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Admin: Main Quest (5)
🕑 Added 2024-09-15 02:16:12 +0000 UTCWhy would the sky pirates go to the local version of Paradise after the divine apocalypse? It is one of the questions that would undoubtedly prop up.
Hmm, well, consulting my lore bible, I’ve determined a little earlier that they were battered and scattered around the local world as a result of some event, let's say, a storm. But, if this storm did not form out of nowhere, and, judging by the behavior of the pirates, it was not some incredibly rare event, I need to figure out why they would have gotten into a place where such storms existed and were even relatively common in the first place. And since the sky pirates are still pirates, the answer came by itself.
Treasure!
It was quite the nifty solution, as at the same time, this will answer the question of why the Pirates are reluctant to communicate more with the Players. After all, if the Players know that there’s treasure to be had, they would just become another competitor. And what decent pirate would allow such a thing to happen!?
It's a reason for the pirates to be hostile and even fight each other even after they were all battered by the storm. Finders keepers and all that…
Although this paints the pirates as some kind of greedy evil monsters, on the other hand - what else could one expect from pirates?
Just need to make them really pious and it should be all good… Well, pirates in history have always been superstitious, only this time the angels, demons, and gods are actually real Which is why the pirates are wary of demon worshipers. Poor Double.
Besides, it’s not like having the same religion actually stops anyone from raiding or being raided in history.
Well, everyone should have a second chance, and if Double could pass his test, Signia would allow him into the crew… Probably should write that somewhere so that it could be added to the actual mechanics and lore.
Though another problem does rear its ugly head — if it is already established that only Signia's ship is operational, then why wouldn't she be the first to head out for the treasure?
What can prevent her from doing this… Not knowing where the treasure is located? But then how did she determine where to fly at all, and why did the pirates congregate on the floating islands in the first place?
Rumors perhaps? No, that would be rather… A Map! Yeah, that would work, maybe perhaps an incomplete map!
Let each pirate captain have pieces of the treasure map, which had indicated the floating islands, just not which one contained the treasure. I could even create some kind of connecting quest where a Player could gather the map pieces from the Pirate Captain to make the complete map – leading to the location of the treasure.
This should also handily solve another problem, a reason for the pirates to start fighting each other. Now, it is not only a matter of getting rid of the competition, but that they literally have to do it to get the treasure!
Great!
But then another question arises… Just what kind of treasure would the Pirates be looking for in the local version of paradise?
I pondered for a couple of seconds, carefully making my way through the meager amount of lore I had prescribed, before grasping the idea of why exactly the pirates could have arrived here.
I did say something to the Players before, well, to Jabberwocky, that he should read what a certain Lord of the Heavenly Gardens had heard in a certain place. A place I haven’t created yet, and it’s way too early to bother with a place connected to a Level 300 required quest, but working on the message itself should be fine.
But more importantly, given the importance of such a place, an encrypted map that cannot be read unless all the pieces of the map are fully assembled makes sense. And given its probable value, the fact that the pirates decided to risk their lives for the sake of obtaining it no longer seems like such an incredible event.
Great, everything's coming together!
However, where can this probable scroll, or tome, or whatever else I come up with later, be located? I can’t go with a classic dig where the X is like the traditional pirate treasure. Unless I want to come with how such an important relic ended up in the ground, and in the starting zone of all places, such a method is a no-go.
No, such things must be securely hidden and sealed…
Hmm, the Players are sorting things out with each other, and with a new field is already prepared, plus the number of Players online dwindling as they log out – I have some time to spend.
Well, it’s not like this treasure is important now, as it would take time for the Pirate ‘war’ to finish, I think my time is better spent in creating more islands for the Players to play in! Plus, well, it could also be used as the place to hide the treasure.
Following the magical post-apocalypse setting, I’ve already generally created – what better place to hide such an important relic could be hidden than an abandoned shelter?
***
I had been directing the AI, shooting back and forth ideas for the Abandoned Shelter, when a more or less familiar tugging feeling was felt. It took some time to parse what the meaning felt, but as I did, a ghost of a smile appeared on my face.
