《World Keeper AU [DEAD - AWAITING REWRITE]》 Prologue Prologue So, how did that saying go again? You know, the one with the cat? Ah, yes, I remember, ¡®curiosity killed the cat¡¯. It¡¯s a good saying, and very, very, accurate. So, there I was, grabbing a lovely cool coca cola from the local Coffee #1 in Wells, reading yesterday¡¯s paper to catch up on the news, and generally just relaxing on my weekly day off from Tesco (Yay, Sundays! Wooh!). I was sitting in those nice and comfy, old-fashioned armchairs they have right at the back of the place, and was just placing my drink back on the table, when I noticed something that, no two ways about it, just didn¡¯t belong. A big, bright red, button. It was jutting right out of the wooden table, and no matter how you looked at it, it was just¡­ just¡­ wrong! No other way to say it, especially when I knew for a fact that it wasn¡¯t there when I picked up my drink. My first thought was, ¡®Okay, who¡¯s the funny guy?¡¯ as I looked around. However, there weren¡¯t a lot of people in at this specific time in the morning, and the other customers weren¡¯t really paying any attention to me, so they didn¡¯t put it there. I even checked the staff, but none of them were watching out over here, so I doubt it was them ever. Looking back at the button ¨C at the time, I was still certain it was a prank ¨C I decided to try and pick it up off the table. I reached down, pinched the edges, and pulled, with¡­ no results. Not even trying to push it sideways worked. It was like it actually was a real button, attached to a wooden table. Now, unless someone managed to sneakily stick something down there with superglue, which I doubted, than the only explanation was that it actually was a button. At this point, I became curious. If it was a button, than what was its purpose? I debated with myself about whether or not I should push it for all of about two seconds, and decided, ¡®oh to hell with it¡¯, and pushed it. At first, nothing seemed to happen, save for me feeling very stupid for pushing the prank-button, when, reality itself seemed to¡­ jitter. That¡¯s the only word I think describes it. It didn¡¯t shudder, like an object vibrating, no, it jittered, like a graphical error on a computer, except this was no computer. This was reality. These jitters lasted for around 10 seconds, before everything went white. Nothing flashed, it all just went white, like reality was merely a painting on a canvas, and the paint was just washed off, leaving only the blank white sheet. This whiteness too only lasted a little while, when it suddenly vanished, and I found myself sitting down on a couch in the middle of a near empty room, save for the TV in front of me. Before I could even blink in surprise at the sheer normalcy of this view, a blue box appeared in front of me.
World [ERROR] finalized. Welcome to the ranks of World Keeper. Please begin [ERROR] your [ERROR] world with which you will participate. For options, simply think ¡®Options¡¯.
Okay. Sure. I¡¯ve gone absolutely bonkers. I mean, floating blue boxes of text, talking about World Keepers and big fucking [ERRORS]? Bright red buttons that make the world glitch out? I¡¯m nuts aren¡¯t I? ¡°About time you woke up.¡± Aaaaand now I¡¯ve got voices in my head. Jus- ¡°Hey, I¡¯m talking to you!¡± No, wait, that¡¯s coming from behind me. I quickly get up and turn around, noting my hallucinatory body seems to be completely non-existent at the moment, and looked at the person who spoke. It was a woman, about 5¡¯5¡± (my height) with golden hair (as in actually metallic gold coloured, not blonde) with green eyes. Honestly, if it weren¡¯t for the really pissed off face, she¡¯d be heavenly. Before I could speak (is it speaking when you don¡¯t have a mouth?) she spoke, ¡°Before you do anything, think ¡®Options¡¯ and then ¡®Body Designer¡¯. You¡¯ll know what to do.¡± I did so, and another blue box appeared.
Please imagine the body you wish to create for your personal use. This body may be changed at any time through the Options menu.
I didn¡¯t remember seeing a menu, but maybe thinking ¡®Body Designer¡¯ right after ¡®Options¡¯ meant I just skipped straight to this? Anyway, I set about designing my body, apparently by thought alone, and made, well, myself. Slightly improved, obviously. I didn¡¯t want to start my crazy new ¡®reality¡¯ with no real musculature and the beginnings of a big belly. I ditched the fat, added a bit of musculature, to the point of being toned, not a body-builder, and the rest, my height, dark brown hair, and hazel eyes, all remained the same. After I finished, there was a ding, and the blue box changed.
Body data accepted. Please wait while your new body is constructed.
Suddenly my non-existence started to be replaced with reality as my body seemed to flow into being from the ground up, a strange grey mist having appeared around myself and flowing in to fill the space my body should take up, changing colour until it matched my chosen appearance, and then becoming solid. Before I could do or say anything, I was suddenly hit in the chest with a bundle of clothing, alongside a comment from the women of: ¡°Hurry up and get dressed. We have a lot to talk about.¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The clothes weren¡¯t too fancy. Just some underwear, a white shirt, and light grey trousers, but they were very comfy. Once I was changed, I found myself facing the woman again just as she snapped her fingers, and the room seemed to morph itself into a new form, this one of two ¨C thankfully comfy ¨C desk chairs and a table between them. Sitting down in one of them, she gestured to the other for me to do the same. She placed her hands on the desk in front of her as I sat down, and then spoke, ¡°Okay, I know you¡¯ve probably got a lot of questions, but let¡¯s get this out the way first. No, you are not dreaming. Nor are you crazy or dead. What you are, is the poor sop that got a fuck tonne of work shoved onto him because your predecessor was a lazy shit.¡± She quickly raised her hand to stop my interruption, ¡°No I¡¯m not joking. Let me explain. What you have become now, is something called a World Keeper. As a World Keeper, you are tasked with creating a world and guiding it to prosperity. Once your world reaches a sufficient level of power, it gets entered into what¡¯s called the Keeper Games. During a game, one Keeper invades the world of another, while the one invaded focuses on defence. During the game, the Keepers of the two worlds are descended, and are only able to use the powers and technologies that already exist within the world.¡± She paused for a moment, seemingly in thought, and then continued, ¡°The old Keeper of Earth who you now replace was lazy beyond believe, and used his power purely to develop a world with sufficient entertainment for him to be amused with, never even trying to progress to the Games. He even deleted all the Gods once he stopped needing them so that I couldn¡¯t disturb him when he descended to Earth so that he could play games and watch shows in peace! Recently, however, his laziness caught up to him. Several Crises developed that threatened the world¡¯s existence, if they are not dealt with shortly. His constant attempts at solving similar issues with quick fixes in the past lead to these crises, and now, too late, he realised his method wasn¡¯t working. He was unwilling to restart the world and lose the entertainment he had already developed, too lazy to do a proper job, and also unwilling to use the massive amount of points he possessed to solve the issue, as that would push him into the Games, something he did not want, ever. In desperation, he looked into all of the rules behind the System that governs World Keepers, and found a loophole, and before you ask, as soon as he actually used it, the System re-configured itself to remove it. Basically it was a bit too liberal about what constitutes death for Keepers. You see, normally a new Keeper is assigned when the old one dies, and if the old one dies when descended in their world by the hands of an inhabitant, that inhabitant becomes the new Keeper. Alternatively, if they die in the Games, a ¡®drone¡¯ of sorts takes there place temporarily with a new world until one of that world¡¯s inhabitants kills them. The part about dying from an inhabitant, however, was a tad too open, allowing for ¡®removal from this dimension¡¯ to count as death by an inhabitants hands if the inhabitant is responsible for it. So, he used all the points he had saved up ¨C a bloody tonne of them, by the way ¨C to create a button that, when pressed, would send him to a mirror version of reality that he could adjust at will, without partaking in anything like the Games. He then sent that button to Earth to arrive in front of some random individual, and waited for them to press it, which you did, which is why you¡¯re here, and also why Earth as you know it still exists. Normally when a new Keeper is assigned, the version of their world that they came from is reset so that they can start anew, but your situation is beyond abnormal, so the System has no idea about how to deal with you, and simply kept Earth there instead. Any questions?