“You’re saying I’m in a video game? Like, Skyrim or Fallout? Beat things up and grow stronger. An RPG-style video game?” I word-vomited at the floating cartoon sprite. Whose name I found out was TAI, pronounced Tay like Taylor or Tay Tay.
I was sitting in what looked like an old classroom from the late 90s to early 2000s. It was filled with those tiny little desks, the ones with a desktop that could swing up so you could sit down on them, but was only big enough for like 2 books if you were lucky. The seat was a rough, solid piece of Plastic molded in a general chair-like shape. You would think being in a game I could get a better chair to learn in, but apparently, even my ass was going to have a rough time in this place. Yay me.
“Yup, congratulations Voyager you are the 75,309th person to come into the Trials.” She trilled as if it was an honor to be trapped here. “If you beat the entire Trials you will be released from prison with a full pardon. Pretty sweet deal don’t cha think? Especially since you’re technically here against your will and don’t really have a choice.”
“No, not a sweet deal at all. I want the fuck out of here. I don’t want to go threw some Sword Art Online bullshit. I didn’t agree to this, this seems rather illegal to me.” I protested.
“Silly Voyager, you don’t have rights in here, you’re a prison of the state. Nothing is illegal until you serve your sentence. And since that’s 44 years and 364 days from now. I don’t think you have a choice. So let’s finish the tutorial and get back to exploring the Trials” She was way too enthusiastic as she continued to explain my incomprehensible situation.
“Alright, fine. Since I have no choice here. What are ‘The Trials of Tarturis’?” I made finger quotes as I said the name of this place.
“That’s the spirit, Voyager, now the Trials of Tarturis are a series of AI-generated Tiers crafted to challenge you mentally and physically. Anyone who survives all 20 Tiers will immediately.” Her appearance changed here from an upbeat sprite to an old western cowboy “Earn themselves a pardon, I reckon” then swapped back to the sprite. “ So it’s very important you don’t suck and die.”
“20 Tiers? Like different segments to get through? Holy shit, how long is this going to take? Can’t I just stay up here for 45 years and wait out my sentence, seems boring not gonna lie but it’s still better than having to fight more giant birds.” Which is true I would rather not have to continue to beat things to death with part of the stations internal plumbing.
“No, Voyager, you can’t hang out here, you would die doing that. Possibly sooner than if you tried. Every Tier must be completed in a certain time frame or else the Voyager is eliminated from the Trials. The first Tier is seven days, or one week, from when we conclude the tutorial. Each subsequent Tier will add an extra week to their time. You will also keep the remaining time from the previous Tier as you go.” Her tone had gone much more monotone with just a slight high pitch to it. Making her sound very businesslike.
“Like rollover minutes on old cellular plans?” I asked
“I Don’t know what that means” she replied flatly.
“ When cellphones first became popular you used to have to buy a monthly plan that let you communicate for a certain amount of time during that month. Some plans would let you keep your unused minutes for the next month and so on. So if you bought 2000 minutes but only used 1600, you’d have 400 extra the next month. It meant eventually you could save up enough minutes to not have to pay for a long time. Then companies switched to an unlimited plan instead. My great-aunt Mary was pissed about that. She had like 60000 minutes saved up and they all just went away.” I tend to over explain when I’m nervous or uncertain of what to do next. Like finding out I’m in a dungeon crawling game and my life depends on me not being hot fucking garbage at it.
“Yes, something like that ridiculous nonsense you just sputtered. So making sure you enter the next Tier as soon as possible is ideal, but the difficulty in each Tier will also increase the higher you ascend, so you need to have a fair balance between moving through Tiers and gaining experience. The first step of which is understanding how combat and tactics work. We have an expert to explain that part to you. Gary!” She shrieked that last part, sounding like a house mom calling for her unruly child to come down stairs and meet their guests.
A Huge looking Lion man formed in the room standing in front of the blackboard in the front of the class. As he spoke words began to populate on the boards. Fortitude appeared on the left most board. Mental showing up on the Middle board, and Ethereal took its place on the right. After those sub categories appeared underneath the main titles. Things like Health, Skills, Mana, charisma, you get the point. All of this text was helping to bullet point what he was talking about.
