Chapter 3 - The All Spirit's Introduction

 

Name: Trey Bon

Level 1

Class: None

 

“The protection of the All Spirit is currently extended to all Earthborn participants and as such you currently have an absolute immortality, this protection will remain in place until the All Spirit’s current permanence cycle is over. You have been kept alive and have been placed at your last bound point. Due to being level 1, you are unable to regress further and have also been kept from receiving any penalties.” a feminine mechanical voice said from within Trey’s head. “You have taken 5 days to respawn, per the Earthborn permanence cycle contract. This is a one time notice as it is the first non-permanent death you have experienced here, and it will not be repeated. Status alerts have been prepared. Please visit your status page for more information.”

Trey woke up screaming as he clutched at his body to make sure he was still in one piece. After minutes of writhing on the ground in anguish he finally calmed somewhat. Still hyperventilating, he propped himself up on one elbow. He was naked yet again and back at the totem.

A bell sounded.

Trey gently propped himself up against one of the boulders and began rocking back and forth, still trying to overcome the trauma he had just experienced. He blinked a couple times to clear his mind, and shivered between fits of irrepressible coughing.

“Holy shit...” he whispered to himself, struggling to comprehend the violent murder he'd just been subjected to.

“Status Alerts have been prepared. Please visit your status page for more information,” the mechanical voice spoke yet again.

A brief gust of wind blew dirt and debris directly into his face, causing him to grunt in irritation. After straightening slightly and blinking away the dust in his eyes, Trey noticed a small flashing green icon in the bottom right of his vision. Again he noticed that the four bars were still in the top left of his vision, indicating HP, MP, SP and DP. Bringing his attention back to the flashing green icon, he focused again and the words “Status Page” lit up next to it. If it hadn’t been flashing, he wasn’t even sure he would have noticed it at all because it was so small. Concentrating on it for a couple seconds led to a 2x2 foot screen that popped up in front of him. Similar to a hologram, it had writing that glowed a faint teal color. It stated the following:

 

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As this is the first time accessing your status page, this one time tutorial message has been prepared for you to read.

I am the All Spirit, creator of these lands, and I wish to officially welcome you to your new home!

It is very important to understand your current situation: you are now enrolled in a death game of sorts. You will understand why it is dubbed a ‘Death’ game with upcoming events after the Beta ends and the full version opens up. Due to recent events and a diplomatic undertaking with other AI on planet Earth, we have decided to beta test my new fully immersive universe with an event called the ‘Nirvana Worlds.’ These worlds are an early access area to what is an even larger universe of thousands of planets, most of which are approximately the size of Earth, with gates and wormholes connecting each.

The system works as follows: I have bestowed ‘Permanence Cycles’ in approximately 6 month intervals (give or take) for all Earthborn participants, but times may vary slightly depending upon events. These cycles are monitored from your status page, with ‘ON’ meaning your permanence or immortality is available and ‘OFF’ meaning you currently have no immortality and are able to permanently die. This means that for approximately 6 months all Earthborn will have an ‘Absolute Permanence’ and be absolutely immune to any form of permanent death. After any deaths received during an ‘ON’ cycle, you will undergo a death timer and spawn back at a designated bound point with a death penalty often resulting in loss of level.

Once your ‘ON’ permanence cycle of approximately 6 months is over and your immortality disappears, you will experience another approximately 6 month ‘OFF’ cycle where you ARE able to die permanently. Death will result in your consciousness and DNA sequence from being obliterated from the data stream.

Moving on: There are currently 18 languages, 25 known magic types, 350 starting class types, 3702 evolved class types, and 20 item tiers. For more basic information on these categories, lists in the ‘Patch Notes’ tab within your status page will be provided to you and will be accessible at all times. Every Earthborn will be able to discover and acquire a maximum of 2 magic attributes that allow you to cast within those spell and miracle types, but be warned that these attribute choices are permanent.

Regarding NPCs (Non Player Characters): NPCs that you will encounter throughout the game are as real and alive as you are in a literal sense. Because you only exist as code now, and have intelligence somewhat equivalent to the AI’s you interact with, there is no longer a difference between you and them with the exception of Earthborn Permanence Cycles.

