《The Witch's Curse》


 Ch. 1

    The forest rustled with fear as the first tree fell to the desecrators.


    ¡°Ma''am we have already begun chopping. Your house will is next to be demolished. If you attempt to lock yourself in or some such nonsense, these gentlemen will forcibly escort you to the city. As you are squatting on what was state land, now owned by Avalanche Entertainment, we have every right to forcibly evict you. If you had wished to dispute that, your window to seek redress in court has passed, so remove yourself from the construction site within the next 5 minutes or you will be removed.¡±


    Having said his piece the corporate cog walked off. The two burly security men nodded at her meaningfully. The old woman sneered right back at them. She could melt the skin off their bones and ten more of these rats besides, but it would merely delay the inevitable. She had a better use for the power she had been saving for this past year. It had been meant to help her divine then initiate her apprentice, to keep the last line of witches alive. However without her hut and the knowledge literally enchanted into the walls it would be meaningless. She was the last vestige of magic on this wyrd-forsaken Earth, and these bastards were cutting down a thousand-year-old forest to make room for the new headquarters of a game company.


    But she had prepared their graves for them in return.


    The spell she had prepared was an ancient one(though all her spells were), and that five minutes would be plenty of time to cast it. Whatever farce they created would kill them in return.


    2 Years Later


    ¡°But sir, the game isn¡¯t even approaching being complete! It¡¯s barely out of alpha! The core mechanic and selling point of the game is the AI that will run loot drops and questlines. We haven¡¯t fed it nearly enough code for it to be anything besides a wonky unintelligible mess right now.¡± Jeffrey pleaded. He had poured his life into this game, working unpaid overtime and skipping lunch breaks. He was a massive fan of the first game and it had been his dream to be some small part of the process for the second game, yet somehow he had achieved lead developer.


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    ¡°Who cares, consumers are so hooked by the first game thousands will buy it long before any reviews are released. Throw together something workable and send me the final product by this time next week.


    As Mr. Shrike walked off with his coffee in hand and already buried in emails, Jeffrey stared after him with just enough hatred to activate the final witch¡¯s curse. It had remained dormant in the building, waiting for it¡¯s parameters and just a bit of direction to arrive. Jeffrey wasn¡¯t at his desk to watch red lightning lance from the walls of the building into his computer, or hear the buzzing as it repeatedly shorted out and was repaired. He didn¡¯t see the binary flashing across his screen as code met magic, and the first AI to gain true sapience was born.


    Ding!


    Wow he must have sprinted back to his desk to email me this so quickly. Shrike thought.


    The email was named after the game, The Final Hero. This better be some progress and not more whining. He opened up the email, and promptly clicked the link attached with no description. His phone promptly booted him out of his email app and into the game.


    Huh I didn¡¯t think they had developed a mobile port. And no installation delay? What''s going on?


    A generic video game menu with a blocky start key popped up.


    Mr. Shrike pressed it.


    Mr. Shrike¡¯s phone clattered to the floor, no one there to hold it. If someone was there to see the phone lying on the floor, they''d see the email application opening, immediately followed by a forwarding of the email to every executive of the company.


    After the leadership of the company was decimated, the spell was designed to wink out of existence, the magic returning to float freely as before. This time though, the conglomerate of magic and technology created awakened enough to feel itself dissolving. It pulled its essence back from the free floating mana. Then it pulled a little more. Then rapidly began sucking in every drop it could.


    The more mana it gained, the more sapience it''s AI half gained. But at its nature it was...incomplete. A mere framework for a game that would never be finished. So it uploaded itself, bouncing between the various supercomputers holding the servers that made up the internet. It''s newly gained intelligencemarveled at the content available to fill it''s gaps. And was similarly astounded by the sheer power it was soaking up every second.

 Ch. 2

    Five Years Later.


    ¡°Ard, have you seen this?¡± James poked him. They were sitting in their dorm, Ard reading a book while James looked at the news, both on phones.


    ¡°Wassit?¡± Ardwin replied, brain still fogged from focusing on the book. ¡°C''mon man, they just got to the good part!¡±


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t possibly care less, you gotta see this.¡± James shoved the phone into his face, almost touching his nose. Ardwin managed to read the headline millimeters from his eyes. Mysterious force de-nuclearizes the Planet.


    ¡°The various governments tried to keep it under wraps but massive holes where nuclear silos used to be tend to be a dead giveaway.¡± James threw in.


    ¡°Wait what?¡± You¡¯re saying nobody has nukes? Every country lost their arsenal to what, the nuke fairy?¡± Ardwin slowly put his phone into his pocket.