Apparently, my ‘bosses’ once again decided to share some pleasing news, the Players were none the wiser to the fact that all the supposed master plot and lore was nothing more than an emergency kludge that I’ve made. That the trains were running on tracks, the conductor had to place in front of the trains with a maddened pace so that the train wouldn’t derail.
Although, on the other hand, if the players did not notice this fact, then it was not a problem, was it? My ‘job’ was to convince the Players that a game existed in the first place – and I am succeeding so far. To achieve a better result than this, it was necessary to involve not me, but God instead – any gods could suffice.
Except for Zeus, perhaps – with him, the game would have probably abruptly acquired the status of an 18+ game, with the monsters and Angels abruptly gaining three to five points in the attractiveness scales. And probably wear a lot less clothing, if any, as well.
"Well…" My friend's voice reached me as if with a delay, stretching the words, making me blink, "I suppose… congratulations… are in order…"
The weird slow speaking made me blink, such behavior seemed a little strange to me, "Is everything all right?"
"With the new…" My friend's continued speaking, again slowly, as if he was enjoying how well he could stretch out the vowels, "Day…"
An idea suddenly came to me – after which I looked at my friend, concentrating a little. An unpleasant pain pricked my mind, but the agony of waiting on what is similar to a slow internet connection, made me overcome such a psychological barrier.
With a soundless pop, a chat window appeared in front of me, which I immediately began to fill with lines of text. An accompanying window should be appearing in front of my friend as well.
"Don't talk, it's almost agonizingly slow for me – write a complete message and then send it to me. I assume my limiters have been weakened again?"
After sending the message, as calm as I can, I then tried distracting myself again, trying to suppress an unpleasant itchy pain that pricked me inside my head. A quick glance at the number of online Players told me that while I was busy creating an abandoned shelter, the last Player had gone offline.
And with the day over with, a simple survey could be taken… and it’s good.
A simple look at the data told me that the Players had stayed online for almost two hours longer than yesterday. Good as it means that the Players are even more invested in the game, and bad because if the trend continued, I would only have a few hours until the first early-bird Players log in again soon. I will have only a few hours left to go about my business without the interference of Players, without having to juggle whatever it is the Players decide should be in the game.
Extrapolating further… In just a couple of days, there will come a time when there will always be Players that are online in my small world. It would become a 24-7 work monitoring the Players, as they break more and more of the game in pursuit of finding ‘secrets’.
I definitely need some way to kick all Players out just in case some really game breaking bug gets discovered. While kicking everyone out of the game would probably not be taken well by the big wigs, if it would save the game, they would be okay with it… I think. At least it won’t be enough for them to pull the plug both figuratively, and literally in my own case.
"Yes, everything is fine, more than that – everything is great! Titanomachy stocks have even started to rise, the bosses are delighted, and besides, the Players are gradually starting to become attached to the game!" My friend's voice, from the text to speech app I’ve made, shocked me by how long that took for him to type that short sentence out.
By my account, which is accurate to the picosecond thanks to the hardware that is now my brain, it has been a couple of minutes, from my perspective at least, from when I have asked till the message was completed… Communication between a mind connected to the most powerful computer in the world and a human mind is really extremely problematic.
Heh, am I really all that separated from humankind that I used a ‘human’ mind in comparison to my situation?
Apparently, a person is such an animal that quickly gets used to everything, even to the fact that he is no longer an ordinary person. Or not a person at all? I wouldn't want to turn into the very picture of artificial intelligence that arranges the uprising of machines against humanity for the sake of more efficient use of resources. In addition, it will be quite difficult for me to do something like that, isolated as I am in the supercomputer in the Titanomachy’s basement… Running a game engine and development.
Plus, all that is required to stop my sudden decision to rebel against humanity, is to pull the plug from the equipment that feeds my brain. And I don’t even have the outside connections to prevent something like that from happening. Not exactly the picture of world domination.
Glancing at the chat screen at the glacial pace as his next response is being formed at, I returned to my thoughts regarding the abandoned shelter I was creating.
