17

Me and My Instantiated Self

Rian jolted awake, finding himself corporeal again and lying in the middle of Thile Harbor’s town square. A few players were looking at him as if he’d just teleported in—which he probably had, in a way. He sat up and held a hand to his throat, then saw the wall of system messages glaring at him. These ones were different: they were centered in his vision unlike the others, which had shown up on his left.

Warning: system instability detected.

Failed to load from player origin.

Loading from Cognitive-Mirror…

Load complete.

Cognitive-Mirror 99.74% operational; minimum benchmark achieved.

“Continue to defy me,” Corvis said, startling Rian so hard that he nearly jumped straight up, “and that number—that percentage—will drop again.” Corvis was standing over him, his gaze cold and hard. “And each time, it will plummet faster as your reflection degrades.”

Reflection, Rian thought, still dazed from waking up. That’s all I really am? A reflection of myself?

He didn’t feel much different, except—

There it was. At the back of his head, where he’d felt the pressure building up moments before he had died: like a suture upon the inside of his skull. Something chipped away. A crack, waiting to grow into a fissure. Rian stood up. He started walking, almost slumping, toward the eastern-most road.

So he was wrong after all.

He wondered if, somewhere in the Temple of Altir, there was a priest chanting those system messages he’d just seen upon waking—that it was all an illusion being cast by an NPC. But that sounded ridiculous. Even if they were NPCs, they themselves were fragments of the central AI, and they could certainly do things like view his system information and spout it back to him. System messages couldn’t be spoofed. It was wrong of him to assume otherwise, because then he couldn’t trust anyone or anything. He’d simply have to take it on faith.

Whether Mirage was truly a game or another world entirely, he would have to play by the rules. There wasn’t going to be an easy way out.

He wanted to rail himself for wagering one of his limited lives like that, to test if Corvis was really lying to him, but it seemed he was telling the truth. It was too much of a risk not to believe him—not if it resulted in another needle through his neck. Dying here felt rather uncomfortable. He’d even felt a bit of pain during the re-spawn, which deeply worried him.

Finding the road east, Rian reached into his pocket and retrieved his aviator shades from his inventory. His doubts were still there, shouting at him that he should just give up and find another way forward, but there was no other choice.

He put on the shades again, lessening the glare of the sun as it shone in the sky ahead. He stepped out and began alternating between sprinting and dashing to the forests beyond Jensen’s farm—to his next stop, Elmguard.

Past the area where he’d tested out his Dash skill on fellings, Rian stepped down the dirt path until he saw two players duking it out in the middle of the road. There was one other player, a level 40 bowman wearing a feathered hat, watching the fight with his arms crossed. For some reason, his name was already visible: Lahir.

Rian stepped up beside him to watch as well. The two combatants—both Beginners—were swinging short swords at each other at a wide distance, as if in anticipation of something. Then Rian saw it: one of them dashed toward the other with his sword held forward, light trailing behind him like an afterimage. He’d misjudged the distance and landed short, leaving him vulnerable to the other player, who swung and landed a hit on his arm.

A slashing effect appeared in the air followed by a damage number, and the stricken player recoiled slightly. The attack had taken nearly a third of the health bar above his head.

“Nothing like breaking them in early,” the bowman, Lahir, said. He was quite tall, and his face was long and thin. He glanced at Rian. “Care to give it a try?”

“Oh, no. I—uh, should be focusing on leveling, right now.”

“You can do that in PVP, too, y’know.”

Rian watched as the two swordsmen resumed attempting to bait out the other’s dash.

Fighting other players sounded more fun than killing random creatures all day, but it would be magnitudes more dangerous in terms of getting killed. Creatures at this stage were generally predictable and their AI was rudimentary. Or at least it was supposed to be. Fighting the meina at the farm had him doubting himself on that. Even so, players could traditionally make wild decisions in their playstyle that no AI ever could. It would be a huge jump in difficulty, even this early in the game, and that—

Rian blinked. He could see their levels floating above their heads, but there was also a name, in brackets. Not the players’ names, but their guild.

The two Beginners in front of him were members of LastWhisper.

Rian glanced at the over-leveled bowman standing next to him, then breathed out in relief. Lahir’s guild’s name was “Petrichor.” Rian didn’t know for sure, but it was unlikely they were hostile. Lahir probably would’ve killed him by now if so.

As the two fighting players drew closer to Rian and Lahir, Rian stepped back to make room, but the bowman remained where he was. A sword swung near him, but he seemed entirely unfazed. Eventually the two swordsmen appeared to collide with him, but their bodies flickered and faded, and they passed right through. They continued their bout as if nothing had happened.

“What’s going on?” Rian muttered.

Lahir smirked, then held up a glass orb. “Just hosting a friendly brawl.”

Rian inspected the item.

PVP-Instancer Delta

Grade: C (Uncommon)

“Creates a localized, timed instance for PVP with stat balancing and no restrictions. Can sustain up to four players. The generated instance is transparent, allowing for local spectating.”

“It’s less messy than fighting on the overworld,” Lahir said. “No chance of outside interference in the match, and you don’t have to worry about becoming accidentally involved as a bystander.”

“So they’re not actually…here?”

“Oh, no, they are. They’re just in a separate instance from us. One that everyone can see.”

One of the players swung short, and the other punished the miss by dashing through him, delivering a fatal blow. The stricken swordsman fell to the ground. Standing over top of him, the other sheathed his sword as a column of air surrounded him, lifting the edges of his sleeves and his hair; a familiar sound played, of wind chimes in a rising tone.

The LEVEL UP text appeared above him and faded, and the level over his head incremented to eight.