¡± I actually pondered it all for a moment before replying, ¡°I do have one question.¡± ¡°Ask away.¡± ¡°Who are you?¡± She smiled at that. ¡°Ah, I forgot to explain that to you. I¡¯m what¡¯s called a System Companion. Companions are entities created by a Keeper here in the Admin Room. They are different from your world¡¯s inhabitants for several reasons. First, they¡¯re immortal, and are only able to ¡®die¡¯ if you, the Keeper, delete them. Second, you can control their appearance and personalities, and can even leave their personalities ¡®blank¡¯ when they¡¯re initially made. Third, you can easily make them into Gods without attachments to the world outside of their domain ¨C the aspect of reality that they govern ¨C and anything you write into their personality. Creating a Companion without making them a God costs nothing, but turning a ¡®blank¡¯ Companion into a God costs 25 points, and a full one costs 45 points. Of course, it is possible to turn an inhabitant into a God, but you don¡¯t control their personality, and they don¡¯t possess as much loyalty towards you as a Companion that you made. Now, a System Companion differs slightly from a normal Companion. First, you can¡¯t delete a System Companion, and you only get the one at a time. Second, our personalities are randomised, though we are incapable of developing any personality traits that lead us to actively try and kill our Keepers. We don¡¯t necessarily like them, mind you, but we won¡¯t kill them. Our appearance is determined by the Keeper though. Finally, we possess all the knowledge of the System. With this, we are able to provide aid to our Keepers in using the System and creating and managing worlds, but our advice is also somewhat limited. Some things have to first be found out by the Keeper before their System Companion can discuss the subject matter related to it. So then, with that out the way, how are you feeling?¡± I thought for a moment, ¡°To be completely honest with you, a part of me is still absolutely certain I¡¯m nuts. But!¡± I said, raising a hand to stop her interruption, ¡°I¡¯m going to treat this is if it is real.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re so certain you¡¯re crazy, than why do so?¡± she said with a confused expression. ¡°Think of it this way, if I¡¯m right and I am crazy, than acting as if all of this is real will get my newfound insanity noticed by the public sooner, allowing the relevant authorities to send me to a mental health care facility and prevent me from harming myself or anyone else. If I¡¯m wrong, on the other hand, and everything here is real, than treating it as such will prevent me from doing something stupid in my avoidance of doing my new ¡®job¡¯ properly which could potentially affect the whole world.¡± She seemed to consider that for a moment before replying, ¡°You know, that actually seems reasonable. Well then, since we¡¯re going to be working together from now one, I¡¯m Luci.¡± she held her hand out to shake. I clasped her hand and shook, replying, ¡°Marcus.¡± Chapter 1 Chapter 1 ¡°So then, I guess the first thing to do would be to look at these Crises you mentioned.¡± I asked Luci. We had just finished my instruction in how to manipulate the Admin Room, and had formed an operations area, what I liked to call Ops, which consisted almost entirely of a large circular table with a screen built into it, through which I could manipulate my power over the world as well as access the System. Currently, there was an image of Earth on said screen. I had already frozen time for the Earth after finding out how to do that, so that we could have more time to really figure out what to do. Luci nodded to my suggestion, and tapped on an area of the screen at her side of the table. Suddenly, a window appeared on the screen.
World Crisis
The Call of War Due to various reasons, the inhabitants of your world are one step away from a war that will end your world. Causes: - Religious Division - Over-advanced Armament - Resource Starvation - Pointless Discrimination Time Remaining: 124 Years
This was strange, as Luci mentioned several Crises, but when asked she responded: ¡°This is basically the accumulation of the four world-ending Crises. If you want more detail on those, just click on them in the window there.¡± Doing so produced a few more windows.
Major Crisis
Religious Division Due to the lack of a true religion, numerous religions of your inhabitants¡¯ own designs have come into being. These religions have now come into major conflict with one another on a never-before seen scale, and have been perverted by extremist beliefs into becoming excuses for war.
Major Crisis
Over-advanced Armament Due to the lack of any true guidance, your inhabitants have developed weaponry more advanced than their current level of maturity as a civilization(s). Because of this, they have access to weapons that, if used, could end the world in its entirety.
Major Crisis
Resource Starvation Due to your inhabitants¡¯ over-reliance on limited resources, said resources are close to running dry. Because of this, they are being driven to war for the sake of acquiring more of these dwindling resources.
Major Crisis
Pointless Discrimination Due to the lack of any true guidance, your inhabitants have developed a tendency to discriminate against their own race(s). Normally not a major issue for the world, this has actually grown to such a degree that powerful nations within your world are at risk of war as a result.
I carefully read through all of these, and spent a moment just thinking. Clearly, each of these Major Crises would need to be solved somehow to halt the World Crisis, but the question was: how? Thinking things over, I decided to discuss some ideas I had with Luci, ¡°Hey, Luci, how exactly do Gods work?¡± She seemed a tad surprised at the question, but answered regardless, ¡°Well, Gods possess inherent control over their domain, the area of reality they govern. For example, a God of War possesses control over War, and the authority to either halt or start any war in the world as they see fit, or are ordered by you, the Keeper. However, their power outside of their domain is limited. Said God of War would be near useless when trying to halt a natural disaster, for example. They might be able to do it, but it would be far more taxing, as they would not have access to the power and authority they possess within their domain. Gods can possess multiple domains, but it requires certain achievements in order to do so. Ah, I haven¡¯t really explained the whole ¡®points and achievements¡¯ to you yet have I?¡± ¡°No not really.¡± WKI: Spoiler ¡°Well, Keepers can¡¯t simply wave their hand and make anything they wish occur. If they could, we wouldn¡¯t be in this mess. Instead, they have to spend points earned through the System to perform various actions, including the initial creation of their world. Every Keeper starts off with 500 points, as though you right now, but more can be earned. There are two ways to do so: achievements and creating content. Any content you make that is unique can be sold over the Keepernet, and you get ¡®paid¡¯ a ¡®royalty¡¯ of 10% of the content¡¯s price. Achievements, on the other hand, are earned by performing specific actions or meeting specific requirements. They are divided into three categories: System, World, and Personal achievements. System achievements are earned through performing specific actions through the System, such as spending x amount of points in one purchase, or performing y action in the z designer, etc. These can only be earned once, regardless of how many worlds you create in the end, although you can still get the ones that most Keepers with a world at this level will already have due to your¡­ unique¡­ circumstances. The good news is that the points earned from these achievements carry over all for your resets, so if you reset the world one time or 100 times after getting the achievement, you¡¯ll still have those points from it, on top of the 500 starter package. The same goes for the royalties. World achievements are earned once per world instance. Because of this, these achievements are assigned to the world they are earnt on. For example, a common enough world achievement would be creating a fully function cycle of reincarnation. Because they are from the world and are once per world instance, you can get them once for every world. Also, if you reset a world with a World achievement, than not only will you be able to earn that achievement again on the new world, but the points for the achievement carry on to the new world as well, on top of the normal 500 extra. Only for that reset though, a second one without getting that specific achievement again won¡¯t carry over the points. The final category, Personal achievements, are earnt by doing specific actions or meeting specific requirements while descended. For example, if you did a lot of manual labour, you might get an achievement for it, plus these achievements reward you buffs as well as points, so that labour will probably increase your strength as well.