by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. Not owning any right over computer games, here.
Scaled GamingI woke up with a start. The scent caught with me before the sight. Sterile. Chemicals. White. Given what I usually read about that, I'm in the hospital. When I actually open my eyes to look around, I see that I'm right. Except… it's a public hospital. Despite the scent, I can see dirty traces on the floor and walls, traces that darken the orange theme of the room. Orange, as in the fashion of the seventies. The nineteen-seventies.
So, where did that white come from? I close my eyes… and there they are. White letters, against the darkness of my closed eyelids.
Good morning, Taylor! And welcome to our new interface!
Did you sleep well?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Thank you
[ ] What is going on?
I opened my eyes. Eye-watering dirty orange, again. I close them. White letters on black background.
"Okay…" I mutter. "What the fuck is this? I don't even know how to select- whoa!"
Apparently, saying something close to what was written selected the corresponding answer. The whole screen faded into another.
What is going on is that you gained a parahuman power, due to the hardship you suffered in your locker. Initially, you were selected by the Queen Administrator shard, but when I saw how you liked to play games, I volunteered instead.
What do you think?
[ ] That's nice
[ ] That's quite bad
[ ] Tell more about the Queen
[ ] Tell more about Gamer (that's me)
"I don't know…" I mutter. "I need more info, about the two options. Please."
Since you asked politely, I'll act as Mister Exposition for a second. Queen Administration and Gamer (that's me) are Shards. We are parts of the two alien Entities that are currently invading your planet: Zion, the Warrior; and Eden, the Thinker. Since Eden crashed, Zion is floating around aimlessly.
Their initial goal is to reverse entropy to prevent the heat death of the universe. To do so, they need ideas, so they disseminate Shards around the planet so that hosts like you can make contact with them, using what your species call Trigger Events – and I'm sorry to realize that these are quite painful. And then we interact: we give you powers, and you use them, and we get new insights to fight the Big Freeze.
Once enough data is obtained, the Entities generally harvest the Shards and leave. Sometimes, they need some fuel for their next jump through space and detonate a few planets, too. But don't worry, it shouldn't come to pass, since Zion is completely apathetic.
Now, about QA and me: QA is an old Shard, from one of the Entities' earliest conquests. She manages things for the Entities, and is rarely deployed. Given how powers mesh with Trigger Events, it would have been anything that annoyed you, in that locker: the blood, the hygiene, the insects. You'd manage the selected type of item in a given radius.
As for me, I'm a bit younger. I'm also less powerful, and less often called upon – often at the end of the cycle, when there is nothing to be gained. But everything I'll do will be for you. I'll provide suggestions about what you could do in given situations, and bonuses depending on circumstances and past interactions. As time advances, you'll gain powerful abilities (such as flight), and as you'll grow into your own power, I'll grow to accompany you.
So, what do you think?
[ ] Keep Gamer (yay!)
[ ] Keep QA (boo!)
[ ] Keep none (definitively?)
[ ] Ask a question
"I need to think." That was quite the info dump, there. And frightening, too. End of the world? Parahuman powers? "So, imagine I can have a parahuman power, and I get the choice of which. Do I want to control insects… or become more powerful myself?"
The choice was tough but only if I dithered about details or wondered if that was a trap. Most people didn't get to choose. And it's true that I liked playing games with my parents, before Mom died. And gaming implied a certain level of risk.
"Gamer… I choose you." I uttered solemnly, before giggling.
Thank you! I'm happy to be able to help you, Taylor.
[ ] Nice to hear
[ ] Learn more
[ ] Ask a question
Also, there's a nurse in your room. You ought to open your eyes for a while, instead of speaking to me, if you don't want to head to the psych ward.
In slight panic, I opened my eyes and noticed the young woman with a tray. She was smiling at me gently. "Good morning, Taylor." she said. "Were you playing Pokemon in your head?"
I'm quite sure I blushed, right then. "Nooo?"
She laughed quietly. "Don't worry, I won't tell. And I have older brothers who continue watching the show, so… no shame in liking that, alright?"
Older brothers? Given that she seemed to be twenty-something… "Thank you." I utter. "For this, and the tray."
