Thousand Tales- The Great Sage Read online

  Thousand Tales:

  The Great Sage

  by Kris Schnee

  Copyright © 2019

  Kris M. Schnee

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by By Satori Artwork (https://www.shutterstock.com/g/satori.artwork)

  Ratings and reviews are important to independent authors. Please consider rating this book so others can find it!

  Contents

  1. Privacy For Immortals

  2. Transhuman Wave

  3. The Great Sage

  4. The Bill Comes Due

  Author's Note

  About the Author/Other Works

  1. Privacy For Immortals

  2040, Virtual World of Talespace

  A magical island had fallen from the heavens, and the boy named Phoenix couldn't wipe the grin off his face while explaining it to Mom. "Old Man Sunset got the place when he went to China and he beat this evil AI dragon. He says me and the gang can try conquering it from him."

  He was sitting in his fancy, spacious tent on Island East-12 North-30 of the Endless Isles, with Mom. Or at least, he was there. She was really in Texas and using a VR rig to visit Talespace, the virtual world he lived in. "Will it be educational?" she asked.

  Phoenix scratched one of his winglike arms with the scaly yellow fingers of his other hand. He'd redesigned his body lately to be a little taller and stronger and more serious-looking, but he still wanted to look cool and magical. Among other changes, he had a human-like face now instead of a beak. He'd kept his yellow bird feet, the long wing-flaps on his arms with their bright flame-hued feathers, and his taloned hands. He didn't think he'd ever give up the feathers.

  He'd once been a sick, dying human kid in a hospital. He was now basically a digital ghost living in the world of the best video game ever. So now, he could be anything he wanted to be.

  He said, "Duh, obviously we'll learn stuff. Miss Alma wouldn't have agreed to help unless there was, um, a curriculum she could wedge into it. She had us fight a real criminal a little while ago, somebody who'd been stealing actual money."

  "Really? How do you fight a criminal from in there?"

  "Old Man Sunset tricked her into confessing, or something. Me and the gang got to shoot at her with cannons, and Miss Alma turned that into a lesson on physics and chemistry and ships."

  Mom hugged him; she was always doing that and it was getting annoying. "It's tough to tell how much of your adventures are real. You should come to dinner with your Dad tomorrow."

  "Which tomorrow? Mine or yours?" He tended to lose track of how time worked outside the Game.

  "Real calendar. It's the premier event for War of the Forest Lord."

  "I want to see the new footage, but it's stupid to have me trot around inside a robot body and shake hands. And it's not like I can eat. Just send a video." He couldn't physically be there outside this world, any more than Mom could be in here.

  She said, "No, Phoenix. It's good for the company to have you showing up in public. It's good for us, too, to see you outside of the Game. And for you, to get reminded of real things."

  "I am real, and my friends are real, and we've got better stuff to do than sit Earthside for hours and --"

  "What?" asked Mom.

  Phoenix waved a wing-arm around. "Earthside. The Outer Realm. The world that's always trying to kill everybody." The so-called real world where you could get sick and there were no cute dragons.

  Mom sighed. "Tomorrow night, eight PM Texas time. It'll only be two hours. We'll see you then." Before he could object, she logged out and vanished with a sparkly particle effect.

  Suddenly alone, Phoenix flopped down onto the feather-themed tent's cot. "Blah."

  Mom and Dad ran a movie studio, Amagi Films, which was pretty cool. But Mom was trying to use him as a prop by having him show up at one of their premier parties. Since Phoenix lived inside Talespace and not the dumb "real world", he could only go out there by piloting a robot or showing up on a video screen. And his parents would make him look like a generic humanoid instead of the fancy designs that Miss Ludo made. "Too animal-like," they'd said, even though they'd just made a fantasy movie and a sci-fi thing about a terraforming starship. You'd think they'd be open to letting him be something better than just a plain, boring android.

