Aurora's Rift Page 2
“It’s my brother’s favorite indie release, and he was livid when Greg pulled what he did. He’s going to flip when I tell him I met you.”
“Uh.” It’s all I’ve got. Today’s too much for my brain. I’m suddenly not even sure I woke up yet this morning.
“Sorry,” Zachariah says. He glances up at the flashing blue light on the map that indicates we’re nearing Central Station. “This is me. Email me. Someone of your talent deserves to be working somewhere better than that place.”
From his face, his professionalism is keeping him from adding some choice words in lieu of that place.
“I will,” I say automatically, and he grins, hopping off the train just before the usual crowds of people pour into it.
Just before we pull away, I see him on the platform, where he greets a waiting shorter blond man with a kiss and an enthusiastic hug.
Then the train hums to life with the quiet ping of the doors closing, and we’re off again.
Because I promised to, I email Zachariah as soon as I get home with a quick nice to meet you today note. My brain is too much of a frazzled buzz to manage more than that basic superficial networking courtesy, but before I can close my laptop to order my concilliatory spicy noodles from the noodle bar down the street, my inbox flashes with a reply.
Evie,
Absolutely a pleasure to meet you on the train today. I understand you might want some time to figure out your next move, but whenever you’re ready, email me, and we’ll talk.
Not sure if you’ve ever played it, since that’d likely be considered consorting with the enemy [spooky devil emoji], but here’s a code for Aurora’s Rift, the Ultimate Edition. Shameless self-promo on my part, but if you feel like sticking it to the boss in a harmless, non-breach-of-contract sort of way, you can at least lose yourself in another world for a while while you’re at it. Plus, if you do happen to be interested in working with us, it’d be a good way to get acquainted with what we do.
I’m being pushy—sorry! I showed my partner your portfolio, and Darius (that’s his name) is poking me as I write this to get you on board. We’ve been working on some exciting new developments.
But no pressure! This entire email probably reads to the contrary, but really—no pressure. I wouldn’t blame you for high-tailing it to Hawaii for the summer just to clear your head.
Best of luck, whatever you decide,
Zach
Well. Hell.
This is way too much for my brain, except for one part.
My little one bedroom apartment is clean and fairly Spartan due to my long hours at work, but the one thing it does have is the newest version of every gaming system that exists. Sometimes I’ve gotten kit for free as a company perk (one small silver lining to the dismal cloud that Horizon has been in my life), but in five years I’ve barely had a moment to use any of it. I’ve got three generations of Wormhole, the immersive VR system that cornered the market a decade ago and hasn’t been challenged since.
And I’ve never played Nebula’s signature game. When it was launched, Horizon lost a wave of defecting employees to Nebula, and if some of them were meant to be plants to spy on the other company, Nebula found a way to make sure they turned coat on Horizon instead, since Nebula still has a vice grip on the fantasy immersion genre, and nothing has been able to shake that up since, either.
Since that wave, Horizon has quietly discouraged employees from playing that particular title, not that my work schedule and keeping up with Credence allowed me much free time.
On a whim, I turn on the non-VR interface of my Wormhole system. It doesn’t take long to find Aurora’s Rift in the store, and I enter the code Zachariah—Zach, I guess—gave me. It’s a massive game, and even with the speed of my internet, it’ll take a bit of time to download and install.
Gives me time to order my noodles.
I do that and then send a quick thank you to Zach, letting him know I’m flattered and that I’ll consider his offer.
It’s only three in the afternoon. Plenty of time before bedtime, and now that I’m unemployed, well. Not like I have one of those anymore.
Tomorrow I’ll have to sit down and figure out what my impulsive exit from Horizon will mean. I’ve got enough money socked away in savings and Horizon stocks that I can pay my bills for at least six months, probably as much as a year if I really squeezed it, and for the first time in half a decade, I can take the time to breathe if I want to.
The part of me that grew up poor in the aftermath of a global depression is panicking somewhere in the back of my mind at the thought of not having an income.
But right now, I know I’m going to tell that part to shut the hell up. I haven’t taken my vacation days in three years—in fact, Horizon is legally required to pay me for everything I’ve got banked, even though I quit. Score one for Evie.
Make it a year and a quarter.
Wormhole’s interface bings with a soft tone, letting me know the game’s ready to play already. Way faster than I expected. Guess the building’s internet isn’t strained too much this time of day.
For the first time in five years, I feel a tingle of genuine excitement. Suddenly the remaining twenty minutes before my food arrives feel like months.
Aurora’s Rift. Late to the party is better than never, right? I remember when I wouldn’t let a new fantasy RPG go so much as two weeks post-release without giving it a shot.
I’ll finally get to see what all the fuss is all about.
Two
Who you will be is who you truly are.
The words project onto my television, indicating that the game is ready to play.
Once I’m into my suit, I won’t need the TV.
My mouth still burns from where I stuffed hot pad thai into it without waiting for it to cool.
