The goblins threw open the door of the rickety central structure and tossed me in, causing me to land roughly on my ass at the cost of a further HP point.

Great, so what’s this then, I mused. The larder?

I quickly got to my feet, pulling up my status menu as I did so. It was already becoming second nature, like using one of my more conventional senses. Instinctively, I revisited the ‘location’ tab.

LOCATION – High priests’ settlement.

PURPOSE – Circle of judgement. Priests are the primary arborators of justice in the world of Atone Online.

MAPS – Warning, this realm exists on its own dimensional plane. No maps available.

Hmmm, no new information. I’d hoped being inside the building would give me extra detail, in the same way as picking up the branch had given me access to its durability, but no such luck. Something I did notice, however, was a new tab; announcements.

I’d lost track of the flurry of messages as they kicked the pixels out of my nice new avatar, the pain attached to each strike distracting me from the consequences. But it looked like I’d developed a ‘history file’, of sorts, allowing me to scroll back over any earlier messages I may have overlooked. There wasn’t much to be learned: there were numerous warnings about dropping HP that all could be summed up by one overarching statement: you are on the receiving end of a good kicking, you’re fucked.

Seeing it laid out like this did hammer home one important point: I’d lost an awful lot of HP, and I wasn’t exactly out of the woods yet. I had no doubt the goblins who threw me in here were waiting outside, and would still need to fight my way out of this. So, with that in mind, I hurriedly checked my health status.

HP: 24/80

Not a great start to my new career as a warrior, admittedly. But hopefully my beating had bought Mai the time that she needed to escape. Why were they so keen to attack my helper, I wondered? And for that matter, why had they stopped short of killing me?

My thoughts were interrupted as the door swung open again. I took up a defensive stance but quickly broke it to cushion the fall of my fellow captive. Mai had been thrown in with me, and the doors were promptly slammed behind her.

“I thought I told you to run,” I complained, casting her a disappointed look as I helped her back to her feet.

“They caught up to me,” she replied, stating the obvious as she sneered in the direction of the door, adding: “Bunch of meanies.”

The elf advised me that she needed a moment to sync to our new locations help files, so I left her to it, seizing my first real opportunity to study my shoddy surroundings. In doing so, I quickly realized that if my first ‘quest’ was to seek out judgement, then I’d probably ended up in just the place. The layout of the hut’s interior was not as church-like as I’d anticipated it to be. In fact, it was furnished more like a primitive-looking variation of a courtroom, roughly fashioned to mimic its IRL equivalent. Aside from a golden set of scales that sat on a podium in the center of the room, bones and animal furs appeared to be the primary choice of embellishment for the basic wooden interior. Seeing the remains of dead creatures repurposed into decorations did little to put me at ease, but at least none of them appeared to be human, and there was no sign of a sacrificial altar. We were the room’s sole occupants. An oddity, given its obvious purpose. Where was the jury? And more importantly, where the hell was the judge?

-[You have been successfully uploaded to subprogram JudgeJury021A]-

…announced my status system. Mai flashed me a smile, then a thumbs-up, suggesting that my newfound access to additional information was probably her doing. Well, that pretty much confirmed it, then. This was where sentencing would take place. But that still didn’t explain why they attacked my help file. Was she even supposed to be helping me, I wondered? Without warning, paranoia entered my thoughts: was she a virus sent to lead me astray, and had the goblins been sent by the system to delete her?

I watched with suspicion as Mai looked around for a moment, quietly taking in her surroundings. When her gaze finally returned to mine, she looked a lot more serious than I had first imagined her capable.

“This is bad,” she fretted. “You’ve been uploaded into the artificial mind of Siriso.”

“Who or what the hell is Siriso?” I asked, keeping all concerns over her nature to myself. It could be unfounded, after all.

“He’s a digitized consciousness,” she confirmed, her glare darting around the room as she spoke, as if concerned that the NPC in question may be present. Once again, my suspicions were aroused. “But a pure one,” she continued, oblivious to my scrutiny, “not a recent convert like yourself. His AI is waaaay more complex than mine. We call him an overbyte, because he’s able to oversee huge swathes of the program.

“So, he’s powerful, then?”

“Totally. He usually takes the form of a priest, but that’s just an act of modesty. His abilities are something much closer to deity-level. He can build islands like this one with a thought, and I’ve heard that he can converse with over a hundred humans at once. He’s probably interacting with other prisoners in huts exactly like this as we speak. But with much less personality than yours truly, I should add.” She fluttered her eyelashes as she made her final point.

