another this time, for as soon as Null got to his feet they charged at each other. When they closed in on one another, Null struck first, opening with a straight punch that carried his momentum behind him. Gabriel ducked, getting low enough to allow him access to Null’s knees. As he shot forwards though, Null kicked his legs back. It wasn’t enough to avoid Gabriel’s grasp entirely, but it allowed Null to fall on top of Gabriel as the stockier man used his momentum to bring them down to the ground. Rather than continue the fight on the ground, Null returned to his feet, creating some distance between him and Gabriel, but allowed his opponent to stand up before pressing the assault. He threw a kick at Gabriel’s chest, a blow that intercepted by his opponent’s hand. Gabriel’s fingers wrapped around his ankle, but before his opponent could do anymore Null hopped from the ground and kicked his remaining foot at Gabriel’s head. Gabriel let go of his ankle, stepping back just in time to narrowly avoid the foot that grazed his face.
The momentum from the kick brought Null to the ground once again. Before Gabriel could take advantage of the opening, Null scrambled to his feet and attempted to create distance between the two. Gabriel followed Null at his heels, reaching out to grasp the slender man’s shoulder. It was a simple move, easy to predict, easy to dodge if you were skilled. Null should have slipped from Gabrie’s grasp, but there was a… pause to his movements, a brief moment where his momentum stopped. Confusion flashed across his eyes, then shock as Gabriel grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back. As Null fell back, Gabriel kicked the back of the slender man’s knees and tossed him over his leg, throwing him to the ground.
“3-2, looks like it’s my win today,” Gabriel said. He looked down at Null, who was gazing up at the ceiling in a daze. “You alright?
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine… good fight,” he said in a distracted tone.
Gabe held his hand out, which Null accepted hesitantly. As he was pulled up from the ground, Gabe handed him a piece of broken wood.
“Only half the battle, we got weapon training to do remember?”
“Right right,” he shook his head and flashed Gabriel a smirk, “I’ll catch up this round.”
“Oh?” Gabriel said, “You can try.”
___
Null won the next bout, 3-2, a score closer than when they had sparred with weapons previously. Even with his victory, there was still a look of confusion to Null’s face. His movements had lagged twice during the match, one of which left him open to a strike, costing him a point.
Syndanna was still present, clapping as the two finished their sparring session. “Wow, you guys may be low tier but I gotta say that was pretty entertaining,” she said.
Gabriel looked at her with an unsure expression, “Thanks, I guess? You didn’t have to stay and watch you know.”
Null walked to the corner of the room, sitting down in the shade.
“What, and miss out on two shirtless men beating each other senseless? Not a chance.”
Gabriel shrugged and put on his shirt.
“Aw.”
“Thanks for the rations, kind of hard to maintain hunger levels in a place with no food.”
“Irwin’s suggestion, Brutus wanted you guys to just deal with it, let the respawns reset your hunger.”
“What was your opinion?”
She shrugged, “To tell you the truth, bringing the food out here is pretty bothersome, but if I get to see something like this every time… maybe it’s not so bad.”
“You’re very forward you know that?”
“I like what I like, can’t stop a woman from indulging from time to time, can you?”
He sighed, “Man or woman, sure.”
Syndanna quirked an eyebrow up, “Oh? You don’t think I’m a woman?”
“It is possible,” Gabriel said, “You think in a game like this someone isn’t going to flip their gender?”
Syndanna opened her mouth, but then closed it, “Fair enough, but I can guarantee you I am a 100% bonafide woman, you’re not gonna see me working through CDD anytime soon.”
Null spoke up this time, “CDD?”
“Co-,” she put a hand to her chin, “Well I don’t remember the exact words, but basically, if you don’t have a body closer to your originally one, you’re bound to suffer a little bit of performance issues from time to time.”
Null nodded, but even in the shade I could tell there was a look of concern on his face.
Corporeal Dissonance Disorder, a psychological disease that came about with the rise of Virtual Reality, or rather the popularization of Mind Jump technology. Hopping into what the mind considers to be a different body can create a host of different problems, but the most common symptom of CDD is a “lag” between the mind and its new virtual body. The effect is generally greater the larger the discrepancy is between the user’s actual body and their virtual one, so it has become a common practice to make characters that are at the very least similar in physique to one’s original body. Creating entirely different avatars still occurs, as one can recover from CDD with time and effort, but it appears that most humans preferred to not deal with such a thing, which was a logical course of action.
“But anyways I wouldn’t really worry about it,” Syndanna said in an off handed matter, “I should get going though, been sticking around you guys too long.”
“What a shame,” Gabriel said in a dull tone.
“You could be a little more sad about it,” she said with a pout.
Gabriel raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.
She rolled her eyes and walked to the door, turning to Null before she left the building, “See you later Fred.”
After she left Gabriel turned to Null with a confused expression.
“Fred?”
Null frowned, “It… just forget about that,” a hint of embarrassment underlied his voice.
Gabriel stared at him, then shrugged, “Well whatever, ready to give it another go?”
Null nodded, “Might as well.”
___
They stood before the Knight once again, standing on the outside of the raised plate at the center of the Marketplace. It appeared that the Knight had designated the elevator platform as it’s arena, which was an odd choice. According to my parameters, he was not bound in any way to that particular place, which meant that he chose to remain there for some reason. Were this a scripted encounter, I’d be able to know, but I must confess that I was curious as to what his reasons were. What led beyond the elevator held its share of loot, certainly, but that would only be valuable to Players. Something else was keeping him there, and while I had numerous inferences, I could not be sure until the Knight spoke for himself, which he had yet to do.
“You know, we could always take him on together,” Gabriel said.
Null shook his head, “It’d be a waste of effort. Better one of us lose the stats and progress than both of us.”
“Fair enough, kick his ass then.”
Null snorted. At least he seemed aware of the gap between them and the Knight. That didn’t explain why he was still stepping into the ring, however.
As soon as Null’s foot entered the arena, the Knight lunged forward. Null managed to dodge, if only because he’d fallen victim to the attack multiple times. He ducked under the Knight’s sword, skipping to the center of the arena as the Knight followed the opening slash with a swipe at his back.
That was 2 attacks avoided, an improvement.
Null oriented himself to face the Knight, barely dodging a stab at this face. Null leaned toward the Knight as he dodged, throwing a straight punch at the Knight’s face to counter. The Knight avoided the blow by tilting his head to the side and took a step forward, twisting his body as he struck Null in the abdomen with his elbow. A loud boom sounded as the attack made contact, but rather than fly back, Null had stayed in place. He’d managed to block the strike with his hand, but his health had dropped by half as a result. Before he could do anything else, however, the Knight shoved Null away with his shoulder and pursued. The unbalanced Null could not avoid the downwards slash this time, and vanished in a burst of light as he was bisected.
It was a bit longer than the usual fight, but the result was still the same. However, when I looked towards Gabriel, he was smirking.
I turned to the knight, who looked untouched at first. However, there was a small spot on his flank that glowed red. An indicator that damage had been done. I replayed the last few moments in my head, and confirmed that Null had in fact managed to land a kick to the Knight’s flank as he was struck down. The attack dealt negligible damage, but there was a brightness to Gabriel’s eyes that it was as if he had been victorious. Perhaps he saw that the situation was not entirely hopeless, though why he would see that from such a weak attack I did not know, but that didn’t change was had just happened.
They had managed to land their first blow.
Hey man. I don't know if you will see this, but I do feel it'd be a shame to leave the story here. I'm having a great time with it.