Tricky thing about time, when you've lost track of it tends to fly. This goes double when...
Let's Have Fun (Or, what happens when you have god-like power)
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Ch 1
Tricky thing about time, when you've lost track of it tends to fly. This goes double when you're a god. That goes triple when you literally lose track of time like I did. I'm sure from the outside it looked like one moment there was nothing but shapeless dark and the next there was this big clock merrily ticking away. I can very much assure you that from my perspective it took ages. Or seconds, or years, or millennia. That's what happens when you lose time and have to remake it from hand.
The clock's just decoration by the way. Sure it's technically metaphysically tied to the reality of my world now, but I got the whole thing straight! Just don't look too deeply into the innards of it. The gears don't stop getting smaller and it can get a bit disorientating.
So, introductions here. Hi, I'm god! Well, not your god. Or anyone's god. I've got this lovely little place you'd best describe as a pocket dimension. Inside it I can do anything. Want a cake? I can make a cake. Want a pile of gold? Done! Don't even need to snap my fingers to do it either. I can just will it. I could even make a sun and moon if I wanted to.
Well if I had the space. See my world's not exactly large. Sure you'd consider it massive if you were inside it, but as far as universes go it's actually incredibly tiny. As a little molecule compared to your solar system if you can get your head around that sense of size. Basically it's large enough to put a city in. A small city.
This is quite the problem naturally. I want to make things. I want to make worlds. You can't do that with real-estate the size I've got here. I can't just will it to fix it either. That's just not something I can do. It gives me a headache to try, and I don't even have a head, or a body.
My first thought to fix this was to reach out and grab something from another world. Oh don't worry not yours. I found a little planet a few light years away that I dragged something out of. Thought dragging is inadequate to describe what I did. It was more akin to opening a bit of reality and letting something fall through.
This took forever to learn how to do by the way. I can't effect anything outside my world. In fact anything I make inside my world can't get out. I think it's because the Outside is so big compared to me. It could be because there's some large god that says no. I couldn't say because I can't see them! All I can say is nothing inside goes out!
Outside can come in though. I can't effect it though. That was a bit of a shock, let me tell you. Here I am with a whole lot of dirt making my lovely clock dirty and no way of cleaning it!
It took exactly twenty four hours of my time before I could effect it. Once I could effect it I first cleaned off my clock, and then threw some of the dirt out to test a few things. Well I tried that at least. All that did was make the dirt dissolve into the energy that makes up my world.
I experimented more than a little on this actually, and got very side tracked from my original purpose. Living things get very messy if I feed them by the way. It's not very healthy digesting something and then having it just sort of disappear into nothingness. On the plus side I can copy things pretty easily. Having two identical dogs running around in a playpen is rather entertaining actually. I can even effect things indirectly if I want to. Set them on fire, chop them up, or just give them a shave. The dogs are fine by the way. They get pets and have all the toys they want. So are the cats. Not the pigeons though.
Eventually I came back to my original tests and found that my world had gotten a bit bigger! A tiny bit, not even enough to fit a fingernail in, but it's gotten larger. The trick was finding why.
Basically I need life. More accurately I need life having emotions inside my world that is not something I made. It took more than a few experiments and copious amounts of note taking to figure that out by the way. It doesn't help that animals don't do much at all. People and intelligence are better, and that's really hard to experiment with.
I ended up stalking a few people and abducting them during the night to test that out. I'll admit it wasn't the most ethical thing in the world, but I had a lot of things I needed answers to. I put them in identical rooms that they fell asleep in and tried to evoke a few simple emotional reactions. Nothing harmful, and at worst they felt like they had a nightmare.
I got my answers though. I need people awake, being emotional, and most importantly I couldn't have them inside my world for more than twenty four hours.
Now, being serious here, and as a god I try to be serious, this isn't actually that big an obstacle. I could literally abduct a million humans from earth and they could do nothing to stop me. I wouldn't even have to return them. One million people gone and devoured. I could torment them with unspeakable cruelty and have my world expanded as much as I would like.
That's... Boring.
Yes it's unethical and cruel too. I'd become some sort of boogeyman. I'd also have what I wanted. I'm sure that others could have come up with more creative approaches to be honest. They could make fake paradises or some other nonsense. There are naturally a lot of things they could do. When you're lord of everything in your reality, you aren't constrained by something as simple 'is this possible.'