¡± She paused for a second, then asked, ¡°Now, where were we before all that?¡± ¡°You had just mentioned about how certain achievements can grant Gods extra domains.¡± She nodded, ¡°Right. So, as well as manipulating things inside their domain, Gods can also provide blessings, obviously related to their domain. A God of Games could provide a blessing that allows the blessed to be skilled in games or to be great at designing them, perhaps even giving them ¡®divine inspiration¡¯ to create a new game, but they can¡¯t bless their ability to sing, or their ability to fight, unless such abilities are a part of a game that exists within the world. Even then, such a blessing normally outside their domain would be lesser than that of one from a true God of Battle or Song. Other than that, the only things left are how to make them, and how the people of Earth will react to them. If you use the Options menu, you¡¯ll find an option to design companions. If you create a Custom Companion, they can be given a domain and made into a God. You can also skip to this step by just concentrating on making them. If you do this without giving them a personality, they¡¯ll only cost 25 points, but they won¡¯t really be able to act without commands from you. If you give them a personality and make them a God, it will cost 45 points, but they¡¯ll be capable of autonomous actions, although so long as you write some kind of loyalty to you within their personalities, they shouldn¡¯t do anything to contradict you. It is possible to make a mortal from Earth into a God, but to do so costs 45 each, and there is no inherent loyalty to you, although they get treated as companions by the System, so you can delete them if needs must.¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather not do that, if it can be helped.¡± ¡°I agree. Anyway, when you make a God they have to be of one of the races that already exist in the world, and all members of the selected race become aware of their existence.¡± That really caught my attention. ¡°Become aware of their existence?¡± She nodded, ¡°Yes, every human, as they are currently your only sapient race, will know of them. Their name, appearance, domain, everything. To them, even if they are brand new, it will feel as though they¡¯ve always known about them. Similarly, from then on, all humans will be born aware of the God¡¯s existence. This will be permanent, unless you remove the Godhood of the deity, or delete them outright, which will naturally result in humans no longer being born aware of their existence.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but sigh upon hearing that. This meant that my plans had been made easier and harder, unless¡­ ¡°Do the people feel an inherent need to worship the God?¡± ¡°Not necessarily. They know about the God¡¯s existence, yes, and will likely try not to insult them if they should descend in front of them, but they feel no compulsion to worship or praise them. However, they will almost certainly try to abide by any rules the God creates, so as to avoid incurring their wrath.¡± Okay, that plan just went out the window. To avoid the problems from the Over-advanced Armament Crisis, I had entertained the idea of creating a God of War or Battle, or something related to that, and having them lay down a set of rules for warfare, of which, the use of weapons such as nukes, chemical weapons, biological weapons, etc., would be banned in atmosphere. In fact, once things have progressed a bit, I¡¯ll probably have to do this anyway. The problem I first had, which is why I asked, was how to get them to be heard and listened to by the world leaders. After all, if there wasn¡¯t some way people would inherently be able to identify them as a God, they would be ignored. The ¡®people are born knowing about them¡¯ aspect solved that problem, but created another. Worship. Without any inherent urge to worship the God, humans, being humans, will naturally try to work around the restrictions that are created.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. So, that plan was out, what¡¯s next? While I was considering, I fiddled with the screen, absentmindedly creating a few shortcuts on it that would open up the companion designer and God designer windows, and then sat down on a comfy leather armchair I formed in Ops a bit back from the table, so that I could think. Well, one thing which this world does need is some form of actual Karma system. There isn¡¯t a real one yet (I checked), and it would go a long way to dealing with the Crises, especially if it could affect the living world, rather than just the afterlife alone¡­ ¡°Hey Luci, quick question.¡± She looked over at me from a similar armchair she had formed. ¡°Ask away.¡± ¡°What are the limits on designing new systems within the world? Specifically, things like afterlife systems, Karmic systems, etc.¡± She thought about it for a moment, then said, ¡°Technically none. So long as you¡¯re willing to put in all the effort to design it, then you can do pretty much whatever you want. The only real limits are cost. The more it affects the world, naturally the more it costs to use. Even if you¡¯re the designer, you have to pay the same full price to access and use it. For example, a simple reincarnation system in which souls are wiped of their old memories and personalities and sent back into the world would cost only about 50 points, but a system involving a Heaven Realm and a Hell Realm, with angels and demons and judges and guards, and all the other bells and whistles, including full planes of existence in the afterlife, with new worlds and everything, would easily cost 200 points. And before you ask, no, you don¡¯t have to go through some big process to create a new system. Just define it in the computer, and then submit it to the System.¡± That was good to know, and would make what I¡¯m doing next easier. I stood up and moved back to the computer, then opened up a Word-like program, and started typing. It started out simple, but eventually grew to become this: Spoiler: Spoiler Closed Karmic Reincarnation System: I looked over what I had typed. I felt like it was good, but I wanted a second opinion. ¡°Hey Luci?¡± She looked over at me again with a bored expression, ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°Can you come take a look at this? I¡¯m trying to design a good Karma and Reincarnation system, and I would like a second opinion.¡± She visibly perked up at that, ¡°Of course Marcus, I¡¯d be more than happy to take a look.¡± She quickly walked over to the table and looked at what I¡¯d written. After looking over it for a few minutes, she nodded and said, ¡°It looks good to me, are you going to implement it now?¡± I shook my head, ¡°Not quite yet, I want to do something first. Actually, saying that reminds me, is it possible to edit the design of a race that is already in the world?¡± The response was immediate, ¡°Yes and no. You can¡¯t change anything that would affect the entire population, but you can add something smaller. Basically, trying to increase a race¡¯s Comprehension or Lifespan, but you can create Variants of the race, and add those in.¡± I smiled, ¡°Perfect. That makes this easier.¡± I then opened up the Race Designer, having created another tab for that, and pulled up humanity¡¯s design, and added a new Variant option to it.
RaceName Human
Comprehension 7
Agility 5
Strength 5
Lifespan 75
Luck 5
Awareness 4
Male:Female ratio 1.06
Example Adult Male Example Adult Female
Racial Abilities - Race Variant: High Human (special)
I then created the High Human race connected to it.
Race Name High Human
Comprehension 10
Agility 5
Strength 5
Lifespan 200
Luck 5
Awareness 4
Male:Female ratio N/A
Example Adult Male [N/A] Example Adult Female [N/A]
Racial Abilities - Special Birth: This race is designed to be part of the Closed Karmic Reincarnation System, and cannot occur outside of it or a similar system. Reincarnating as this race is therefore a reward for achieving a great enough amount of Karma upon death. Children of this race are born as Humans, not High Humans. - Inherent Beauty: When someone is reborn into this race, their new appearance is that of their ideal image of themselves. They become their own picture of beauty.
