Algoritm of oblivion

Milfhanter38. Professional Game Reviewer.

OMG! It was just… EPIC FAIL! I’ve never seen anything like it! Imagine, you’re right in the thick of it, the most epic siege of the last boss – the Fortress of Darkness – and then everything breaks down, as if someone cut the server cable!

At first, it was pretty standard, basically. The forces of light, you know, charging ahead, grinding mobs, kicking dwarf and witch ass, I’m in the front ranks, of course, and then… Whoa, the gates open! I’m like, “WTF?! Was that a trigger?!” No one expected that twist, honestly!

Well, as they say, go-go-go! We rush inside, and it’s… just a hellish inferno! Roofs are falling, stones are flying, and everywhere, like out of a cornucopia, ice spells and fireballs are raining down. The monsters are like, completely out of control! But we’re – crushing it! Passing through the horde, we push our way to the very heart, to the final boss, and there…

Grimnir, that bastard, is chilling in some temple, like he’s on a bench, and then the Emperor – our dude, Alex – with the words “I’ll carry everyone!” decides to just go straight in. Haha, noob! Looks like no one even did a guide for this fight, not even the top players!

As soon as I heard his order, I knew it was some kind of bug in the matrix. Like, you can’t spill blood on holy ground, everyone knows that! But he, that pay-to-win power-user, with a cry of “For the Book!” – well, you understand what happened next – attacks. And, of course, a hidden trigger goes off!

And then… real trash begins! Undead, zombies – where did they come from?! I was in shock! A bug, definitely a bug, the devs failed the patch! Poor Emperor with the griffin, how those walking corpses swarmed them, it was almost a shame… well, not a shame, but… you know!

And then, bam! Everything is plunged into fog, as if someone cut off the power, and all hell breaks loose. We, like noobs, scatter in panic in different directions, praying to our god of RNG, because, well, where, in what guide will you read about something like this?!

The most epic battle turned into pure horror, just like in that creepy alpha version! Bugs, glitches, crashes, zombie apocalypse! It was just… unbelievably cool!

And now… I’m locked in this twilight city, and everything around me seems frozen. And I’m like, “What’s next?!” This is awesome! Surely the devs have prepared something VERY cool for us! What level? What quest?! I can’t wait to find out!

So I, as the last surviving noob, am waiting for my epic quest! But it is not there. I just stare at the wall with the eyes of the undead and nothing happens my character became a mob and nothing works. Only messages and invitations to the game can be sent. But what invitations are there after this… I will not recommend this game to anyone. So much time was spent on leveling up and everything is down the drain…

Igor. Regular at a themed bar. Believes that “Dream” virtual worlds can kill players.

Alright, you’ve bought me another couple of beers, so listen up, imagine that I’m some seasoned bard by the fire telling you this story.

I arrived later than all the top players that day, I guess. Frankly, I just overslept and showed up when the sun, dim, like the eye of a dying giant, was already sinking towards the horizon. And the warriors were fighting knee-deep in mud and blood and were ready to collapse into that mud for a short respite, despite the risk of being trampled by their own comrades. The sky, like a piece of ragged cloth smeared with bloody sunset stains, was darkening, and it seemed that it was all over for the day. Neither side would be victorious. Everywhere were the cries of the wounded and the roar of warriors fighting at their limits. You feel how the stench of artificial sweat and rancid oil from thousands of bodies crawls into your nostrils. You want to drop everything, turn around, and run away from this place.

But down there, lay that medieval city, the Citadel of Darkness, craved by our clan leaders like a lollipop by a child. I’d call it the Citadel of Despair, to be honest. Stone walls, as if they had been torn from the ground, black, cracked, like the skin of a leper. And they emanated not darkness, but a cheap and hackneyed idea about the opposition of light and darkness.

And against this backdrop, you see, stands that damn Alex. The Emperor of the Light, or whatever he is… A hero, for Christ’s sake. Sitting on his griffin, like an ornament on a Christmas tree, all snowy white, shining as if he’s filming a toothpaste commercial. He’s the embodiment of a cliché, you understand? A cardboard hero. And his eyes… there’s no pain, no doubt, nothing human in them. Just stupid, senseless determination, like someone who’s completely out of his mind.