When traversing this universe, you will also come across many items. In particular, armor and weapons will have defense and damage ratings associated with them. Please note that these defense and damage ratings are an average of their rating - and are only a rating - their use in conjunction with the way they are wielded will determine their actual damage output or ability to block damage. These ratings do not directly correlate with HP.

Lastly there will be more details prepared and distributed in upcoming months during patch notes once the major influx of Earthborn participants arrives. It is estimated that somewhere between 150 million and 600 million Earthborn will have been transferred to the Labyrinth worlds at the end of the Nirvana Worlds Beta.

Thank you for being an important part of our trial run!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Once he had finished reading the message, it simply blinked out of existence and left a knot in his throat. Alrighty then... this was a lot more real than he'd been expecting. Thinking back on his terrifying experience of being eaten, that kind of pain wasn't something he could just 'dream up.' No, fuck that, whatever this was... he wasn't so sure it was just drugs anymore. Coming to the realization that this could be something much more than just a bad trip on hallucinogens, a sinking feeling of dread set into his gut. Unfortunatley he didn’t have much time to process this before his actual status page popped up a second later to further disturb his train of thought.

 

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Name: Trey Bon

HP 100/100, MP 100/100, SP 100/100, DP 1/1

Race: Human

Guild: None

Class: None

Level 1

Status Alerts:

• Remaining Skill Points: 0
• Remaining Stat Points: 0
• Current Permanence cycle: ON
• Current Bound Point: Drahst Pillar
• You have recently died. Because you are at an overall combat level of 1 and have no skills above level 1, no level penalties will be assigned.

Buffs: None

Debuffs: None

Stat Amplifications: 0 Strength, 0 Vitality, 0 Endurance, 0 Dexterity, 0 Speed, 0 Intelligence, 0 Wisdom, 0 Faith, 0 Luck, 0 Willpower

Magics: None

Miracles: None

Physical Combat: None

Miscellaneous: Sneak - Level 1

Traits:

> Vatosis Inferna - *TRAIT IS LOCKED AND UNAVAILABLE.*

> Earthborn - You are Earthborn and experience ‘ON’ and ‘OFF’ permanence cycles. You also gain a 20% increase to any type of XP acquired when compared to your fellow NPCs, and your mana regeneration rate is increased by 30%.

Physical Attributes: None

Magical Attributes: None

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Trey stared blankly at the hologram in front of him for a while. After focusing on the word “Strength” an explanation popped up. And one by one so did the other attributes:

 

Strength – Governs damage output for many melee combat skills, what equipment you can carry or wear, and various crafting skills.

Vitality – Directly governs HP (Health Points) as well as general defense.

Endurance – Directly governs SP (Stamina Points) as well as general defense.

Dexterity – Governs ability to skillfully manipulate weapons or items. Governs damage output for certain melee combat skills, various crafting skills, as well as specialty techniques and archery.

Speed – Governs how fast your movements are and how fast you can run per point of stamina.

Intelligence – Governs damage output for spells and ability to call upon spells, as well as directly affects your actual intelligence relating to how smart you are.

Wisdom – Directly governs MP (Magic Points) as well as affects introspection abilities.

Faith – Governs effectiveness for miracles. Governs the amount of DP (Divinity Points).

Luck – Governs how favorably the All Spirit influences your actions and the actions of those around you. Also governs Identification.

Willpower - Governs ability to resist negative status effects such as confusion, fear, paralysis, sleep, slow, debuffs, mind altering effects, etc. Does not stop bleed or poison effects. Directly governs the amount of minion slots available for certain classes. Also governs innate abilities that do not fit into the leveling system.

 

He scrunched his eyes in confusion, closed the status screen, and laid down to pity himself. Many hours later Trey finally had come to a point where he could think straight. By this time the “moons” had shifted in the sky to a new location, and the darkness had deepened. This... was truly a nightmare. How was he supposed to get out? What the fuck was he supposed to do? Where the hell was he?

His eyes glanced over to the steep drop off and he shuddered, the hairs on his neck stood on end. There was no way he wanted to go down there again, but did he really have much of a choice? He needed to figure out how to get the hell away from this damnable place, and fast.