I nodded and spoke, ¡°That should be everything. Now to submit them to the System.¡± I followed the advice Luci had given me when creating Ops, and opened the Keepernet Explorer. The web browser that opened up seemed to be similar to Chrome, and had a homepage that was, in essence, a forum for Keepers. Apparently, I noted, I was logged in as user ¡®EarthForceOne¡¯. Looking over the various topics, I quickly found ¡®User-Submitted Content¡¯, and opened it. I then submitted my new creations, Human+, referring to the Humans plus the variant High Humans, and Closed Karmic Reincarnation, or CKR for short, and was pleasantly surprised at the cost. The Human+ only cost 15 points, and the CKR System costs 120 points. That meant that, through the royalties system, I¡¯d be getting 1 point every time someone purchased High Humans, and 12 every time someone bought my new system, seeing as the royalties were calculated as 10% of the cost rounded down. The prices actually confused me for a bit, until I thought about it some more. Sure, High Humans seem overpowered, but their existence is limited, only occurring as a reward for Karma within a reincarnation system. This meant that worlds that don¡¯t feature both some kind of Karma system and a reincarnation system would be unable to make use of the race. What¡¯s more, even if they have these systems, the only way for High Humans to be anywhere close to common would be to set the bar for the reward really low, and even then, a High Humans child is Human, not High Human, so they don¡¯t permanently alter the gene pool in any way. When it comes to the CKR, sure it provides a reincarnation system, but it is closed off and limited to my worlds, making it unable to connect to other Keepers¡¯ worlds. In fact, I suspected the majority of its cost was my Karma system mixed into it. Pleased with myself, I purchased both for Earth, bringing my point total down to 365. Just as I was about to close the Explorer, however, something interesting happened.
Chat request has been received from Alkahest. Do you wish to accept?
This was new. I decided to accept while telling Luci: ¡°Someone known as Alkahest has decided to contact me.¡± She blinked in surprise for a moment, and then realisation dawned in her eyes. ¡°Alkahest was a friend of the Keeper before last. He must think you¡¯re him.¡± Sure enough:
Alkahest: Hey, man! Long time no see. What happened, you went dark for a while?
¡°I¡¯m guessing this means there isn¡¯t any kind of announcement when a Keeper dies?¡± She nodded, ¡°None at all. Only when the new Keeper accesses the Keepernet and is contacted by their predecessor¡¯s contacts is this found out, and the lazy pig never used it.¡± I sighed at that. ¡°Well here¡¯s hoping this guy doesn¡¯t blame me for this.¡±
EarthForceOne: Sorry. I only just started this. Alkahest: Seriously? Damn, though that does explain a few things. Glad to see that Earth wasn¡¯t lost to another keeper or anything, at least. Ah, well, bound to happen sooner or later. Since you¡¯re still new, need any help? Or do you have it taken care of?
I kept Luci in the loop. ¡°Okay, he doesn¡¯t seem too pissed off about his friend¡¯s death, although from the sounds of the message, he seemed to have suspected this. He¡¯s now offering to lend a hand. What do you think?¡± Luci seemed to ponder that for a moment before replying. ¡°I don¡¯t think you need to worry too much. No one should be aware of your odd circumstances, so he¡¯s going to be assuming you¡¯re at the same starter stage he was at once, with a brand new world and the beginnings of civilization. Also, the fact that he was a friend of an old Earth Keeper means he probably isn¡¯t going to try and screw you over without learning more about you. I¡¯d say¡­ take the help for now. Don¡¯t worry too much about keeping your unusual status a secret, as it¡¯s unlikely he¡¯ll use it against you unless you make problems between you. Besides, even with your unusual circumstances, you¡¯re still a new World Keeper, with little that you know you can do which could make you a target.¡± I nodded, agreeing with that idea.
EarthForceOne: I think some advice would be useful. Alkahest: Great! Now, first thing¡¯s first, you need to stay involved. It¡¯s very easy to forget we were once just like one of those people on the surface of your world, you know? EarthForceOne: Oh trust me, I¡¯m keeping involved all right. Alkahest: ¡­ You¡¯re not one of those guys that creates Harem Worlds right?
I spluttered so hard, if I was drinking, I¡¯d probably have submerged the table. He thought I was talking about something like that!? ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Luci asked, seeming quite concerned. ¡°Nothing! Nothing. Sorry, it¡¯s just that Alkahest seems to think my response about how I¡¯m keeping involved was because I was sleeping with the populace!¡± Apparently, I¡¯m not the only one who found that surprising, although it seems I am the only one who doesn¡¯t find it amusing, as Luci suddenly started laughing. While she did that, I decided to clear things up with Alkahest.
EarthForceOne: Hell no! That¡¯s not what I meant at all! Alkahest: Right, sorry, it¡¯s just, you seemed a bit too enthusiastic there. EarthForceOne: I think enthusiastic is the wrong way of putting it. More like¡­ regretful that I was the idiot who pushed the big red button. I essentially became the Keeper through what could be described as a glitch, so I¡¯ve got something of a mess to clean up. Alkahest: Really? Never heard of something like that happening, but I suppose anything¡¯s possible. Alkahest: Anyway, to get back on track, there are many things you can do, regardless of the era. You could whisper a theory to a talented mind, maybe spawn a treasure for a group to find, or perhaps a monster that pushes their limits. Some people even go the Merlin route, and find a strong soul that they stay with for years, in order to make him a grand ruler.
By this time, Luci had stopped laughing (finally), so I asked her if what Alkahest was saying is true. The response was actually surprising. ¡°Sorry Marcus. Like I said before, some things I can¡¯t outright tell you without you starting them yourself. I can say that nothing Alkahest has said you can do is totally impossible per se, but whether or not you can or should do them is not in my¡­ ¡®allowance¡¯, to put it one way.¡± That was disappointing, but it said enough for what I needed. I now know that Alkahest isn¡¯t trying to outright cause me problems, although his intentions still aren¡¯t guaranteed as positive.
EarthForceOne: Thanks, that seems to make sense. EarthForceOne: Out of curiosity, why are you willing to help another Keeper? I¡¯ll admit I¡¯m new to this, but hearing about the Keeper Games, it seems a little odd to be trying to help someone you might one day be fighting. Alkahest: Huh. Weird circumstances or not, it seems you are still a rookie. I mean, I guess you could look at it that way? But everyone needs some friends. And, when you think about it, no matter how real the people planetside are, befriending them is just not the same when you know that you basically control every aspect of their life. Well, since I got a hold of you, how about you join my guild? EarthForceOne: Sorry, but I don¡¯t think I¡¯m joining anything like that until I¡¯m more aware about the Keeperverse as a whole. Alkahest: Fair enough. If you change your mind, the door¡¯s already open for you. Alkahest: Also, Keeperverse? That¡¯s a new one on me.
