Admin: Angels and Demons (5)

Sturm’s ladder assault was all according to the game physics, ones I had personally designed with momentum and inertia calculations, and the

Sturm’s ladder assault was all according to the game physics, ones I had personally designed with momentum and inertia calculations, and the Boss recoiled, shifting his gaze to Sturm's peculiar tactics. His eyes held contemptuous surprise, like someone lifting an old bundle only to discover the sole cockroach in their entire house.

Yet behind that contemptuous look of surprise, I could easily recognize panicked shock. Not because the AI playing the Boss had failed its role, nor because the animation AI had done too good a job, but because right now my entire visible space was filled with panicked queries from the Boss AI. 

"Raidboss encountered an invalid exception, Raidboss.exe will now be terminated and nailed shut with four nails."

The AI had certainly excelled at wiping players, his wall-piercing shots and fireball tricks using blast radius as attack vectors proved that. But those worked because the AI took existing examples and quickly adapted them. Wall-shooting dated back to ancient competitive shooters, while area-of-effect attacks against hiding enemies were elementary gaming tactics. The AI simply adapted existing strategies to current conditions; brilliantly, I'll admit, but they were adaptations nonetheless. 

The ideas already existed in its database.

Without existing patterns, adaptation was impossible, hence the panicked queries of ‘I don't understand what to do now.’

Should I allow my carefully nurtured boss, the Players' first serious obstacle, to die? After ten minutes of introduction? Just because a Player had decided to be a creative bastard? 

Not a chance in hell, especially against the supposed smartest Mob on this server… or should be.

I smoothly slipped into the Raid Boss’ body, calling up the mental menu of abilities I'd packed into it to see how I should ‘reward’ Strum for his creativity.

Besides fire spells, I had given the boss the ice variety of the spells, lightning for heavy single-target damage, minor healing, buffs, debuffs – essentially the first proper ‘mage’ in the game. Unfortunately, no ‘cutting’ spells to simply slice the ladder. The thought of adding such an ability mid-fight, though, felt… low. Unfair. Like a kid inventing new powers to win every imaginary fight. 

With my ultimate meta-gaming power of server crashes, who is even stronger?

So, I accepted Sturm's challenge fairly. After using ‘minor healing’, a spell that would most definitely piss off the Players in the future, I sidestepped another of Sturm’s attacks and raised my hand for a fire arrow. If nothing else, as Sturm is limited by the physics, meaning his future position could be easily discerned just by the path of his swing, he couldn’t dodge.

And he dodged!? How!?

Fucking hell, he could climb that rope like a damn monkey!

Shit, what to do? Sturm is already preparing another strike against me; retreating indoors would be wisest, but simply fleeing didn't suit a fearsome raid boss's reputation.

So, I raised my hand with a smirk, a simple idea would do. An ice ball shot forward, exploding in an icy flash that covered the area with frost, then a fireball followed, creating a cloud of ice crystals and steam, which I promptly entered, pleased to hear Sturm's quiet curse. A temporary measure, but I'd bought precious seconds while he couldn't pinpoint my location.

Another shot toward Sturm went wide, though my accuracy was decent, hitting a swaying target that could also move along the ladder wasn't easy target practice.

Another fireball aimed at the ladder, but it wasn't a convenient missile I could detonate at will; missing the ladder, it continued into the distance until fading as it reached its maximum range.

A sinister idea, however, struck me as Sturm barely dodged my next fire arrow. Impressive agility, I'll give him that. I prepared another approach while the ice cloud dispersed.

This time the Fireball shot went up, not into empty space, but nearly grazing the hovering airship. When it turned, I wouldn't miss it at all.

Judging by Sturm's renewed cursing, maybe implement a voice filter for game chat?  He understood what I was planning to do, too. Roger's query, the AI managing pirates and Signia specifically, made me pause. 

Technically speaking, the pirate ship was a ‘shared object’, its ‘health’ calculated overall like each Player, item, and stone. A hardcore experience pleased many players to a point, but if I made the game engine calculate every organ's health, every rivet's strength, every rock's mineral composition, not only the Players but my employers would howl as half the world's calculating capacity was used to process my game. Even global production wouldn't be able to keep up with my expanding game world. 

