Chapter 2: Answers and AI

“Hello”…”Helloooo”

“What?” I ask in a voice that sounds amazingly strong considering the way that my head feels.

“I said hello” A cheerful, feminine voice says.

“he-hello, I guess. Who are you?” I’m slowly sitting up now and blinking. For some reason it is extremely bright.

“I am Introductory AI 12, but for the sake of simplicity you can call me Alice” The voice says again in the exact same cheerful tone.

“AI? What is tha” I suddenly trail off as “Alice” comes into view. She is a stereotypically perfect receptionist holding a clipboard, but that is not what made me stop talking, that would be the background… or lack of one. There is nothing there. Nothing at all. Just an endless field of white in the sky that is resting on a white floor that is very slightly reflective.

“WHERE AM I?” I shout in a slightly panicky voice. I start to hyperventilate and jerk my head around wildly looking for anything, anything at all besides the endless white. I pull my knees to my chest and begin to cry. Alice looks slightly nonplused for a moment but soon recovers and comes to my side.

“Hey, hey” she says softly curling up next to me, hugging me and patting my head in a comforting way. “It will be all right.”

I continue to sob for an unknowable amount of time and Alice stays with me patting my head and comforting me.

When I finally pull it together and stop crying I gently push Alice away, give one last sniffle and tell her “I’m ok now. Thank you”

“Oh it’s nothing” she says. “When we were going through the testing phase they taught us how to deal with panic attacks, but you are the first person that I have instructed with who has gone through one”

“Well still, thank you. Now, what were you saying before I went to pieces.”

“Ok, for starters I am an AI” She paused as if expecting me to know what that is, took a look at my blank expression and continued “AI stands for artificial intelligence which is-“

“I understand what AI is” I interrupte her. “It’s like a computer that can learn and do more than just follow the exact steps it is programed to do.”

“Exactly. So basically a true AI would be sentient, but the code that runs me for example is too complex to be just a program but just barely not complex enough to be sentient. We have a scale for this that no one has really bothered to name that goes from one to ten with one being a pure program with 0 intuition and 10 being a fully sentient being. I am between an 8 and a 9. As far as I know there is only one program that I know of rated a 10 other than players and that is the program that runs Templa.”

“Ok, I think I get it. You are an AI which is almost sentient based on this unnamed scale. There is only one known AI that is actually sentient. I do have one question though. You said something about the sentient AI running Templa. What is that?”

“Right. I was just getting to that part.” Alice explains. “Templa is the name of the virtual reality world that you will be living in.”

“Wait. Living in!?”

“Yes. Once you have been scanned there is no going back. In order to get a scan with enough detail to completely copy your brain the machine uses very high power lasers. These, unfortunately destroy the scanned brain. Once you get here you’re stuck here.”

These last two sentences were delivered as if she was afraid that I might have another break down and start crying again. The stunned look on my face probably made her think I was in shock and would snap at any moment. In reality nothing could have been further from the truth.

I was elated. Overjoyed. Euphoric. No more would I be forced to endure the hardships of sector T311. I had been give the opportunity of a million lifetimes. A second chance.

Alice was most likely starting to panic as I still had the same shocked expression on my face as 10 seconds ago. So, in an effort to console me (not that I really needed consoling) she gave me another piece of information. “It-it’s not all bad… If you die you will just respawn sooo technical you are immortal”

Alice never saw it coming I was moving so fast. In the blink of an eye I have my arms wrapped around her and am screaming in her ear.

“THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.”

Still panting and grinning like a maniac I am too eager to start my new life to wait until I calm down so I say “Ok, give me the basics, how do I play the game?”

Surprised by my enthusiasm, Alice none the less proceeds with what I assume is the regular tutorial. She waves her hand and a very slightly transparent blank square, the color of cardboard, appears in the center of my vision.

I jerk my head back, so surprised that I fall, but I come up with my happy mood only very slightly dented.