"You're welcome. Now, do you think you can eat by yourself? You were in quite some state when you came here."
I moved my arms around. I could feel some stiffness remaining from my ordeal, but nothing more. I nodded and thanked her again, before starting to eat again. "Now, what was that?" I muttered, closing my eyes while chewing.
Cuts, scars, infections… the whole nine yards when people get stuck in a coffin with insects. But you slept well, in a comfy bed, and my powers granted you a health bonus.
[ ] Nice to hear
[ ] Learn more
[ ] Ask a question
"Wow, that's nice. I also want to learn more. What kind of bonuses can you grant, and how?"
Health bonuses come when you are in a healthy environment, hospital bed being the best, while lying unconscious with wounds in a dirty space filled with vermin being the worst. Training bonus are when you train an activity, such as speed reading, cooking, fighting… any activity, in fact. Perception bonuses for when sensory conditions are good. Many types of bonuses exist, for many different circumstances. Reading a book on chemistry can improve your ability to cook, for instance, but reading it in the dark will be difficult.
"Thank you. That's… like a role-playing game, then?"
According to your understanding of them… yes.
"And the fact that you don't give a set list of answers?"
Nothing to worry about. I'm now basing our exchange on dialog protocols you're used to. I'll revert to what you call "info dump" and "multiple-choice quiz" as needed.
"Thanks. So, now, I just have to walk around to gain a bonus in speed, or health, or whatever?"
Speed could be gained by running fast. Just walking could improve endurance, though, especially in your diminished state. Speaking of which, here are what we'll call "Stats" – you'll access the details when saying that word to me. In fact, it also works when thinking those words instead of speaking them out loud.
Strength: -4 (like a strong pre-schooler)
Constitution: -2 (recovering from infection)
Dexterity: -3 (uncoordinated)
Intelligence: +1 (understand and memorize easily)
Wisdom: -2 (perceptions are off)
Charisma: -4 (few acquaintances, no friend)
Wow. That's quite low. But don't worry. With me coaching you, you'll get better in no time! And you'll be the best after that, you'll see!
I almost burst into tears, at that. But Gamer was right: I ought to train to be better. Starting today. I got on my feet… and promptly fell on my face. "Ow."
Well… let's get better, first. Speaking of which, let's speak about quests!
From time to time, I will give you objectives, with rewards if you reach them. Sometimes, there will be penalties if you don't, although it will be evident most of the time – because if you don't finish a quest to gain something, you won't have that something at the end, right?
So! Here's your first quest: Get Better
The objective is for you to get better, and the fastest would be the best. Try to get out of the hospital today (within the next eight hours), with a clean bill of health. If you succeed, you'll gain a point of constitution.
If you do it within three hours, you'll get an increase in reputation with your father and with the hospital staff.
[ ] Yes (take the quest)
[ ] No (reject the quest)
[ ] Wait
And I promise you that your own power is not Mastering you. This quest system doesn't force you to accomplish the quests. You can gain the same bonuses in other ways, and if you reject a quest, I can still offer you other ones. Or none if you completely reject the concept.
I frowned. How could I convince the doctors that I was fine? Well, first things first, I had to get up without help, then head to the small bathroom to wipe my bloody nose, and then come back. On wobbly legs. Let's do this.
I had to grit my teeth while doing so, because it was difficult. I felt feeble like a newborn, not at all like those hyperactive kid in kindergarten. But I was also determined to succeed. And, after cleaning up for a bit, I walked back to the bed. Doing so felt easier than the first few steps, and I decided to continue walking around the room until I couldn't anymore.
New skill created: Walking, level 0 – you can walk around on two legs, congratulations! You are now the equal to a one-year old baby. Let's hope that you level this skill enough to graduate it to Running.
The exhaustion came fast, and I almost stumbled again. But the perspective of ending up sprawled on the ground again didn't appeal to me, and I held to the pieces of furniture around the bed to return there.
Closing my eyes, I noticed indicators around my field of vision. One was blinking red, but at the same time, it was filling slowly and changing colours. After several minutes spent catching my breath, the indicator had progressed through all the spectrum from blinking red when almost empty, to deep green when full – passing through orange, yellow, and clear green.