So the airship's health, excluding the ladder, was one substantial variable – it could survive far more fireballs than I could produce even at full mana.

But most pleasantly? The Players didn't need to know this.

So Signia, receiving my non-verbal response, or rather Roger did, shouted an order that marked the end of my impromptu joust. 

"Sturm, we’re retreating! A single hit to our balloon and we’re fucked!"

Instead of just turning, exposing the ship to my attack, she flew forward, changing trajectory repeatedly to avoid predictable paths in what I, and the AI, and hopefully the Players could call anti-AA maneuvers, before withdrawing at decent steampunk speeds, leaving me pleasantly satisfied. 

Yes, I'd said that I wasn’t going to use unfair tricks before, then used another – but I'm the game demiurge. I'm allowed!

***

After Sturm's heroic and admirably clever attempt to deal with the root of evil, the raid boss, me, nobody else had devised interesting plans. And after dealing with the Players still hiding in what crevices they could find, the rest hastily retreated, posing no problem for mob hordes. Even Jabberwocky's hastily erected ambushes had failed, and Jim, too emboldened while leveling, found himself ‘accidentally’ failing to fully cover himself with his skinned demon hide, was discovered and now waited two hours for respawn. 

Most pleasingly, since he couldn't reach his previous body, meaning the skinned hide was permanently lost under marching mob feet. Though, this wouldn't affect his special ability, so he needn't worry too much, still it meant a setback to him, and I’m happy for it. 

But the other Players are definitely worrying. The Demon wave had literally swept them from three, four if counting the raid boss zone, locations, effectively denying them access to half the Broken City and countless unplundered treasures.

Still, the Players had acted decently tactically, or at least, were both greedy, but practical enough to act tactically. Spotting potential profit, they didn't immediately crack chests and flee, abandoning hard-won territory to incoming Demons; instead they established proper cordons, before sending for faction and guild representatives for instructions. The birth of laws and military skill in miniature before my eyes. 

But this meant that when the monster wave inevitably swept aside the cordons meant to protect treasures from stray imps, not directed monster waves, most valuable items remained behind, taunting those who knew of their existence. The kerfuffle when Players reclaimed territory and argued over who owned the spear recipe in that looted workshop was fun to watch.

Let the Players argue, as long as they don’t bother me or break the game, it’s not my problem. Maybe my delayed inter-guild war idea would reignite under favorable conditions, with nearly all Players involved simultaneously. If nothing demanded urgent problem-solving, and none seemed forthcoming after I had elegantly redirected millions of new Players into near-perfect location copies, justified plot-wise; I'd welcome players hindering their own content consumption. They'd create content for themselves. 

The perpetual motion machine, officially invented.

While Jabberwocky convened an emergency guild leader council, I traveled far underground, crossing dozens of kilometers instantly; no instant travel system for players, not for five years definitely, reaching the more oppressive underground locations.

Unlike the spacious sky islands currently experiencing not just organization from hunter-gatherer societies into ancient civilizations but their first proper crisis, though I refuse to call Jabberwocky ‘virtual Gilgamesh’ under any circumstances, the underground players were just getting started.

Their actions were already more coordinated than the early sky island players, though game conditions differed drastically from what they expected, the spirit of the game remained unchanged. Kill mobs, destroy spawns, clear paths forward, and find other Players.

Though it was there that the Players found their first obstacles, there was no holy water for source purification, so they cannot just copy what Sky Islanders did to progress through the game. Instead, they extracted ‘magical essence’ from mutant corpses to disrupt the magical anomalies blocking their path. Though, that was easier said than done.

The Monster-killing guides posted in the forums were useless; it was created for demonic monsters, not giant underground worms and mutated spiders. The Alchemists, or at least the new Players joining the game specifically to have fun with alchemy, were confused, as there are almost no ingredients for known recipes in the new location.

But still, they persevered. Their first creation being poison potions, after correctly deducing that poison came from spider venom glands. In reality, the venom glands likely didn't look like my creation, small aggressive-green looking small sacs burning to touch, but dissecting spiders for them justified my decisions.

Bless whoever let me set maximum age ratings, otherwise I couldn't implement such gory, anatomical violence for both the living and dead alike. It had forgiven far more sins than I'd like to admit.