What I'm going to do is do something fun. For me naturally.
-----
"Good Morning!"
The words that woke him up weren't physically said. It was like feeling a drum beat loudly into his head, and it was that foreign sensation that woke him up as much as anything else. His body shot up in shock and tangled in the sheets.
An alien pulling sensation made him gurgle in surprise and then he found himself looking down at his body. It was that of a teenage boy. Nothing special. Brown hair, brown eyes had they been open. A bit skinny, but his body, which he obviously wasn't in. In his peripheral vision he could see fingers surrounding him, as if his entire skull was being held by a massive hand. Then his vision rotated so that he could see whatever had grabbed him.
By this point the boy would have been gibbering in terror had he been able to. Instead he just screamed inside his head as whatever he had been changed into was turned this way and that. It was formless. A pair of eyes in a cloak. There was nothing beneath the darkness of the cloak, and the hands holding him were just masses of shadows. Completely impossibly inhuman.
"Get to the bottom for answers." The voice 'spoke' again when it seemed to be satisfied, and then the boy was falling and screaming soundlessly as it dropped him. "And before I forget, you'll be back home in six hours!"
He fell down and down and down. Strangely he didn't tumble. He couldn't move or even blink. He couldn't look away as he saw a pure white floor move up to meet him. Then he impacted with a loud and terrible splat. His vision went dark.
For a solid minute he felt pain and agony and was convinced he was dying. Then the pain started to go away and he felt himself able to move again. He put one hand onto the ground tentatively and then finally pulled his face out of the floor. He was able to blink and then shook his head. It felt foreign beyond belief. This wasn't his body!
Another blink as something occurred to him. He looked down at his hands as he levered himself to a kneeling position. He looked a bit like a grey clay statue. One hand grabbed the finger of his other hand and pulled. The sensation was indescribable. As was the feeling of watching your finger stretch.
A few more movements confirmed that the rest of his body followed the same rules. It was like he was made of stretchy clay, or perhaps like one of those very old school toys that could stretch all over.
'I'm a loony toon.' He tried to speak as the realization came to him.
On the heels of that statement came the panic again. He clutched at his throat and tried to speak or breath. The realization that he could do neither was more than a little scary, but after the initial panic it didn't seem that he needed to breath. It was very disturbing.
'Get to the bottom for answers?'
That was the thought that came through his head. The boy, or rather clay man, got to his feet and began to look around. Above him was black shadow. There was light coming from a bright light up in the ceiling. It wasn't a sun. More like a massive lamp. Around him was white flooring with occasional block like breaks. He could see a large pillar with a staircase attached to it in the center of wherever he was and not much else.
Exploration discovered that he had no idea how long the white flooring went. Since he didn't want to lose sight of the one landmark he had, he didn't go too far. Instead he tentatively looked down the stairs. It was well lit at least.
'Well, nothing for it.' He thought to himself, wishing he could speak.
The silence was getting a bit unnerving. As was the rest of this situation. He already wanted to go home.
What was down the stairs took his breath away though. The first floor was a massive room. A waterfall poured into a pool, and the sound was a welcome relief from the dead silence outside. He could see colors aside from white and black too. A color wheel dominated a side of the wall, and a series of brushes were right in front of it. In another place was a series of cylinders. Each one of them held a figure made out of grey.
Tentatively the teenager, now clay-man, moved to the cylinders. There was a pictograph on a console in front of them and series of buttons. It took a moment to decipher them.
'I can change bodies?' He blinked and then looked at one of the bodies.
The possibilities came to him in a rush and he poured over the instructions. The buttons all had pictures next to them, and there were more instructions elsewhere in the massive room. The bodies looked like clay because they were clay! He could sculpt his own body if he wanted to, or even have something else do it for him! The color wheel was made to even give his body color!
He didn't even realize it when six hours had passed to be honest. The changeover was disorientating though. One moment he was making the perfect body, and the next he was lurching awake and slapping at an alarm clock.
It felt almost like a dream, and he went through the rest of the day in a daze. Then he woke up again in the clay body again, right in front of his unfinished work.
(AN: Sooo, this is just for fun and hopefully so I can get back into writing. I've been in a horrible slump lately and have been basically unable to do anything lately.)
The clock's just decoration by the way. Sure it's technically metaphysically tied to the reality of my world now, but I got the whole thing straight! Just don't look too deeply into the innards of it. The gears don't stop getting smaller and it can get a bit disorientating.