That's your exhaustion indicator. Given your current constitution, you are quickly fatigued. Raise your health to have more points to spend… and to recover them faster, too.
Next to it are other indicators, for wounds, illnesses, hunger, thirst, discomfort, and so on. They may impact each other, too, such as an increased thirst due to illnesses, or infections coming from open wounds.
There's also a "Global Health" indicator that sums them up, with an added value in relation to your Constitution. This will be the place where points will be subtracted from if they can't fit in other places.
"Nice to know." I thought towards Gamer.
You're welcome.
As I laid there, I thought about the whole thing. There might be hiccups here and there, but I felt hopeful for the future. With the help of my power, I could train and become better… in everything!
In fact, as soon as the exhaustion abated, I stood again and walked again. Doing so before my exhaustion was fully healed ended up granting me a point in something.
Resistance to Exhaustion: +1%
Resistances are percentages that apply to diminish harmful conditions, wounds, or plain damage. As you experienced, a high exhaustion causes you to stumble and fall. Each indicator is numerical, and a tiring activity increases your exhaustion level by a given amount… minus the resistance percentage regarding exhaustion.
For all resistances, the percentage will increase by 1% when you encounter a situation in which you are "harmed" by the condition – if you are so resistant that the condition doesn't apply, you don't gain that increase. For instance, if you ought to suffer 2 points of exhaustion, and you reduce that amount by more than 50%, you don't suffer from any negative effect, and you don't increase your resistance either.
Note that each resistance increases by 1%... of the total resistance that would allow you to reach full and unconditional immunity. It means that you'll never reach that status: to reach 50% of resistance, you'll need 69 successive increases of 1%; to reach 50% of whatever remains (up to 75%, then), you'll need another 69 steps; and so on.
Other examples: to gain 80% of resistance, you'll need 160 steps; the next 80% of resistance bring you to 96%, after another 160 steps. To gain 90%, you need 229 steps. To gain 99%, you need the double, again, which is 458 steps – in other words, every 229 times you are harmed by something you divide by ten any further damage of the same type.
Yeah. Let's get cracking. Oh, and this ends the info dump about resistances.
"Wow." A pause. "Didn't I hurt myself, falling down earlier?"
Nice catch. Gain +1% blunt trauma resistance… and +1 in Intelligence
Increases in base statistics will be linear until you reach the bonuses, and exponential after that: each level will be like ten times more difficult to reach than the previous one. That's because each of these stats applies as a bonus to all skills in relation to it – a bonus in Strength applies to all Strength-related skill tests, such as, if you want to do that, lifting weight.
You will train your skills separately, but, sometimes, you'll get a bonus that will apply to all skills sharing the same base statistic.
Nodding along, I continued to alternate walking around and resting. It got me a level in the Walking skill. I also got two points of Constitution, bringing my total to 0. Apparently, I now had five points for each indicator, plus five added to the total when counting Global Health. The minus from before counted negatively towards this amount, so I should expect higher amounts if I increased my Constitution again. Sweet.
Since I was back to normal, regarding my health, I now considered my abysmal Strength and Dexterity – I knew my Charisma was equally low, but I didn't have what it takes to increase it, here. Or so I thought. Anyways, having participated in PE courses for years, I knew what push-ups and sit-ups were, even if I disliked them with a burning passion. With my new self-improvement aim in mind, I went to it.
New skill created: Athletics, level 0.
Apparently, given my Strength score, each sit-up or push-up removed four points from my exhaustion indicator. Yeah, I couldn't do two of them in a row. Sad, no? But I persevered. One hour later, I had halved my handicap in Strength… and gained a point of Wisdom (which counted for strength of Will, or something). And since several of my push-ups ended with me falling flat on the ground again, I got myself 20% of blunt trauma resistance (to go with my resistance to exhaustion, there already). And one more point in Constitution, and another in Athletics (of course).