“Time to talk about survival Voyager, you have already fought your first enemy and successfully lived. That’s a great start, you didn’t even take any damage, which is probably the best start we could hope for from a Vookie.” The large man growled at me. His voice was a deep gravel, edged with razor blades. You could hear experience in the way he spoke about the game. I perked up immediately. If I was going to make it through, this guy would be my best bet at doing it.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt but, Vookie?” I interrupted.
“Oh, ummm. Vookie is a little joke among us Trials NPCs. It means a rookie Voyager.” He sheepishly explained
“Yea, about that. What’s a Voyager. The grape shaded elf cheerleader lady kept calling me that. Not sure I retained the meaning.” I figured if I was here to learn better ask every question I could.
“Voyagers are what the system refers to you as. Your one of Millions who have traversed these Trials and attempted to make it through every Tier. Voyager is the easier way to refer to true Biologicals in the Trials. All other entities that you encounter will be AI generated and maintained. You Voyage through the sea of entities. Get it?” He fumbled over the explanation, clearly I had disrupted his flow.I gave a thumbs up to signal I was ready to continue. He Nodded and went back into it.
“Now, There are three main ways of fighting in Tarturis, the first you’ve already experienced. Basic physical altercations. You hit the other thing more than it hits you, and deal more damage. Basic, simple, clean. Metaphorically speaking it’s clean, like understanding what to do and how to win. Physically it’s messy as hell. I mean look at you, you fought one duck and you’re covered in duck blood. Nothing more satisfying than bathing in the blood of your enemies though. I’m sure you get it. It’s pretty awesome.” Then he gave me a high five. I high-fived a giant lion man named Gary. This was getting weirder by the minute.
“Now let’s talk about the kind of fighting you haven’t already become at least competent in, Magic and Evasion. Start with Evasion first. This is technically my least favorite way of gaining Experience points, which I will refer to it as XP going forward, to make things quicker for us. Now Evasion can be a valid strategy sometimes. If you can visually see an enemy close enough to gain information about them, such as total hit points, or HP. name of the enemy, their level, and or any other private information about them, and then successfully leave the area of their influence. You will gain a portion of the XP that would be awarded by successfully beating them in combat.” He spoke in a very quick fashion. Something told me he didn’t like this part of his teaching, probably thought it was more honorable to die in battle than sneak to safety. I wasn’t that type though, if my twinkle toes can get me home alive and reward me with some free XP I’ll take it every time.
“I don’t personally like this way of gaining XP but it’s more because if you can’t tell sneaking isn’t exactly my forte. Nothing to do with the honor it is just something I can’t personally utilize. For obvious reasons I can’t exactly sneak around snatching up free XP like that. I’m glad it’s in the Trials, other game systems ignore how advantageous it can be to avoid a fight as much as it is to win one.” He claimed, which shocked the hell out of me. I kept expecting this guy to be full barbarian class but he was actually, quite informative in every area.
“This is a one time gain however, you can’t repeat this action on the same enemy, you can go and defeat them later for the full amount of XP.”
“Now the final form of combat. Magic.” This one got my attention, I couldn’t wait to throw a fireball or freeze someone in place or something cool like that.
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“I know this one gets everyone excited, probably can’t wait to use fire or some kind of ice blast, or some other ultra-powerful magic spell to fix all your Voyager problems. Well, I can tell you right now, you won’t. Magic is a great tool to aid you in your adventure through the levels, but it is not the end all be all of combat. Especially here in the Trials. Focusing exclusively on magic means you let your other core attributes remain low. Yeah, you can shoot a flame for 50 feet, but you can’t take a single hit from a rock hammer. You will become the cliche glass cannon. Which is a valid combat strategy in a lot of games. Dungeons and Dragons for one, Old MMORPGs were another. What they all had, is something that you won’t have here in the Trials. A team, someone to stand between the monster and your squishy-ass spell caster self. So heed my warning now friend, use spells to augment your fighting style. Do not let it be your fighting style.” He was very stern-faced about this. This was clearly, a very important topic for him.