So, introductions here. Hi, I'm god! Well, not your god. Or anyone's god. I've got this lovely little place you'd best describe as a pocket dimension. Inside it I can do anything. Want a cake? I can make a cake. Want a pile of gold? Done! Don't even need to snap my fingers to do it either. I can just will it. I could even make a sun and moon if I wanted to.
Well if I had the space. See my world's not exactly large. Sure you'd consider it massive if you were inside it, but as far as universes go it's actually incredibly tiny. As a little molecule compared to your solar system if you can get your head around that sense of size. Basically it's large enough to put a city in. A small city.
This is quite the problem naturally. I want to make things. I want to make worlds. You can't do that with real-estate the size I've got here. I can't just will it to fix it either. That's just not something I can do. It gives me a headache to try, and I don't even have a head, or a body.
My first thought to fix this was to reach out and grab something from another world. Oh don't worry not yours. I found a little planet a few light years away that I dragged something out of. Thought dragging is inadequate to describe what I did. It was more akin to opening a bit of reality and letting something fall through.
This took forever to learn how to do by the way. I can't effect anything outside my world. In fact anything I make inside my world can't get out. I think it's because the Outside is so big compared to me. It could be because there's some large god that says no. I couldn't say because I can't see them! All I can say is nothing inside goes out!
Outside can come in though. I can't effect it though. That was a bit of a shock, let me tell you. Here I am with a whole lot of dirt making my lovely clock dirty and no way of cleaning it!
It took exactly twenty four hours of my time before I could effect it. Once I could effect it I first cleaned off my clock, and then threw some of the dirt out to test a few things. Well I tried that at least. All that did was make the dirt dissolve into the energy that makes up my world.
I experimented more than a little on this actually, and got very side tracked from my original purpose. Living things get very messy if I feed them by the way. It's not very healthy digesting something and then having it just sort of disappear into nothingness. On the plus side I can copy things pretty easily. Having two identical dogs running around in a playpen is rather entertaining actually. I can even effect things indirectly if I want to. Set them on fire, chop them up, or just give them a shave. The dogs are fine by the way. They get pets and have all the toys they want. So are the cats. Not the pigeons though.
Eventually I came back to my original tests and found that my world had gotten a bit bigger! A tiny bit, not even enough to fit a fingernail in, but it's gotten larger. The trick was finding why.
Basically I need life. More accurately I need life having emotions inside my world that is not something I made. It took more than a few experiments and copious amounts of note taking to figure that out by the way. It doesn't help that animals don't do much at all. People and intelligence are better, and that's really hard to experiment with.
I ended up stalking a few people and abducting them during the night to test that out. I'll admit it wasn't the most ethical thing in the world, but I had a lot of things I needed answers to. I put them in identical rooms that they fell asleep in and tried to evoke a few simple emotional reactions. Nothing harmful, and at worst they felt like they had a nightmare.
I got my answers though. I need people awake, being emotional, and most importantly I couldn't have them inside my world for more than twenty four hours.
Now, being serious here, and as a god I try to be serious, this isn't actually that big an obstacle. I could literally abduct a million humans from earth and they could do nothing to stop me. I wouldn't even have to return them. One million people gone and devoured. I could torment them with unspeakable cruelty and have my world expanded as much as I would like.
That's... Boring.
Yes it's unethical and cruel too. I'd become some sort of boogeyman. I'd also have what I wanted. I'm sure that others could have come up with more creative approaches to be honest. They could make fake paradises or some other nonsense. There are naturally a lot of things they could do. When you're lord of everything in your reality, you aren't constrained by something as simple 'is this possible.'
What I'm going to do is do something fun. For me naturally.
-----
"Good Morning!"
The words that woke him up weren't physically said. It was like feeling a drum beat loudly into his head, and it was that foreign sensation that woke him up as much as anything else. His body shot up in shock and tangled in the sheets.
An alien pulling sensation made him gurgle in surprise and then he found himself looking down at his body. It was that of a teenage boy. Nothing special. Brown hair, brown eyes had they been open. A bit skinny, but his body, which he obviously wasn't in. In his peripheral vision he could see fingers surrounding him, as if his entire skull was being held by a massive hand. Then his vision rotated so that he could see whatever had grabbed him.