And this so-called hero has gathered an entire army of freaks. Elves, of course, all so graceful, but behind their backs, I bet, sit fat nerds eating chips. Orcs – just total trash, sweaty, smelly, ugly, I don’t understand who even plays them, but they have huge two-handed axes, which is probably cool. And the humans, as always, are the average, gray and dreary, like the stones that pave the streets of this dark city.

And they all, like possessed, are charging at this citadel, howling at the top of their lungs, waving iron things around, thinking they are making history. But in essence, they’re just playing children’s games, and they don’t even feel disgusted with themselves.

And from the city constantly come out the same freaks, only in black. dwarfs, also with axes, but small ones, goblins with knives, and gloomy dark knights, the most cool type, but if you look closely, you can see the same typical models as everyone else, both dark and light. And so they chop away, like madmen, and everywhere, this fake blood splatters. As if cherry syrup had been poured on the pavement.

Above them, like vultures, circle a dragon and eagles, and at sea there is also complete epic. Storm, cannon shots, ramming blows from galleys and boarding parties. Death flies everywhere.

And this Alex, on his griffin, is rushing right into the thick of the battle. Fighting, cutting everyone down right and left. Who does that? It’s not realistic. Commanders should command, not participate in the battle. No one will believe that.

Okay, fast forward through this sideshow. The battle is over. Well, how is it over – one pile of pixels buried another, and now, in place of the battlefield, there is only stench and virtual blood. The Empire, what was it called, the Golden Griffin, won. Well, if you can call it a victory. Just the whites have fewer corpses than those in black. Although the losses on both sides are just huge. On the battlefield in front of the city and on the streets leading to the castle, there is nowhere to set foot, everything is littered with the bodies of the dark and light mixed together. Now you can’t even tell who is who.

But it doesn’t matter in the end, someone always wins, and someone falls, and all this is a farce, a game. When you turn off the VR, all this will disappear.

And so, the last scraps of defenders, like rats cornered, are hiding in this temple. I don’t know what they’re up to there. Probably think the gods will protect them, or some other heresy. They are covering the retreat of the rest who didn’t manage to become fertilizer, but where are they retreating to, into pixels?

And then he, the Emperor, descends from his griffin-steed. All clean, as if he hadn’t even fought, as if he just came out of a spa, although in reality he should have been covered in dirt, blood, and shit up to his ears a long time ago. But this is a “virtual world,” so no one cares.

And from the castle, like a devil out of a box, flies out some Grimnir. The master of the city. Looks like a clichéd lord of darkness written off from an old book about hobbits. Stooped, scarred, as if he had been bitten by all the local fauna. And in his eyes, you know, there is no hatred, but some kind of fatigue, like a taxi driver after a night shift.

And so, this damn dialogue begins.

“Grimnir,” this Alex drones on, like a broken record. “Surrender the Book of Fate, and I will spare your people.”

As if anyone had ever spared anyone in this virtual world.

And then… Role-playing and immersion are important in the game, you understand? And they start arguing like office plankton near the water cooler. They’re talking about company affairs, old grievances. Who didn’t share the shares, who squeezed the bonus… No, well, I understand that you are – people of the company, whose role is to bring players together in an epic battle of good and evil, arranging a global event. But work according to the scenario, read the text without deviations, you are not alone here, you are not playing for yourself.

Finally, Grimnir, with a rasp in his voice, waves him off, as if shooing away a pesky fly. “The Book of Fates will never leave this place.”

Well, of course, it won’t leave. It’s the plot, how would they change it?

“Then you have left me no choice,” says Alex, and his voice is like that of a robot. Zero emotions. – “Kill everyone in the temple! And take the book!”

And then Grimnir spouts some heresy about death in reality if you get killed in the game at some high level. I rewatched it a hundred times in the recording, but I never understood what he meant. That was clearly off-script too. And their levels, by the way, are off the charts, they have been in the game since day one.