Relieved that i’m still smiling, Alice starts to explain. “Ok, this is just a blank ‘window’. Don’t worry about it because you won’t have it in the game. You are going to have a bunch of these windows in your field of view however. As you probably see, this can be very annoying-“

She was right, I was craning my neck turning my head one way and trying to see past the window by turning my eyes in the other direction. This was working ok but I definitely couldn’t live like this for the rest of forever.

“So we created a solution.” she continued after watching me squirm for a little bit. “There is a feature that allows you to set the windows transparency and make them almost unnoticeable or completely opaque just by thinking about it. I’ll activate that now” she waved her hand again “Okay. Now just focus on how transparent you want the window to be.”

“Ok I got this” I mutter to myself. I tried to focus part of my brain on making the annoying window in front of my face fade away… And it worked.

“That’s surprising.” I thought to myself “Usually focus isn’t something that I posses at all, let alone enough to make that window disappear.”

“I bet you’re wondering how you were able to focuse enough to make the window disappear, aren’t you?” Alice asked, cheerfully.

“How did you know that?’ I wonder “You can’t read my thought’s can you?!”

“No, I can’t do that.” my introductory AI chuckles “but almost everyone is wondering the same thing in this situation. To answer your unasked question, you are now a program. As I said before, your brain was destroyed by the scanning process but what the scan gave us is a full, exact copy of your brain and we translated that into code. This means that the hormonal impulses that controlled you are gone, allowing you to focus fully on what you want to. Unless of course you are interrupted by something. For instance, You could do highly complicated math without distractions right now but if I punched you that would most definitely interrupt your focus. The same thing goes for your memory. This is easier to just show you. What was the 13th word I said to you?”

“I was listing with all of the rapt attention that she had just described so when Alice asks me the question I am unprepared. However, some part of my brain answered automatically because it knew the answer

“The” I say in a surprised voice “or 'sake' if you don’t count the numbers.” How did I know that?

“It’s like with the focus, you have digital memory now.” She responds. “but back on track, Here are the windows you will actually be working with in Templa. A number of windows pop up in front of my face. “At the bottom of your view you should see a semi transparent window that is really long, but doesn’t go up very far, am I correct.”

“Yes” I say

“Ok, that is used for 2 things. #1 is that you will see a bar on the top of that window that looks like an empty glass tube. Right now that is empty because you don’t have any experience. Once you do, you should see it filling up with green light. I’ll fill it up for you right now.”

Just as she said, the tube started filling up at a slow rate which got faster and faster until it had completely filled at which point a cheerful gong sounded and a message appeared right in front of my face. I jerked my head back in surprise and, to my utter embarrassment, fell over. After getting up and ignoring Alice’s laughter (finding that funny, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hit 10 status soon) I read the message that thankfully hadn’t faded.

“You have reached level one!!!” It proclaimed and in smaller letters below it it said “See log for unlocked abilities. As soon as I read it a small number 1 appeared in the center of that bar which now that I look at it has changed back into it’s former emptiness.

“congrats!” says Alice stifling another chuckle at my expense. “Now, if you remember, which you should” another chuckle “I said that there were 2 functions of that bar and I have only showed you one.“ This was true. The rest of the bar was taken up with 10 empty squares with rounded edges. They looked like indentations in the cream colored paper that made up the windows… Dang it. It would seem that even my new computer enhanced brain was easily side tracked. “Now open your home screen please.”

“Sorry Alice.” I say with a sheepish grin “got on a mental side track. Can you repeat everything after ‘I have only showed you one’?”

Rolling her eyes at me in a friendly way (seriously, she might already be a 10 on the scale) Alice compiled and started again “As I was saying, I have only showed you one, but we aren’t quite ready to move on to the others yet so I am going to ask you to direct your attention to another window.” At the top left hand corner of your view you should see a small button that looks like a house. This is how you access your home screen. Please select that now by thinking very hard about it.

I do and immediately a large window fills up almost my entire field of view save for a tiny border through which I could see Alice’s expectant face. This time I didn’t fall down, just stumbled a bit. Through my tiny sliver of view I could see Alice raising her eyebrows as if impressed.

