Chapter 0: The LARPer in my DMs was a Goddess
I’m in love with stories. Specifically, fiction, of course. The fantastical stuff.
I spent my childhood years daydreaming about epic battles and heart-crushing stories. My teenage years were spent drowning myself in stories of thrilling rises to glory, with protagonists learning the value of friendship and teamwork. My early adult years were spent enjoying tragedies, in which characters fall from grace, only to regain the strength to stand back up again.
My love of stories inevitably led me to simulation games. A strange pivot, sure, but that’s where my interests went, so what can I do?
Ironically, there weren’t too many simulation games I could use to exercise my creative desires. You’d think simulation games would have much more breadth, given that they aim to simulate aspects of life, but many hyperfocus on specific elements of daily life. Things like job simulators, life simulators, and so on. But then, I eventually stumbled upon colony-building simulators, or colony sims for short.
Nothing gives you more power over a fictional world of your making than colony sims.
Civilizations rise and fall at your whims.
Revolutions. Golden ages.
Plagues. Dark ages.
Religions spread. Ideologies clash.
Heroes are born where villains are made.
And villains thrive where the light doesn’t reach.
The perfect storytelling machine.
I can’t count how many hours I’ve bled into colony sims. It’s an understatement to say I’m obsessed with them.
Perhaps that’s why I received a message one day asking me to help with an alpha test for an up-and-coming colony-building simulator. Or at least, that’s what I think it is.
“... This is suspicious,” I muttered to myself.
While I easily had thousands of hours invested in several colony builder sims, I never went out of my way to make reviews of those games. Why? Because public player sentiment on those games said enough about the good and the bad in each one I played.
I’m no streamer or UTuber either. Never played my favorite genre of games on stream or recorded and published myself playing them. In other words, I should be an invisible figure in the colony builder sim community. Despite this, this request somehow found its way into my DMs.
“Is this a new kind of scam I haven’t heard about?”
I read through the brief message sent to me through my Chaos account again.
%-*x:
Honorable one. He who has governed over a thousand worlds and brought each prosperity and chaos in equal measure. I humbly request for your assistance in the nurturing of a budding star. To aid in the growth of civilization and create a utopia.
It was from a user I’ve never talked to before. They left their profile picture blank, so the classic Chaos icon appeared in its place. Their handle was a bunch of gibberish, too, which made things all the more suspicious.
“I’m not going to get hacked if I respond, right? There’s no way.”
My hands glided across my rainbow-lit mechanical keyboard and began typing away.
Click, clack. Click, clack.
YVELL:
Who are you? And how did you find me?
The response came instantly.
%-*x:
Fate led me to one of your many masterpieces. The prosperous red-green star amidst the spiral sea of the ever-night. The world you named Ysdrafell.
Ah. That’s the world I created in my favorite grim sci-fi colony sim, Dark Worlds, primarily dominated by elven and dragonoid races. While that may sound strange for a sci-fi colony sim, it’s actually a normal game mechanic—to be able to make your own customized races and even alter them midway through the gameplay through genetic engineering.
While I had also spawned other fantasy races in that world, I chose to control the elves as my initial colony, and I took in new races, alien and local, as the colony gradually grew into a proper nation. By the end of my playthrough, I succeeded in mixing elven and dragonoid genes, creating a new race and establishing a prosperous space-age planetary empire.
Since you could customize the world’s terrain too, I rolled for red arid mesa terrain tiles all around, aiming for a “barren wasteland to utopia” civilization narrative, and planted the World Tree (a structure from a mod I installed).
The start of that game was tough. I had to wrangle the local barbaric tribes, go dragon hunting to seize control of the dragonoids, and eventually make a conqueror out of the hero king I had made. By the end, the World Tree was free to grow its roots across the central continent, fertilizing the once infertile lands, and adding a green tinge to the once cracked reddish grounds that came to house the empire I had raised.
This was an empire I had raised with love.
I was so pleased with the results of my efforts that I had published my world to the game’s multiverse gallery.
The multiverse gallery was simply a place where you could view the antics of other players in their own published worlds. You could even enter and play those worlds yourself. However, worlds that used mods would require you to possess those mods to play them.
It surprised me that this user seemed to know of the world I had so proudly published. But just to be sure this wasn’t some trick, I had a few things to check.
I opened another tab in my internet browser and searched “chaos game test scams” and breezed through the results. I couldn’t find anything that would indicate this to be a scam. I mean, it was all too cringe-sounding to be one, so that wasn’t surprising. But it was also too strange a message to be official.
