Bonus chapter

Over there

A portal is about to open. I can barely make out the magic formation, there are too many layers of protective barriers and strengthened glass between us. I have never felt so confident before, but at the same time, I dare not hope… I started this project over six thousand years ago and I have seen too many failures.

‘Failures’ might be a strong word though. After all, it’s thanks to these missteps that we have a multiverse spanning federation.

I look at Durk beside me and he oozes with confidence; despite his enormous muscular body and stupid face, the old orc rarely makes mistakes… if ever.

Like many others before me, I begged him to change his current body to one with a longer lifespan, and same as with all who preceded, he vehemently rejected the idea.

I cannot say I do not understand where he comes from, in these days where people often change body for purely aesthetical reasons, species and individual identities have grown very thin. There is probably some truth in what he always says ‘Without a visible end, and without limitation, there is nothing to drive one to prove himself.’

Still, I will miss him when he is gone… a lot of people will.

Durk smiles at me. “This world belongs to the creators, there is no doubt about it.”

He is certainly right, the power source on the other side is proof enough of that but… that does not mean it is inhabited. For all we know, it could be an automated power plant or an abandoned facility.

He speaks as though he read my mind “Even if it isn’t the right word, it’s very likely to be their plane of origin.”

“You know, I still cannot wrap my head around your model of the multiverse but I have to admit it is much more stable and accurate than the previous one.”

“Madness helped me a lot, I don’t think I could have done it if I were sane.”

His attempts at disparaging himself do not have the expected result. “As a former undead myself I can tell you that sanity is overrated.”

He jests. “Anyone claiming to be sane is in serious need of mental care.”

“Is that not like… almost everyone?”

“We shouldn’t forget to care for those who claim to be insane too, or it might get dangerous.”

Something creeps behind me and as usual, I am overtaken by disgust at the vision of the creature. I swear they are making themselves ugly on purpose. I have yet to meet a single species that does not find them repulsive… and the list includes other tentacled monstrosities.

The Dl’o’y shudders and waves its tentacled eyes in a particularly off-putting motion that I have long equated to laughter. Yet, another reason I think they are doing it on purpose.

Most people, myself chief amongst them, think there is something off with this species. Their bodies are ill-adapted to… to almost everything in fact, and yet, they are one of the most technologically and socially advanced species.

It speaks in a beautiful voice punctuated by random slurping sounds. “Founder, the portal is about to open, your dream of finding your creator’s world will finally come true.”

The irony in its voice does not escape me. Thanks to its ‘encouragement’, I have a foreboding feeling that I will absolutely find what I have been looking for so long and that I will be utterly disappointed.

The Dl’o’y were the first species we encountered and the first to join the federation. It would be more accurate to say they are the ones who suggested its creation then convinced everyone else we should be the ones to head it.

The portal is open and a golem goes through. It is standard procedure, it carries various artificial lifeforms and numerous instruments in its many arms, all designated to test the environment and survivability on the other side without contaminating it.

The wait is barely a few hours in real-time, but even after millennia of wait, it still feels like years.

“It is safe.” Shouts a technician.

The creatures are fine, there are toxins, bacteria, and viruses on the other side, but nothing we cannot handle, in fact, they are on the tame side.

As for me, I am more interested in the footage: albeit empty, the facility on the other side is unmistakably from a scientifically advanced civilization.

I ask the Dill’o’y twitching beside me. “Do you want to come?”

“Certainly, this world seems compatible.”

“Was there ever any world that wasn’t?”

“Just because something has never happened before doesn’t mean it won’t.”

“You have a point, I suppose.”

We all put on our protective gear, then walk through the gate. On the other side is a room full of machines. I can distinguish computing machines, metal golems, archiving crystal, projectors but it makes for a strange assembly of mismatched elements, as some are clearly more advanced than others.

The metal golems ignore us and continue with their duties of cleaning the room and taking care of the equipment. On our side, the technicians cast spells to analyze the room and the equipment.

