Creatrix

Chapter 9 - Distraction

Tanya was a technical genius, the kind that Somasync would love to employ; she was more creative in her thinking than their programmers and could create things that they hadn’t even dreamt of. She enjoyed making trinkets and cheats. They were mostly for fun, like the makeover talisman that takes you back to the character selection manual, so that you can change the name and appearance of your character; and the key that would open any door. Tanya played a very different game to most people. 

She’d spent months hacking into Somasync’s data and creating new information streams. She had worked out how to transform thoughts into data and then back into images, and had created a programme that could capture and display past scenes from the game into any object. For fun, she created a scrying bowl that would project the image of any character in Creation, from any point in the past, onto the glassy surface. It was unethical to watch people like this, she knew, but it was essential; she had to know what had happened. She leant forward and punched fast at her keyboard.

 [programme;kaliwatcher] 

[Sector4;datastreamlog] 

[player;Dolhran\12.8]

[14.7.15\13.30]

[getdatastream]  

She held the Lightcrystal in her hand, slipped on the rings, and closed her eyes. She hadn’t played Creation for a  while, because she missed being with Charlie. She knew when he was playing; his character name would show up on her virtual book, but she couldn’t talk to him and it broke her heart, so she’d taken a break and continued her research outside of the game. Now she decided it was a time to try and find out what happened to Dolhran. 

The data stream she wanted to look at was just two hours before he had been discovered and sent to hospital in the real world. She sat cross-legged beside the large scrying bowl, glad she was out of sight, and tried to see the images behind the cloudy surface. The mist cleared into an image of Dolhran hanging from that oak tree, just as Kali had found him. She recoiled, pulled away from the image and out of the game, reached out to her keyboard again.

[Sector4;datastreamlog]

[player:Dolhran\12.8]

[14.7.15\11.00]

[getdatastream] 

She closed her eyes. 

This time the vision in the bowl showed Dolhran alive, scrambling through a dimly lit cave. It showed him running his hands along the slimy walls and looking at them - blood! The demon’s guttural roaring echoed violently out of the bowl, Kali could feel Dolhran’s panic. The Grimoald had caught up with him. It grabbed him and threw him back against the wall - it looked like it hurt! Dolhran was almost dead, and the detail was graphically gruesome, but what was even more worrying was the chattering shadows that weaved between the two fighters.

‘Shut up!’ Dolhran screamed from the bowl. ‘You’re not even my mother! Get out of my head!’ He fell to the floor and the shadows twisted around him.’ You are just twisted thoughts, you’re not real, and none of this is true; it’s just a game!’ he shrieked.

They drew in tighter around him. He tried to fight, but he knew he had lost, and the clammy creatures settled in. He gave up and fell, he should have got game over by now, but the darkness pulled him back up and held him conscious, still in the game, still facing Solviann. Like a puppet, he was thrown about by the monster.

Kali saw his flesh tearing, saw him fall again, she heard his agonizing screams, witnessed his pain, and watched the shadows crawl over him and soak into his fatal wounds, and all whilst he was still conscious! Anyone would go insane. Solviann took Dolhran’s broken body and began to tie his feet together. 

This was disturbing; serious violence and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen in the game. Whatever the reason for Somasync doing this, it was wrong, and they had to be stopped. Why would they programme a creature like that? 

She turned away from the scene, opened a book and clicked on the monster database. She searched for [shadow]. There were shadow mages, shadow spiders, shadow warriors, deadly shades, nightshade stalkers, but she knew about all of these, and they were nothing like what she had seen; what Dolhran had said were thoughts and not real. It was a long shot, and she searched again, [thought], and Thought Based Entity came up on the page. 

A picture formed - it was difficult to distinguish any individual forms in the obscure mass; it appeared as one creature, yet many. Kali turned the page of the book that hung in the air, it said: Thought based entities are drawn here by the fear and suffering of the sentient ones. This must be related to a quest, she thought.

The collective low vibrational feelings that the sentient ones express provides an imagined life force. Once fixed to a sentient system, the entities will create more trauma with which to nourish themselves. High vibrational feelings like love, joy and laughter will help you to avoid these beings. She searched for [sentient] and her own face filled the screen. Tanya’s real life image, like she was looking in a mirror. The hairs prickled on the back of her neck. She closed the book and left the game.