By this point the boy would have been gibbering in terror had he been able to. Instead he just screamed inside his head as whatever he had been changed into was turned this way and that. It was formless. A pair of eyes in a cloak. There was nothing beneath the darkness of the cloak, and the hands holding him were just masses of shadows. Completely impossibly inhuman.
"Get to the bottom for answers." The voice 'spoke' again when it seemed to be satisfied, and then the boy was falling and screaming soundlessly as it dropped him. "And before I forget, you'll be back home in six hours!"
He fell down and down and down. Strangely he didn't tumble. He couldn't move or even blink. He couldn't look away as he saw a pure white floor move up to meet him. Then he impacted with a loud and terrible splat. His vision went dark.
For a solid minute he felt pain and agony and was convinced he was dying. Then the pain started to go away and he felt himself able to move again. He put one hand onto the ground tentatively and then finally pulled his face out of the floor. He was able to blink and then shook his head. It felt foreign beyond belief. This wasn't his body!
Another blink as something occurred to him. He looked down at his hands as he levered himself to a kneeling position. He looked a bit like a grey clay statue. One hand grabbed the finger of his other hand and pulled. The sensation was indescribable. As was the feeling of watching your finger stretch.
A few more movements confirmed that the rest of his body followed the same rules. It was like he was made of stretchy clay, or perhaps like one of those very old school toys that could stretch all over.
'I'm a loony toon.' He tried to speak as the realization came to him.
On the heels of that statement came the panic again. He clutched at his throat and tried to speak or breath. The realization that he could do neither was more than a little scary, but after the initial panic it didn't seem that he needed to breath. It was very disturbing.
'Get to the bottom for answers?'
That was the thought that came through his head. The boy, or rather clay man, got to his feet and began to look around. Above him was black shadow. There was light coming from a bright light up in the ceiling. It wasn't a sun. More like a massive lamp. Around him was white flooring with occasional block like breaks. He could see a large pillar with a staircase attached to it in the center of wherever he was and not much else.
Exploration discovered that he had no idea how long the white flooring went. Since he didn't want to lose sight of the one landmark he had, he didn't go too far. Instead he tentatively looked down the stairs. It was well lit at least.
'Well, nothing for it.' He thought to himself, wishing he could speak.
The silence was getting a bit unnerving. As was the rest of this situation. He already wanted to go home.
What was down the stairs took his breath away though. The first floor was a massive room. A waterfall poured into a pool, and the sound was a welcome relief from the dead silence outside. He could see colors aside from white and black too. A color wheel dominated a side of the wall, and a series of brushes were right in front of it. In another place was a series of cylinders. Each one of them held a figure made out of grey.
Tentatively the teenager, now clay-man, moved to the cylinders. There was a pictograph on a console in front of them and series of buttons. It took a moment to decipher them.
'I can change bodies?' He blinked and then looked at one of the bodies.
The possibilities came to him in a rush and he poured over the instructions. The buttons all had pictures next to them, and there were more instructions elsewhere in the massive room. The bodies looked like clay because they were clay! He could sculpt his own body if he wanted to, or even have something else do it for him! The color wheel was made to even give his body color!
He didn't even realize it when six hours had passed to be honest. The changeover was disorientating though. One moment he was making the perfect body, and the next he was lurching awake and slapping at an alarm clock.
It felt almost like a dream, and he went through the rest of the day in a daze. Then he woke up again in the clay body again, right in front of his unfinished work.
(AN: Sooo, this is just for fun and hopefully so I can get back into writing. I've been in a horrible slump lately and have been basically unable to do anything lately.)
CH 2
Ok, I maaaay have screwed up. I'm an omnipotent deity, not an omniscient. Well almost omnipotent. Limited omnipotent? Nearly omnipotent? I digress.
I've slowed down time by a looooot to figure out where I went wrong. On the surface of things I sort of got everything arranged for a fun game. I got a thousand people who are going to be dropped in when they sleep. Some slight of hand and time manipulation let them spend a minute outside and six hours inside. I seal their bodies up in a sort of interface and then use my godlike powers to have them pilot a puppet. Easy peasy.
The puppet can be upgraded, colored, customized, and done any way they want. I've even put in provisions so that they could theoretically fly, and of course do magic with them! Those are all rewards inside the big maze. The big block they get dropped on. Considering how big the block is, I'd guess it'd take maybe a year to get through, give or take. Someone could theoretically get through the entire thing in about a session, but they'd have to know every single twist and turn. With six hours per session I don't think that would be possible.