I am happy that there are not hostile, but the careless attitude of the golems bugs me, they should have some reaction to strangers barging in like they own the place.

The mission overseer brings me the collected data. “My lord, our preliminary search shows that there are many cities all over the world, but no trace of intelligent life…” Ominous but unsurprising: the annoying creature made me expect it. “and due to the golems caring for the facilities, it is impossible to tell how long they have been abandoned.”

He proactively answered the question I was about to ask, so instead I turn my attention to the most out-of-place machine and ask.

“What is this? It looks like an archive, but there are so many extraneous parts that I cannot tell anymore.”

“It is one. As far as we can tell, the outlying parts are for redundancy only.”

With all the golems around and the technologies used, this level of redundancy only makes sense if it was meant to last for tens or hundreds of millennia. “Whatever they stored on it; they must have really wanted others to listen. Let us see what it is all about.”

Dear visitor, whether you have come here guided by the spirit of inquiry or with vengeance in mind: I am sorry but you are too late. I beg of you, whoever you are, hear our warning, and take it to heart. Do not repeat our mistakes, or your fate will be the same as ours.

The disquieting introduction catches everyone's attention, everyone’s but the Dl’o’y who shudders and waves its tentacled eyes.

The first artificial mini-universe was created not long before my birth, it was a mere program, a mere simulation and yet it was so complex that no machine of that time should have been capable of running it.

That in itself should have been warning enough, but for the fools running it, the possibilities it offered were all that mattered. The speakers laugh dryly. Even at the time, I am recording these lines, many still refuse to see the truth.

When I reached adulthood, a method to virtually explore these mini-universes was all we had, but by the time I became a researcher myself, one to interact with them was on the verge of being developed.

As is often the case, it started as a purely scientific study, as a simple desire to understand the universe at a grander scale than ever before.

Then came intervention, and with the causation of devastating events, we could not observe in our universe. It was all simulation; it wasn’t like it mattered.

It went on until we observed the first virtual life, a new field was developed, and with it came the greatest discovery of all time, something we could only describe as magic: a way to manipulate reality in and out of the simulation.

By the time we made this discovery, the technology for simulated reality was already in the public domain. As scientists, some of us may have gone too far at times but we had guidelines… the people and corporations did not.

Games, weapons program, artificial species, the ravaging of worlds, of entire galaxies… name it and someone did it.

It was an insane time, but thankfully the technology was costly and limited. But progress cannot be stopped, and before long a new industry came to see the light of the day: the tailoring of worlds or even entire universes to the desire of the client.

It was a wakeup call, some of us started debating the right of artificial life, and some like myself even wondering if it even was artificial in the first place.

The self-entitled god laughed at us… they had long lost all common sense and their hubris was such that they had come to believe in their own fantasy.

Entire universes were destroyed or reseeded by egomaniacal fools trying to fulfill and then… something even the worst pessimist among us never imagined in their wildest nightmare came about: without warning, our punishment was handled: billions vanished in an instant.

We were the same: our reality was simply one of many and there were others above, looking down on us.

Dear visitor, it is my and my esteemed colleagues’ belief that we are getting punished for our crimes. We deserved it, but you still have time. Please, don't let hubris get the better of you. You are not special; you are not the summit of creat…

The message stops there. From the corner of my eye, I see the Dl’o’y spams uncontrollably as though it just heard the best joke in the multiverse.

I wonder, had it not been for our early encounter with them and my wife's diplomatic talents, could we have followed a similar path?

As an artificial creation myself, I would like to believe that I would not, but I cannot say for certain. I know that without luck and the many talented people we met early on, many encounters could have led to conflict and from there… who knows.

A tentacle wrapping around my shoulder interrupts my thoughts but something about it feels different, it lacks its usual slimy and off-putting feelings… it feels like… an accolade?

I turn to face the creature and as I thought, they were…