The Guild invite was a pleasant surprise, but it was definitely not something I¡¯d do any time soon. First, I¡¯ve no idea about the limits of control higher-ups have in Guilds under the direction of the System, so joining could very well be the short path to stagnation. Second, I¡¯ve no idea about the politics of the Keeperverse (a good name for it in my opinion). Sure, Alkahest seems nice enough from a first impression, and his Guild might very well be a decent bunch, but they could have some very powerful enemies, and until I know more about how Keeper-to-Keeper interactions work outside of the Games, that means a big risk for an unknown reward. Finishing my thoughts on that, I turned to Luci and smiled. ¡°I¡¯d say it¡¯s about time we set up the first new Gods.¡± Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Luci seemed a tad surprised at my statement. ¡°You want to make some Gods now? I figured you were going to wait on that.¡± I shook my head. ¡°Not quite. For the Karmic System to be fully implemented we need to Judges. I have a plan to use two Gods for that, but first, I need to know a bit more about exactly how a God¡¯s personality is created.¡± Luci looked much more attentive at that. ¡°Ask away.¡± I took a breath. ¡°Okay, so I know how I can implement the personality, however, I¡¯m not certain what happens with areas I don¡¯t specify?¡± She nodded at that. ¡°I can see how that would concern you. Basically, anything you don¡¯t specify is, essentially, randomised. However, that randomisation generally follows the type of being you are making. Let¡¯s say you make an ordinary companion without trying to make them a God, then the random changes will only be to try to fit into whatever you have already entered for their personality with no other considerations. Putting nothing in and choosing to give them a personality will form a completely random personality with no way for you to predict what it will be. If you make God, however, than their domain also comes into consideration. For example, a God of Battle will never be a pacifist, and a God of Chaos will never be bland or ordinary in any way. This consideration works regardless of whether or not you enter anything into their personality before giving them one.¡± ¡°What about loyalty?¡± That was one of my biggest concerns. I don¡¯t want divine rebellions on my hands, regardless of my ability to erase the guilty party. She quickly both allayed and confirmed my concerns. ¡°If you don¡¯t specify that they will be loyal to you, than it¡¯s a coin toss on any inherent loyalty they possess, so you do need to at least state they will be loyal. However, the degree of loyalty can also be randomised, if you don¡¯t specify it. For example, if all you say is that they are loyal to you, than that loyalty might be of viewing you as a God-like entity that must always be obeyed, or it could just as likely be viewing you as a close friend whose opinion matters a great deal. The former means essentially undying loyalty, the latter means they can grow apart from you, and eventually cease to be loyal. Of course, as I mentioned before, you can delete any Gods at any time, so if you do lose their loyalty, you can replace them.¡± I frown at that. ¡°I¡¯d rather not have to do something like that, no matter how easy a solution that would be.¡± Luci smiles. ¡°I¡¯ll admit, I kind of hoped you¡¯d say something like that. Now then, you mentioned wanting to make Gods, so what are you planning.¡± ¡°Well, my idea was to set up two new Gods, both as the Judges for the Karma System. Before I do, though, there is one more thing I need to ask.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± ¡°Can multiple Gods have the same domain?¡± She blinked at that, and then nodded. ¡°Yes. However, they each have to share their power, meaning that two Gods of the same domain each have about half the power of a single God with that domain. Wait a sec.¡± She paused for a moment, eyes widening in realisation. ¡°You¡¯re planning on making both of your Gods have the Karma domain!¡± I smiled, ¡°Yep. The fact is, administering Karma in any way, living or dead, is gonna be a lot of work for all involved. I think it only right that the workload gets divided somewhat. Now, I have another question, but it¡¯s not exactly related to the God design process per se.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± I started, ¡°the way I see things, you and I are basically partners here, and as such, I feel that whatever Gods are designed should be willing to follow your instructions as well.¡± ¡°Really?¡± I nodded, ¡°Really. Of course,¡± I add, smirking a bit, ¡°I¡¯m the one in charge, in a sense, so they would have to follow my instructions first, but they should be loyal to you about as much as they¡¯re loyal to me. What I¡¯m leading to with this, is that, from the sounds of things, a familial loyalty bond would be best. Not too zealous or fanatical, and not too likely to turn against us.¡± ¡°Right. So, where are you going with this?¡± ¡°Simple. I think the best way to establish seniority would be if they viewed me as a parent. Their ¡®Father¡¯, if you will. However, that would mean the easiest way to establish that same seniority involving you would be-¡° She interrupted me. ¡°If I was listed as their ¡®Mother. I¡¯m guessing that¡¯s what you¡¯re going for.¡± ¡°¡­ Yes.¡± She frowned, ¡°I don¡¯t quite like the idea of having to be in that kind of relationship for this to work Marcus.¡± I quickly corrected this misunderstanding, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, that¡¯s not what I¡¯m after. Listing the two of us as their parents doesn¡¯t mean we have to act like a married and romantic couple, nor does it mean we need to ¡®do¡¯ it. I just think it would be the best way to set up this kind of loyalty. What do you think?¡± She pondered this for a moment, and then responded, ¡°Very well, I think we can make that work. So then, do you want to get started already?¡± I nodded, ¡°Right.¡± And then opened up the God designer. I created the two of them, one male, and one female. Both were exactly 6¡¯ tall. The woman, who I chose to name Yin, and the man, who I chose to name Yang. I discovered, while playing around a bit with the designer, that if I made them normal humans, I couldn¡¯t go too crazy with the design, but if I made them High Humans, all sorts of new options opened up, from natural patterns in the skin, to unusual colouring of said skin, even symbol-shaped pupils. In the end, Yin had dark brown skin, like what you¡¯d see on an African, and pure white hair, so white it almost seemed to glow (although it didn¡¯t actually do so). I also gave her black sclera and white irises and pupils. I didn¡¯t do too much adjustment in the rest of her body, leaving her slim but athletic, and then I gave her clothes. I chose to give her a business suit, with trousers rather than a skirt, and made the entire suit ¨C shirt, trousers, jacket, socks and shoes ¨C all black, with the exception of the tie, which I made pure white, with a Yin symbol on it about midway down. Yang, on the other hand, was pale skinned, with pitch black hair so dark it almost seemed to suck light in (again, it didn¡¯t actually do this, I figured it¡¯d be a bit much). I made his sclera a purer white, and made his pupils and irises a deep black. Like Yin, I gave him a full suit, save his was white where hers was black, and his tie was black with a Yang symbol. I designated them both as Gods of Karma, and made them the Judges of the CKR. Then, I started on their personalities. At this point, I decided to be cautious. See, I remembered something I once saw on a documentary, about how personalities were heavily influenced by memory, and I couldn¡¯t really figure out how the companions, as Gods or otherwise, would be able to have fully functional personalities without being given some memories. As such, I decided to specify that they knew that, at the point when I created them, they were just created. I made them view me as their Father, and Luci as their Mother, while knowing I made them. They would also follow both of our instructions, although they would have a preference to let my commands overrule Luci¡¯s, should they come into conflict. I also made them view each other as twins, making them Twin Gods. I decided not to mess too much with the details of the rest of their personalities, so I decided to finish up by listing that they would be serious, but not emotionless, possessing somewhat playful aspects in their natures. At that point, I finished up making them, spending a total of 90 points to do so. Suddenly, two beams of golden lights seemed to descend from the ceiling, and then Yin and Yang materialised within these beams. It took a little while, but once the lights faded, the twins opened their eyes at almost the exact same moment, and looked around, confused for a moment, before spotting me and Luci. Then they smiled, and spoke at the same time. ¡°Hello Mother, hello Father. Is everything alright?¡± I smiled back, and saw Luci doing so as well out of the corner of my eye. ¡°Hello Yin, Yang, and welcome. Are the two of you ready to begin?¡± They nodded at the same time, before Yin responded, ¡°Yes Father, we are ready to begin at any time.¡± I found my smile growing a little bigger, ¡°Brilliant, now all that¡¯s left is to define what Karma is for Earth.