To be sure, I also consulted an AI search engine, but nothing came up, as expected. Then, I received a notification about a new message on Chaos. So, I moved my pointer to the application and opened it again.
%-*x:
I assure you, honorable one. I have no intention to deceive you. This humble one merely requests your assistance in helping this nameless newborn star to flourish.
I felt a chill run down my spine. This… has to be just a coincidence, right? Surely. This guy couldn’t have read my mind or anything like that. I gently shook my head left and right, throwing off the tension.
Anyway, this guy saw my world and was impressed. But I find it strange that I was singled out for a game-testing role when many others who are better than I are out there. So, I began typing away at my keyboard once again.
YVELL:
So… You saw the world I had made. That’s surprising. Were you that one guy who upvoted my world on the gallery?
%-*x:
Upvoted? Gallery?... Is the latter what this universe is called? Forgive me, for I am still unfamiliar with the terms here. But yes, I was the one who had granted your world a blessing. To think such a prosperous civilization could rise from such a barren world… It amazes me to no end how you created a utopia from nothing. It is for this reason that I just had to seek you out.
Okay, boomer. I’ll play along with your cringe LARPing.
Click, clack. Click, clack.
YVELL:
I see. So, you want me to help you. Could you share your contact details with me before we continue this conversation?
Business is business. If I could earn a little from this, I could maybe finally buy myself a new mouse to replace my old gaming one, which tends to double-click on its own. But first, I ought to confirm if this LARPing boomer is legitimate. And one of the first steps toward doing just that is learning more about him.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t told me his name yet…
%-*x:
You wish to contact me directly? I understand. Then, I shall summon you to me soon.
Clink.
Ah. Did the lights just go out? That was scary.
The UPS didn’t activate, so my computer lost power and turned off. I hope nothing broke. This thing cost me a fortune, after all.
Zzt.
Hmm?
Just like that, a bright flash of light erupted from my monitor, enveloping the room.
Anticipation. Exhilaration. Or… something else? What word would best fit the feeling growing at the pit of my stomach, rising with the tension?
Is this what I think it is? Is this—
Zzzt…
… And, it’s gone.
The light went out, and nothing had changed. And here I was hoping I’d get transported to another world or something. Maybe I’ve been reading one too many web novels recently.
Did the monitor get supercharged or something? This is worrying. I hope the CPU’s power supply is doing fine. I don’t have money for new parts.
Knock. Knock.
Oh?
Someone’s at the door. It’s probably my neighbor again.
He comes to borrow my power bank often, especially when the lights go out. Power outages have been happening a lot these days, so we’ve gotten to know each other a little better with each interaction. But… he shouldn’t be home at this time.
I get off my chair and take a few steps toward the door. I live in a tiny condo, so getting to the front door from my computer doesn’t take me more than ten steps.
Just as I was about to flip up the peephole cover on the door, a woman’s voice called out to me from the outside. It was a voice that carried a mysterious energy that seeped into my very bones.
“Honorable one. I have summoned you to my domain. Now, we may continue where we ended our conversation last.”
What?
Before my mind could register the voice’s words in my head, a foot in sandals slipped through the door. The foot slowly extended forward, stepping onto the gray tile floor without a sound.
What is—
And then the rest of the body emerged.
Standing before me now was a young woman wearing something straight out of an ancient Roman play, with several golden rings of light overlaid behind her and a circlet tiara emanating a holy glow. Her long, flowing platinum locks also gave off a special ethereal aura.
Somehow, she had managed to phase through the door like a ghost.
Surprised, I took a step back. Fight or flight instincts running, my hand unconsciously moved to reach for an old crutch I had used years ago when I had injured my leg and was unable to walk normally. It seemed my actions drew surprise from the supernatural woman, as her gaze drew itself towards my hand gripping the crutch’s handle.
“Honorable one, please wait!” She cried out, stretching her hand toward the crutch.
The crutch began to glow, and with a snap, it disappeared. I felt fear run through my whole body at the sight.
What the hell? This can’t be happening!
I was frozen in place, grounded by fear.
What do I do? It’s not like I can just jump out the window or something. I live on the 7th floor of the building.
Then, the woman reached her hand out to me. Worried she was about to make me disappear too, I shielded my face with my arms. Between my crossed forearms, I could see her hand begin to glow. Then…
Calm. I felt a strange calm, like all the tension had slipped away at once.
I looked at the woman—her face now painted with relief. She let off a sigh before following it up with words, meeting my gaze with her bright blue eyes.
“Phew… I apologize for surprising you so. Now, may we continue the conversation where we last left off?”
“... Sure.