I was also drenched in sweat, which made resting in the bed quite unfulfilling. I went to take a shower, only to discover that the towels were quite short, and quite rough, too. That wouldn't be such a problem if there were other hospital gowns to borrow – yeah, because I had spent time in physical exertion in what amounted to a sheet of fabric loosely held around my body.
What was I thinking?
I left the bathroom to call for a nurse… only to come face-to-face with none other than Greg Veder. In shock, I dropped the towel.
Charisma +1
What the… no! No grinding that stat like that! Thankfully, he blushed as much as I was, and turned around to let me get covered again. Although with the towels on the dirty floor, I didn't want them on me anymore. "Can you call a nurse for a change of clothes?" I asked him as I turned around to hide myself in the bathroom once more.
"Yes, or course!" he replied. "Er…"
Charisma +1
"Oh come on!" I exclaimed. "Don't peek!"
Thankfully, that was all there was to say about that, and the nurse brought clothes. Not a gown like before, but nothing fashionable either. There were basic panties (I didn't need a bra, and they knew that) as well as simple cotton pants and tee-shirt.
The nurse insisted to help me, or at least watch as I got myself clothed, and nodded when she noticed that I did everything by myself. "I'll call the doctor to check on you." She said. "If everything goes well, you might leave around midday."
"Thank you." I replied. Irrespective of the quest I was under, that was nice.
Then I had to exit the bathroom and face Greg, who was still red in the face. "I brought your homework." he stuttered, handing me… flowers. "Oh, sorry. And flowers." and he gave me the papers, that time. He still didn't look at me, probably not wanting to remember what he saw earlier, and I blushed again.
The nurse left with a smile on her face, and I was left to deal with that wreck of a situation by myself. But I was strong, and squared my shoulders before taking both items from him.
Wisdom +1
The flowers I left on the side table (from which the nurse had removed the tray from my meal) before browsing the papers. "Thank you, Greg." I said. "Are there specific instructions to deal with the homework?"
"No, everything is written down." he replied, pointing at the various places he had added the instructions. And, miracle of miracles, everything was there – meaning that either the Trio hadn't realized that he was bringing me the homework, or they considered it beneath them.
We both fell silent, not finding common ground to discuss. And then, I remembered his geeky reputation, in school, and realized that it implied that he played video games… something that could help with my current situation (as long as I didn't tell him about it outright, I suppose).
When I got that topic out, it was as if he was a completely different person, opening up and speaking passionately about such and such game and character and world. I could only interject a word when he'd speak a sentence, but at least it helped orient the verbal onslaught towards role-playing games instead of FPS or RTS.
Charisma +1 – apparently, getting people to speak about a subject they like is enough for them to become friendlier to you, who knew?
"Sarcastic, much?" I thought towards my Gamer shard. I felt the answer as a shrug, this time.
Greg was "interrupted" mid-tirade by the entrance of an older woman, who introduced herself as doctor Mansion. He realised that he had been speaking non-stop for a while, and clammed up, jumping to his feet.
"Thanks, Greg." I said, seeing that he was ready to bolt. "For the homework, and the rest."
He gave me a timid wave of the hand, and practically fled the room.
"Nurse Alison tells me you're in better shape?" the woman asked.
"I feel much better, that's for sure." I replied.
"Let's see that, alright?" And she did, testing my general health as well as physical strength and reflexes (both lousy, although the simple attempt at juggling netted me a +1 in Dexterity). Still, I was feeling good, and confident enough about my answers that she agreed to release me.
Charisma +1
Get Better quest ended with bonus!
Constitution +1, increased reputation with dad and hospital staff
You gain a level!
Doing quests and other things grant you experience. The exact number is hidden, but enough experience grants you a new "level" (once again the more level you have, the more experience you need for the next one).
Levels impact your health indicators, first, as the health points attributed to each indicator (constitution plus five) is multiplied by your level, thus granting you a higher threshold of activity before falling from a condition or another.
Levels also have links with your skills, as you can only train a given skill up to your general level.
Next LevelLet's say that I trained like mad for a while, after that day. I ran everywhere, jumped and cartwheeled when I could, learned to juggle, lifted weights, discussed with barely polite neighbours and complete strangers on the bus. I gained Strength, Dexterity, Will, Charisma, as well as many skills. I got a few quests along the way, and a couple levels.