The Mages, however, were especially happy. The Skyborne mages collectively knowing only about five spells, another dozen scattered in the now-inaccessible ‘magic quarter’ in the Broken City, with five more strewn around in the raid boss zone as rewards. And the only way to learn even known spells was by joining proto-mage guilds that quickly monopolized such vital information, or impressing Jabberwocky enough who could grant access to Yersinia, the informal leader of the informal ‘neutral mages’ coalition. Neutral only because they are under Jabberwocky's protection and no one else’s, as ‘neutral’ in any organization's name seems to eliminate visible patron figures.

Meanwhile, the Underground Players have unique chances compared to their sky island counterparts. If the Sky Islands have pirates, then the Underground Players have mages. Well, they could find the former mages’ dwelling and obtain information that the sky players technically couldn't know currently, the fifteen spells they'd still need to fight for. 

All because instead of pirates, the standard NPCs in the Underground were abandoned magical coven camps, pleasing the Players for whom fantasy worlds meant equally fantastical ways to break laws of physics.

Unlike the sky-bound Players, the undergrounders slowly established paths through scattered anomalies, reaching each other and the randomly placed abandoned workshops and mage apprentice camps. And to my great relief, none had taken actions requiring urgent resolution; well, except for the Players trying to drill through the earth to manually dig passages to nearby underground remnants. 

But, I wasn't worried about that, yet, because the Players quickly discovered none of them had any mining or engineering experience, it only took a collapsed tunnel sending a dozen of them to respawn to convince them to stop. Again, for now. If someone actually arrived, with the required structural engineering knowledge and could place proper supports, beams, and chart paths through rock? 

Actually, I'd probably even let them keep that tunnel. Such immersion levels and completely unnecessary study of real problem-solving methods for game situations deserved a reward, not punishment.

Besides, the required effort and time for creating just one tunnel, the resources, and man-hours required, were unimaginable. If the Players wanted to kill two weeks creating one extra tunnel instead of walking through the beaten path? Let them riddle the entirety of the Underground with new passages, I'd applaud them heartily while I’m finishing Togra.

Anyway, all the Players were occupied; the Underground Players were still feeling out their surroundings, still trying to determine the optimal way on how to interact with their world, so different from previous Players' expectations. The Sky players, those that had survived the Demon Wave at least, the others are still waiting for their respawn timer, are forming the first proper war council.

Sure, it was more like an ad hoc council with no structure yet, but it is already more effective than the average UN sessions, and with the possibility of actual actions being taken!

With the Mobs in both locations acting normally, walking their prescribed routes, switching the walking animation to idle animation at appropriate times, making sounds, moving whatever limbs they possessed by my and the AI's will. And with the NPCs silently observing the Players, pretending their complete non-involvement in the game world, just waiting for some Player to ask about their totally secret world-saving quest.

Plus the Raid Boss, saved from a very early, clear by Sturm earlier through strategic cunning and manipulating Players' incomplete world knowledge, are traveling through the reclaimed ruins. His very appearance and existence, telling the passing players that victory wouldn't come so easily, while also zapping overly bold Players. Something that the boss could do easily, after all, his fireball maximum range slightly exceeded the distance from one floating platform edge to another. 

So, alongside with the interesting spectacle, the Players often received two hours break before they could view this virtual world with virtual eyes again.

And I, continuing as an incorporeal spirit above Players, observed with paternal interest, found myself with some free time. Though, how long that would last is hard to say.

How long the mobs and raid boss last as they are is hard to predict; we're talking about Jabberwocky and his wonderful ability to constantly challenge my virtual world management supremacy here. But, maybe I could hope for a couple of days' peace. 

Still, after the Players manage to defeat the Raid Boss, there’s still long hours, hopefully days worth of content with the Child. Hopefully enough as I finish Togra.

Of course, I still had much work to do. There’s still locations in the sky islands remaining unfinished, the underground locations that need expanding, and of course, Togra; the first large, proper quest hub and NPC habitat. With such a work load, I could even sense the AIs' desire to error out and earn a few days' rest from constant work.

