Chapter 3: The Goddess’s Message

Desmend was escorted to the Pinnacle, the top of the highest part of the tallest tower in the castle, overlooking the entire kingdom. But there were no windows. The whole place was sealed in with wooden walls. The wall panels were angled out slightly, which created airy gaps that let in the fresh air that seemed to make a sort of windy barrier around the outside edge of the room. There was a steep drop between those walls and the tall bookcases that lined the room, which had solid backs to block the wind and was built in the shape of airplane wings, so the wind flowed past them and not over the precious tomes and scrolls.

In the center of the room was a twelve-sided table of the finest, smoothest wood. From a distance, he couldn’t even see the grain in the wood. It looked almost pastel-like. It was painted, but he could touch and feel the natural wood like it was fresh and alive. On the table was a map of the lands, with Aucrulethen in the middle. It was his station, the terminal where he would stand and work for untold lengths of time towards an unknown goal of protecting the kingdom.

As soon as Desmend found a chair, he sat in it and took a load off. The walk up the tower drained him almost as much as the endless meetings he had to endure. After the great hall was the Scholar’s Atrium, the Veneration Quarter, and the Cloister of Outward Reach. He got a crash course in the world of Aucrulethen. So, he crashed.

The realization constantly dawned on him that he wasn’t just far from home; he was removed from all forms of conventions that he was used to. All the lights were powered by magic - which existed in some form. It was a finite thing, basically battery power, but it was generated differently. How different, he didn’t know. He was already faded and tuned out when the explanation started and didn’t make it to the end. It was like college but without time between classes, and all of them were outside his major. He felt like dropping out all over again.

Desmend rocked up from his chair, staggered a bit from a head rush, and walked over to the shelves that surrounded him. He was flanked on all sides by knowledge like it was trying to suffocate him. On the other hand, the breeze did feel good. Just a little warm, but not smothering. He passed the shelf and tried to take a look out of the venting pane. He could see a sliver of light, but that was it. No locations, no colour.

“This sucks,” he said. Then, with no one else to turn to with his frustrations, he started venting out loud. “No internet. It may as well be a prison. May as well….just sleep. Sleep...on this table.” Desmend made a stern march down to the room's centrepiece and gripped the edge to hop up. Instead, he jumped up, and the table sprung to life. A tall, miniature assembly of the castle shot up from the surface and rocked him backward. He fell to the floor and groaned in pain. Then he recovered and inspected the strange reaction.

He tried to touch it, but it moved away from him. He waved his hand over the table, and the image waved back and forth with it. Like he was controlling it. “Holographic,” he said. He smirked. “Okay, that’s….close. It’s like a computer, sort of. I can - I can’t do anything with it, but it’s here. It’s neat.” Desmend spent an hour screwing around with the all-seeing hologram. It projected not just an image of the kingdom but a live rendering of what was in it. It was like a fully 3D real-time map.

His first order upon learning the controls was to try to find a window where he could see inside. He manoeuvred the castle tower down, and the top faded out of view once it reached a few feet over his head, and peered into the lower quarters. He saw people running around in far less regal clothing than what the nobles who summoned him wore. The clothing of the lower, servile class seemed to be much darker. They all wore shades of grey.

He panned away from the castle and saw the terraced hill that it was built on. The castle was equivalent to a skyscraper compared to the smaller buildings surrounding it, including other palaces that looked more like the kind he was used to. He was at the peak of Minas Tirath while everyone else was living in Game of Thrones.

It was around that tech level everywhere else. All the houses in the surrounding town were small. The more significant buildings seemed to be dedicated to business. Desmend saw some bars and pubs and zoomed down and in as close as he could. When he went too close to a building, the roof faded away, and he could see down through the top. When he reached forward at a person, a pane would pop up in his periphery, just out of sight enough that he could notice and read it without it being in the way.

He could do the same with objects and meticulously inspected every barrel and stein of alcohol he found. None of it was to his taste, unfortunately. Mostly ales, beers, meads, wheat, and barley-based drinks that were thick and potent. They even had taste ratings, and nothing was above four out of ten stars.

Desmend stepped back. Once his hands left the table, the illusion faded back down. It went back to a flat map drawn onto the surface. He tested the same movements from nearby, just at the chair that sat on the first elongated stair of the segmented room, but nothing happened.

