35: A new world

Jessica’s view

“Are you sure you want to come?”

“Yes! How many times do you need to ask, mom?”

“Sorry, I just worry. This really isn’t something you can undo later.”

“Gaston is staying because he’s still trying to win that tournament and become the next top fighter. I’m a researcher, nothing could be more thrilling than a whole new world!”

“You have everything packed?”

“Yes. I brought my entire house, mom. I helped improve the portable cabin spell, remember?”

“Alright, alright. I guess everything is ready then.”

I suppose it was a bit silly to be asking Belle if she’s sure, when she’d been planning on going with us practically her whole life. I thought maybe she’d change her mind when she got older, but she’s 34 now, and clearly has few attachments in this world. I do wish she’d gotten more friends or even a lover, but I guess she’s just too absorbed in her research to pay attention to people. I’d wonder who she gets it from, except Revenna and I aren’t exactly any better at socializing than she is. Osia is the only one of us to make friends outside the family… I suppose I do have two friends, but I married them and they’re family now. Thinking about that still gives me a happy warm feeling. I love them dearly.

It actually pleases me to know Belle is coming, as I know I’d miss her if she didn’t. Still, I wish she’d gotten more friends and companions instead of staying so alone. At least I don’t need to worry about Gaston, he’s got plenty of friends and parties all the time.

Well, I guess it’s time.

“Y’know mom? It’s kinda funny seeing you get cold feet now, after spending so much time complaining about not being allowed to cast the spell yet.”

“Well, it’s a big event… I guess it’s just really sinking in that this is it.”

Thinking back on how things used to be… if this were thirty years ago, I think Sia would be clinging to me. Now she’s just standing in the back with Revenna quietly. As our children grew, Sia really seemed to get more comfortable and less anxious. It’s like she’s got an aura of happy contentment all the time now. It’s strongest whenever she can see our kids, like now. Everyone’s here to watch.

I’ve memorized every bit of this spell to the satisfaction of everyone involved in the planning. There’s no reason to believe anything will go wrong. Yet I still can’t get rid of this jittery feeling; this nervousness. Well, here goes.

“Wait, that’s not quite right!”

“Oops.”

It felt like a very long moment. Nothing really happened other than a softly lit fog filling my vision. I’m not really quite sure what I got wrong, but I could tell I’d changed something again. Belle did mention that I seemed incapable of casting spells exactly as written, but that was supposed to be well accounted for in this spell’s design. There was enough redundancy to compensate for all the variance in what I was filling in that hadn’t been figured out fully. Admittedly, I don’t fully understand what the spell’s design does, but it sounded very clever when Avalon explained it to me. Something about exploiting my instincts to fill in details they didn’t understand, while not letting the spell run too far from the intended result.

Having so many thoughts running through my head, is probably why it felt like such a long moment. I know it wasn’t much time at all, yet it felt like it was. Yet, despite the seeming enormous length of the moment, it ended all too abruptly.

“THEY’RE HERE, OUR GOD HAS ARRIVED!!!”

Thunderous shouting and hollering, greeted us, along with a bright sunny sky that blinded me for a bit. As my eyes adjusted, I found we were surrounded by people of all kinds. Really, all kinds. Humans of both natural and unnatural colors, along with obvious monstrous races such as kobolds and ogres and is that a dragon on a roof over there? We appeared to be in the middle of a giant town square, and behind us was a large statue… that’s me. That’s me and David, my other self back to back. Wtf?

…

I think I’m just going to summarize my discovery of what I’ve accidentally created as: a paradise created by artists and writers. It feels like living inside the internet. We do, in fact, have an internet. We also have augmented reality and virtual reality available through spells so basic children can do them. People can look however they want. People can become anything they want, pretty literally. The only thing actually difficult is dying, and that can be handled through resets and rewrites that alter a person’s memories and/or personality. Tons of recordkeeping and consent gathering involved in that. 

If we can’t prove a rewrite or reset was consented to, it’ll get undone later. Though sometimes it takes a while if no one realizes anything’s wrong. I still wonder how many successful “murders” (forcing a rewrite against someone’s will is as close as it gets) have actually been pulled off due to people just not realizing it happened. Ed insists such a thing is impossible, but I’m skeptical. 

