Asphodel – The Sixth Age – Third Year – Twenty-Fifth Sun

“Adam?” a pleasant voice said. For a moment, Adam was lost in his own head. He assumed Reggie was trying to initiate exit procedures from his grav chamber, but something was off. If he was in his grav chamber, everything would be cloudy. He’d have no reason to think about Reggie or where he was, not yet.

The white cloud over his vision began to fade and two women in long white lab coats with small holographic screens over their forearms were staring at him.

“Adam?” the one to the right asked again.

“Yes,” he answered. “Do you need to examine me or something?” They both smiled and shared a brief look before turning back to him.

The woman who said his name replied with a chuckle. “That’s instantaneous. We just need you to move,” She pointed at the flash door behind him. The swirling mass that filled up the frame was now a bright red. Adam took a few steps back and it shifted to white. Mary came through the door a second later. The swirling mass in the door turned red until she moved next to Adam, at which point it switched back to white. Cassius came through next, followed by Tony.

“Ms. Mors, it’s good to see you,” the female lab tech said to Mary.

Adam gave Mary a look of confusion. “Ms. Mors?”

Mary smirked. “I know, last names are pretty uncommon in here, you’ll get the full story some other time.” Mary turned her attention to the two lab techs. She spoke to the one who was talking to Adam initially. “All right, Georgia where are we?”

Mary walked past them, moving to the door of the room. Georgia and her associate followed. Cassius motioned for Adam to follow them as Georgia broke down the status of the facility.

“We’re ninety-five percent operational,”

“That’s not what I told you, Georgia.”

“I know Miss, but your team for sector six has yet to show up. I guess their credentials were held up by someone within the council…they didn’t much agree with your choices.”

“Big surprise,” Cassius said from the rear.

“They’re just testing us,” Mary said loud enough for him to hear. She stopped in the hall and slipped a silver ring over both of her pointer fingers. She drew up her holographic command prompt on the wall, tapped a few commands into it and then swiped the ghostly screen into oblivion and started walking again.

“I pushed their approvals through. Get them on site now, and Georgia?”

“Yes Miss?”

“Send a message to Andion will you?”

"Surely. What would you like it to say?”

“Send quote, ‘Tomas Hidarian’ end quote.”

Georgia and her lab partner chuckled. Adam knew a good deal about Tomas Hidarian because of the research he’d put into the Wrathic myth, but the context here was lost on him. He turned around to Cassius. “Asphodel’s creator?”

Cassius nodded. “Mary is a quote fiend, whether it be someone from five hundred years ago in the real world or twenty minutes ago in here. She’s a master at finding and remembering well–thought-out quotes. It’s pretty much a second language to her. It’s annoying but, you get used to it.”

“But Tomas Hidarian must have had a plethora of quotable content, how’s this Andion supposed to understand what she means?”

“Andion is on the HTG council. It’s considered a democratic collection,”

Tony scoffed. Cassius paused but continued.

“Of HTG’s most experienced members, but truth be told, they sway whichever way Andion wants them too. Mary and he have a history together. When it comes to Hidarian quotes, she uses one a lot more than others, especially if she’s dealing with Andion. ‘Suffer the fool, for his jealous nature will lead to dismay while you transcend to unknown heights.’ Supposedly Hidarian was referencing the flood of criticism that came after people found out he was trying to find a way to upload a consciousness into Asphodel, but you know, it’s unverifiable. Like a lot of his history. He could have been talking about LSD for all we know.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re too keen on the council,” Adam said.

“None of us are,” Mary shouted from the front. “But dealing with them is necessary, at least for the time being, and it wasn’t about the LSD!”

There was a moment of silence amongst the group before Georgia started back into her report. “The on-base energy supply has been upgraded and tested. Given the information from Adam’s first transformation, if need be, we should be able to subdue his Wrathic form to around Level 20.”

“Beyond that?” Mary asked.

“We’ll need more information to proceed with a proper upgrade, future transformations will provide that for us. We still don’t know if his power will increase as a normal Shifter’s would. One thing we do know though, is that it will require a significant increase in the financial planning.”

“I’ll take care of that when it’s time. Ah, here we are.”

“Whoa,” Adam looked up to see to massive doors before them. They stretched fifty feet high and were intricately carved with various battle scenes and characters. He hadn’t even noticed that the hall was getting larger and larger. There were animals engaged in battle wearing armor, large Soldiers wearing old-world armor, Technomancers wearing Sci-Fi looking armor, expansive landscapes, and detailed cities.

Mary smiled. “Georgia, send the rest of your report to my inbox and I’ll review it once we’ve set Adam up inside.”

“Very well,” Georgia offered with a slight bow. “Mr. Kitos,” she addressed Adam before doing a similar bow and retreating into the hall with her other tech following close behind.

After they disappeared around a the corner, Adam turned to Mary, slightly frustrated. “How does she know my real name?”

“Adam, as I’ve said, I’ve done my research.”

His eyes grew wider, “For someone who wants to build trust, you sure have a funny way of showing it.” Anonymity was pretty strictly followed in Asphodel. If a user didn’t want their real identity displayed in the game, it was uncouth at best to go searching for it, and depending on the situation, downright illegal.

Mary put both her hands on the outside of Adam’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “Have you thought about what you are and the implications of what that could mean?”

“Of course I have,” he said aggressively.

“No, Adam,” she pulled him closer. “Have you really thought about it?”

“I…” Adam was going to fire back a reassurance that he had, but instead took a moment. If the HTG could alter code inside Asphodel, and they could find his true identity, then it was a fair chance that other people could as well. If the myths about a Wrathic being the key to transferring a consciousness into Asphodel were true, then there was no telling who would be looking for him once the word got out. In or out of Asphodel.

“I’m a target now, aren’t I?” he asked with somber realization.