But I have no choice, this game world’s demiurge wasn't a player, I couldn't just pretend everything was fine and leave whenever desired…

Which was somewhat amusing. 

After all, however much I complained about Jabberwocky, I myself, even as this game world's omnipotent entity, was a slave – not to the company bigwigs, but to the Players. Heck, even the company bigwigs were, indirectly speaking, slaves to these Players. 

Because, all my storm and meteor shower summoning abilities meant nothing if there are no Players in my game. And technically, if the Players massively stopped playing the game, besides my immediate problem of an execution, my big bosses would have problems too.

So however much more powerful I was than the Players, paradoxically I was equally more subordinate to them. 

The Players could enter the game world for a couple of hours, run around, beat nearby mobs, then exit. Meanwhile, I needed to expand the game twenty-four hours daily, design quests, mobs, create scenarios so that these same Players could peacefully run around beating monsters with sticks for a couple of hours daily. All the while changing the scenarios, monsters, and sticks in their hands periodically, so that they don’t get bored.

Noblesse oblige, or something like that, heh…

Never thought I'd use medieval concepts in a medieval game world.

Anyway, all this lamenting might suggest I am somehow suffering, but that wasn't so.

Certainly, I'd prefer not dying and losing my real-world body, but my current position wasn't the worst possible. It beats death certainly, but practically any situation I could imagine beats death without competition from alternatives. 

Because death wasn't really an alternative at all.

But even without such gloomy considerations, speaking factually – I am living quite the decent life.

Titanomachy's highest ranks were on familiar terms with me, I could even pressure them, though that wouldn't be the wisest behavior in my situation, but I could make them do what I want.

I enjoyed practically infinite power and authority within my game world, given my situation, I am effectively this game world's god.

I faced interesting, though frustrating, sometimes urgent, tasks daily, resolving them with significant success, if I may say so about my own achievements. Giving me a sense of pride and accomplishment over my work.

I have full creative control, and could turn the game’s plot, world, and conventions in any direction I chose at any moment.

And yes, the problem of literally being unable to rest from constant work for purely physical reasons still hung over me, but on the other hand? I needn't think about rent, taxes, food, water, and sleep…

Pausing thoughtfully, I suddenly blinked and extended my hand forward, addressing the host of constantly available AIs.

Actually, regarding such delicate and new topics as virtual reality, more precisely, this game's full virtual reality, laws existed that are so strict even Titanomachy couldn't break them. Or at least didn't dare break openly; my existence as essentially a digital avatar surely violated at least a couple.

After all, the brain, even when studied and documented as much as currently possible, remained too delicate an organ, requiring careful handling. Nobody wanted to accidentally set the wrong variable one day and get thousands of unresponsive bodies instead of thousands entering sleep. And what a brain too thoroughly convinced it experienced certain shocks could do… Usually discussed by very prominent scientists, and people preferring nobody ever see them at all.

Therefore, even in my current world, very serious limitations placed on me operated not at an internal settings level but a hardware level, or at least I knew it to be so. Restrictions on possible impact and sensation simulation levels that I could ‘feel’. 

Visuals and sound? No question, games did that long before the first person achieved comatose consciousness immersion in simulated reality.

Smell, balance, pressure? Within minimal limits. Nobody wanted Players actually feeling rocks falling on them in reality or experiencing phantom dizziness from acrobatic tricks they couldn't repeat in normal life even after ten years' training.

Pain? Perhaps, the most stark difference with the real world; no pain at all. At best, the Players might feel some ‘sensation’ demonstrating what receiving ‘damage’ would feel, to prevent a complete dissociation from game avatars. But limitations meant that even a feeling of ‘discomfort’ dangerously approached the legal limits, a violation of ‘virtual reality use and simulation rules’.

But the thing was, whether with software or hardware limitation; I was both my own software and hardware. And therefore, technically… I summoned an item into my hand, created by my will.

I extended my hand forward and after a moment felt a nugget's, a chicken nugget, presence on my palm, not burning hot but quite warm, crispy as I could remember the sensation. Before I then brought it to my mouth and bit down.

Taste, smell, sensation, all instantly came to me and I moved the half-bitten chicken nugget away, exhaling.

Maybe it wasn't so bad living here in this virtual world after all…