There is one thing this world is missing though: Therapy. It feels like a world full of centuries old children, who’ve been dealing with trauma by abusing memory erasure. I’ve already spotted a few people living in loops, where they live the same basic life over and over, ending in a reset to avoid dealing with the issues they develop over time. Oh, and there’s always a crazy amount of drama. I’ve taken to hiding in an isolated estate and avoiding most direct interaction with people other than my family and friends. Thankfully, I can be anonymous online, or the whole famous god thing would get in the way. 

Oh, and one wonderful thing: I figured out how to be awake as both Jessica and David at the same time! It was a bit disorienting at first, but after a while we got the hang of it. Yeah ‘we’ it fits better than ‘I’ does, when we literally think two different thoughts at the same time. Even if we are fully aware of actions taken by either of us, we’re still separate in a way. I think things he doesn’t, and he thinks things I don’t. Like: I don’t really get why David enjoys being Edward’s plaything so much. 

Revenna’s busy trying to teach people to behave better and clean up all the drama. I wish her luck, but don’t really expect her to make much progress. Her fame as my wife does help, but I think it will take a lot more than just one persistent person to change things on a larger scale. She did at least create a small community that’s very pleasant to spend time in sometimes. 

Osia went full cat. Not all the time, but most of the time she’ll just curl up in my lap as a cat. I don’t really get it, but she seems to enjoy it. It is rather nice having her with me all the time, it’s comforting.

Belle is studying how everything works on a really deep level. I’m sure she understands the underlying spell mechanics of the internet and everything else far better than I do now. I’ve been encouraging her, and actually hope she’s eventually able to start modifying the base code for everything. For some reason, not a lot of people know how to make changes. Personally, I suspect there’s a lot in this world still hidden that we don’t know about yet. 

… Edward has been exploring all the different kinds of sex that’s now possible with David. I don’t really get the appeal, but they seem to be enjoying themselves. With all the transformations and virtual tools available it’s possible to try pretty much anything one can imagine. If not in real life, then through virtual reality. Some of the things they’ve done is super weird to me though, like turning into jellyfish and getting their tendrils tangled up until they can’t move? Those aren’t sex organs. It doesn’t even feel that good, it’s just silly!

…

Gaia’s view

I think Jess forgot about me. She did make sure I was okay at the start, but we haven’t really spoken much since we arrived. I suppose I was expecting this. After all, I was created to be a guardian spirit of the new world, not to be her friend. Sadly, to do my job, I need to learn how this world works. It’s not at all what I was expecting when we handed the spell design over to Jess. We were going to create a fairly empty world and begin filling it after we’d arrived. Having a world that’s already fully developed and contains innate magics beyond anything we know that no one understands the workings of is well beyond what I was prepared for. 

Thankfully, Belle is helping me with my research, and in time it should be possible to begin filling in what this world still lacks. At the very least, I hope to make it possible to start properly investigating events to figure out who is actually responsible for what, and properly deal with troublemakers. Currently, if one is sufficiently charismatic, they can get away with almost anything, since it’s just a bunch of communities with no real government. 

I think Jess actually likes not having a government, but conflict resolution is currently a mess, and little more than mob rule. I’ve seen persecution drive plenty of people to using rewrites or resets to escape and start over. So, there’s plenty of work to be done, even if we are much closer to paradise than the other world was. Thankfully, with no time limits to worry about, I’m sure we’ll figure out a solution.

***Author Note***

Well, that was kinda abrupt. Some die roll results (d20)
Does Jess mess up the spell? 16 (yes… I had a different plan originally, but that’s clearly been tossed out by now.)
Is the result positive (high) or negative (low)? 17 (... how do I make things go wrong in a positive way? Have the world largely be done already?)

P.S. poor conflict resolution is one of the more pervasive obstacles to creating paradise. I’ve seen internet communities fracture and collapse over practically nothing. A place can go from thriving to dead very fast.