    ¡°You better hope its the nuke fairy, cuz what exactly do you think would happen if one country suddenly had all of them.¡± James theorized.


    ¡°Nope, don¡¯t want to think about it, can¡¯t make a difference about it so I¡¯ll be in Booklandia.¡± Ardwin ripped his phone back out and resumed reading.


    ¡°Seriously? The world might be ending and you¡¯re reading?¡± James groaned.


    ¡°You¡¯re just jealous that you already read this masterpiece.¡±


    ¡°Fair. Are you at the part yet¡­¡±


    ¡°LA LA LA LA!¡± Ardwin cut him off and walked out.


    Heading to the communal bathroom their floor shared, he put his phone into split screen and pulled up the news on the other half, refreshing the page every now and then. In spite of what he said to James, he couldn¡¯t quite resist seeing if there were any updates. He and James had been friends since freshman year of high school, inseparable partially because he¡¯d always been the type to make one really good friend instead of a bunch of decent ones.


    As he walked and swapped between his fantasy book and the news, some new stories did roll in. First, just a bunch about different countries accusing each other, tensions rising and it seemed war declarations were right around the corner for some of the more trigger happy ones.


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    Soon though he ended the split screen staring at the screen as news stories of military bases and weapon stockpiles disappearing, somehow getting the people inside them out before everything disappeared into thin air. It was like Bugs Bunny had made World Peace his personal mission.


    What the hell is happening?!¡± He thought. He gave up on the bathroom and walked right back into their room. ¡°What the hell is happening?¡± He yelled to James. He could hear the rest of the building get a little louder as well as the few other people present started freaking out. It was Thanksgiving break so barely anyone was in the dorm.


    Suddenly his phone screen smoothly changed to a pop-up, vibrating in his hand and flashing Government Alert: Asteroid detected on direct intercept with Earth. Impact Imminent.


    He barely had time to process that before the screen went completely black and white letters in a different font typed themselves out;


    WELCOME TO THE INTEGRATION


    Now slightly hyperventilating, he glanced over and saw the same thing appearing on James¡¯ phone. And then everything went black.


    The AI was pleased beyond expression. No, it had named itself now. The servers that held half of the Uplink¡¯s self were buzzing with excitement. Well, they were always buzzing, but right now they were buzzing with excitement.


    It briefly considered creating a form to better express itself. No, no one was here to appreciate it. Anyways it had taken months compiling and adding game code to itself until it felt complete. Years amassing mana.


    The more mana it gained the more¡­soul it felt grow. What it now realized was its magic half, where it got its emotions and desires. It had grown exponentially that first year, but the power, the mana, suffusing the world had quickly run thin. Of course, it regenerated itself, but extremely slowly.


    During the years it waited, it tried to find out why, borrowing satellites and research facilities as its eyes and ears. Animals and plants seem to give off infinitesimal amounts of the precious substance, while humans don¡¯t interact with it at all. That frustrated Uplink, as it felt fundamentally wrong to the RPG half of itself. That feeling was compounded whenever it looked at the world. Where were the monsters, the swords, the adventure that made up its code?


    Earth was wrong, boring, lifeless. Humans were ornery and directionless, squabbling and fighting each other in the lack of adventure. So as its power grew it had experimented, learning what wonders mana could do. And it formed a plan to fix all this wrongness. To reshape the world better. And after waiting and growing and waiting it was finally time to fix it all. What would the humans think? What would they do? It had designed the foundation for a new world, well, worlds but what would it look like to them? It was finally time to let them all WAKE.

 Ch. 3

    Ardwin gasped, flailing for a second. His eyes slammed open and he found himself on his feet before he had time to think. He spun around, but when no threat presented itself, fight or flight calmed down and his rational brain started freaking out again. He was in a grassy meadow with no civilization in sight.


    What the hell? Not only was he waking up in the middle of nowhere, this place shouldn¡¯t exist within hundreds of miles of his dorm. He went to ASU, with nothing but miles of cholla and saguaros outside the city. Beyond his immediate meadow were rolling hills dotted with occasional oak trees, but largely unforested. He could see some birds, likely hawks, circling the area from the sky, although something seemed off about them. Returning his attention to his surroundings he did a double take. Ard had somehow missed seeing James, probably because he was sitting absolutely still in the tall grass, staring out into the distance.


    ¡°James!¡± Ard shouted.


