World Keeper

“Huh… so he was being literal when he said that the story would write itself.” I muttered from my office, having deployed my World Sight to watch Galahan. For powers like his or Lifre’s, it might actually be more efficient for them to work backwards from the final result that they wish to achieve, such as what Galahan showed.

Of course, that wasn’t to say that there was only one way of doing things. Everyone had their own methods, even if they had similar sets of skills, and I was not going to try to disparage their methods. For instance, I couldn’t see Galahan thrusting himself into his stories the way Lifre plunges into adventure.

As Galahan was finishing up his scene, Tsubaki informed me that the censoring of contaminated information had been finished on the internet. Once again, I was left to marvel at how advanced this device from Bellarose must have been. We could very likely learn a lot from studying it, but it seemed to be founded on a different method of thinking than what we were used to.

In a way, it was like how we had to adapt to different types of sphere devices when we received the trade from Oldbeard. We were able to create an interface for Bellarose’s device, but had no way to properly understand it without a considerable time investment.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Aurivy asked Dana with a grin, sitting next to the small elf in the communal room of Olympus. Julia was off tending to the garden, so Aurivy took the time to spend a moment with one of her other friends.

“Hmm…” Dana thought to herself, trying to figure out what she wanted to do, now that her Reset Protocol was completed. There were certainly different options, but she didn’t know exactly what path to take. “I could work on one of my other projects, but I think most of them are pretty outdated by today’s standards.” She had a mild tone of complaint in her voice.

With everything that had happened with the Hyperlane Network, all of her spacefaring plans had to be scrapped, because they hadn’t taken into account the problems that would arise from these new developments.The rest of her projects were either fanciful dreams she didn’t think that she could realize, or just small objects to tinker with as a hobby.

“Why don’t you help me with one of mine, then?” Aurivy asked playfully, causing Dana to look over at her with a curious expression.

“What sort of projects are you working on?” Dana knew that Aurivy had always had her own projects. In some ways, she was actually a genius inventor. She had been the one to create Traveler, the instance dungeon core that Dale held, and even the cores that sparked the Dungeon Master battles in history. She was sure that there were still countless more creations of Aurivy’s around the world.

“Oh, loads of stuff!” Aurivy said with a light laugh. “I pick up projects whenever I get inspiration, and set them down whenever I lose it. Right now, what I’m working on is something that I call the Automatic Dungeon Generator. It’s an old project of mine, but I never quite managed to get it working.”

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“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Dana asked, her curiosity further piqued by the idea. Dungeons were undeniably Aurivy’s specialty, so for her to be having trouble with something, she wasn’t sure how she would be able to contribute.

“What I’m looking for is a publicly accessible dungeon that will adjust its difficulty based on the level of the participants. This is sort of what we originally wanted for Fyor, a training ground that anyone could use, regardless of level. However, over time, the look of Fyor changed. Nowadays, only the strongest go there, while the other floors are mostly cleared of any major threats and left as residential zones.”

Dana’s eyes widened slightly when she heard what the project was really about. “Automatically assigning difficulty… did you plan to get Ashley involved?”

“Not really. I want this to be something that can be made without getting the system involved. For instance, I want to copy the trick of instanced dungeons to let multiple parties into the dungeon at once, each in their own instance. I have monster and trap generation handled, thanks to the dungeon cores. What I’m missing is exactly that difficulty adjuster.”

“I need some type of item or spell that will look at the levels of the participants, and construct a suitable challenge for them. At the same time, I’d like to include a safety mechanism in the dungeon, so that people will be ejected from the dungeon after taking a serious injury. It might not be able to save everyone, but it would go a long way towards it.”

Dana gave a small nod of her head, but pursed her lips. “Why not just make a virtual training program, instead? If you have the user synchronize their virtual and real selves, then any training that they do in the program will carry over to the real world.”

Aurivy stuck her tongue out for a moment. “Because I want something to get people out of the virtual world! There are so many things these days to incentivize people to spend most of their time logged into games, whether it is to have fun, make money, or grow stronger. The more people get into games, the less invested they will be in the outside world.”

“If I can get this dungeon working, it can be a training ground for aspiring adventurers. I’ve just got to get the difficulty setting fixed.”

Dana let out a small sigh, understanding Aurivy’s complaint. In fact, she and the others had been quite absorbed into Fragments of Acidia for a while, which had led to the formation of an entire machine empire. Sadly, that empire was destroyed when the game had to be reset, and the Keeper hadn’t given any instructions to either recreate it or invest any more personal time in the game since then.