If all went well I'd have a thousand people going through my maze each day of outside time. Inside time it'd be a thousand days, but with time you can do a lot of shenanigans. Shenanigans I say!
On the face of it it looked right. I had rewards, I had incentive, and I had a captive audience. I targeted a good thousand young men with little prospects for this project. Theoretically they'd be the best subjects. Adventurous, reckless, and frankly a bit expendable. Basically those young men you see around the world who are going to be going nowhere.
About half of them curled up in a little ball and did nothing. The puppets are immortal and the pain threshold wasn't particularly high. Enough to say you did something wrong. The dropping them onto the block was for more reasons than fun! Sure they look funny going splat, but it showed them that they were practically immortal.
The other half went into the first floor and just basically stayed there. I wouldn't mind that if they weren't just sort of staying there. A grand total of one hundred people tried to create a new body. Those I liked. However, only ten people tried to move down a floor.
I gave it a few sessions before I figured out that everything wasn't going to way I wanted. I got a few people moving more, but that's it. There are two dozen people out of a thousand actually enjoying this scenario.
Now I could push them harder. As a point of pride I don't want to though. Anyone can push people through pain. I don't want blind adherence through fear. I want creativity! I want spontaneity! I want people having fun!
So I need to instill some more motivation. Thrill of exploration will only do so much. Let's go over motivations. Greed, lust, power, erm... I can't think of anything else. Greed isn't working at the moment. Lust...
Well, I've had a few of the more motivated boys making female bodies, but I'm very much ignoring that thank you very much. No creating what amounts to sex slaves. No creating slaves in general. I'm not making life wholesale for a specific task even if I could. When I make life they're going to have the freedom of they're own choice. If my victims, er subjects want sex they'll have to get it their own way. More power to them if they decide that's through shape-shifting! Let's move on before I feel more dirty.
So power? No, power won't work either. They honestly have a lot of power right now believe it or not, or rather they have the potential for it. Once they finish the maze they'll be pretty strong depending on how creative they are.
I'm more than a little stumped. I mean I could try to leverage the community aspect, but technically I have one person in at a time. Having them talk with one another would more than a little hard. I can't reverse time much as it'd help. Well, not unless I want to go back to losing track of time and getting all muddled again.
Should I get them a pet they have to feed? No, that wouldn't necessarily give them incentive. Though I do throw a few ways to make pets into the maze rewards.
Think. Think. I need them running like good rats in the maze without playing shock collar. I regret making the puppets self sustaining now to be honest. It'd be easy to have hunger be an incentive. I might actually have to just let the non-participants get out and grab more people.
You know what? I forgot. I need people here and having emotions. I don't need them to play whatever game I devise. Instead I need to push them to do anything they want instead.
-----
He was starting to get a sense of the strange circumstances he was in now. He was a clay figure. He was in the grips of some made god or something like that. He was alone in a room with a very scary looking way down.
He also had the ability to be whatever he wanted. Right now he was working on his new body. It was a mishmash of different ideals. As much as he'd hate to call himself a furry, it'd sort of end up like that. He thought it looked cool and rather scary. A big black and red wolf-man was pretty cool right? He was just sort of hesitating to change to it.
Eventually he couldn't delay it anymore. He placed a hand on the alter and then felt a brief transition. The sensation was like being blindfolded and thrown in a different direction. It lasted just a brief second before he was in a new body and his previous one was on the ground.
He took a step and fell down with a grunt of pain.
"Ow!" His voice growled out and he blinked. "I can talk!"
He laughed and got to his feet before falling down again with a thump. He whimpered in pain. Ok, apparently the dog nose was sensitive and he'd messed up on the feet. The wolf legs looked cool though! He scrambled against the floor some and tried to walk again.
A few steps later had him figuring out that he was walking wrong with them. He was sort of walking on his tiptoes while doing it, but there was a bit more muscle and leverage than he was used to. The movement was surprisingly easy once he got used to it, though he didn't trust himself running like this. He also felt a lot stronger, though that was hard to tell with nothing to test himself on. Now if he could only figure out why the tail was wagging. He wasn't controlling it at all.