“It’s like a game,” he realized. The whole setup functioned like a game, with machine-free virtual controls. Except the only thing he could do was learn. The joy of finding some kind of comforting familiarity was trampled over by the realization that it was, once again, another means of forced education.

With nothing left to do and no desire left to learn, Desmend left the Pinnacle by way of the door on the floor leading to the steep staircase into the mighty den. The room beneath the Pinnacle, the High Loft, was more in line with his idea of a penthouse, but it was still set up like an office/bedroom combo. It was his actual quarters for regular day-to-day stuff. He had a bed, which was two-people wide, a nice Queen-equivalent, with thick furs for a mattress topper and puffy quilted comforters overtop.

Just across the way, with no walls to interrupt the flow of the room, was a meeting table where some old men were already waiting. One stood up and adjusted his glasses like they were about to fly off his face.

“Chosen One!” he chirped in a high, senior voice. “Has your visit to the Pinnacle been enlightening?”

“Uh, yes,” Desmend said. He swung his arms out and clapped his hands together. “Very. I have, in fact, become familiar with the uh….apparatus, which provides me with a vision. I got used to it very quickly. It reminded me of something from my own home.”

“You have seen such a thing before?” he asked. “As our Aurorary?”

“Yes,” Desmend said. He wasn’t lying. He’d seen VR games before. He never played them. He was never lucky enough to afford them. But he knew what they were and how they worked. “I only perused its capabilities but have found that I shall be able to see far, wide, and deep with it as I make my decisions.”

Desmend sat across from the old men. The one who spoke to him, in the gold robes, sat with him. The other, wearing deep sapphire blue, sat with his head down like he was sleeping. It caught Desmend’s eye, which caused the chattier partner to fill him in.

“This is our Divine Scribe,” he explained. “He is one of the few that is capable of speaking with the Goddess to receive her messages. He was the one that informed the Divine nobles of your arrival, so their powers could be brought into the ritual chamber to focus you into the castle.”

“The Goddess,” Desmend muttered. Whoever she was, it was her fault he wasn’t cashing in his ticket and becoming a minor social media celebrity over the instant fame. He had plenty of words for her. “Can he also speak to her?”

“He can,” the man explained. He nudged the elderly man from his sleep. On command, the older fellow produced a slip of paper from within his robe and placed it on the table. Then he took out a piece of thin black chalk he held in a careful, rigid grip. He tapped on the corners of the paper slowly and then brought the stencil up to the top of the page. Suddenly, his eyes went white, his head threw back, and he let out a series of horrible sounds. He gasped, wheezed, and screeched like a dial-up modem - almost perfectly like one. It was a strangely nostalgic sound for Desmend but a disturbing overall visual.

The man stopped and produced a few words at the top of the page. “Read, Chosen One!” the excitable scribe assistant said. “Intuit the knowledge of the Goddess!”

Desmend nodded and reached over for the paper. He braced himself to read some deep and complex message from a higher being.

Defeat the Four Old Lords to free Aucrulethen from Fear as a start

A directive. An objective. Finally, something Desmend somewhat understood. He was no city planner or medieval economics expert. He never watched those videos online. But defeating Lords and guiding an army was something he felt confident about. That was gaming 101. The old scribe held out a stick, like his, but coloured pure white. It was waxy to the touch. Desmend was invited to write back, and so he did.

If I do that, will I go back home?

He wondered if he would have to go through a similar awful ritual to reach her. Then the old man went dial-up again and reached for the paper feverishly. He wrote an immediate reply and passed it back. Desmend looked down at the Goddess’s words.

IDK lol y u wanna go back?

Desmend blinked with hollow eyes for a moment. He’d never seen leetspeak written in such delicate cursive. He replied:

I need to get back home ASAP. Every hour wasted here is a chance that the luckiest break in my life will go to waste. If I defeat these Lords, will you send me back the way you brought me here?

And one possession later, a response.

Lmao, calm down. It is just a game. Win and find out!

Desmend was breathless. Not with awe, like the scribe assistant assumed. It was with fear. The Goddess of the land, who tore him from his world and forced him into a position of power, was not the prim and regal Goddess he - and the rest of the country - envisioned.

His Goddess was an internet troll.