I shook my head several times. “Got it, no glass cannon, magic is to help me live, but it won’t keep me alive on its own.” I crowed back to him.
“Excellent, now on to the next part of your training, the one that takes people the longest to get used to. Your HUD”
“I’m sorry my HUD? Do you mean like a Heads Up Display?” I asked in sheer shock
I saw TAI in the background by the Blackboard nodding her head.
“That’s exactly what he means Voyager, you are in a video game after all, you need to be able to interact with it as such. It wouldn’t feel very fair if you couldn’t benefit from the situation a little bit. Now, get ready for the world around you to get a little more fantastic, OK” The chipper little sprite told me.
“Like TAI just said, you are correct, you will have a HUD while you travel through the many Tiers of the Trials. This HUD will help you interact with the world in a way your basic vision and understanding are too primitive to do on their own.” He said in a very sage-like way. “For instance, when I was talking about Evasion XP and how to gain it. You will need to get close enough to your enemy that your HUD can pick up the enemy’s metadata and feed you some of the information about it. If it successfully does this and you still manage to get away you will be rewarded with the proper amount of XP. It also will help you see both your inventory and your Map.”
“I have an inventory? I have a map? No freaking way, that’s actually cool as hell.” I was torn between amazement and fear. on one hand, I was in a video game, something I had always wanted to do. on the other one, it was a death game, one wrong move and I was dead, like dead dead. No amount of cool shit would make that suck any less than the full suck that it would suck.
“Yes, which reminds me, you should get your Mini Map right about now” He snapped his fingers, and in the bottom corner of my peripheral vision a small map appeared, it looked very similar to the kind of mini maps you got in large open world games like Grand Theft Auto.
“The map is going to be one of two key pieces of your HUD you will be constantly using, it will show you everything within a certain distance.”
I tested his information immediately. The mini-map populated itself in my lower left vision. no matter where I looked it remained in that part of my vision. I could see three dots on the map, and if I made the conscious decision to look at the map it would stay still and I could focus. I expanded the map and it filled my vision with a transparent overlay. It showed one Blue dot, that I quickly realized was me, a purple dot for TAI, and a yellow dot for Gary.
“Why are you yellow but she’s purple?” I questioned the Leonid.
“She is a helper AI, yours specifically, while I am classified as a trainer, not specific to you but for all Voyagers within the Trials. If you see green dots those are other Voyagers like yourself. White are neutral NPCs and Red are enemies. Beware the red dots, be weary of the rest. A white dot can turn red if something shifts its behavior. “
“Fight monsters, don’t piss off the locals. Got it.” I parroted back to him. “ What else can the map tell me?”
“Lots of information when used effectively, but I’m not here to do that, you will be able to learn more later. As you progress through the Trials NPC study areas like mine here will begin to populate. They are called Convergence Halls and they help you focus on improving specific skills. There are ones for Cartography, Navigation and Exploration that all will help improve your use of your map.”
“We do however, need to move on and get you back to the Trials. To finish a journey it has to begin.” Gary stated stubbornly.
“Next on the list is learning about inventory, this one is the one that usually excites most new Voyagers. You have three levels to your inventory. the first is your hot bar which you should be seeing right now.” he snapped his fingers again and a line of ten transparent boxes appeared at the bottom peripheral of my vision.
“What? where did those come from, are those my hot bar? Like in a video game for quick-selecting items?” I asked in amazement.
“Ah, good you’re familiar with the concept, yes and no. This hot bar is far more advanced, you can hot bar items it’s true. You can also add spells and active skills. obviously, passive ones would just be a wasted slot. this is helpful because using things like spells and potions from this area cuts out the normal activation requirements. Such as incantations or drinking things.” He said and then he thrust his hands out in front of him, fanning his fingers out fully. “You have ten fingers correct?”
“Yes, I have all my fingers” I responded while mimicking his action and putting my hands directly in front of me. my fingers separating from their neighbors as wide as possible.
