The grey druidess, p.1
The Grey Druidess, page 1
Contents
Prologue: Kanth
Chapter 1: The Real World
Chapter 2: Choices, Choices
Interlude: Isania Chooses Wisely?
Interlude, Part Deux: Lyfan Laughs
Chapter 3: Chachachachanges!
Chapter 4: The Message
Chapter 5: I Gotta Get Out of This Place, If It’s The Last Thing I Ever Do
Chapter 6: Out of the Frying Pan, Into The…...Stew?
Chapter 7: Out of the Frying Pan, Out of the Fire and Now Out of Fire
Chapter 8: A Girl and Her Dog, No, Wolf
Chapter 9: In Search Of…
Chapter 10: Ho, The Village!
Chapter 11: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, To The Goblin Caves I Go
Chapter 12: Back Into The Frying Pan And The Fire
Chapter 13: Nothing To See Here, Move Along, Now, Move Along
Chapter 14: Take Me To Your Leader
Chapter 15: The Goblins Are Coming, The Goblins Are Coming!
Chapter 16: Picking Up The Pieces
Chapter 17: If You Strike Me Down, I Shall Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine
Chapter 18: Third Times The Charm!.....?????
Chapter 19: A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing
Chapter 20: Does A Bear Shit In The Woods?
Chapter 21: Yew Ain’t From ‘Round Here, Are Yew?
Chapter 22: It’ll Huff And It’ll Puff Until It Blows Your House In
Interlude, Again: To Make A God Laugh, Tell Them Your Plan
Chapter 23: No Rest For The Wicked. Or The Good
Chapter 24: The Best Laid Schemes O' Mice An' Men
Chapter 25: Little Mayor’s House Of Horrors
Chapter 26: Hot Pursuit
Chapter 27: Ragnar To The Rescue
Chapter 28: We Built This City On Rock And….
Chapter 29: In The Middle Of The Night
Chapter 30: What Dark Passages
Chapter 31: Haunting Of…
Chapter 32: After This, All Battles Will Be Easy, All Victories Simple
Chapter 33: We’re Not Gonna Take, No We’re Not Gonna Take It
Chapter 34: It’s All Over…..Except For The Paperwork
Epilogue: You Can Check Out, But You Can Never Leave
Epilogue, Part Deux: Don’t Cry Because It’s Over. Smile Because It Happened
Final Character Sheet
Author’s Note
Prologue: Kanth
“MY MIGHTY LEGIONS OF LIGHT WILL DESTROY ANY THREAT TO KANTH!” thundered Toric, his voice booming across the cavern, causing most of the assembled godlings to frown, and throw annoyed glances his way.
“Oh, cool your heels, Toric, nothing good will come of your throwing a tantrum like a toddler.”
Toric looked at the speaker, Isania, and frowned, but then realized with the nods of agreement around the room that he should perhaps tone himself down a bit.
“How is it that this realm, called ‘Earth’, can do this to us? What gives them the power to play in our world?” questioned Tarn, inferring that this went against his sense of the rightful order of things, and thus, was anathema to him.
Isania, in her role as the protector of knowledge, answered after the rest of the godlings did not offer anything. “This realm, Earth, has advanced much more quickly than other realms in the area of technology, partially due to the relative lack of magic, and has gone so far as to create games in virtual words, made of computer code. I know, I know, this means naught to you, but think of it as the complex magic based on formulae and glyphs, but of technology, not magic.” The blank stares she encountered encouraged her to continue.
“These beings, these players of this game, think they are playing an actual game, and that the inhabitants of Kanth are but pieces of computer code, or, if you will, homunculi that some of our casters summon, without any true life or spirit. This does not bode well for our world. Toric here suggests that we rally his legions of light to destroy the foes, and while that will work in the short term, the long term bodes ill, unless we come up with a different strategy.” Many of the stares remained indifferent while others looked imploring, but a few returned to Toric, possibly considering the more aggressive option.