“Now in the future you will have a bunch of options here but for now it should just have 2 buttons that say setup and log correct.”

“yea”

“OK. Good. Now select the Log button the same way you opened the home screen.”

That was a bit of a challenge, but I managed on what was probably my 3rd or 4th try. “OK I got it”

“Great, now the log is pretty self explanatory so I’ll give you the short version. It records what you do and can give you more information about achievements and things like that. For now just read the 2 tabs that are available to you and tell me when you are done.”

Tabs I assume are the 2 little things that are at the top of the window that I can select with my mind. When I do so, the window changes to display different text. Lets see what the Actions tab says.

“Our, adventurer ______ (name not selected) started out her journey in the ‘Hub’ section where introductory AI Alice helped to explain the new world that she was living in.

That’s it. Not a lot but I suppose it does sum up my “adventure” so far. Now what does the tab marked Achievements have in store for us.

Achievements

Reached level 1

Unlocked class and profession choices

Attention do you want achievement benefits to be displayed with the achievement when you receive it Yes/No.

Yes please. Getting here was a bit of a pain. “OK Alice, I’m done.”

“Great. You’ve read the part about class and profession. Right?”

“Un-hu”

“OK now comes the fun part. In Templa you are able to have a specific class, which allows you to use specific items and leveling branches. Now you are ready to choose. Have fun.”

And a new window appeared in front of my face. This one had a long scrolling list of what appeared to be roles that I could play in my new life.

Choose your class!

Wizard: Long range attacker: This class uses wands and staffs to deal long range damage and can us AoE spells that attack large groups of enemies.

Priest: Group healer and buffer: You play an important role in any raid, keeping your allies alive and giving them special skills. You are much more likely to get selected for raids because not many people choose this class.

Knight: Tank: You have tremendous strength and wear heavy armor. Able to take large amounts of hits and draw the agro of the mobs onto yourself, you are looked up to by all.

There are many, many, many more characters like ninja, monk, swordsman, and paladin, but none of them are really catching my eye… wait… I read the very last description and a clear choice is made.

Ghost: Assassin, Spy or Solo player that can use almost any weapon. (Note: this is an advanced character which while potentially having greater ability, also requires serious dedication and skill; recommended for advanced and committed players only): You are a versatile attacker who specializes in the difficult to learn trades of stealth and secrecy. While it may not be glamorous, striking an opponent from the shadows and disappearing before anyone notices can make you one of the most dangerous players in the game.

I have to get this. Even if it didn’t have the extra penalty (which I will rub in everyones face when I become great) because this class is perfectly suited to me. In the slums there are 2 ways to survive. #1: Become a thug and a bully and be able to handle anyone who comes at you and #2: Become invisible and clever enough to hide or run from anyone you can’t handle (most people). I am of the later category and I was lucky enough to be very good at it. At least to the point of only having only a few “unfriendly encounters” every year.

“Right. I better stop having a mental dialog and select it” Come to think of it, I should probably stop muttering to myself as well.

The instant I select it, the widow does a cool effect and spirals all the letters from the page turn into a big dot and spits them out again anew. I would roll my eyes at how sword and sorcery it is, but sword and sorcery is my new life and frankly it looks awesome. All I can do is prepare for the next onslaught of choices that will determine my life. Oh joy.

…

Alice watched as yet another human stared blankly into space, focusing on windows that only she could see. Same as the 2,749 other sentients that Alice had instructed. This one seemed different though. Aside from the fact that she had absolutely no knowledge of what she was getting into (everyone else had done their homework beforehand and need almost no help) just the simple time they had spent together had increased her emotional awareness by a significant amount. Alice made a note to inform the developers of this. Who knows, the chances were slim, but if the increase was dramatic enough then Alice might be selected to run the next game.

…

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Author's note: I have to apologize for the class list. It used to be in a table but it didn't translate very well into Royal road.

A rating - good or bad whatever you honestly think - is much appreciated