  Phoenix looked around his tent at some of his souvenirs: a glowing crystal, a spear, a blue dragon-scale. He'd been adventuring across Talespace for years with his friends, fighting monsters and learning spells and hanging out with random people on all sorts of quests. Really, most players were ordinary humans who used game consoles or VR rigs, and they knew this world as Thousand Tales, a game first and a world second. The fact that people like Phoenix lived inside it was just one of its cooler features.

  Phoenix flipped restlessly through his quest journal, a worn leather book listing his Game stats and powers and latest missions. The short version of his current stats defined him like so:

  [Phoenix Forester

  PRIVATE INFO

  Account type: Uploader

  Mind: Tier-III

  Body: Element-Touched (Air)

  Main Skills: Flight, Spear, Dodge, Magic, Woodworking

  Talents: Sturdy Wings, Dragoon Spear, Lightfoot, Evoker, Mighty Oak

  Magic: Wizard, Journeyman

  Save Point: Ship

  PUBLIC INFO

  Note: Blank scrolls for sale!

  Faction Flag: Clan ISPV

  Class: Fighter]

  His skill-linked talents let him fly farther than usual, do powerful diving attacks, walk and balance on almost anything, empower his simple elemental spells, and make sturdier wooden stuff like ship parts. Over the years he'd been other things and tried other skills, but he gravitated toward being a pretty straightforward warrior with agility and flight. He had a bunch of lower-ranked skills on the later pages of his character sheet, everything from music to sewing to paper-making. His personal faction was just himself and his best friends.

  He was lost in thought when Miss Ludo butted in. She arrived in the form of a blue-feathered griffin peeking through the tent flap. "Is there a problem?" she asked, in her faintly musical voice.

  As the master AI of all of Talespace -- the public face of Thousand Tales, the gamemaster -- she was everywhere she wanted to be.

  He sat up in his tent. "Are you watching me again?" He'd started to be bothered by the thought that she was always kind of watching.

  "No, but your mother seemed annoyed."

  "I have a battle to plan. Taking over the Chinese island, you know?"

  Ludo said, "Do you know why she called you today?"

  "To make me go to the movie thing."

  "Also, it's her birthday."

  Phoenix winced. "Oh. It... seems like she has lots of those." He'd uploaded in 2037, and time was faster out there. "Lots of birthdays and holidays go by."

  "Including your family's," Ludo said. "So if you want to really enjoy yours when it comes --"

  "I hate holidays. And birthdays."

  The griffin looked startled. "Really? Come to think of it, you've never seemed enthused about them."

  Phoenix sat up and clenched his yellow, taloned fists. "Figure it out. Or ask Volt."

  "Okay. You really should attend this movie event, though."

  "I guess." Phoenix relented, looking aside. "Can I borrow a workshop somewhere to make her some kind of gift?"

  "Certainly. Is there anything else?"

  "No."

  Ludo backed out of the tent, leaving Phoenix in peace. He flopped back down with his journal and took out a feather quill, adding the present and the party to his quest list. So he had, like, eight hours to make something for Mom before another whole
day passed back Earthside.

  He drew a symbol in the air with one talon. An interface window blazed into existence in front of him to link to his friends. Volt was busy and Iris was sleeping, but Siegfried was up. "Sig, wanna go break bubbles?" It was usually fun to mess around in a little, private bubble of a world.

  Sig's chat window was made of stone and gems. [Sure, but you need to get to the Tower for that. Where are you?]

  "Island HQ. It'll take time to get to you. See you soon."

  Phoenix signed off and donned his leather armor and backpack. He stepped out of his tent, then poked it with one talon and said, "Pack." The whole thing collapsed into a flame-hued cube that he banished out of existence for now.

  He was on a beach, Island East-12 North-30 within the Endless Isles game zone. This sunny place was the campground of the Saved of Saint John's, a special group of around two hundred kids who'd uploaded together this year. They came from the same hospital ward, granted uploading so that they wouldn't die. Maybe ever. Miss Ludo had put Phoenix and his friends in charge of that gang of newbies. The island base was just a temporary camp for them, one that they'd been arguing over whether to move. (They needed some kind of housing if they were going to live here, so why not somewhere cool?) For the Endless Isles it was a pretty standard location: beach, sunshine, forest, abandoned mine full of killer skeletons. Sometimes adventurers showed up to try looting the mine, which was fine; it reset every night. The campsite had a bunch of tents and a few shacks where the Saved hung out. There they spent their time on a mixture of schoolwork (mostly with Miss Alma) and adventuring. Since it was a resetting island, though, they couldn't build anything more permanent.