“Sure… I think I know how I can get it working.” Dana nodded her head, starting to piece together a spell in her mind. She had been the one to create the fourth-tier sentient spell known as Gerard, so setting up a difficulty filter like this wasn’t that much of a problem.

“Yes! I knew I could count on you!” Aurivy grinned broadly, but Dana held up a hand.

“First, I’ll need a complete list of every monster or trap that your dungeon is set to be able to generate, including their abilities, estimated level, and generated rewards. After that, I can start working on the spell that will tie all of that into a single system.”

Aurivy nodded her head quickly, clearly pleased by the results of the conversation. However, a moment later, her expression froze, causing Dana to blink. “Is everything alright?”

“The March world is collapsing.” She said in a serious tone. Dana’s eyes shot open wide at that.

“Have they finished evacuations?”

“Only about half.” Aurivy said with a shake of her head. “It’s collapsing inwards, the edge of the observable universe disintegrating, with the collapse moving at roughly forty million times the speed of light. Worse, it’s getting faster the more it goes. Fifty million, sixty million… they only have less than an hour.”

Dana knit her brows together. She knew that this estimate was taking into account the Fallen Gods trying to stabilize the barrier. “Can they get out in time?”

Aurivy didn’t have an answer to that. At the very least, it was clear that they wouldn’t all make it.

“High Mother, an urgent report from long-range sensors!” A Metong soldier ran into the High Mother’s office, a look of shock on his face. However, the High Mother simply nodded her head.

“I’m aware. It’s time.” She said, closing her eyes. She had long since moved her residence aboard one of the largest ships in the entire Metong fleet, ready to abandon this universe at a moment’s notice.

Walking over to the window out of her office, nothing looked different in the dark sky. Of course, it wouldn’t. The collapse was happening so fast that it was faster than the light still traveling towards them. Without the support of sensors placed at an extreme distance to prepare for this eventuality, they would have simply been erased without ever knowing.

“Send a report to all vessels, and relay my command to the March King. We will attempt to perform a synchronized void jump to the coordinates given by the Another World Research Group. All ships must leave at exactly the same time. An exodus of this scale could shatter the world entirely, and anything that is left behind for even a fraction of a second longer could be erased from existence.”

This fact wasn’t something that they had told the other commanders, and only she and the March King knew about it. If the ship captains knew that such a thing would happen if they were delayed, they may have already left, leading to the downfall of everyone else. Now, she needed to coordinate to perform this synchronized jump.

“Understood, High Mother!” The soldier reported, saluting the High Mother as he relayed the message.

“Link all Metong ship systems directly to the Iron Throne. Only the March King has a chance of performing a jump of this scale.” Although she didn’t want to admit it, the March King was a far better choice than herself for this. His domain of Communication meant that he had a better chance of instantly communicating with the systems of every ship at once, and processing all of that information.

“Understood…” The soldier nodded, this time with a more solemn expression. The lights in the ship flickered as the remote controls were transferred to the authority of the March King. At this point, the High Mother could only close her eyes and hope for the best.

“Compensating timing for distance delay and individual ship capabilities. Initiating warp in ten.” The March King’s staticky voice spoke out through the ship’s speakers, slowly counting down. As soon as he hit ‘zero’, the High Mother felt the space twisting around her, the familiar sensation of the ship jumping through the void.

She let out a sigh of relief, glad that the jump was successful. The March King didn’t make an announcement, but that was in line with his style. “Analyze the losses. How many made it?” She asked, preparing for the worst.

The soldier closed his eyes, sending out several pings to various ships in the fleet. “Roughly ninety-seven percent of all Metong ships are accounted for, High Mother!” He announced in a joyous tone, before his silver face seemed to lose its luster.

“And the March…?” She asked, feeling as if she shouldn’t have asked that.

“Ninety… ninety percent. We have lost contact with ninety percent of the March ships, including the Iron Throne.” The High Mother staggered when she heard that, eyes going wide in shock. There was no way that the March King would have sacrificed his own people to stay behind.

Did the karma of leaving people to die fall on his shoulders, and cause a chain reaction even before the jump? Or were our ships just slightly more advanced than his calculations, causing his timing to be off? The High Mother’s lip trembled at such a massive loss of life, including someone that she had regarded as an ally and friend for over a hundred years.

“Send out… send out emergency aid to those that remain.” She said, once she got her voice working again. “Whether Metong or March, offer shelter to any who need it. We need to get the fleets together to prepare our next move.”