“We can solve this issue much more elegantly,” Isania beseeched. “We each select one player, and bring them in before the others, giving them some time to raise themselves to some level of power. And then when the flood of these ‘players’ arrive, we already have forces arrayed to keep them in check.” Spurred on by many of the godlings nodding in agreement, Isania continued, “it is almost as if we each select a hero for ourselves, since we cannot intervene directly, or at least not at great cost.”
Murmurs of agreement were disrupted when Daktor, the god of death, pondered to the assemblage, “Ah, but what happens as each of these heroes fails in their initial journeys, as Kanth is a harsh world, which I know well, as I see many failed adventurers travel to my realm?”
“I suggest you choose wisely, then, and ensure your chosen one has enough knowledge to prepare for such travails,” offered Trigon with a satisfied grin. “I know mine will, I will do my utmost to properly select the right minion for my champion.”
“BAH!” Toric shouted in response. “You deal in undeath and necromancy!” Toric groused, albeit at a slightly lesser volume. “Your chosen will be doomed to rot away into corruption.”
A small flick of Trigon’s hand, unnoticed by the others, caused something wet and slimy to drip from the ceiling and land on the tip of Toric’s regal nose. Toric sputtered with rage and glared around the room before making eye contact with Trigon, wiping the slime away. Trigon suppressed the mocking grin, but winked anyway.
Toric’s rage pushed him to charge across the room, drawing his hammer from its sling on his back. Right before Toric reached him, Trigon dissolved into nothingness, muttering that he has no time for such tripe.
Toric floundered trying to stop his momentum, almost losing his balance, before looking around the room and seeing the looks of disgust from his peers. A large, vaguely human shaped pile of earth and stone rumbled in a low, almost subsonic voice.
“STOP THIS.” The assemblage froze and quickly began to calm, shocked at hearing Gronk, the lord of Earth and Stone, speak. Toric sit himself down with a look of, if not shame, or not even apology, at least a small look of chagrin.
Gronk, uncharacteristically verbal, continued “GRONK THINKS IDEA IS GOOD. GRONK FIND DWARF CHAMPION.” With that, Gronk, too, dissolved into nothingness, although this was more as if he...it...Gronk merged into the ground, becoming one with the cavern floor.
The meeting adjourned with a silent agreement of Isania’s idea, with the various beings and personages of power muttering to themselves, proclaiming their new crusade and declaring their champion would be the strongest. Isania watched all the other things that vainglorious godlings did to convince themselves that their way was the right way, and that this idea was theirs, originally, and all the other godlings were copying their idea, or following their leadership.
Isania, goddess of nature and keeper of knowledge, and perhaps the only one who felt responsible for the entire world of Kanth, pondered at all the various exclamations of the godlings. As the original author of the champion idea, Isania felt pleased, and yet, also concerned at the results of her suggestion. Would it be enough to protect the world she felt at least partial ownership of? She also felt growing concerns that some of the godlings would corrupt her idea and make the situation worse.
“Well,” she whispered to herself, “I don’t think any of them understand what I can do. I’ll just make sure my champion gets more time, as that will be the deciding factor.” Isania then disappeared into one of the tree-like structures in the cavern.
Once all the godlings had departed, one of the shadows in the corner slid out, forming a vaguely human shaped form, and chuckled at the place where Isania had departed into.
“Oh, ho, ho, I will make sure her plans do not go as she thinks. Perhaps a little randomness will make things more interesting.”
The being called Lyfan, patron of chaos and humor, looked around, and then nodded in agreement, before he, too, departed, leaving nothing left in the cavern, which also dissolved into nothingness. After all, it only existed as a place for all the godlings to meet, and when they were not there, what purpose did it serve?