“Excellent, your hot bar slots are directly coordinated to your fingers. The more fingers you have the more slots are available. You activate a slot by pressing the corresponding finger to your palm while mentally thinking about that slot. It will not activate if one of those conditions is not met. We will practice it soon but first, you need access to your other two levels. I need you to think about the phrase ‘open quick inventory’ and concentrate on it. It will become easier the more you do it.”
I did as the lion man asked and thought long and hard about opening my quick inventory, after about thirty seconds a three by ten grid of semi-transparent gray blocks appeared in my vision.
“Wow, that is weird, I have a Minecraft inventory in front of me. It doesn’t have anything in it though. I haven’t really, collected anything yet.” I told him after I was done looking over the mind-blowing inventory grid.
“That’s normal for this stage in your journey. I’m going to gift you your first useful items and abilities. Here you go” As he said this three things popped into my inventory. one was a round bottle with a small neck to drink from with a basic cork in it, filled three-quarters of the volume with a red liquid. It was clearly, a health potion. Next to it was a green plus sign with little twinkling green dots fading in and out of existence, I assumed this was a healing spell. Third, looked like a basic brown cookie but was made with oats. The square it was sitting in had a small 10 in the top right corner. “Those items I just gave you are a healing potion, a healing spell, and ten ration biscuits. they all should be self-explanatory. If not then, heal juice, magic heals, and food. Got it?” He asked rhetorically.
I shook my head as he continued. “Now place the spell in a hot bar slot that you think is the easiest finger to press to your palm. It’s never the same for everyone but it’s usually in the middle of the hand, not the pinky or thumb. So figure it out before we move on.” He directed me. so I sat there for a few minutes tapping my fingers against my palms, looking like I was tweaking after a bad batch, or going through withdrawal symptoms.
“Ok, I think I got it,” I said semi-confidently.
“Good now mentally click and drag the spell to that slot”
I did what he said and moved the spell to the middle finger of my right hand. it was now officially the most versatile digit I had.
“Good, now I want you to use that spell.”
I thought about using the slot as I placed the tip of my middle finger against my palm. A blue five floated off my hand, I assume to indicate how much mana I had just used, and then numerous things started to all happen at once. Three bars appeared in the top left of my vision that I could look directly at if I focused on them, functioning similar to my map, They were Red, Blue, and Green. The red bar was missing about five percent. The blue bar dropped by half and my body was engulfed in spiraling green waves. Most focused on my torso. My back started feeling better and my breathing was effortless now.
“What the hell, did it just heal my chronic conditions as well? That’s amazing I haven’t felt this good in years.” I practically yelled with stunned amazement. I could breathe easier than I had since I was in my teens. My lower back felt brand new and I didn’t hear any grinding or popping in any of my joints. I got up and started walking around. I had to stop myself from doing a backflip. Partly because I have no idea how to do a backflip.
Something about me I haven’t talked about yet is that I am not a healthy person, I don’t mean I am fat or super out of shape. I was decent in that category. No I suffered from a degenerative bone and joint disease, essentially my joints and bones were slowly dissolving inside of me. It was not fun, and it was slow. just being in a little more pain everyday, with no way to reverse it. Except while in the Trials it appeared. I was pain free and it was glorious.
“it will heal you for ten percent of your maximum health. it will remove any physical ailments and some very minor magical ones also. It can’t cure most poisons or venoms though, but most of those will dissipate over time anyway. They still aren’t fun to deal with so be careful. This spell is very basic, it is not the final word in survival. Awareness is. Now move on to your deep inventory. It is where everything that doesn’t belong in your quick inventory will end up going. you have unlimited space in there, so loot everything, I am serious about this shit too. You never know what you may need later on, loot the fuck out of this place. If it isn’t nailed down and you can lift it it goes in your inventory. Plain and simple, it will separate everything into multiple categories and organize the chaos for you.” Gary said with an air of someone winding down.
“ That’s everything for now, I will contact you again when you hit the next part of your journey, until then Voyager, have a safe and prosperous adventure here in Tarturis.” He stated as he faded out of existence.
“Phew, I thought he would never stop talking,” TAI said to me after Gary fully dissolved. “Now it’s time to get back out there and get started. Let’s go.”
“Wait, can I just catch m-”