But that other guy doesn’t care, because he is invincible, that definitely won’t affect him. The enemy is trapped, and he has a numerical advantage, yeah. And here it is, the most “heroic” decision! Kill everyone, so you can take the book. This isn’t raising money for cat food on crowdfunding, this is harsh virtual reality for you!

And you know what? All these “heroes” in armor, all this “empire” with its white flags, they all happily carry out the order. As if they were just waiting for it. They forgot, probably, that they wanted to “save the world,” not butcher people. Well, yeah, it’s just a game, so no one cares.

They storm into this temple, like hungry dogs on a bone. Cutting everyone down indiscriminately. Old men, women, children, who hadn’t managed to escape. And no morality, no meaning.

And all this just happens, you understand? Just like that, with a snap of the fingers. And we, watch it, and like we should feel something. But what is there to feel? Nausea from meaninglessness? Disgust for ourselves for allowing this to continue? I don’t know. But this is definitely not heroism. And it’s definitely not about glory. Just another piece of shit in this damned, virtual, and so similar to the real world.

But suddenly this world trembled, as if someone had kicked the server. And from the temple, like from hell, crawled out these… undead. Not some stylish zombies from Hollywood movies. No, this is complete trash. Rotten corpses, with falling limbs, with eyes full of hatred and some kind of stupid, animal malice. And the smell, was just terrible, as if it was not in the game.

And so our clean-cut hero Alex, realized that he, damn it, had miscalculated badly. He jumped on his griffin, that same one, white and shiny, and tried to get the hell out of there. As if nothing had happened.

But those dead, swarmed over the griffin, tearing its feathers, gnawing at its flesh, at this virtual flesh, which probably doesn’t smell of anything, but the sight of it all is still nauseating.

The griffin, that white horse on which Alex rode, crashed like a shot bird. Scattered into pixels, and, our hero, simply disappeared. Vanished under hundreds of dark monsters. As if he had never been there.

And the city… the city was covered in gray fog. As if someone had turned off the lights on the stage, and everything became gray, dull, dead. Eternal twilight. Or it was just a server failure. I don’t know.

But the strangest thing is not that. The strange thing started later, in reality.

They both died. Shortly after those events. Just as Grimnir had predicted. I saw articles about it on the internet afterwards. The one who played the emperor died in a plane crash. And Grimnir’s body was never found after his car fell from a bridge.

And the company “Dream” does not comment on this in any way, at all. They even use the aura of mystery to promote the game. Hello, two people are missing! Don’t you care?

And after that, you know, I don’t play those games anymore.

III. THE PARTY WASN’T A SUCCESS

When Max entered the house with the VR box in his hands, his friends, invited for his birthday, were in the same poses he had left them in when he had left. Artem, the 15-year-old son of Aunt Olga, sat on the sofa in the living room with the projector remote in his hands, and his gaze was fixed on the broadcast on the wall, where footage from a documentary-entertainment show dedicated to retro-battles in virtual worlds was unfolding. “Legends of Online Battles” was one of those shows that constantly inserts analytics from VR experts and archival interviews with eyewitnesses. The red-haired girl next door named Daria sat here nearby in an armchair, staring at her phone, as if trying to find salvation from the boredom of the surrounding world in it. Today, she was the personification of the apathy that seemed to have infected the entire generation.

“What’s that? What did you get?” Artem, who had recently celebrated his fifteenth birthday, whom Aunt Olga and Max’s mother had repeatedly tried to befriend by bringing them together, jumped up from his chair, his brown eyes sparkling with curiosity, seeing the gadget. He had dark hair and swarthy skin, inherited from his father, Aunt Olga’s husband, Vladislav.

“Is that VR? So you can join us in the raid on the ‘cursed lands’! Join us while it’s not too late, we need everyone. Of course, you won’t be of much use, but you’ll still get an achievement as a participant. Such global events rarely happen. So don’t miss your chance. This time, the light forces will definitely reach the castle and destroy the Twilight King!”

“No, I don’t think I’ll be playing this. I don’t want to be a zombie stuck online for days. I want, you know… to still be in reality,” Max put the box on the table.