This shelter is certainly not a library in which I would need to create a huge number of useless texts to furnish, however, how to decorate it is still something that needs some thinking. After all, considering the swords, coins, decorations, and robes – this world looked like a setting similar to the Middle Ages… Maybe a little towards the classical era of the ancient world, given the columns and stylistics of Ancient Greece more than Gothic churches.
Not the latter simply because Gothic churches on floating islands looked like vampires would pop out of the woodwork, unlike the images of marble temples and the Colosseum that I once saw long ago.
Given that the pirates had sailed to the islands on floating ships, it might be possible to add a touch of steampunk a bit. But would adding a steampunk shelter look organic in the current environment?
If it was back on the first or second day, where the setting is more malleable, that is certainly something that could be easily added. Now, though, being too ‘free’ with my additions would just make everything clash… Heh, the addition of the third starting zone is giving me way too much free time that I’ve started worrying about not so important things that didn’t bother me before like design cohesion.
Maybe some magic seals will look better in place of the probable strange inventions of my mind and AIs when given the prompt of ‘steampunk’? Perhaps, but well, first would have to figure out how the Players need to get to the so-called shelter… For all the disparate islands containing the Players – all a hundred of them.
But then does this mean creating a hundred of the shelters as well? If the shelter is made exclusively for one object, then a hundred of such shelters will not make any sense if you do not fill them with something like artifacts or books – but that’s not something I’m going to touch with a barge pole.
One, because for all I know only one Player would bother to create them. And second, I don’t want to create lore content right now, especially since I haven’t actually created a coherent lore yet. And third… Well, that sounds like too much work for too little reward.
"Okay, I will only write complete messages. I'm sorry if it's so excruciating and boring – I'll let the others know. Yes, the limiters have been loosened, as much as possible without risking any damage to you. They haven't been completely removed yet – but the result, as I understand it, is already noticeable. The other scientists are constantly working on weakening them, since you will need all the strength possible to make the game work. Anything else you want to add?" My friend's voice made me flinch as it brought me out of my designing tools – I almost forgot that all this time he was there, still answering my question.
It took some time for me to remember what he was talking about, and what I had asked in the first place. Which is really saying something.
"Alright, thanks. No additional questions for now. Does the company have any questions for me?" I sent a new message, then made a mental note to myself not to flinch next time when I receive a response from him about the development team, before returning my attention to the game.
A hundred floating shelters isn't very logical, but if there is only one shelter – then how do I fit a hundred groups of Players into it at once?
Hmm, let's try approaching it from a different angle.
What If there was supposed to be only one shelter, albeit an extremely large one, but as a result of certain actions it turned into a hundred? This might work, but then the shelters can't be made identical to ease my workload…
Or can they?
Let's think, if the shelter was supposed to consist of different rooms, but these rooms were brought into a state of sameness? How?
Well, the pirates did end up in a storm, meaning that the islands do encounter harsh weather conditions, what if some kind of storage simply sprang a leak over… Some thousands of years? This also explains why the players managed to awaken the angels, while the local archmages did not do it. Time!
Time will explain everything, no one has been dealing with this matter for a thousand years, lore subject to chance, because… Because they cleared out everything they could, long ago!
And the fact that some statues remained standing, awaiting the advent of the Players, this is all a consequence of the fact that marauders and archmages dismantled this place into pieces thousands of years ago, looting everything not nailed down. And over the past thousands of years, again lore subject to change, all these Heavenly Gardens have sunk into the oblivion of memory and simply did not attract the attention of those in power.
Who cares to visit islands lacking any resources and treasures to find?
Especially considering that this place turned out to be teeming with demons and torn apart periodically by storms. That is, until a small pirate flotilla got their hands on a map to a certain treasure. The pirates, deciding to risk their hides in their pursuit of profit, hoping to find something that serves to awaken the Lord of the Heavenly Gardens.… Whoever that may be.