There was a loud click and one of his ears flicked in that direction without him directing it. He turned and bared his teeth in another instinctual action before blinking at the new door to his 'room.' It looked a lot different than the frankly intimidating stairs downward, so he took a few tentative steps forward and peaked in.
Inside were what looked to be almost hundreds of tubes. Each of them contained another clay figure and actual writing instead of pictographs! He practically dashed into the room as he tried to figure out what was going on.
"Reward for changing your body for the first time?" The wolf-man looked down at one of the flashing tubes. "One knowledge sphere?"
He tilted his head curiously and then pushed a button with one of his clawed hands. He also made a note to tone down the claws. They weren't exactly easy to manipulate. The tube opened and he saw a strange glowing sphere hovering in midair. After a moment he poked at it and it dropped down to the ground dull.
Afraid that he broke it, the wolf-man lunged at it quickly. Some instinct almost had him grab it with his mouth before common sense had him actually pick it up. the sphere lit up again and this time he saw something else too. A familiar looking menu appeared in front of him. It was like seeing a DVD player's introduction menu in front of him.
"How to adjust your body to your liking, and available customization..." The wolf-man read out-loud and then laughed as he looked up at the sky. "You're watching this aren't you?"
Well, he couldn't be angry at being given an instruction manual at least. The wolf-man moved to another tube and looked at the text. A reward for getting past the first floor. A reward for finding your first energy sphere. A reward for making your first item. A reward for learning how to fly?
Well, at least he had directions. And the rewards were either energy, knowledge, or apparently 'custom made forms.' Which he assumed were done better than the initial one. The wolf-man gave a growl before he sighed to himself. He was interested now.
"All right. I'll play your game."
I've slowed down time by a looooot to figure out where I went wrong. On the surface of things I sort of got everything arranged for a fun game. I got a thousand people who are going to be dropped in when they sleep. Some slight of hand and time manipulation let them spend a minute outside and six hours inside. I seal their bodies up in a sort of interface and then use my godlike powers to have them pilot a puppet. Easy peasy.
The puppet can be upgraded, colored, customized, and done any way they want. I've even put in provisions so that they could theoretically fly, and of course do magic with them! Those are all rewards inside the big maze. The big block they get dropped on. Considering how big the block is, I'd guess it'd take maybe a year to get through, give or take. Someone could theoretically get through the entire thing in about a session, but they'd have to know every single twist and turn. With six hours per session I don't think that would be possible.
If all went well I'd have a thousand people going through my maze each day of outside time. Inside time it'd be a thousand days, but with time you can do a lot of shenanigans. Shenanigans I say!
On the face of it it looked right. I had rewards, I had incentive, and I had a captive audience. I targeted a good thousand young men with little prospects for this project. Theoretically they'd be the best subjects. Adventurous, reckless, and frankly a bit expendable. Basically those young men you see around the world who are going to be going nowhere.
About half of them curled up in a little ball and did nothing. The puppets are immortal and the pain threshold wasn't particularly high. Enough to say you did something wrong. The dropping them onto the block was for more reasons than fun! Sure they look funny going splat, but it showed them that they were practically immortal.
The other half went into the first floor and just basically stayed there. I wouldn't mind that if they weren't just sort of staying there. A grand total of one hundred people tried to create a new body. Those I liked. However, only ten people tried to move down a floor.
I gave it a few sessions before I figured out that everything wasn't going to way I wanted. I got a few people moving more, but that's it. There are two dozen people out of a thousand actually enjoying this scenario.
Now I could push them harder. As a point of pride I don't want to though. Anyone can push people through pain. I don't want blind adherence through fear. I want creativity! I want spontaneity! I want people having fun!
So I need to instill some more motivation. Thrill of exploration will only do so much. Let's go over motivations. Greed, lust, power, erm... I can't think of anything else. Greed isn't working at the moment. Lust...
Well, I've had a few of the more motivated boys making female bodies, but I'm very much ignoring that thank you very much. No creating what amounts to sex slaves. No creating slaves in general. I'm not making life wholesale for a specific task even if I could. When I make life they're going to have the freedom of they're own choice. If my victims, er subjects want sex they'll have to get it their own way. More power to them if they decide that's through shape-shifting! Let's move on before I feel more dirty.
So power? No, power won't work either. They honestly have a lot of power right now believe it or not, or rather they have the potential for it. Once they finish the maze they'll be pretty strong depending on how creative they are.