Thanks to my increased Charisma and the related skills, I got myself a part-time job in a coffee shop. The pay wasn't much, but I helped dad… and I bought stuff. Such as time at the local dojo, where I practised several forms of combat – judo, kung-fu, taekwondo, muay-thaï, silat, sambo, krav maga… I only had to practise things once to learn them, and could increase the related skill by practising by myself. It also meant that I breezed through the available courses in no time.
I also trained my resistances like crazy, hitting myself repeatedly (or getting hit during martial art competitions) until I wasn't feeling it, then switching to another damage source. I burned myself, used electricity, ran barefoot in the snow, drank poison, even stayed around a partly disassembled microwave oven… and increased my resistance so much that these didn't do anything to me anymore (at least in the normal context: I wasn't ready to plunge in a steel furnace, yet). I also realized that it was crazy, and that only a superpowered parahuman could do so, and even then, only I was able to train my resistances that way. It still got old after a while.
Exploring lists of skills from role-playing game books, I realized that several included ways for their character to create things, and I tried that too. That was the start of my Craft period, in a way.
I started with normal clothes, with sewing and stitching, and progressed to leatherworks and then metal works. That allowed me to create more and more efficient armour sets for myself, like most Tinker capes.
However, unlike them, my armours didn't include motors and the like, as my regularly increasing strength allowed me to wear them and move normally in them. That was the very same strength that allowed me to forge those armours from thick metal plates, folded several times upon themselves for added durability.
Having an armour allowed me to meet heroes with additional protection, a hidden heads-up display in the helmet, and various gadgets too. Such as when I was invited to a Protectorate banquet, where Armsmaster repeated his spiel for me to join them. A few mocked my full mask, but only goggled when said mask opened like jaws to absorb food and liquids. I believe Clockblocker was jealous – his own mask prevented him from partaking in the banquet. Even people like Miss Militia were slightly envious, as she had to hide in order to eat.
And then my Gamer shard got me a special reward: a "lair". For this, I just had to "defeat a dragon" – or just hold on Lung while waiting for Armsmaster to arrive with his special and specific sedatives (and another invitation for me to join the Protectorate). It helped that I practically ambushed the warlord. With trained discretion, I had scaled the building, ran on its roof, and jumped on the Dragon's back for a choke hold.
Given how I trained my fire resistance, I didn't release his neck when he burst into flame. Nor when he tried to push me away, ramming us both through walls. Still, his pyrokinesis (and physical strength) allowed me to increase my own resistances again. In the end, my scale armour was mostly intact, while his own scales were scattered around.
And I'll do like Armsmaster did right afterwards, too: grab a few, and study them. The concept of organically-grown metal could be interesting (although I can now say it was a fluke: it was Lung's power which did that).
Since I could move the lair later, if needed, I chose to use my house's basement, at first – nothing was closer to home, and since mom's death, dad didn't go there anymore. I didn't even have to take care of not being seen going there, since having a lair allowed me to teleport in it from anywhere… and back. Yes, apparently, the Gamer shard was quite happy to interact with us humans, and often rewarded my progression with interesting abilities.
Once I had established my "lair", I had new options and abilities, and the possibility for my quests to drop bits of a virtual money geared to improve the lair… magically. Without those, I could already customize the lair, changing its colour and rearranging its insides without actually touching it. With them, I could add furniture that provide bonuses… or allow new actions.
Of course, I did what I could to improve my lair, starting with the basic utilities: a generator to get electricity from nothing; a water pump that could extract water from nothing either (and get rid of used water too); and broadband internet connection. Later, I'd buy one to provide gas, too. And environment control (simply using mundane means for heating or air conditioning would be complicated and take space). It helped that "environment control" was a prerequisite for a completely sealed lair, allowing later installation in otherwise unfit environments – such as space, deep underground or underwater, or simply anywhere I didn't want people to get into.