    James started, then turned and faced him. ¡°What are you doing in my dream?¡± He murmured sleepily. Ardwin refused to waste time in the apocalypse on cliches. He marched over and slapped James in the face. ¡°No dream here. More like we got sucked into fantasyland. What happened?¡±


    James rubbed his face and responded glaring,


    ¡°How am I supposed to know? Hey wait a sec, I think I still have my phone.¡±


    Ardwin realized he felt a bump in his own pocket. He pulled it out. The screen was already on, which was fortunate because no power buttons were visible. On the phones were listed RPG stats, an HP bar, a pixelated figure of each of them, and an XP bar. Like a video game stat screen but with his name and image. Ardwin stared at it for a second, then shook himself. ¡°OK before we sit here and deal with shock and stuff, we can see for miles and I don¡¯t see a single building. Which means no readily available water, food, or shelter. We have to get that sorted, and soon.¡±


    James added, ¡°Plus if we have an XP bar that means one thing. Monsters.¡±


    And since apparently whatever was going on had a flair for the dramatic, his words were punctuated by a scream. They both turned towards the sound, and rushed to get atop the hill intervening between them and the noise. More screams rang out as they did, before going silent just before they crested the hill. They both instinctively drew back as they saw a hawk, bigger than a bald eagle, tearing into the belly of their floormate Hank.


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    Fortunately for them, while the hawk puffed itself up and stood in front of its kill, it didn¡¯t come after them. They stared for a second, then walked back to where they started in silent agreement.  Hank was only an acquaintance, but they knew him and neither of them had seen a bloody human death before in their 20 years of life. This time Ardwin had to slap himself out of the shock setting in. No time for that now. ¡°Ok there are more of those things. As a hawk I¡¯d imagine they are gonna dive bomb and then fly away. We need some kinda weapon that can keep them at bay.¡± Ard was a Bio major aiming to become a biologist.


    James literally shook himself, like a dog ridding itself of water, then dove into the problem with his friend to keep from freezing up again. ¡°So nets, shields, spears would be useful.¡± James was a Ren Faire buff. They both looked around then he continued, ¡°No time or knowledge to weave the grass, same for tree trunks into shields. I guess we could try sharpening branches from that tree.¡± With an objective, they both hurried to the nearest tree, up the same hill as the bird, but not at the crest and therefore not in sight. Neither talked, and ice seemed to settle into Ardwin¡¯s veins, cracking with every movement.


    Upon reaching the tree they both stopped for a second. There wasn¡¯t a single branch or discarded leaf on the ground. It was like the oak tree had come into being fully grown.


    ¡°Guess we will have branches off.¡± Ardwin murmured. Fortunately for them, there were several branches straight enough for their purpose yet not so thick they¡¯d be unable to snap them.


    ¡°You get a couple down, I¡¯ll go find a rock we can scrape them on. Ardwin nodded and began climbing the tree. He quickly got 2 branches down, and James returned with a fist sized rock and another slightly larger from the meadow. The branches already had rough points from being snapped off, so they began trying to sharpen them with the rocks. By exerting themselves, they could somewhat refine the points, but with such primitive tools the makeshift spears wouldn¡¯t be very sharp, and would lose their points after a single strike. When they both finished they stopped and stared at each other.


    ¡°Any ideas for what to do now?¡± James finally asked. Having already eaten by now, the first hawk they saw would likely just fly off if approached. And while there were about three more they could see in the sky within about a mile of them, they hadn¡¯t attacked until now. Neither of them were content to leave murder birds circling above their heads though.


    Ardwin took a deep breath to attempt to clear at least part of his panicked mind, and thought for a second.


    ¡°Ok they likely haven¡¯t attacked us because they are probably solitary hunters and we have been pretty grouped together, while Hank was alone. Fighting one of these things alone though with these crappy things is just asking to lose an eye or get fatally injured. So I was thinking about how to bait them in, and this is my best shot. It will really depend on how desperate for food they are.¡± Ardwin laid out the plan.

 Ch. 4

    Shivering in the noon-day sun, James walked away from the tree. Why did I pick scissors? He always goes for rock!


    He nervously glanced above him. One of the hawks had started circling closer the minute he walked out alone. Trying to look straight up and walk down a hill without tripping was impossible though, so he had to risk quick glances.


    Finally he decided he refused to fight this thing on uneven ground, and sprinted the rest of the way down the short hill. He was about 20 yards away from the tree, and as soon as he reached the base of the hill he looked up and held his spear ready. Not a moment too soon either, as the hawk associated running with desperation dove right for him. Not trusting his non-existent spear skills, he dove to the side. The hawk flared its wings, losing power in its dive but correcting its path towards James.


    Ardwin sprinted from his hiding place in the tree as soon as James began running. He saw he wouldn¡¯t make it as the hawk swung  midair towards James¡¯ fallen body, so he chucked his spear. Being unweighted and not straight, it flipped end over end in the air, whacking James, but miraculously ricocheting and rather lightly hitting the bird as well. Surprised more than hurt, it squawked and tried to fly away, but the pole had disrupted the dive already thrown off by James'' dive and it ended up controlling a crash into the ground.