¡± Chapter 3 Chapter 3 It took a while, but eventually I was able to fully define Karma on Earth. I used two criteria to determine what acts give positive or negative Karma: Ideal/Unideal Actions and Natural Laws. Ideal/Unideal Actions referred to any actions that either worked towards or away from the goal I¡¯d set for Earth, in terms of what society should become. In my opinion, a great society was one where its people were both united, and in full possession of their own freedom, as such, Ideal Actions, which rewarded the individual with positive Karma, were actions that supported the concepts of Unity and Freedom, meaning any act that made it easier for people to work together, and any act that maintained people¡¯s freedoms. Good examples were giving inspiring speeches that convinced people to put aside their differences to work towards a common goal for Unity, and keeping an innocent man out of prison for Freedom. Obviously, Unideal Actions would work against these concepts, so good example of Unideal Actions would be starting a war for working against Unity, and enslaving others for working against Freedom. Naturally, of course, there was some overlap. Certain actions that achieve Unity hinder Freedom, for example, enslaving a population would technically unite them, but would strip them of their freedom. Similarly, some actions that achieve Freedom hinder Unity, for example, maintaining and defending freedom of speech helps protect an important aspect of Freedom, but also allows those with discriminatory viewpoints an easier way to spread their beliefs and cause conflicts. As a result, how much P was awarded or taken away by an action depended on whether or not the net result of the action was more in aid towards either Unity, Freedom, or both. Natural Laws, or the Laws of Nature, followed the following guidelines as a general rule: Spoiler: Spoiler What this all meant, was that those who work towards creating a better world would indeed by rewarded, and those that did not would be punished. Altogether, this should at least reduce the impact of the Religious Division and Pointless Discrimination Major Crises by a fairly large degree, as well as impacting the Resource Starvation Major Crisis. Unfortunately, people will not inherently be aware of the Karmic issue with using WMDs, which means the Over-Advanced Armament Major Crisis is unlikely to be affected too much.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Having determined what Karma is on Earth, the only thing left before unpausing the world was to determine what the rewards and punishments would be after death. For the most part, I decided to leave this to the discretion of Yin and Yang ¨C they were the Twin Gods of Karma, after all ¨C However, I chose to make two rewards myself. The first was for the High Human variant race. I decided that only those with a very high amount of Karma could get it, putting the reward as one of, but not the highest. The highest reward, on the other hand, was one I had thought about in detail while I was designing both the CKR itself, as well as the nature of Karma. As anticipated, it was not immediately accepted. ¡°You want to do WHAT!?¡± That was Luci, yelling from the other side of the table. ¡°I said, I want the highest possible reward for positive Karma after death to be becoming a God.¡± ¡°Why?! You agreed that was a problematic concept earlier!¡± The twins both had near identical expressions of confusion, and it was Yin who asked, ¡°What¡¯s the problem with the reward?¡± Luci turned towards them and responded, ¡°The problem is that when an inhabitant becomes a God, there is no inherent possibility of them being loyal in any way to the World Keeper, in this case Marcus. This means you¡¯re giving a mortal entity the power of Gods with no restrictions barring their own morality, plus the fact that, if they were to kill Marcus while he¡¯s descended, they would become the new World Keeper, meaning that if they ever found that out, we¡¯d have a civil war on our hands from the greedy ones wanting more power.¡± Yin frowned at this, then turned to me. ¡°Mother¡¯s argument does have merit Father, why would you make them Gods?¡± I smiled at this. ¡°Several reasons. First, Luci¡¯s argument would indeed have merit¡­ if we were talking about making some random yob off the street into a God. Hoverer, we¡¯re talking about making someone of immensely positive Karma into a God. To achieve to ability to maybe be given this reward, someone would have to have such massive amounts of KP that, unless they were born in a favourable position while always only ever amassing more and more positive Karma with none being negative, which is inherently unlikely as it is, it will be nearly impossible for someone to achieve it. They¡¯d have to be dedicated to the ideals laid down by the rules of the Karmic System, and someone like that is the kind of person we¡¯d want as a God. Second, we wouldn¡¯t be just handing that power to them with no restrictions. They¡¯d start off in a sort of probationary period, meaning that, any significant changes they want to make involving their domain would have to go through one of us, as the senior entities, and their behaviour would be closely, if discretely, monitored, to ensure they are the kind of person we¡¯d want as a God. Finally, I trust your judgement. I know exactly what kind of people you two are, meaning that, I doubt you would give this reward to someone who is inherently not the person we want becoming a God. Any questions anyone?¡± Yin and Yang looked at one another, nodded, and then turned to me and responded as one, ¡°We are fine with this Father.¡± Luci, on the other hand, was still a bit reluctant. ¡°How long a probationary period are we talking about?¡± ¡°25 years, on Earth.¡± ¡°And how does their domain get determined?¡± ¡°That¡¯s actually quite simple. There will be three possible domains, each chosen by the twins. Yin will choose one possible domain, based off of what they were doing at the time of their death. Yang will choose another domain based off of a significant event during their life. And finally, both of the twins will choose the final domain together, by looking over the entirety of their life, and choosing a domain that encompasses it as closely as possible.¡± She thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. ¡°Very well.¡± I grinned, ¡°Perfect! Now then, any more questions or issues before we un-pause the Earth?¡± There were none. ¡°Very well, then I¡¯ll be fast-forwarding by 10 years, just to let these changes really take effect.¡± As I said this, Yin and Yang both nodded and vanished, while Luci waved her hand and had a tablet manifest itself, so that she could look over the world during the skip. As for me, I started some more work, trying to figure out something else to help with the Crises. I wonder if I can add magic into this world? Chapter 4 Chapter 4 March 5, 2017 AD All at once, across the entire planet, everyone, everywhere, regardless of race, gender, or nationality, suddenly became aware of them. Aware of Yin and Yang, the Twin Gods of Karma. To the faithful, regardless of their religion, the experience was controversial. Here was proof of Godhood, but it was not their god that appeared. To the faithless, it was the beginning of a divide, between those who would grow to believe that these ¡®Gods¡¯ were mortal entities of great power or a product of reality and science that is yet to be understood, and those who would turn to faith in these new Gods, believing now that proof lies before them. March 5th, 2017, a day that would go down in history. A day that would forever more be known as the Awakening. Five days later, another great change would come to the world, but not one brought about directly by the Gods. On March 10th, and until March 16th, was the occurrence of what would be remembered as the Week of Surrender, as terrorists and other religious extremists around the world turned themselves in to face judgement for their crimes against the Gods¡¯ will. That is not to say that everything was sunshine and roses, however. Terrorism did not end in one go. Nor did religion. Of the various religions around the world, the vast majority of those created in recent times did not last long. Within a month, more than 60% of religions and faiths born in the past century had become a memory, and within three, nearly all from the past millennium had faded away. The Catholic and Protestant Churches, alongside the two main braches of Islam, Sunni and Shi¡¯a, survived by preaching that these Twin Gods were clearly a creation of God or Allah, new children sent to guide mankind. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism were largely unaffected, sue to the existence of Karma within their teachings. Several over religions, such as Sikhism and Taoism, were also able to survive due to their own Karmic teachings. Many other faiths were not so lucky. Various minor faiths ¨C and conspiracy theories ¨C that focused on the concept that man was born and guided from the influences of alien life died out, although a few survived by claiming the Gods were aliens. Some faiths, such as Rastafarianism, were heavily shaken by their own beliefs. For example, the Rastafarian belief that all are one and equal is inherently opposite of the most commonly believed form of Karma, which suggests that all are not equal, for some have committed viler acts, and greater acts, than others. Interestingly, Scientology actually grew in number of followers, due to its belief system happening to match with the concept of Karma. Of the various terrorist organisations across the world, the worst hit were those similar in nature and structure to Al¡¯ Qaeda, which was almost totally disbanded following the Awakening. Others, such as IS, showed how few of their leaders truly believed in the messages they spoke. IS in particular, simply changed its tune to that of being ¡®holy warriors¡¯ sent by Yin and Yang to judge those of evil Karma, and renamed themselves KS, the Karmic State.