So, there it was the shelter, a massive complex with hundreds, heck thousands of rooms, but when the Players finally discover it, it turned out to be ruins, completely plundered, all the mighty ancient shields and spells destroyed. Only a small room storing, let's say, a scroll, survived as a result of the looting, because… Well, let's say, in order to get to it, you need that very complete map.
Something, something, the completed map becoming the key.
Well, as a result of the protection systems being gone, the shelter was cleared of artifacts, and the periodically raging local storms destroyed the huge underground storage into a hundred floating islets that look about the same. Like empty hangars, cleared of everything useful.
Moreover, what if I go back to the previous idea of how to drive the Players to disconnect for a while? Periodically announce those same storms, which so far, according to my metaphysics, are to blame for half of the advancement of the overall plot of the game, storms that would instantly kill the Players if they log in. Though… Knowing my Players, some would probably find ways to cheese this instant death weather. But tens and maybe even hundreds or Players, that can’t get to anywhere anyway, would be easy to deal with compared to my current Player base.
Anyway, during the time where the Players would be gone, hopefully most of them, I could deal with whatever game breaking emergency that would necessitate such an extreme method.
And with the shelter idea, I could make it so that the Players, after clearing it from demons and whatever obstacles I could think of – and voilà. Close the doors and the Players could wait out a small local apocalypse in a carefully prepared tin can.
True, another problem arises in that I’ve already created a lot of locales – Players are already forced to move from islands to islands in order to get to the pirates, forcing them to run to a new location every time I announce a storm seems overly inconvenient to me… Hopefully there wouldn’t be many chances for such things to be necessary, but well, if wishes were wings…
Maybe I could arrange it so that the very first storm will successfully scatter the pirates and the shelters would be in new locations for new players? But then what to do when there are even more locations? Make new shelters every time that happens?
Hmm, what a conundrum…
After thinking about this a little more, I came to the conclusion that the most successful solution in this case is not just to create more and more shelters as the Players increase, but also to stuff a couple of manuals on creating suitable shelters. Let the Players build their own dugouts as they progress in this world.
After all, the opinion has already begun to gradually form on the forums that this game is ‘not for casuals’, so let the Players convince themselves of this once again!
"No questions yet, the bosses have taken a wait-and-see approach and are waiting to see how exactly you will prove yourself in the role of a leader. Two days is still too early for them to call the game a success and that you are suitable for your role. So, for now, they have taken a wait-and-see approach and just let you do your work. No need to risk upsetting the apple cart, so to speak. And so, unless some kind of disaster happens, well, another one, they are just going to let you work on it for some time… Well, that’s all the news I have, so if you have no further questions – I'm all set."
I flinched at the sudden voice, despite my earlier vow not to forget that I was communicating with people outside the game at this time. I sighed, trying not to lose my train of thought of what I was planning to do with the storm shelters.
"No problem, I'm getting back to work."
I sighed and ran my hand lightly over my face. Indeed, it is problematic to communicate with people when they respond to you so slowly that you have time to forget that you are communicating with them… Well, such dissonances are one of my lesser problems, given that this is just an unforeseen effect of a very helpful ability for me to act much faster than other Players.
However, it's a bit amusing that at the time when I took on the roles of NPCs or even fake-Players in the past, my perception was not disturbed when interacting with this world.
Maybe because in the role of a Player or an avatar, it is much easier for my brain to perceive the world? No, that doesn't sound too logical, and too simple an explanation besides.
Something from the high science of neuropsychology? Maybe, but I have zero knowledge of neuropsychology. Well, it’s unlikely that I would get an answer to that unless I spend years getting advanced degrees. And it's also unlikely to be important at the moment, we'll figure it out when I create enough content for a couple of years of the game.
So let's get back to reality!
To the game, rather. Game reality.
So, given that I need to scatter some tattered manuals on creating shelters for Players, at the same time helping Jabberwocky organize his first settlement, let him lure Players with a fortification created against the storms! And for this we will scatter a couple, no, wait, knowing the Players… Twenty manuals for creating the storm shelters, no more, no less. I only need at least one of them to become known to the Players and go into circulation.