Now that the moment is here, my heart seems to have started to push me to move faster, beating with little flutters of impatience that make my hands actually shake as I don my bodysuit and make sure the sensors are aligned with my headpiece.
The suit is a feat of engineering, at once durable and lightweight, paradox woven into its design. It contains some of the most sensitive hardware the planet’s best minds have managed to dream up, but I could likely jump off the top floor of my building and the suit would still be functional even if my splatted body wasn’t.
I’ve worn it before, or versions of it, mostly for playing Credence. It’s been forever since I’ve gotten to play a game just for me—and a single player one, no less. Just that thought sets my skin tingling under the suit’s fabric. I’ve played some MMORPGs, the massively multiplayer worlds where players collide with each other as much as they do any NPCs, but they’ve always stressed me out. I managed to market Credence despite not being the biggest fan of its genre only because I was able to find corners of the game I truly loved.
My expectations for Aurora’s Rift, though—I have none. On one hand, to say the hype is gargantuan is like saying a light year is kind of like a mile. It should be right up my alley, but part of me is stalling because what if it’s not?
I let that thought drift through my mind for one moment longer before I give my suit a final once over and lower myself into my chair, reclining it into what I hope will be a comfortable position.
With that, I press my forefingers against my thumbs to wake up the suit.
My apartment vanishes.
The rift begins a new Age, splitting time itself with magic older than the forgotten gods. It is a moment of chaos and upheaval, when alliances fracture along fault lines and peoples are raised up to thrive…or are brought low. Anything is possible. Anything can happen. Ancient secrets are revealed, futures forged or broken.
Aurora’s Rift demands heroes to shape what comes next.
It is the anvil upon which your mettle is tested.
It is the arena in wh
ich you will wrest your future from the ashes of the past.
Take your place among legends.
Welcome, my friend, to the world of Sirethan.
The words seem to come from everywhere and nowhere.
I am floating in a sea of stars, the glowing colors of nebulae bright and cold. Purples, blues, pinks, greens—a rainbow of potential worlds, ready to be born.
Below me is a planet. Through clouds, I can sketch the outline of continents, see the sharp edges of mountains cutting through their cloaks of mist.
The planet is Sirethan, and it is alien to me as I float suspended above it.
It is time for you to meet yourself.
Again the words are nowhere and everywhere, inside my mind and outside with the stars.
And I’m already in this. I’ve barely touched character creation, and this is already the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen. And it’s literally years old already. How.
The world fades away beneath me, replacing the topography of Sirethan with a sea of people. Faces look out from a crowd so innumerably vast I would have to walk for days to get past the blurs at the farthest edge of my vision.
There have been rifts before, and there will be rifts again. Each time Aurora’s Rift tears open the sky, the people of Sirethan know there is glory to be won—and that there is everything to lose.
Some say Aurora’s Rift is the hand of fate. Others say it is the curse of the gods upon the sinful. Others yet say Aurora’s Rift is a mirror—it will show you who you are, who you secretly wish you could become. It will show you what you are meant to be.
Aurora’s Rift sees your innermost self. Do you wish guidance as you choose the shape your life in Sirethan will take?
I’m curious what it will say—this must be something I’ve heard about, that the game lets players choose their species no matter what, but will suggest one to the player if they like.
“Yes,” I say. “What do you suggest?”
I don’t want to play as a human; that much I know. I don’t know if it will take that into account or not, but…
Let us show you the world of the elves.
It’s not human, but I am a little disappointed—then again, I’m not sure how it’ll be, pushing my consciousness into a body that is different from the one I’m already in. I’ll at least look at it, see what it has to say.
“Show me the elves, then,” I say.
As soon as I say it, the throng of people in front of me thins, the faces of strangers receding to leave people who must be Sirethan’s elves. They are diverse, of every skin color and size. Their eyes are wide set—like my human ones on Earth, and I can’t help the small laugh in my throat—and they have the delicately pointed ears so well-known since Tolkein made them a classic a century and a half ago.
The elves are a people apart. They once dwelled only in the beating heart of Sirethan’s central forest in cities woven from crystal spires and the great heart-trees that shone with gleaming white wood and glowed in any light. The elves rarely traveled roads and waterways, and they only interacted with others in times of great need. Proud and self-sufficient protectors of their culture, their land was devastated by the last Aurora’s Rift that cut through the very center of their civilization, after which dawned the current Age.
Would you like to know where you fit in with them?
“Yes.”
Forced to choose between annhilation and radical change, the elves barely survived the cataclysmic years of the last rift. At great cost to their most precious homeland and their people alike, they have now spread out across Sirethan, where their beloved history and heritage is all but lost to the shock of change and the need to survive. You grew up in the southern city of Mithrathan listening to tales at your grandfather’s knee, tales of wondrous temples and gods who walked among the people. When an elf from the woodland vales even farther to the south arrives and begs Mithrathan’s elves to follow him, you are the only one to listen. You are there when Aurora’s Rift breaks open the sky. You finally have your chance to seek what it is you have hungered for.