May 20, 2017 AD On this day, North Korea ceased to be its own nation. The entirety of its regime, including its ¡®Glorious Leader¡¯ fell over the prior three weeks, until on May 20th its final members, and most of the potential successors, died. In the aftermath of this event, alongside numerous accidents and incidents that had befallen world leaders across the globe, no one wanted to start a diplomatic incident over North Korea. As such, the leaders of many major powers, including China, negotiated and came to an agreement: a new government would be created to control the nation, now called the Korean Union, and would answer to the joint oversight of South Korea, China, and Japan. For the first 10 years of its existence, it would be under great scrutiny from these nations, and for the 20 years after that, it would be monitored, but would possess far greater freedom to act on its own.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Less than two weeks later, on May 31st, KS fell. It had faced little more than bad luck in its existence, with a variety of failures and chance mistakes tearing it apart from within. Couple that with the fact that its leadership would occasionally die in tragic, and sometimes convoluted, ways, and it is hardly a surprise that it fell in the end. If anything, it was surprising it lasted that long.
December 31st, 2017 AD On this day, the major powers of the world, and many other nations besides, chose to begin the new year with a new name. A new era. From the next day onwards, the year would be 1 PA, Post-Awakening.
March 5, 1 PA For an entire year, Youssef Khalil had prayed for guidance. Once, before the Awakening, he¡¯d been a low-ranking member of the Islamic State. He had truly been devout, falling for the twisted lies of his former superiors who claimed that what they did was the will of Allah. He¡¯d even aided in the torture of American soldiers, although he¡¯d never touched a civilian. Then came the Awakening, and his eyes were opened. He realised that he had been deceived, for he had known, long before leaving Britain to join IS, exactly what Karma was, and his actions, against those who had not personally wronged him, were inherently negatively Karmic actions. If Karma existed, than that meant that the actions of IS, which spat in the face of what Karma had forever described as being ¡®right¡¯ could not be the will of Allah, assuming he even existed. But unlike many others, who participated in the Week of Surrender, he did not turn himself in to the other nations. He knew that although he may be rightly punished for his actions by doing so, he would not redeem himself. To do so, he left for America, hoping to find a chance to truly do good things, and as such he prayed, every day until today, for an entire year, for guidance from Yin and Yang, to be given a chance to once again walk the right path. There were times when he doubted they listened, some where he nearly gave into despair, believing he had been condemned, but he persevered until this day. The day when Yin answered his prayers. ¡°Youssef Khalil,¡± she said within his mind, ¡°You have proven your dedication to the concept of redemption. Now, you must prove your ability to follow through, and redeem yourself. In the coming years, you shall be given 100 tasks. In each task, you shall only be told what is happening that you must stop, who it is you must help, and so on, but how you perform each task is up to you. The actions you take in doing so will determine whether or not you are said to have passed or failed each task. But be warned, you may only fail 10 tasks, before you will be said to have failed to prove your ability to redeem yourself. Your first task shall be given to you now.¡± As she spoke, information related to the task flowed into his mind. ¡°In seven days, a young woman will enter an alley near a restaurant.¡± The woman¡¯s face and the alley¡¯s location became clear to him. ¡°There she will meet a man, an addict who is desperate for his fix, and out of funds to purchase it. Knowing he will not succeed in convincing the woman to give it to him for free, he will bring a gun with him, and threaten her life. You must stop him from taking her life, and save him from his addiction, however you can.¡± The man¡¯s face had also become clear to him. Thanking Yin for this chance, he left, for he needed to prepare.
March 12th, 1 PA He was almost too late. He¡¯d arrived just as Joseph, the addict, was preparing to fire. It took several minutes, but he was able to convince Joseph not to shoot Elise, the woman responsible for his addiction, and was also able to convince Joseph to leave with him. Elise had run off as soon as she could. Youssef was able to take Joseph to a Rehab centre nearby in Miami, where he paid for Joseph¡¯s treatment. That¡¯s not to say he did nothing about Elise, however. Before going to the alley, he identified Elise¡¯s storage unit, in her own name, where she kept her contraband, and had contacted the authorities once he was certain she wouldn¡¯t be there. When Elise returned to her house, she found police waiting for her, and was arrested for possession of controlled substances, including cocaine and heroin. Three days later, Youssef, while praying again, was contacted by Yin. ¡°Youssef Khalil. You have done well. Not only did you prevent the man from killing the woman, thus breaking a Natural Law of Karma. Not only did you help guide him from his darker path. You also brought Justice to a cruel woman who had addicted dozens of innocents to substance which kill them, slowly, with every use, and who took their money for doing so without a second thought. You have passed your first task, and shall be given another when next we speak.¡± Youssef thanked Yin once again. He had his new purpose. His path to redemption. And he would never turn from it so long as he lived. Just a heads up. So, my birthday is coming up tomorrow, and unfortunately I still have to write some of the next chapter. Because it is extremely unlikely I''ll get it done for Sunday, espiecially as I have a planned trip to my Grandad''s (2.5 hour drive just to get there) on Sunday, I have decided that there will be no chapter this week. I''m sorry for doing this, but personal tme with my family will always come first, espiecially when I don''t see my Grandad too often.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Thank you all for putting up with me, you guys rock. :) An update on my status Basically, things have been busy, and I''m starting to get more work coming in, so I''m not likely to keep to my schedule for the coming weeks. I''ll try to post if I can, but if I can''t, there won''t be anything. Chapters that are posted will continue to be posted on their assigned days, that being: Thurs for The Dungeon Gods, Sun for World Keepr AU.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Thanks again for being patient with me. Filler so I can post this: afafefjiaefaihgiahgihgiahighaihgaiehgiahgieahighiaehgiahgaihiahgihgiaehgiehighdihgiahgaehiaehgieahgieahgiaehgiaehgiaehgihaegieahgiahigheaihgieahgiaehgiahigahig The Long Overdue Explanation To put things quite simply, my muse up and aboandoned me when it came to writing in general. with everything I was dealing with, from increasingly greater concerns over Uni, to various other pieces of work that needed doing seeming to multiply out of nowhere, I simply couldn''t find the time or motivation to do anything with either The Dungeon Gods or World Keeper AU during term time. Couple that with my bigger holidays either starting up with important family matters, such as the spreading of my Grandparents'' ashes, or starting on the eve of quite possibly my most disastrous failings in any educational environment to date, and I, quite undersstandably in my opinion, had very different things on my mind than writing. As such, I simply stopped. As I mentioned above, there was supposed to be an announcement of this, but I sadly seem to have forgotten it amongst, well, everything else. Now however, now I am beginning the process to make my return. This announcment, being posted on both my current stories, not including the Notebook, is the first step in this, but only the first. What I am doing, is thus: I am currently expanding where I post my stories too, intending to post all my work from here on on both this site, as well as Spacebattles, a neat forum whose fictions I found comfort in during my darker time, well, the saner fictions anyway. It is my hope that in so doing I may be able to reignite the spark of my inspirations for The Dungeon Gods sooner rather than later, due to reading through it all as I post it anew. Similarly, I hope it will help me with World Keeper AU, espiecially as I feel incredibly close to a breakthrough on the rest of the story.