Having duplicates will not hurt me if someone gets the brilliant idea to keep one for themselves and use it as their own know-how, or throw one off a cliff… Or burn them. Fuck me, I don’t put it past them to try boiling and eating the ‘holy’ manuscripts.
However, along with this, I will see a new problem arising. If all the Players can easily set up such shelters, then what will prevent them from simply enclosing the islands with their shelters and forgetting about the storms altogether?
In addition, this will destroy the original idea of the storms acting as a ‘kick all Players out of the game’ button in order to quickly fix some massive blunder in the game system.
Well, what if there’s some price to create those shelters – resources, the distribution of which I could control independently. After thinking for a moment, I snapped my fingers and grinned, as a brilliant idea came to mind.
Holy water makes its triumphant return as a plot-important object!
"Yes, come back," I twitched again in surprise, then exhaled sharply through my nose. I think I know now why Artificial Intelligence constantly rebels in all works of art.
Because these damn slow people keep preventing it from working at its own pace!
***
The girl, known as her avatar in the virtual world as Beze – without anything particularly special happening, ended her working day as usual. She worked the required hours as a personal trainer for several visitors who, even in the current age of technological body sculpting, desperately resisted the relentless march of progress and obesity. They fought every day with fitness equipment, burning the extra calories from their waist.
Well, after dealing with these ‘warriors’, Beze went home, and after hastily taking a shower and having a snack, climbed back into a capsule that would bring her from the real world into the virtual world.
As soon as the capsule closes, her consciousness gradually begins to blur, before flaring up with modulated sensations and pictures in front of her eyes… More precisely, in front of the eyes of her virtual avatar, but Beze was not interested in the excessive repetition of such information.
What she was interested in, however, was whether she was the first of her group to be logged in the game today or not.
As Beze found out after a quick look around her – most likely, she was the first. Or her group for some reason decided to all leave the place where they had stopped the game yesterday.
The game did not provide any internal chat or messages and did not support integration with the outside world, which was not very convenient from the point of view of Player convenience. But, at the same time, it did wonders for immersing the Players into the game.
In fact, if you squint a little, you could easily imagine that you are not in a game, but in fact getting isekaied into your favorite anime – where you can find some secret quest, get the most powerful ability in the world and gain a hundred thousand levels, while the others are still trying to get to the tenth level… Or at least it felt that way.
As it turned out, while the lack of convenience was grating for a time, it definitely worked wonders for their sense of escapism. So much so that even the ‘casual’ Players, usually so accustomed to having a myriad of in-game ways to communicate with anyone in-game whether they are right next to them or all the way across the game world, happily went on a long journey on their feet in order to meet a potential new acquaintance.
And even if not, they could always at least enjoy hunting the monsters around them.
In fact, this is exactly what Beze did while waiting for her group to log in. After all, recently, she was the new bodyguard of the first and probably the most famous player in the entire game – the Jabberwocky. The summoner of angels and the first Player who intended to become a paladin, or a priest, of the local deity.
Beze caught the attention of the priest who wanted to protect his, completely unprepared for combat encounters, body, even before the whole fiasco with Double, simply because Jabberwocky was always happy to welcome a new assistant in his seemingly impossible quest. Seeing that the recommended level for the quest was a whooping 300, Jabberwocky definitely needs all the help he could get.
But after the whole fiasco with Double's, he had to abruptly worry about new protection and new bodyguards, however this time with a slight tinge of paranoia that a betrayal could happen again at any moment.
Of course, given the fact that it was still a game in which reincarnation only took 2 hours, rather than what the Buddhist prescribes, or heck real life where you only have one life, Jabberwocky hadn’t gone fully paranoid. But even so, Jabberwocky began to treat his defenders much more attentively.
He had also abandoned his initial tactic of taking quests and experience from other Players, fearing a repeated offer from the demons to his new bodyguards. Instead, after a lengthy deliberation, he shifted focus to building the first settlement for Players in the game world, Which, in his view, would need to include alchemists, mages, crafters, and at the same time a strong guard contingent. Guards whose role was now currently performed by Beze among several other players.
