Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.1      Finding her Feet

1.1.1    An Unexpected Reunion

1.1.1.7  Swept along

Alex interrupted Heather:

“Hush little sister, and take a breath. Who could tell our glorious Nadine anything, when there you are trying to fit 12 years of gossip into 12 seconds? Nadine, Heather is right. We Wombles stopped talking to each other, and that is not a Womble thing to do. We must remedy this. I propose not a one-off reunion, but something we can all do together on a regular basis; something fun that uses our skills; something that will bring us back together again. I spoke to Great Uncle Bulgaria about this. He couldn’t make this evening, but he had a suggestion, and asked you to trust him, and let us help make it happen.”

“Great Uncle Bulgaria” or “Bulgaria” for short, was the alias picked for Dr Sharpe. Nadine knew he’d lost his position at UCL, but she’d no idea what he was up to these days. Tentatively she responded:

“What are you proposing? A weekly virtual coffee morning, rotating between us? If you all have this tiara taste sense thingy, perhaps we could work out a way for you to try some of the stuff I cook?”

Wellington took over:

“For the last 5 years, by far the most popular velife game in China, and much of Asia, has been the ‘Soul Bound’ system, created by XperiSense games. Morob, the initial planet they released, is known as Shèng Shān (or ‘Divine Mountain’). It has a Wuixia theme, with wandering monks, pill creating alchemists, talisman wielding exorcists and many other classes. Players can choose between two races, the individualist Lunadan and the collectivist Zeradan, and strive to self-improve their level and abilities until they become an immortal deity that shapes the very game itself.”

Nadine wrinkled her nose. “Sounds terrible.”

“It isn’t as bad as it sounds. It doesn’t have much of a fixed quest line. Pretty much everything is adaptive or procedurally generated, which means nobody really knows the limits of what can or can’t happen. They make extensive use of expert systems to run the NPCs, with some NPCs wandering around and doing pretty much the same sort of things the players try to do, even joining parties with them. There’s a taboo against mentioning out-of-game stuff while in-game, which makes it a very immersive experience. Significant numbers of people from poorer regions even do it as their full-time employment, working for big clans in-game and being paid for it out-of-game. Best of all, when you disconnect, your character doesn’t disappear in-game. It carries on doing stuff, under the control of an expert system working on your behalf.”

Nadine grinned at the rare sound of emotion in Wellington’s words.

“I can see why that would appeal to computing-types like you, Wellington. But what about everyone else?”

Heather immediately spoke up:

“I want a pet cat. And a unicorn. And a slime. And a dragon. I wanna fly on a dragon!”

Heather hugged herself at the thought, and steered her dolphin in small circles pretending to be a dragon.

“I’ve worked on quite a few projects for XperiSense; they have some cool guys there - it was fun. I want to try fighting against some of the monsters I did motion capture for. It will be like duelling myself!” added Alex.

“Well, I guess I could drop in now and then, maybe try out their cooking system. Wuxia doesn’t really sound my thing, though.” said Nadine, doubtfully.

“Ah, did I not mention? Starting next week they’re launching a whole new world, the planet Covob. Something aimed at Western audiences, with Knights, Merchants, Kings and things. The release is codenamed the Sang Sacré (‘Sacred Blood’) expansion. I think it may have vampires too. Just ‘now and then’ won’t do. Won’t do at all. We need to party together and level up together, for 4-6 hours every day!” Alex enthused.

“What? I can’t do that. I have a business to run. I have to clean, cook, gather ingredients, and tend the bar. I don’t get enough sleep as it is! I love you guys, but I just can’t spare 6 hours every day. Just staying up half of last night to calibrate this thing nearly killed me.”, Nadine protested.

“Never say never!” said Heather. “You’re my bestie. How about I craft you some robots to do the cooking, cleaning and gathering?”

“I like doing the cooking. I’d love to pass up on the cleaning, but I can’t have robots in the building - my main selling point is how traditional it is, and robots really aren’t popular around here. But, I guess something to gather local herbs and food ingredients for me might be ok, if it was stealthy enough and good at identifying which can be safely picked without offending anyone. Thanks, Heather.”

Wellington added “Ok, my turn. You say people won’t accept robots doing the cleaning. But you already have some staff. How about you tell them you’ve got an opportunity to earn some money at an ongoing online job involving singing, and offer them extra hours or ask if they’ve got a young relative interested in earning a bit of money in return for doing cleaning?”

“Um, well, maybe? I could, but it still doesn’t sound all that fun. I wouldn’t be any use to you in-game. I can’t believe just my presence is worth splashing out that much money. I feel ungratefully suspicious, like someone checking the teeth of a gift horse to see how old it really is, but I have to ask. Why this? Why now?”

Alex let out a burst of laughter and pointed at Wellington.

“Ha, I told you. You can’t pull a fast one or bribe our Nadine. The fact is, we don’t know precisely why Bulgaria wants us all in this particular game so much. I owe him, though; his words have guided me well over the years. If he asked me to hunt a tiger and skin it with my bare hands, I’d do it, trusting that he had a good reason to ask it of me. This is nothing.”

“But you don’t need to worry about being useless.” Alex added. “I haven’t told you about the magic system, yet. There are many ways to cast, and one of them is by singing. The game makes full use of the sensing abilities of tiaras. Accurately conveying what you want the spell to do is just one part. It also takes emotion into account. The more powerfully you can project your feelings, the stronger the magic. How does Madame Kafana, spellsinger extraordinaire, sound to you?”

A familiar feeling came back to her, remembered from those days at UCL. It was impossible of course, but…

She threw up her hands in surrender. “One week. Wellington, I’ll accept that money, and see if I can hire anyone for the first week this ’Covob’ opens. If I can, then I’ll give it a try and we’ll see how it goes. Goodness knows an additional revenue stream would be welcome, but not at the expense of the business I’ve spent years building - that comes first.” She wagged a finger at them. “One week, mind, I’m only promising seven days, and you’re all going to have to support me - I’ve never tried this sort of thing before.”

Heather gave a squeal that matched her dolphins: “Eeeeeeeeeeee. This is going to be sooo good. You won’t regret it, I promise...” and chattered on, at a mile a minute.

She let the words wash over her and felt a smile edging its way onto her face, like a long absent relative returning to their place of birth, uncertain of their welcome.

She was no longer alone.