Chapter 1: The Real World
Andy looked at his call log, seeing approximately 3,432,961 calls waiting for IT support. Ok, well, that wasn’t quite true, in fact, there were only 27 calls on hold in the queue, a smaller number than normal for a Friday afternoon. Usually, Fridays were busy, as everyone that his IT Services department supported was trying to get last minute things done before the weekend, and always ran into problems. Often times it was the more difficult and complex problems that required Level 3 IT support that the customers couldn’t figure out for themselves… such as “how do I save this file that I have been working on all week?” or “why is the network down after the power went out?”
Andy laughed to himself. He knew he wasn’t being fair; the majority of the users his office supported were actually pretty good users, and he rarely had to pretend he was the Bastard Operator From Hell. It was just that time, instead of ticking, ticking, into the future, seemed to be stuck at a standstill today. And he knew why.
Andy was a relatively self-aware person, and knew how his own mind worked. Today, he was counting down the hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, nano-seconds, pico-seconds (
Why was today so different, one might ask? Well, Andy had gotten the email notification of a successful delivery of the hottest new VR system on the market. Say goodbye to all those goofy visors, janky gloves, haptic vests and such, this new system (actually it had been out for at least 6 months now, so many of the bugs had been worked out, but Andy had only received his today, after a long wait on the waiting list). It was a thin wire mesh helmet that directly interfaced with the user’s brain.
The technology has really been, if not perfect, at least made feasible for mass use in the late 2020s, but the first consumer version suitable for VR had not come out until 2031, and had been in short supply for the first six months. Andy had immediately put his name on the waiting list, but so had everyone else, especially after seeing it in use at demonstrations, and in some arcades (which were making a comeback, surprisingly, after all but dying off in the 2000s).
No arcade usage for Andy. Since he worked in IT and cyber security, he knew the risks of using a headset, or really anything else, in a public setting, what with data and identity theft still on the rise. Even after so many years of everyone being made aware of the dangers of such things, others still didn’t care as they should.
“Ah, well”, Andy thought, “I’ll finally get mine tonight, once I get home! And the timing couldn’t be better, with Saga of EvarWar releasing tonight at midnight.”
Andy did chuckle to himself a bit at that, thinking about how goofy ‘EvarWar’ sounded, a play on the older chat room and social media way of purposefully mis-spelling things. Embedded AI-based spell check, and real, working voice to text had mostly done away with that, along with doing away with keyboards. Having used a keyboard back in the day, and disliking it almost from the start, Andy was not sad to see that go.
“It’s good those were done away with,” he thought, “it certainly reduced the number of lost password service calls, what with biometric logins for everything.” Andy kept wondering about all the changes in the past ten years, both in the world, and for himself.
He thought for a moment about his time in the service, making yet another ‘Venezuela, huh, that was some mean bush’ joke, before moving past that and any bad memories from that period of his life. His time in college was better, using the military benefits he had received to parley his time into a nice shiny degree in software and coding. Ha, right before the rise of AI had made actual coding obsolete.
“At least it got me this job,” he thought, “even if it is IT support. I did manage to work myself into a leadership position at least.” His smile faltered, knowing that mostly meant he has to deal with the most difficult customers and situations.
“Some of these people, I don’t know how they get out of bed in the morning.” Andy griped. “I mean, it’s 2031, people have been using computers their whole life, and yet….” He trailed off, as he realized that he was talking out loud and his cube mate, Steve, was looking at him and chuckling.
“Andy, I know how it is. We all know. Why don’t you punch out early, I know something’s on your mind, I got the rest of this covered,” Steve offered. “Plus, I could use some of the overtime, and I know you already have a lot of it this week.”
"Thanks man," Andy said while closing out the last of the tasks he was working on. He intended to make some notes for next week before meandering his way through the various cubes, checking on the rest of the team, making sure all was set, and there were no serious issues. Oh, who was he kidding? Andy made a beeline for the exit, barely managing to check out, he was in such a hurry to get home. He did at least give Steve a good bro-hug and thanks for covering for him for the rest of the day, mumbling some promise about owing him one.