I'm more than a little stumped. I mean I could try to leverage the community aspect, but technically I have one person in at a time. Having them talk with one another would more than a little hard. I can't reverse time much as it'd help. Well, not unless I want to go back to losing track of time and getting all muddled again.
Should I get them a pet they have to feed? No, that wouldn't necessarily give them incentive. Though I do throw a few ways to make pets into the maze rewards.
Think. Think. I need them running like good rats in the maze without playing shock collar. I regret making the puppets self sustaining now to be honest. It'd be easy to have hunger be an incentive. I might actually have to just let the non-participants get out and grab more people.
You know what? I forgot. I need people here and having emotions. I don't need them to play whatever game I devise. Instead I need to push them to do anything they want instead.
-----
He was starting to get a sense of the strange circumstances he was in now. He was a clay figure. He was in the grips of some made god or something like that. He was alone in a room with a very scary looking way down.
He also had the ability to be whatever he wanted. Right now he was working on his new body. It was a mishmash of different ideals. As much as he'd hate to call himself a furry, it'd sort of end up like that. He thought it looked cool and rather scary. A big black and red wolf-man was pretty cool right? He was just sort of hesitating to change to it.
Eventually he couldn't delay it anymore. He placed a hand on the alter and then felt a brief transition. The sensation was like being blindfolded and thrown in a different direction. It lasted just a brief second before he was in a new body and his previous one was on the ground.
He took a step and fell down with a grunt of pain.
"Ow!" His voice growled out and he blinked. "I can talk!"
He laughed and got to his feet before falling down again with a thump. He whimpered in pain. Ok, apparently the dog nose was sensitive and he'd messed up on the feet. The wolf legs looked cool though! He scrambled against the floor some and tried to walk again.
A few steps later had him figuring out that he was walking wrong with them. He was sort of walking on his tiptoes while doing it, but there was a bit more muscle and leverage than he was used to. The movement was surprisingly easy once he got used to it, though he didn't trust himself running like this. He also felt a lot stronger, though that was hard to tell with nothing to test himself on. Now if he could only figure out why the tail was wagging. He wasn't controlling it at all.
There was a loud click and one of his ears flicked in that direction without him directing it. He turned and bared his teeth in another instinctual action before blinking at the new door to his 'room.' It looked a lot different than the frankly intimidating stairs downward, so he took a few tentative steps forward and peaked in.
Inside were what looked to be almost hundreds of tubes. Each of them contained another clay figure and actual writing instead of pictographs! He practically dashed into the room as he tried to figure out what was going on.
"Reward for changing your body for the first time?" The wolf-man looked down at one of the flashing tubes. "One knowledge sphere?"
He tilted his head curiously and then pushed a button with one of his clawed hands. He also made a note to tone down the claws. They weren't exactly easy to manipulate. The tube opened and he saw a strange glowing sphere hovering in midair. After a moment he poked at it and it dropped down to the ground dull.
Afraid that he broke it, the wolf-man lunged at it quickly. Some instinct almost had him grab it with his mouth before common sense had him actually pick it up. the sphere lit up again and this time he saw something else too. A familiar looking menu appeared in front of him. It was like seeing a DVD player's introduction menu in front of him.
"How to adjust your body to your liking, and available customization..." The wolf-man read out-loud and then laughed as he looked up at the sky. "You're watching this aren't you?"
Well, he couldn't be angry at being given an instruction manual at least. The wolf-man moved to another tube and looked at the text. A reward for getting past the first floor. A reward for finding your first energy sphere. A reward for making your first item. A reward for learning how to fly?
Well, at least he had directions. And the rewards were either energy, knowledge, or apparently 'custom made forms.' Which he assumed were done better than the initial one. The wolf-man gave a growl before he sighed to himself. He was interested now.
"All right. I'll play your game."
Ch 3
I'm so bussssy! You'd think that having only one person inside at a time would make things easier, but I'm just barely keeping up! I'm probably going to have to time dilate even more at some points.
On the plus side things are going decently. I've gotten participation up to around ninety percent through bribes, cajoling, and in a few cases actually talking a bit. Those last talks were awkward since I had to be sorta all mysterious and everything. Gotta keep up the mystique! The last few I'm going to offer a way out and then just write them off.