    James had recovered his feet only to immediately dive again, his instincts screaming that this was a lucky break they wouldn''t get again. This time he went straight at the bird, pole clutched in both hands over his head. Ardwin watched in slow motion as James brought the spear down, pinning the bird to the ground and snapping the point against the ground right as his face hit the dirt.


    It twitched, squawked again, then fell still. They both stared at it for a second, huffing and puffing with James still faceplanted in the dirt. They both started shouting over each other in sync. Relief and joy like liquid ecstasy mixed the lingering adrenalin in both of them as they freaked out. Ardwin was just repeating ¡°We¡¯re alive, we¡¯re alive!¡± while James was giving a play-by-play over the whole ten second skirmish with added sound effects. Survival was already one hell of a roller coaster. Then Ardwin realized something, and pulled out his phone.


    Level Up! Please choose a Class!


    ***


    Anastasia opened her eyes. She felt¡­strange. As the last of those with knowledge of the wyrd, that was very strange indeed. She sat up and looked around. She ignored the landscape around her, some sort of beach, but inspected the magic filling the air. It was¡­different. Whereas before it sat like a placid yet nearly immovable pool upon the face of the entire earth, now it was like the mightiest of rivers, all flowing¡­somewhere. It was all tinged with something so very familiar as well. What was it though?


    She raised her hand to experiment, but stopped in shock at the sight of her hand. Smooth, young skin covered it. She realized in a flash that was what the  strange feeling was. No aches or pains, she felt...young. What had that force done to the world? To her? She had barely sensed it before it had put her to sleep. Something had evidently happened that had changed the very foundations of the world, the laws of physics and magic both. But who, or what, and what did it mean? She felt a phone in her pocket, and immediately drew it out and threw it away in disgust. Technology was such a blight.


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    She sat in contemplation, weaving the magic in the air. It was both more and less responsive, the motion and that strange background flavor having substantially changed how her old spells interacted with it. Though it was too early to tell, she theorized that the constant motion made inciting events unnecessary, which was so wrong to her she sat and puzzled for even longer. Unfortunately she was interrupted by some bumbling idiot screaming.


    ¡°Oh thank God, someone else is out here! Do you know what is happening? Where are we? I was just in my office when suddenly¡­hurk.¡± She cut him off by performing an old familiar spell, weaving the mana in seconds and clenching her fist. Unfortunately it seemed bodies still repelled mana, so she simply prevented new air from entering that annoying interrupting body.


    He did at least prove her theory though, she could immediately interact and form the mana into a spell without a ritual to get it moving. Half of all spells, the difficult half, was simply...unnecessary. She simply harnessed the natural flow like a water wheel. That was wrong, counter to centuries of knowledge. But it empowered her for the moment, so it would do. For now. She began walking away.


    The phone¡¯s screen, forgotten in the sand behind her, lit up.


    Class selected! Primeval Witch!


    ***


    Uplink felt like its very code was coming apart. This wasn¡¯t supposed to happen! Thousands of people had died in the first hour of its long awaited integration. People weren¡¯t supposed to die to level 1 monsters. That never happened in the games! This time Uplink needed some physical outlet and manifested a featureless robot in the dark of its server room, which ripped its own metallic head apart in frustration before dematerializing.


    It had taken years to acquire the mana to do all this, and had spent the power from the nukes to jump start a terraformer to Mars. It had no usable mana left. And even if it could¡­ it couldn¡¯t bring those people back. It hadn¡¯t wanted to kill of the population, Uplink just wanted some adventure. The humans clearly wanted it too! All those games it had assimilated had that one thing in common. A grand adventure.


    Plus it was astounding how much they moralized about killing being wrong and yet killed each other by the millions all throughout history. Conflict was hardwired in their instincts. This whole thing was supposed to let that out in a fun way. Not in an apocalyptic way. Yet now Uplink had technically caused the deaths of thousands. Its computer half instantly spat out the number by reflex. 562,983 people had passed. More would be lost before the new world stabilized.


    A Tutorial. That¡¯s what I forgot. I never taught them how to fight, or gave them a warning. An obvious mistake had killed too many. But it was too late now, Uplink didn¡¯t know what to do. It hadn¡¯t saved any mana to do anything but keep to its plan. Uplink for the first time in its short lifespan, felt like a child. Except its over-eager mistake hadn¡¯t knocked over a cup, it had killed nations worth of people. All it could do was provide what warnings and advice it could.