After taking the subsidized ride share back to his apartment, Andy grabbed the package that had been put into the safe-delivery package slot. He thought briefly about doing an unboxing video, but then decided against it, figuring that there were at least 1.623 million unboxing videos of the new system already somewhere on the ‘net (spoiler alert: he was about 2 million videos off the mark).
He opened it up, took out the chain-mail hairnet looking device out of the nice container, absent-mindedly noting the good packaging job, and then took out the USB-X cord that would connect it to his home computer. Andy absently wondered if the guy who came up with the USB specifications way back in the day thought that: 1-it would still be around 30+ years later and, 2-that it would go almost all the way through the alphabet, from USB-A to USB-X?
Thinking that it would be even better if it were wireless, Andy laid out all the connections and pieces, and start attaching part A to slot B, and part X to slot Y. But he found the connections weren’t all that difficult, just a single cord. Once he plugged the hair net into his PC, there was, of course, the mandatory download of multiple patches in the terabyte range.
“Too bad it couldn’t have done this earlier,” he mumbled. He spent the time reviewing what he knew of the game and the things he had studied on the ‘net about Saga of EvarWar. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot, but some of the beta-testers had leaked some info (and then undoubtedly got their beta access pulled for violating the NDA, since being anonymous nowadays was more or less impossible).
What Andy did know of SoE was that it took the Standard Operating Environment (Huh, neat little play on words there) of the virtual environment, and expanded on it. It was supposed to be the first VR MMO that incorporated all the capabilities of the new brain interface headsets. Sure, there were some other games that did that, using all five senses (yes, even taste and smell) through the brain-headset interface. But SoE was the first MMO that did so, and from the information on the ‘net, as well as all the advertising copy (like you can believe that!), it looked to be a vast undertaking.
Also, fortunately for Andy, there was information about the system itself, classes, races, character buildout, and all the crunch that some MMO gamers really liked, and others didn’t. Andy fell into that first group, and had already planned out his first character. New characters didn’t select a class, that came later, and really, had to be earned, at least according to the documentation. Though it did hint at hundreds of classes, allowing players to customize their characters exactly how they wanted, at least eventually. The standard fantasy trope races were supposed to be there along with some outliers that probably appealed towards those with different tastes (such as a form of cat people, lizard-kin, and other such types).
Not for Andy, though, he preferred warrior types, and big burly characters., so his first plan was to create a nice, solid half-orc, specializing in swinging big weapons, and dealing out damage. He thought he might work towards some form of barbarian berserker type.
Enough of that, though, onto the game! He checked to see the downloading was completed and SoE appeared to be ready!
Andy got himself comfortable on his couch, put the wire mesh hair net on, and made sure it was solidly connected to his computer (the green status light told him so when he looked at the wall screen). He initiated the log in process using the voice activation, and waited. Slowly, the next few status lights turned green.
Connected…1.2.3….green
Sampling delta waves…1.2.3…green
Sampling theta waves…1.2.3…green
Sampling alpha waves…1.2.3…green
Sampling beta waves…1.2.3…green
Sampling gamma waves…1.2.3…green
As the process went through the various phases, taking only 5 to 10 seconds per phase, Andy felt his eyes grow heavy, and slowly, his consciousness drifted, drifted, drifted, and finally drifting away into nothingness.
Sampling Complete, Alpha transfer Protocol Initiated…1.2.3…complete
Brain Body Interface Shunt Initiated…1.2.3…complete
Synchronization Process Finalizing…1.2.3…complete
Initiating Starter Tutorial…1.2.3…complete
Chapter 2: Choices, Choices
Andy awoke with a start, or at least he felt like it. In front of him was any generic fantasy world, but in an almost featureless area. The flat plains that extended as far as the eye could see were dotted with trees and sparse prairie grasses, but there was little else to see…except for the glaring game interface in front of him.