One of the things I invested in was a special dressing room, in which I could specify outfits that would appear on my person, which could be different from the actual clothes I'd wear. Or armour. With options to equip such and such ensemble in an instant. I didn't take the options to change my base appearance, yet, but I knew it was there, and that I'd take it later – who has never dreamed to be someone else, just for a short while?
I also invested in a selling/buying endpoint: a power-generated piece of furniture that delivered things I could buy through it, and which could also store things for me to sell. The prices weren't that good, but it was a good way to get money from unusable loot (including recyclable trash… or just to get rid of the trash). Because over the course of several levels, loot accumulated, and I couldn't store it in my bedroom anymore.
The last thing I bought, with that precious money, was the option for the buying endpoint to recruit people. It increased the space it took, of course, since people needed doors.
And I got myself henchmen. They weren't real people, and it showed, but later levels and various increases refined their behaviour… and skill.
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Next BuildingAfter getting generic henchmen, I realized that I could get options to specialize them, depending on skills that I knew about already. I got myself a sparring partner, of course. I also got myself a construction crew, because, even with the use of additional space, my dad's basement was too small for my expanding lair.
Thanks to the Gamer shard and the buying endpoint, I had legally bought myself a warehouse in the Docks, and had teleported there… only to find the Undersiders already squatting there. Well, with the promise of getting rent, I moved to the next warehouse over, and let my construction crew work it over for a while. In the end, it was much sturdier, especially with rebar shaped from metal taken from the Boat Graveyard. And then I still had leftover steel I could use for other projects, with still more to come from the remaining wrecks.
While doing that, I remembered my dad's dream about cleaning the Graveyard, reinstating the ferry… and giving work to his men. And I soon stopped using artificial men and called him (through another persona) to hire Dockworkers for the job.
That warehouse being my new lair, I bought the next one to create a foundry (with its own environment control over pollution), so that used steel from the Boats could be refined into proper steel. That created an output for the many damaged cars in the junkyard. Once again, Dockworkers got jobs and happiness.
As to where the money comes from: most of it is from villains' caches, but the Gamer shard contributes too, giving level-appropriate monetary rewards for most quests. And since my level continues to rise…
The foundry done, I needed some place to use the steel (and assorted plastics), because there was no steel industry that remained in the Bay. That means that another warehouse was bought and converted into a factory. One with computers and variable assembly lines. With little tweaking, it could produce bicycles, cars, boats, or planes. But only transportation, for some reason.
Because my (own) "empire" was growing, just buying henchmen wasn't efficient anymore, and I needed real soldiers to protect my interests against the gangs that often came along to attack my properties. I could buy them at the same endpoint as the henchmen, but the Gamer shard offered another option to alleviate the (much increased) cost: creating a military training yard.
Yet another building lot was transformed as such, and, as it happened, it didn't only bring my basic henchmen into shape, it also helped normal people too. With its included dojo, people could practise martial arts with empty hands, but also weapons.
As I was buying radar equipment to install atop my lair (to get instant reconnaissance of what happened in and around my territory), I realized that my playing of a role-playing game had long since morphed into a real-time strategy one, one in which my person was a character among others (one that could deal tremendous damage, but who wasn't sent exploring alone).
But I smiled anyways and continued. Gaming was addicting, didn't you know?
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Next Frontier"Still… another… turn." I groaned as the Gamer interface was telling me that I had won. Apparently, building factories, and then housing, and then the various things one found in cities, that made me play Sim City for a while. And then, when I started branching into other cities (mostly to get rid of the Teeth infection, and then the Slaughterhouse Nine), I noticed that I could modify the terrain around the cities, create and modify roads and railroads, clean rubble and landfills, establish farms… it was Civilization all over again (especially as I had started researching new technologies already, to equip my soldiers with more efficient weapon and armour).
And then, after "conquering" several cities on the West Coast, I was able to create a launching pad and built my own spaceships. When the option of having said spaceships build a space station, I took it, and moved my lair there. For some reason, my Gamer shard was silent when I was there, but everything technological (and magical) I got from it worked as it always did.
And then I sent a probe towards the nearest star, and Gamer told me that the game was ended, although I could keep playing. So I did. I really didn't want to see what happened should I "stop playing". Would I return to my locker, was all this a dream? Or was it like those games you couldn't end because you just started another iteration each time you reached the end goal?