“What are you talking about, it’s the best game of all time, okay, before you couldn’t play because of parental controls and age restrictions, but now what? Have you heard who leads the clan ‘Mercenaries from the North’ – Boris and Vic! Bullies from our school! Maybe we can start a acquaintance, we will raise our social rating at school. And such events are rare. Come on, they gathered all the adventurers, received help from the imperial bot-legion, and all the kingdoms of light sent their best warriors. What’s the point of living if not for such battles? Daria and I would first help you level up your skills, take you through dungeons, raise a couple of levels together. And into battle!” Artem seemed to be a little hooked on games. Even today, when he came to visit, he spent half the day in the game chat and on forums dedicated to the game. Like Daria. “The whole summer is ahead, what will you do if you don’t play?”

“I don’t know… Maybe I’ll sign up for the archaeological expedition with our historian Fedorov. It seems like he’s recruiting people again now,” Max replied.

Daria, who had been staring listlessly out the window, cast a fleeting, interested glance at Max. A spark flickered in her eyes, as if she had momentarily seen in him something different from the rest, something deeper and more real. But she immediately returned to her contemplation.

“To that old alcoholic? Hauling stones all summer? Give it up, there are only losers and nerds there.”

“The cake will be ready in 5 minutes!” Max’s mother’s voice came from the kitchen.

“You go ahead, I’ll catch up, I’ll just take this upstairs.” Max pointed to the VR.

Max’s room was in such a state of disarray that even the most experienced chaos researchers would probably have given up upon seeing it. Things were scattered everywhere, each seemingly trying to tell its own story, but like Max himself, they weren’t too sure what exactly they wanted to convey.

In a place of honor stood a trophy with figurines of fighters, won at a martial arts tournament where Max, as usual, took not first but third place. It was a pretty impressive achievement, except that his persistence in training lasted only until he realized that martial arts lacked magic and dragons. The trophy seemed to know about his short-lived passion and looked at its owner with bitterness.

The computer, on which an unfinished program was open, reminded him that Max had once dreamed of becoming a great programmer like his father. However, as often happens with dreams, he soon lost interest in them, leaving the project in a state of “still in progress.” In this place, technology and inspiration met to exchange glances before parting forever.

A small green tree – a bonsai – stood in the corner, like a wise elder who, despite all the chaos around, remained calm. Max sometimes came to it to reflect on life, but in the end, he often just forgot to water it. The bonsai seemed to know that its fate was to witness the strange reflections of a young philosopher who didn’t always remember his responsibilities.

A poster from a NASCAR race that Max had once attended with his father hung on the wall, as a reminder of a happy day. It always smiled when he looked at it, as if trying to say: “Here, this was real fun, not all this…”.

An electric guitar, standing on a stand, waited like an unnoticed muse who knew that her time would come, but was in no hurry. Music was his passion, but, like everything else, it often remained in the shadows.

On the bookshelf, among textbooks on mathematics and astrophysics, a mythological encyclopedia and treatises by ancient military leaders peacefully coexisted. Max, as a true seeker of knowledge, believed that one day all these books would tell him something important, although for now they were just gathering dust, waiting for their time.

This whole room created an atmosphere of constant searching, where each passion became just a stop on the way to something more. Max knew that sooner or later he would find something that truly captivated him, and then his room would become a reflection of his true “self” – or, at least, would become a little more organized. But, as the classic said: “Everything comes in time for those who know how to wait.”

All this accumulation of objects left very little space for life, so the furniture in the room consisted only of a bed, a table, and a wardrobe.

Gifts, given personally and passed through mutual acquaintances, lay here in the corner of the room, unopened in factory packaging and bright ribbons:

– A new laptop from his mother.

– A book on psychology from Aunt Olga.

– A set of tools for soldering microcircuits from Uncle Vladislav. They had been friends with his father since school. And his father often said that if it weren’t for him and his talent for handling computer hardware, VR technology would have reached real implementation 10 years later, or maybe it wouldn’t have appeared at all, remaining at the level of an idea.

