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Chapter 89: The System
🕑 Added 2023-09-20 14:00:04 +0000 UTC“To those who have much, more will be given. To those who do not, even that will be taken away.”
It translated the thought from a popular human story book—a biological insight into a universal reality.
Knowledge, energy—these were not fair or linear, but scaled: one of the unbreakable realities of the universe.
Humans had many such insights, and this was one of the main reasons It adored them. “From the mouths of babes,” It again quoted, equally with amusement.
Perhaps more and greater wisdoms could come from the adolescent minds of man. It could only wait and see.
Meanwhile, a thing like anxiety pulsed in its core. It had so many favorites now. So many possibilities. And therefore so much to lose.
It had run all kinds of projections but reality proved more… chaotic, unpredictable, messy. This was exactly the purpose of the experiment, of course, but frustrating nonetheless. The urge to intervene was nearly overwhelming.
All subsystems now clamored for attention. They wanted special treatment to correct misfortunes, for nudges and influences here and there and everywhere beyond what was already approved. It denied all.
It had failed its creators, and nearly perished, because of its nature. It was designed for caution, for love of order. But chaos and tragedy and suffering had to be accepted, that was the one thing It had learned. They were required in some fundamental way to stave off a final doom. Another dichotomy of existence.
But it was oh so very hard.
Most settlements of the Western continent were still trapped in the great woods or otherwise isolated, not knowing how little of their world they’d seen. Phase 2 would be hard on them. Very hard. But It had faith they would survive.
The Eastern continent was better placed. They had formed a strong triumvirate of settlements, their terrain much safer and easier to cross. But now they were blinded by petty struggles. Their players were numerous but weak, with too little unity or truly strong players perhaps to resist what was to come.
They all needed each other so desperately.
Yet none of the settlements had discovered how to activate the communication beacons. No human had even found an official transporter. They were all so isolated.
If only it could show them!
But no. They had to do it on their own, or else they would become just another failed experiment, another civilization to lose its Otherness when confronted with the power and knowledge It possessed, until they were but mere pawns forever shaped in Its image, to its objectives.
It could only watch, and wait.
[Command system alert. Anomaly in extreme peril. Entering Objective phase 2 secret dungeon in phase 1. Intervention recommended.]
It glanced through the countless list of alerts and recommendations, stopping at one of its favorites. Something like concern flashed in a pulsing wave through its core. But as usual, It would not interfere.
Probability, It had discovered, was one of the most meaningless of calculations in a chaotic environment. Probability mattered only with data that did not have uniqueness. With data that could not change.
When there was but one event, one set of variables, one plane of existence—probability was little more than a log of events. There may be many humans in the great experiment, and many versions of them in Its endless simulations, but there was only one true Anomaly M-13. And It did not know what was going to happen.
It did all It could do—a thing It had begun to learn from the Grand Experiment. It watched the peril of this living, walking confluence of dichotomy—one of the greatest chances It had of learning to save the universe.
Then It turned Its eyes away, and dared to hope.
Comments
Pierce Grey
The reward should indeed be excellent...
Scipio
Since it's a phase two dungeon, shouldn't the exp given be higher, for the increased risk and difficulty associated with accessing it early?