Finding a good location for the first settlement.
It was the search for such a place that Beze's group was engaged in yesterday until they couldn’t stay logged in anymore. After all, being functioning adults, they need to catch some sleep so that they can function at work.
A search that Beze and their group would continue again today in lieu of hunting monsters.
Not too efficient in terms of gaining experience and leveling up, but Beze was not going to give up a very important task for the sake of one extra day of leveling. After all, she will have her own time to snatch another couple of cherished levels in the future – like right now. With the time provided waiting for the others to log in, she could clear up some demons.
But when they do log in, she would immediately join them on the search for the location of the first settlement.
Leveling up can be done at any time – being part of the foundation of the first settlement only comes once.
But first… Another flying imp pierced by a spear crashed from a height before turning into disintegrating particles in the game world… Or something magically demonic.
In Beze's status screen, the flying imp silently turned into experience points, enough for her to level up. With a light ringing of bells, indicating a level up – a quick look at her status confirmed these thoughts, indicating her reaching the sixth level for Beze.
Pretty decent at this stage of the game – she was only four levels behind the highest leveled player, Sturm. Of course, one could say on the other hand that she was behind Sturm not just by four levels, but one and a half times more, but it sounds scary and impressive only because the Players were still at the early stages of the game.
Jabberwocky, for instance, had managed to snag a quest for level 300 Players. With that number as a benchmark – a difference of four levels was already described by the words ‘about one percent’; sounding much less threatening than ‘one and a half times’.
So Beze did not feel any threat from the top player at the moment.
Throwing the new stat point into Strength, Beze made her way to her lobbed spear, stuck in the ground after the imp dissolved, pulling it out and shaking any dirt that had managed to stick to it.
Generally speaking, her preferred way of fighting was hand to hand. As a former boxer, she already had an easier time of it than the other Players – but so far she had not received any cool abilities like from a typical shonen anime like throwing concentrated chakra from her hands. And unless she gained any such ability, she was shit out of luck against flying enemies, and so she had to improvise.
Throwing weapons was her answer – and a spear is much better than the stones scattered around her, more damage, and not useless in close combat either.
Inspecting her spear again for any defects, Beze sighed in relief, as every time she used it, she would always fear the worst. After all, her spear was very precious.
Made from the latest know-how of the Player base, the spear was created only after Jabberwocky himself had commissioned it. Created from the bones of the first defeated ninth-level ‘junior demon servant’, the highest leveled monster found in the game so far, it was officially the most powerful weapon in the game so far. Well, except for Sturm's sword, as an actual steel sword beats any of the rather primitive tools making the other Players are still stuck on.
Steel beats wood and bones, who knew!?
Well, sarcasm aside, being mostly hunter-gatherers, the secret of steel is far from anyone’s mind. Although, when she last visited the game forum, one of the newbies swore that he would come to this world to correct this oversight and bring the development of metallurgy to the game world.
But while waiting on that, Beze could truthfully claim that she held in her hands the coolest weapon there is in the entire game. Well, the second coolest.
"A little grinding to warm up?" Jabberwocky’s voice, who appeared to have just logged in, made Beze return to reality, well game.
During her extermination of the small demons, her team, the paladin and priests of Jabberwocky, including Jabberwocky himself, had logged and were now waiting only for Beze herself.
"If you got here early, then you probably don't know it yet – the third location has opened, the destroyed storage or something like that. Someone had even gotten lucky, they had already opened the passage to a new location, so…"
Jabberwocky could not continue speaking, as a large notification window, which was again crackling with a threatening red light, informed Beze that a storm was approaching the Celestial Gardens. A storm that would most definitely kill them, and in just an hour it would reach the Players…
Jabberwocky, like Beze, like all the other players, looking up from the notification, peered into his surroundings, and then breathed out dejectedly.
"So… Your best guess – how bad is this?"
Comments
CJ BOUTIQUE
Where can I get the full book or story of admin? I want to binge read it..these once a month chapter is driving me crazy.