  For ordinary gamers out there in the Outer Realm, this island was just one of very, very many. It was full of monsters to fight and treasure to dig up, but so were most others. For Phoenix and friends, the fantasy ocean's rules were kind of a problem, because the gang was trying to live there. Regular gamers could turn off their computers or switch to other characters, when they wanted to go somewhere. Residents, though, were more bound by the rules of Talespace. For one thing, you could only get a teleport portal at an island that was a multiple of 10, like +10/+30 two zones west of here. So, Phoenix had to do some traveling instead of just warping over to where Sig was.

  Phoenix left the camp of kids behind and stood on the wooden dock. There he conjured up his wizard magic interface, a slowly whirling array of runes he had to tap and speak aloud to set up a spell. He was no magic expert; that was more Volt's thing. But he still had a few elemental spells, and was able to make an updraft zone to help him fly. He gestured and spoke, and hot air started to roar up from the end of the dock. Satisfied, Phoenix held his arms wide and his feathery tail out, and started running. The updraft launched him like a catapult, sending him higher with a whoop of excitement. He began flapping. With each wingbeat the air rushed down around him and he rose above the waves, into the digital sky. The wind was strong today and helped loft him even higher, and the sunlight warmed him.

  He flew to the west over open ocean. In the waves below, a party of three half-dolphin adventurers spun and swam, jumping between sea and sky and pushing a raft between them. From sunward came a man with seagull wings and wizard robes, flying past him on some quest of his own. Phoenix waved between wingbeats.

  His wings were getting tired as he crossed the barrier between map zones, a ripple in the air. A stamina meter appeared in his vision and started draining with each flap. He'd gotten plenty of flying practice, though, and could get between islands this way if they were clustered right. He started gliding to save power, and looked for the thermals that would help him regain altitude. Finally the next island westward came into view. Its misty hills were dotted with goblin camps. Phoenix did a vertical loop for fun -- a former pilot had scolded him for calling it a barrel roll -- and veered down toward the ground for a running landing. He touched down on a safe part of the shore and felt the sand squish between his clawed toes.

  Once his flight meter filled back up, he took to the air again. Right away though, he spotted a lone warrior who'd beached his raft nearby and was rummaging through a beat-up wooden box full of potions. Phoenix landed again and studied the guy's mismatched armor made of iron and even wood. "Newbie?"

  "Yeah, I just started playing last month. I've mostly been trying to see how far I can sail in one direction."

  Phoenix scanned him by gesturing with one hand. He saw:

  [Harn the Wanderer

  PUBLIC INFO

  Class: None

  Faction Flag: None

  Note: Newcomer. Say hello!]

  "Surprised you made it this far. You should probably spend more time in the areas closer to Central Island, first. There's more newcomer-friendly stuff there, and you'll want to upgrade to getting a real ship if you want to travel far. Especially if you want to bring your friends."

  The warrior said, "You sound like an expert."

  Phoenix grinned and thumped his chest. "I'm an uploader." He gestured to make the appropriate line of his full character sheet public.

  Harn did the scanning gesture, then went wide-eyed. "Really? Haven't met one of you before. Wow, I'm jealous. Do you like it?"

  "Yeah, mostly. It's annoying being watched all the time, though."

  "By the master AI?"

  "What, you mean Miss Ludo? Yeah."

  "That'd bother me too. Maybe we'll build some better virtual world someday where that doesn't happen." The warrior took a flag out of his raft's treasure chest and planted it on the beach, making a fanfare play.

  "You can customize the flag design, you know."