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I am also considering creating an Ideas thread on Spacebattles, where I would post various different snippets and concepts from a multitude of story ideas I have had over time, in the hopes that doing so may get my creative juices flowing faster. That''s basically everything, so check the post-chapter A/N for a recap of the announcement, and I hope to see all of you again soon. Cheers, and thank you all for being some of the greates readers an Author can hope for. "> Declaration of Death and Rebirth So, first, before anything else, I''d like to apologise for my, frankly, atrociously long absence, with minimal-to-no communication. Uni... did not go well for me. At all. I ended up with a pretty bad case of depression, though thankfully I never reached a point of needing anti-depressants ad the like, which severely negatively affected both my work at Uni - causing me to both never do anything close to well, despite Maths beign one of my best subjects, as well as to drop out after my second year there, for reasons I''ll get to shortly - as well as my time outside of Uni, hence why I wnet so completely dark. Fortunately, I have really good parents. My mother realised something was wrong almost immediately, but both her and my father were constantly stonewalled by the Uni on grounds of "privacy protection" despite the fact that we''d signed paperwork negating that. Coupled with my own stubborn refusal to acknowledge the problem even existing, and my talent at lying to myself about things being better than they actually were, and you can see why it took a while to fget things sorted. Eventually, my mum cornered me late at noght, when I was too tired to lie to myself about how things were, never mind anyone else, and got me to acknowledge how bad things had become. I have been recovering since then. That was a couple years back, and I have made progress, while simultaneoudly hampering that progress at times by trying to make promises I wasn''t yet ready to keep regarding my writing. My apologies to anyone I contacted in the intermediary time regarding potential updates to these stories, I should not have made what promises I did. Not too long before the new year, I made my biggest step forward - returning to work on various projects, which, in theory, included my writing. The only problem was, the "schedule" I had worked out for myself, was not able to accomodate much beyond some Youtube stuff I''m also doing. The good news, is that I''ve managed to get an actually workable schedule now, one that allows me to dedicate a good amount of time to writing, allowing me to make a proper return. Which leads us to the topic of the title. I am both announcing the long-overdue death of both my stories, as well as the eventual rewriting of both as well. Starting with my piece of original fiction, The Dungeon Gods It has simply been too long to continue things precisely where I left off, not helped by me losing most of my old notes and data on this story, as I hadn''t yet got into a habit of properly backing such things up online at the time I was writing it. As such, before I rewrite it proper, I''m going to be rereading everything I''ve written, including the extra information in the Notebook. I''m then going to give serious consideration to how I''m going to handle the systems in the story, in order to avoid falling into some of the older pitfalls that caused me many problems behind the scenes. One thing of particular note I''m going to be giving serious consideraton too, is possibly adjusting the game-like litRPG systems to make them less rigid, and maybe replacing them with a more narrative-based system instead. Once I''ve reached a point where I feel satisfied with what I''ve got, I will begin actually rewriting the story itself, and will be borrwing methodology from my Youtube upload system. Full details on that will be found on the section titled "The New Upload Schedule".Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Once I''m ready to begin uploading the rewritten work, I will do so under the name "The Dungeon Gods: Evolution" in one of two main ways, which I''d like your feedback on. The first Idea I had, was that I''d simply delete the old work already here, rename the title, using the already existant page, but the thought has occured to me that some value might still be had in leaving the old chapters up for people to see, as well as the problem of the existing reviews for the old work being wrongfully linked to the new one. The second, and one I feel more and more like I should use, is to upload the rewrite as a new story entirely, leaving only a link to it here upon its release, and adding a [DEAD] tag to the title of the old work. All of this will likely take a while regardless, so don''t expect any actual story updates for a while. Now, to move onto, World Keeper AU Much like with TDG, it has simply been too long to continue right away, and a good amount of my notes are also long gone. Unlike TDG, this was a fanwork of World Keeper, and that story has progressed siginificantly since I started writing WKAU, and I haven''t been keeping up with it. As such, before rewriting, I will not only be rereading everything already present, but I also want to read through all of World Keeper. This will make it easier tog et back into writing my own story, as well as make it easier for me to see just how much of an AU I intend to make it regarding things that hadn''t yet been showcased when writing WKAU, but, from what I''m given to understand, have likely now been revealed in canon. Once I''m satisfied, I''ll start the actual rewrite, and much like with TDG, the new schedule for the uploading will be in the "The New Upload Schedule" section. Once I''m ready to begin uploading the rewritten work, I will do so under the name "World Keeper: Reboot Error" in one of two main ways, much like with TDG, which I''d like your feedback on. The first Idea I had, was that I''d simply delete the old work already here, rename the title, using the already existant page, but the thought has occured to me that some value might still be had in leaving the old chapters up for people to see, as well as the problem of the existing reviews for the old work being wrongfully linked to the new one. The second, and one I feel more and more like I should use, is to upload the rewrite as a new story entirely, leaving only a link to it here upon its release, and adding a [DEAD] tag to the title of the old work. All of this will likely take a while regardless, so don''t expect any actual story updates for a while. Now, finally, we get to, The New Upload Schedule The schedule I intend to use for both writing and uploading is similar to the one I now use for rcording videos for Youtube, and part of my new working schedule. With regards to the writing, all that needs to be said is that I now have a priod of approximaely 24-30 hours per month I''ll be spending writing, and doing things directly related to my writing. This should hopefully allow me to more consistently produce at least some content for all fo you. Chapters will, like before, be a minimum of 1000 words long, not including chapter titles and A/N sections. Whenever a chapter is finished, it''ll be added to the baclog for chatpers to be uploaded. When chapters are resent in the backlog, they will be uploaded every Wednesday (British Time), preferably around midday to ensure they seem to be on a Wed regardless of timezone. It is worth noting that, when I say they will be uploaded every Wednesday, that is only if there are any chapters done to upload. To make it easier for you, the readers, to know how much more you can expect when a chpter uploads, I will add a count of how many chapters are currently in the backlog to the post-chapter A/N. My various stories no longer will have seperate upload days, but will insted upload on Wed regardless, so long as no chapter for that story has been uploaded that week. That means that, if I have a chapter for both WKRE and TDGE available at Wed, and none have been uploaded yet that week, both will upload. That covers everything. Thank you all again, for all the support you''ve given me, and sorry, again, for how little I''ve posted in recen times. Small Rewrite Progress Update The Problem: While planning out the rewrite for TDG, I came to a realisation of two main problems with my current strategy. 1. Because of how long the planning is taking for TDG, neverming what I''ll need to do for WKAU, it will take a long time for either of those rewrites to bear sufficient fruit for anything to be released. As the entire point of starting up these rewrites was to try and actually get stuff out there again, you can understand why this bothers me. 2. A side effect I noticed recently is that the longer I take planning, the more daunting the prospect of writing becomes, in turn hampering my planning motivation. Added to this is the fact that it''s been a while since I''ve properly written anything, so I find myself nervous about the quality my writing may or may not be of. Both these Problems are potential motivation-killers that could undo much of my progress in recovery, so I''ve been trying to come up with a workaround. And I believe I have it.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The Solution: Given that the core of this issue is that I''ve not written anything in a while, the obvious solution is that I simply need to write. However I don''t want to just start on the rewrites because of the aforementioned issues of it still being in the planning stages to avoid some previous pitfalls and wanting the rewrites to be of good writing quality. Enter a idea I had a few days ago. A story idea that popped into my head, and that I couldn''t help but explore a little, for a meta-narrative told from the perspective of the story written as a consequence of that narrative. The more I looked into it, the more I found myself enjoying it, and the more I wanted to write it. So that''s what I''m going to be doing. While I continue to work on the plans for the rewrites, I''ll use this new story as a way of stretching my writing muscles again and getting back into the swing of things, as well as to improve my writing ability some more so I can feel more confident about starting up said rewrites. I''ll post a link in the Post-chapter A/N when the first chapter''s up, but stay tuned for "The Epic Tale by Charlie Wilson and Oliver Maxwell", coming sometime in the next few weeks.