“But even if that’s so, where’s everyone else?” I protested. “The jury, for a start?”

“Siriso will be your judge, jury, and should he so decree, ah…” she gulped audibly, before continuing. “Your executioner.”

Great. That last part was more than I needed to know. I wanted to protest, demand that I be judged by my human peers. But then, these digital creatures were my peers, my captors had seen to that. They had me right where they wanted me. And that infuriated me.

“If we’re just floating in this overpowered AI’s mind, what’s with the primitive hut? The settlement outside? Hell, the whole damn island? Why go to all this trouble?”

“The hut is just a virtual construct for your benefit, much like the game itself,” she continued. “The first thing they teach us about you flesh-born types is how much you like everything to be presented to you in a basic, linear format. Case in point. You see those scales over there?”

I nodded as she pointed to the ornate gold scales at the head of the room.

“That’s what Siriso will be using to weigh up your crimes.”

“Like the guardian of the Egyptian underworld,” I whispered.

The elf nodded. Admittedly, that particular nugget of wisdom came from a movie I once saw, not from any great knowledge of ancient mythology.

“Hang on, the ghoul we encountered before I crossed the sea of code was Norahc, right?”

The elf agreed.

“Norach. Siriso. They're reversed versions of Charon, the ferryman of souls and Osiris, god of death and transition... I’m headed to my digital afterlife, aren’t I?

“That’s right” she chirped, clapping her hands in glee, before some internal sub-routine made her realize that probably wasn’t appropriate, given the circumstances.

“Fuck me, they don’t even belong to the same religion. Isn’t there anything your corporate bosses’ won’t bastardise or exploit these days? Who’s my pallbearer going to be, Buddha? Did Odin do the catering for my funeral?”

Mai either chose to ignore my flippant remark, or simply didnt understand it. She’d gone back to eying up my avatar. I was expecting another inappropriate comment about my ass, but instead, she said:

“You were smart to pick an avatar that came with no rep penalty,” adding “trust me, that’s not the only baggage you can carry into the game…”

So, she was trying to manipulate me with the ‘sexy swordsman’ talk, then. But to what end? Whatever her reasons, that knowledge didn’t put me at ease over my so-called ‘quest’ for judgement. If I understood things correctly, this ‘Siriso’ NPC was either going to transfer me on to serve my time or snuff me out. Human emotion was no longer a consideration in my fate. No, my future hung on the whims of some more-programmed-than-thou AI, as it balanced my real-world actions against some aging spreadsheet held deep in its file structure. Great.

Still, despite my concerns, Mai’s presence was oddly calming. Her hand slipped into mine as she did her best to comfort me, and I felt guilty for being suspicious of her. And yeah, I knew her personality was programmed, but she seemed genuinely concerned for my wellbeing. It was good to know something in here was.

“Oh-oh, it’s starting,” she cried, clasping my hand a little tighter.

An eerie swarm of disembodied data began to take form on the judge’s podium. Purely for my benefit, I had to assume. My judge was, after all, little more than code, and from what I understood, I’d been uploaded directly into its mind. And what the hell use did an AI have for a seat inside its own damn head.

When the flurry of code finally settled, it was humanoid in shape. Tall and gangly, it exhibited no signs of physical power. But I already understood that there was a lot more to this game than physical power, thanks to my time spent studying the wizard template. The NPC was male in its design, dressed more like a witch doctor than any high priest I’d ever seen. Not that I was a regular churchgoer, admittedly. Perhaps, I thought to myself, it was an amalgamation of the two.

The figure stepped down from its podium, ornate robes bellowing behind it, and silently began to approach me. Its body was hunched as if its huge, ceremonial hat was burdening it to the point of fatigue. Its form, while predominantly human, definitely had a few goblin traits mixed in there as well. This time it was I who squeezed Mai’s hand a little tighter. Within seconds, the priest was face to face with my avatar, regarding me with soulless, yellow eyes. It stared for a moment. Eventually, it chose to address me.

“So, yet another tainted soul finally arrives at my door, burdened with the quest for judgement…” The creature’s voice trailed off into nothing. Suddenly, the goblinoid raised its arms in mock jubilation. “And hopefully, the thirst for redemption,” it excitedly added, turning to me with a manic zeal in its eyes.

I didn’t answer. It wasn’t like I was here by choice, after all. Undaunted, the odd NPC looked straight into my eyes and flashed an unsettling, sadistic smile.