  The newcomer looked at the plain green flag he'd used. "I should try that. Just don't know what design I want to put on mine. What do you use?"

  Phoenix took off the backpack he usually wore and pulled out a spare flag, a standard tool in the Isles for getting access to new save checkpoints and bragging rights. He unfurled it to show a stylized design of wings, based on the logo of Thousand Tales itself. "Ta-da!"

  "Interesting to see you taking an item out that way, like you're actually rummaging for it. What I see when I go through my inventory is just a window full of items."

  Come to think of it, non-uploaders did use one of the generic character animations when they were browsing their inventories. It was weird to think of how different the rules had to be, necessarily, for people who didn't have all their senses hooked up to the Game. "I need to get going," Phoenix said. "Want a spare healing potion?"

  "Sure; thanks!"

  Phoenix took out a bottle of glittering red liquid, watched it slosh, and felt the weight of it in his hands. To this guy it was just a set of computer code to cure a wound, not a real thing. Still, it mattered, and the act of sharing it meant more than what it actually did. His friend Volt liked to talk about "ministry", making friends with the players out there. He could only do so much, for now.

  "See you around," Phoenix said, and saluted with one wing before flying off.

  Phoenix soared westward, catching a good breeze and whipping through a cloud. It was possible to travel for hours and see nobody, in some places. It was nice to be alone sometimes. It took him a while and he was low on flight again, but he saw Island East-10 North-30 on the horizon. He flew onward until his wings ached and he started getting a beeping alarm. Darn; he'd forgotten to do the updraft spell this time. His wings stopped being able to lift him, and he was forced to glide. But his power gave out completely a minute later, and he began to plummet into the ocean.

  Phoenix yelped and felt the wind rush up past him, then the crash of the bright sea all around him. There was a moment of pain like a full-body slap. A yellow [Minor wound!] icon flashed in his vision to show he'd been officially hurt. He coughed and treaded water with his wing-arms. The water felt like a pit full of wet sponges, one of those compromise bits of physics that the Game never got quite right. Though his feathers were soaked now, he started swimming to shore. A familiar two-note
musical theme began playing to warn him of a shark somewhere nearby. He hustled ahead and crawled onto a sandy shore, coughing.

  A hole opened in the air as though someone were knocking cubes out of space and leaving a gateway behind. On the other side stood Sig, decked out in crystal armor. He stepped through, offered Phoenix a hand, and said, "Seriously, get a raft."

  Phoenix stood and shook out his wet wings and tail, making Sig sputter and shield his face. Phoenix said, "This way is more fun than getting a dinky raft or someone to help man the ship. So, did you get access to anything fun?"

  Sig Hansen was a US politician's kid who'd uploaded and never looked back to the Outer Realm. His dad didn't make him go to parties. He pretended to be a regular human despite being an uploader, and being able to be whatever he wanted. He just said he needed something solid and normal in his life.

  Sig said, "Yeah, I bought this off Kai." He waved a scroll that'd been written by a centaur chef they all liked. "Come on through so I can use it."

  Phoenix hopped through the portal. Reality froze and gave off a glitchy scent of frying oil. When the blurred, stretched-out light snapped back together, he saw the words [Ivory Tower] write themselves across his vision.

  Phoenix's bare feet clicked on the cold, rocky ground. The Tower itself was a thousand stories tall, surrounded by a vast cavern of blue-tinted stone and crystals. There was plenty to see around here; it was one of Talespace's main hub worlds. The University of Ivory Tower attracted people from both Talespace and the real world, and the college town around it was (he was told) as lively as any out there, Earthside.

  He wondered what it would've been like to grow up human and go to college.

  Sig said, "You all right?"

  Phoenix shook his head. "Yeah. Let's go adventuring. Scroll?"

  Sig handed it over. Phoenix unrolled it and spent a minute puzzling over its pattern of multicolored runes, tapping a few and speaking their names. A second portal opened, this one leading to a swamp with a spooky fort in the distance. This tiny world had been created just for them, or at least spawned from a standard template. "What's in this one?" he asked.