– Collectible figurines of characters from the game were brought by Artem.

Max never understood this fascination of almost adult and some completely adult people with collecting figurines of characters from films and games. But now he also became the owner of a figurine of the “Twilight King”, some witch in black flowing rags and a dragon.

– A watch was sent by the director and majority shareholder of the company DREAM Inc. – Alexander First. He owned the company, one of the founders of which was Max’s father.

The gift from Daria was unexpected. A package of condoms tied with a blue ribbon. “Condoms for a Condom” read the inscription in black marker on it. Next was a smiley face in the shape of a heart.

“Closer – further” – Daria was perfectly fluent in this game. All evening – icy silence, but then this gift…, the gift clearly hinted at a continuation. Or was it just a mockery? What did she mean by this?

He could have guessed about this for the rest of the evening, but now he was occupied by another mystery.

Max put the VR with the rest of the gifts. He took the augmented reality glasses from the floor and went to the news portal:

News Headlines 02/03/2050

– Globalization Isn’t What We Wanted for Breakfast! Antiglobalists gather for the largest rally of the decade. However, the protests promise to become not only an expression of discontent, but also the main cultural event of the year with performances by famous artists and an extensive entertainment program.

– Cinema: Virtual Reality Changes Perception of Films VR-technologies from the company “Dream” are changing the TV series industry – viewers do not just watch, but experience history. But how do you bring them back to the usual boring real world and send them to work in the office, after they have been heroes all weekend, saving the world from evil season after season?

– Breakthrough in Psychology: Scientists Developed a New Method of Treating Depression A new method of neurostimulation promises to relieve depression by reprogramming the brain. Will everyone finally be able to be happy just by pressing a button?

– Superheroes on Minimum Wage: How eSportsmen Save the World From Boredom eSports has been recognized as an official profession, allowing you to count on a minimum wage from the state. Now, teenagers who have not finished school become not only opinion leaders and idols of youth, influencing the minds of an entire generation, but also respected members of society whose work is finally officially appreciated.

– Personality for Rent: Who Owns Our Data? Experts raise the alarm: personal information is the new and most valuable asset. How to protect yourself in the digital ocean.

Quickly swiping away news about antiglobalist protests, cinema, scientific achievements, he went to the archival section.

He typed in the search engine: “Mikhail Gromov Dream tunnel accident.”

He reopened the articles about his father’s death, those that still made it to the web, despite attempts by the company to “hush up” the matter. He had reread them a hundred times before and had already promised himself not to do it again, but today he returned to them again.

Several years before his father disappeared, he had a falling out with his wife, Max’s mother, withdrew from work at the company, and moved to some backwater. Tatiana accused him of domestic violence and drunkenness, although Max was ready to vouch that nothing of the sort had happened. Rather the opposite. He remembered one quarrel, but it happened because Tatiana was communicating too closely with her yoga instructor. Then there was a conversation in raised tones and he and his mother moved out after that. His father bought a new house. In the course of the divorce, the company severed relations with the developer who had gained a bad reputation, which could cast a shadow on them as well. In the end, he also disappeared from the information field, telling those media outlets that were still willing to listen to him that he was working on some new project in the field of artificial intelligence. After that, his communication with the outside world ceased for many years.

After a while, he and Tatiana seemed to have even improved their relationship, and his father was supposed to come to their house for Max’s 10th birthday. Was supposed to, but didn’t.

The car was found 3 days later at the bottom of the bay, but the body was never found. For several years he was considered missing, then declared dead. His fortune, which mainly consisted of a package of shares in the company “Dream”, passed to Tatiana. As far as he knew, the additional listing of shares annually reduced her share in the company, but they were still not poor.

The bracelet on his hand vibrated. An icon of an incoming call from the contact “Uncle Vlad” was reflected in the augmented reality glasses, obscuring the printed material and a photo of the crashed SUV.

“Hello, Uncle Vladislav. Why didn’t you come today?”

After his mother’s divorce from his father, Vladislav was a frequent guest in their house for a while, as was Olga, but then, for some reason, his mother stopped wanting to see him, and their relationship became very strained.