The words send a chill through me, and my scalp prickles. I want to see the other choices, but I think I already know that the game has guessed right. This feels like me.
“Show me other choices,” I say. “I might come back to this.”
The elves rejoin the masses of other peoples, and one by one, the game takes me through the five other options of humanoid species in Sirethan. There are the folk, who I am sure they mean as dwarves until I see them blend back into the masses themseslves. They are no bearded, stocky people half the height of the humans, but tall and proud workers of stone who emerged from under the mountains some three rifts back. The humans are described as the humans I know—like the suit that allows me into the game, humans are a paradox of compassion and cruelty, certainty and ignorance. There are people descended from dragons, the serpentus, and there are the changelings who can alter their own faces to blend in with strangers. Finally, elementals who have been worshiped as gods at times throughout the ages of Sirethan.
With all of Sirethan’s peoples staring back at me once more, I smile.
None of the stories sink into me the way the first did. Perhaps it’s a first-encounter bias, but I was right in that I already knew.
“I’ll be an elf,” I say.
The crowd recedes—or perhaps gives way as if I am speeding forward—until I stand in front of…me.
I see myself in an elf body. Those are my green eyes, my freckles, my wavy black hair that ends at my shoulders. I reach up on impulse and feel my ears, and the image in front of me mirrors me. There they are, longer and pointed, poking just through my hair.
The grin on my double’s face is what I notice before I feel my own mouth muscles tugging at my cheeks.
Are you at home in this body, or would you wish that you could look different when you enter Sirethan?
I hadn’t realized I could change, and suddenly I feel little dense. Of course I could change—character creation is always a huge part of these games—but do I want to?
A half-smile on my face, I shake my head, then say aloud, “I like—I like the way I look here already.”
Very well.
Sirethan is a vast world, and you will find that you can express yourself in it however you choose.
I hug myself a little, bouncing on my toes. It’s only now I realize I’m no longer floating. At some point in this process, a floor happened. Looking around, everything but the small pool of white light that houses me and my image is deep, velvety black.
Gender is a non-issue in Sirethan and will not affect gameplay. Please state the pronouns with which you would like used to refer to yourself as you go through your life.
This gives me pause, and it shouldn’t—it’s standard in games these days. I don’t know, though. I’ve always felt pretty much meh about gender as a whole, but only because of its context on Earth. In a world where it doesn’t matter and where my body is already what I am comfortable in, who do I want to be?
It’s a question that I haven’t asked myself in a while.
“She and her is fine,” I say. “Thank you for asking.”
You’re welcome.
I just thanked an AI, but it never hurts to be polite.
The world of Sirethan is a world of possibility. Magic is real and present, though different peoples have different ideas of how and when it should be used. Among the elves, magic is respected, with serious magical training treated with reverence. All elves have the potential to use magic, though like any skill, it must be developed.
If you prefer to defend yourself with blades or bows, you will not need as much magical training. If you favor magic’s practical uses alongside the philosophical, magical training is essential.
You have three paths before you. Each path forks many times before it reaches its end, and you can take its twists and turns and forge ahead however best allows you to reach your goals. For now, however, your choices are as
follows:
Warrior—heavy hitting, deliberate, and able to take just about any punch. Key stats: Strength, Constitution, Willpower.
Rogue—swift striking, calculating, and able to outflank just about any foe. Key stats: Dexterity, Cunning, Willpower.
Mage—magic melding, strategizing, and able to control just about any fight. Key stats: Magic, Willpower, Cunning.
“Mage,” I say before my usual rogue tendency takes me over.
My mind…opens.
It’s the only way I can think to describe it. Where once there was just physical and mental and emotional energy, now there is something else. I can touch it with my mind. It tastes like cool, crystalline water. I can feel it. I can—
You have discovered your mana pool. Your mana is what allows you to weave spells. It is governed by your Willpower, and if you nurture it, you will find that no obstacle you face will be insurmountable.
The basic stats for all classes are the following categories:
Strength—how much punch you pack with physical weapons and resist attacks both physical and direct mental attacks
Dexterity—how deftly you wield weapons of precision and how likely you are to avoid and evade attacks
Cunning—how well you can analyze and adapt to your world at a moment’s notice
Willpower—how much stamina or mana you have for spells and abilities
Magic—how much punch you pack with arcane attacks and ability to resist arcane and mental attacks
Constitution—how many punches you can take before falling unconscious
As you progress through the world of Sirethan and the adventures of Aurora’s Rift, you may unlock additional stat categories.
Access your stats now.
I’m not sure how to do that, so I just concentrate on the word.
My character sheet forms in front of my face.
Strength—10
Dexterity—10
Cunning—13
Willpower—15
Magic—15
Constitution—10
You have five additional stat points to spend now.