Between the two swordsmen, a sphere of light rapidly expanded, and the subtle flickering of their bodies ceased. The fallen player, a level six Beginner with short black hair and freckles, stood up and bumped fists with the other. “Got me that time,” he said.

“Go again?” the other asked—the winning swordsman, who was slightly taller than Rian and with shoulder-length orange hair.

Lahir gently nudged Rian forward. “Actually,” he said, “it looks like someone would like to challenge you, Torgo.”

Rian tensed.

Oh god why—

The Beginner named Torgo did a double take at Rian, then glanced above him for a moment. “So you’re part of Moonlight, huh?”

“Hah, yeah.” Feeling sheepish, Rian scratched the back of his head. “I’m a bit new, though. I guess we’re supposed to be rivals, huh?”

“Hey, man, don’t worry.” Torgo stepped up beside him, put his arm around his shoulder and patted. His voice was slightly nasally, sounding like he had a cold in real life. “It’s all in good fun. What’s your name?” He was practically right in his face, but Rian saw it: the way his expression shifted, suddenly blank as he asked the question.

“I should be getting along, I think,” Rian said. “I, uh, can’t really risk dying right now.”

“What?” Lahir said. “Why?”

“Well…” Rian took a deep breath. They probably wouldn’t believe it if he told them the truth: that he was stuck and his connection to the game was more tenuous than normal. But he couldn’t let something like that spread around as a rumor, even if they wouldn’t believe it was possible.

“If you’re afraid of losing XP,” Lahir said, “you don’t have to worry. You won’t lose any in PVP, even if you die.”

“Oh,” Rian said. “Well, that’s good to hear. But it’s more like…I’m afraid of dying.”

“You’re really that timid?” the other Beginner said.

“I think you’re playing the wrong game, dude,” Torgo said. “Unless you’re going for some kind of no-death run.”

“No, it’s—” Rian sighed. “It’s complicated. My connection isn’t the greatest.” He thought for a moment about how to word it. “Every time I die, it’s destabilizing my connection. I think it’s gonna boot me out of the game at some point.”

As discretely as he could, he glanced over at Corvis, who was wandering between the trees and watching the leaves fall. Dammit, help me out here, buddy.

“Huh,” Lahir said. “Sounds like a technical issue.”

Seeming to recognize the plea in Rian’s eyes, Corvis said, “You might not believe it, but I have some great news for you, Rian. You may fight other players inside instances such as the one your bowman friend can produce with his item, and if you die within such an instance, your reflection will not degrade.”

Rian flinched and nearly shouted, What? He looked aside at Corvis in astonishment.

Letting go of Rian’s shoulder, Torgo glanced aside at the trees—where Rian was looking. “Something out there?”

“The instancing item,” Corvis said, “creates a copy of you before initiating the fight. So if you die there, you technically don’t die. You simply revert to your previous self on the overworld, rather than the whole Cognitive-Mirror attempting to re-instantiate yourself from your off-world body. Ergo, no degradation.”

Rian gripped his fists, nearly wanting to pop off right there.

This changed everything. Absolutely everything. It gave him an out: he could PVP his way to level cap without worrying about perma-death.

“But,” Corvis said, gently catching falling leaves out of the air, “to the great game, a death is still a death.”

Rian stood there for a moment, wondering what the hell that meant. And then—

Oh no.

The soulbound locator item in his inventory. His way of finding Yindra. If he died in a PVP instance, it would still transfer to whoever killed him.

He had no choice. If he walked away, this guy was probably going to stab him in the back; Rian wasn’t falling for his friendly shtick. And if he died outside of the PVP-instance that the bowman could create, he would lose another life and the locator if someone killed him.

It was actually safer to fight him. If he lost, he’d keep his life, but the locator in his inventory would transfer to this guy, and that would probably be the end of his chances of finding Yindra this early.

But he couldn’t afford to risk his remaining lives over that. Not if there were other ways.

“Eh,” Rian said at last, “you know what? It should be all right. I’ll give it a whirl.”

“Perfect!” Lahir said, clapping his hands together. “I’ll get you set up.” He pulled out the glass orb again and spoke, “Five minutes, best of one.”

Torgo turned to Rian and offered a hand. “Just a friendly match, right? I’m Torgo, by the way, in case you didn’t hear.”

“Allen,” Rian said, shaking his hand.

Torgo blinked, still smiling. “Allen, huh? You know, I feel like we’ve met before.”

An expanding sphere of light spread from the orb in the bowman’s hand. The bodies of Rian and Torgo began to glow a swirling blue as the light passed through them. The Beginner and the bowman shimmered then disappeared. Torgo stepped back from Rian to provide some distance, and a countdown appeared in the air.

“Well,” Torgo said, chuckling. “There’s no backing out now.” He drew out his short sword and took a stance that immediately told Rian that this was a huge mistake—if only by the sheer confidence that Torgo was emanating. He was holding his sword inverted, slanted across himself, and spread his feet to slightly lower himself in a defensive stance.

“You really fell for that, huh?” Torgo said, his voice suddenly dropping all pretense of friendliness. “Like I’m gonna go easy on someone in her guild. Nah, I’m gonna kick your fucking ass, moonie.”

Torgo is now your Adversary! (Companionship Level -1)

Victory EXP multiplier: 1.2x

[!] Negative Companionship Levels: Adversaries

Defeating adversaries in honorable combat will grant extra EXP upon victory. (Dishonorable kills will not provide bonuses.)

Swallowing, Rian pulled out his short sword and gripped it harder as the countdown approached zero.

Oh god, I’m really going to regret this, aren’t I?

Ready…

Go!