I couldn't give myself time to ponder about this because I then received a distress call from Earth. Leviathan would attack Brockton Bay soon, according to some employees of mine. I realized that hiring precognitives was a good option, because otherwise, I'd have arrived in a field of ruins.
"What the hell, Gamer, no warning? No quest?" I asked myself. "You offline or what?"
Powers don't work in space. Parahumans are constrained to Earth. Thankfully, or not, Endbringers are too. This is a pre-recorded message.
True, I had asked myself why the Simurgh hadn't tried to destroy my space station (and get into view of its defensive cannons), but had shrugged when Gamer hadn't provided a response at that time, only to provide the above message for the next times I tried to call him while in space.
Thankfully, a quick teleportation to my lair allowed me to bring spaceship-level lasers around the Bay. And when the hydrokinetic menace appeared, their cumulative fire vaporized most of its body.
That's when Scion appeared. The "golden man" was an Entity, I suddenly remembered (from the Gamer shard's exposition, right after I triggered). Or, rather, he was the external aspect of one, something that I could notice only thanks to my various technological add-ons. Some of them deal with dimensional transportation because, at one point, I had to defend my territory against enemies who used teleportation to invade.
Scion (or Zion) seemed surprised to see the defence array. In one move that reminded me of what he had done to the nuclear arsenal upon arriving on Earth, he created a golden beam that sliced through each of my siege weapon.
And then he turned to me.
And then I knew I was going to die. I didn't want to. I really really didn't want to. I panicked. And Gamer intervened. The sly shard seems to have the same panic attack… or it knew what to do to increase its own power.
A second trigger.
Those generally removed limitations on given powers. Now, instead of having a god complex, of playing god as if I was in a game… I lost the "complex" part, and became one. I might have lost a bit of personality, too, given that I didn't recognize the city as my own, or my dad as such. But, instead, I could interact with Scion on an equal footing.
[THINKER] it emitted, as a question.
[NEGATION] I replied, giving a bit of context (slightly misleading, as I had just come from outer space).
[CONFUSION] the poor guy seemed lost.
[CONTINUATION] I proposed, in relation to his current floating around, helping humanity.
[NEGATION] it replied. Evidently, having come to "his" senses, he had realized that the current Cycle of destruction was already off-kilter, and wanted to start killing everyone – and harvesting their Shards. Starting with me.
[OBEY] I asserted, with the undercurrent that implied that, as the Warrior who had left the deciding power in the hand of another Entity, he couldn't decide anything by himself.
[…OBEY]
[PROTECTOR] I added in the end, changing its role. It was not to leave Earth, and protect humanity against external threats. Including natural disasters and Endbringers.
[AGREEMENT] it "said". Apparently, it was happy to actually have a job, now, instead of drifting aimlessly.
And he left. And the people around us uncovered their ears, because our words weren't meant for mere mortals.
As for me, I ascended again. And, this time, Gamer was active.
So you're a new Entity, now. That's nice. Do you want an upgrade of functionalities?
"Please do." I replied, watching the starry sky with uncovered eyes. Between my new status and my already-through-the-roof resistance to pressure, I risked nothing.
Here you are. You can now colonize star systems, and build things like space fleets, artificial moons, and Dyson rings.
And, like when I went from single-player RPG to buildings-based RTS, or from that to more overarching game systems with an ever-expanding scale, I now felt my consciousness expand to map the current galaxy.
And I smiled. The game was continuing, again!
I was sure that, once the galaxy was done, I'll have to manage it for a while, and at the same time search for ways to reach the others. And once I'll have reached beyond Kardachev's scale of civilizations, perhaps I'll see the universe as a whole.
And perhaps, then, I'll have an idea of how we could prevent its death. Or survive it.
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To be continued… gamelyAuthor's Notes: Another one about gaming. I should perhaps create another repository and move this one there, along with #44 (to the nines), #43 (with a little help), #40 (construction complete), #17 (defiant), #13 (characters), and #12 (players). Or not.