“In and out of Asphodel, yes.” Mary said with a nod. “But I’m going to protect you, and not just in here. Wardens operate in both worlds.”

Adam’s anger started to subside. He felt this overwhelming urge to just walk away. To find out the answers on his own, but the truth was, he couldn’t. The HTG wouldn’t let him go, not now that they knew who and what he really was. He wasn’t strong enough to fight them on his own. Despite every warning bell going off on his head, there was something in Mary’s eyes that made him trust her. He didn’t have a lot of time left, and even though it might be foolish, he had to play along for now.

“We can sit down and I’ll answer any questions you have, but I think the heart of Tartarus and what it’s capable of will help ease your mind. Please…” Mary motioned to the doors. “Let me show you.”

Adam’s eyes darted around as he thought about the situation before him. After a few seconds, his eyes connected with Mary’s and he nodded. She smiled and walked up to the two massive doors, placing her wrist against the wood. The system read her biometrics and the doors began to swing open into the room.

Adam walked past Mary to see what awaited on the other side of doors, but all he saw was darkness. “Illuminate, and activate Asphodel base model, non-hostiles only, regen on, flight mode on.” Mary said authoritatively behind him.

Several loud mechanical noises echoed through the space and there was a flash of light. After his eyes adjusted, he could see a beautiful landscape with rolling hills and a small village a half a mile away. There was a crystal blue lake off to their right and a massive mountain range to his left. Adam turned to look at Mary and the doors were gone, replaced by the edge of a dense, lush forest.

“What the hell?” Adam asked incredulously.

Mary took another step forward. “Tartarus is a simulation machine, much like Asphodel itself. It allows you to do the one thing that you’re not supposed to be able to do in Asphodel…level up in a safe environment. It has a complete readout of the entire world, and detailed character profiles on NPCs, and comparable bots to real character profiles in Asphodel. You can explore, fight, run, jump, swim, do everything you would in Asphodel to gain experience and level up your character. Hidarian hid this in the game. The council believes that he forgot to remove the code before he passed, but I think he left it in on purpose.”

“Why?” Adam asked.

“I think he used it to gather data about the users and in turn, explore digital consciousness. I also think it was meant to protect any early level shifter who became a Wrathic. To protect you, and give you a chance to realize your true potential.”

Mary levitated off the ground and flew in front of Adam hovering fifteen feet in the air. “You can also alter the physics of the world, but that’s not the most important part. One of the challenges of training someone in a world where death means starting over, is figuring out a way to level up without being in complete danger. Sure, you can head out to the fields of Bitrutous and fight boar until you can’t lift your weapon anymore, but that takes forever and time isn’t on our side. Also that approach also doesn’t allow you to get a sense of urgency. You don’t have a chance to harness the fear and stress of a real battle with real consequences. The most important aspect of Tartarus is the fact that you can still feel pain, and you will die…but we can bring you back without starting over.”

Adam’s eyes grew wide. He turned to look at Cassius and Tony behind him who were just as surprised as he was. They didn’t even know of Tartarus’s true capabilities. Adam rotated back to Mary, “My experience?”

“It stays, even after you die. Think of it like having infinite lives. You can fight, get hurt, die, and come back a moment later with all your memories, skills, and most importantly your experience intact. We can train you in Tartarus until you’re strong enough to enter Asphodel. You’ll gain knowledge of the world and the characters that you’ll meet and be as prepared as we can make you for the true test at hand.”

Adam floated off the ground and came eye to eye with Mary, five feet in front of her. He looked down at the ground in shock. “See, you’re already learning,” Mary said.

“I just thought about flying, and, and it happened,” Adam said. Shock wearing off, Adam thought back to what Mary said. “You said true test, what did you mean by that?”

“There’s a group,” Mary explained. “Much like the HTG, but it’s counter point. They want to find a Wrathic for their own selfish means. They want to exploit you, Adam. They want to exploit all of Asphodel. They want to crush society in the real world. They’re known as the DARC. More of a phrase then a name really, it stands for Destroy Asphodel’s Recreational Continuation. They will stop at nothing to take you from us.”

Adam was confused, “But the real world is safe. Nothing you do in-game will translate to the real would beyond physical improvement through the grav chamber. The neural and muscular stimulation is completely harmless and if you die in Asphodel you just lose your avatar. Something may feel painful, but it doesn’t translate. Not to mention that fact that muscle memory doesn’t transfer either. Learning to fight in here gets you nowhere in the real world. On top of that, guns don’t exist in the real world anymore, knives, weapons in general have been outlawed for over a century. Peace officers only carry sed sticks and stunners to subdue people if needed, but there hasn’t even been a case of those being put to use in the last five decades. The world is at peace.”

Mary floated a few feet closer to Adam. “The world is not at peace. There’s a shadow, a mirage cast over everything you know. The war started in here, but slowly bled over into the real. DARC has the means to attack, on every front, and they need to be stopped. They want to destroy physical life as we know it, and force every user to transfer their consciousness into Asphodel without option. They’re a cult that believes Asphodel is the key to human transcendence. They think we’ve outlived out physical purpose.”

Adam tried to understand what Mary was saying. He didn’t want to believe it at first, but he slowly began to entertain its truth. Why risk it? He thought to himself, but then another thought crossed his mind…why not? The journey he was about to embark on was dangerous, and more than likely illegal, but what other choice did he have? A few months at worst, a few years at best hanging out with Reggie and playing video games until the disease killed him? He had no family, and no friends beyond his digital home companion. If there was any chance of finding a way to transfer his consciousness into Asphodel, he had to take it, and if that was his only choice, then he had to make sure that Asphodel was safe in the process. It was the first time in Adam’s short life, that logic led to the most dangerous path.

“Okay,” Adam said with a purposeful nod. “We better get started.”