Part of why I'm so busy is me trying to automate a lot of this. I might not be making intelligence to do work for me, but when you can make a thousand commands and what if statements in a second it's functionally the same. For the most part I'm trying to make a system that I can throw people into and have them do things. These guys are basically my alpha testers! Yay them, they should be so proud! I'll give them participation trophies.
Speaking of automating things, I've been trying to make the maze generated based off what each person does. I did have the same maze for each person, but that's boring, and actually a bit counter to what I'm now encouraging. Basically I want everyone to do their own thing and be rewarded. So the mazes now have to have a way of progressing based off what everyone is doing with the potential to account for sudden changes. This is a tall tall order naturally. Fortunately slight of hand works in my favor here. If they've explored a room it's not going to change. Future rooms can change though.
And I am planning quite a bit for the future! My world's size is expanding nicely. Predicting things, I'll be able to have enough space for a planet soon. Not enough to have a moon though, which means I'm going to have think hard on what I want done in the next phase. My initial thoughts were to create a solar system and just drop them on a planet. I'm not expanding that fast, and it's only going to be slower even if I rapidly increase the number of people I have. There's a big difference between a sun and moon, and a few light seconds of space. Especially since I'm increasing area.
Damn me. I'm going to have to do math and make a graph.
-------
He huffed, and puffed, and then sneezed as the foreign scent hit his nose. The wolf snout had been an interesting idea so far. In fact he'd go so far as to say that the snout was near perfect for what he was doing. It was just a pain figuring out how to use his nose to scent things. He had to learn new scents part by part since this body did things differently and scents didn't quite translate right.
He'd be lying if he said it wasn't fun though. With the enhanced knowledge he'd been able to enhance his first attempt at a body. He was now stronger, faster, and more durable than anything human. He could scent things like a bloodhound, and the few times he'd tested it he'd been able to bite through what amounted to bone. Combined with the energy spheres and he was like a superhero. Or super monster considering his appearance.
Right now he was hunting one of the energy spheres. The room he was in was a large and wide open field, completely with grass, the occasional tree, and a fake sun. There were even a few rabbits and other creatures bouncing around the place. In short it was an idealistic and relaxing area to rest in. He'd already found the exit in the place. He'd just noticed an unusual scent and caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eyes. Now he'd caught it again, and unusual typically meant energy sphere.
A deep sniff had his pointing his nose in a different area as he finally found a direction. His pawed feet dug into the soft earth and his legs sped into a blur as he sprinted. The fields and grass sped by as he spotted his quarry.
A pure white stag looked at him without emotion. Right between it's large horns and hovering in place with little crackles of electricity was a glowing silver sphere the size of a golf ball. An energy sphere, and his target. The construct's horns crackled with electricity and shot towards him as he charged.
Caught off guard, he couldn't do more than take the attack head on. The shock made his entire body spasm and twitch. He dropped to the ground and whimpered in pain as he tried to move properly. He could hear the stag bounding away, and he grunted as he pulled himself onto his feet painfully.
"Ok Bambi, you're dead." He growled loudly to himself and began to dash again.
This time when he was close to the stag he was ready for the electricity. The second it started to build up he inhaled and activated the energy sphere he'd installed on his body. The power flared in his throat, hot and crackling, and then he yelled.
What escaped his mouth wasn't sound though. Instead a blast of air washed across the pristine field and frost followed in it's wake. The stag flinched as it's entire body was coated with a layer of hoarfrost. After a moment it recovered and shot the electricity attack at him again.
He was too close by this point for it to stop him though. The bolt of lightning hit his side and caused him to lose his balance, but he was able to impact into the stag's body. It tumbled to the ground and he lunged forward in a bite. His teeth sank into the stag's body and ripped through a leg. The false flesh tore under his teeth and he was treated to the unpleasant sensation of having a mouthful of clay.
The damage was enough to cause the stag to fall as it tried to leap. A living creature would probably have tried to recover or screamed in pain from the loss of a leg. The stag just defaulted to trying to shock him again.
"I am so glad you're not alive."
He muttered those words to himself as he bent over to pull off the creature's head. It was really really hard to destroy something made of the strange false flesh, but it wasn't particularly disgusting either. Sort of like breaking a really stretchy clay figurine with some parts that were harder than others. You could customize it, but he hadn't seen any of it active aside from the rewards.
A few shocks later the construct was disabled and he had an energy sphere in his hand. His third. One had increased his physical capabilities. The second had given him the hoarfrost attack he'd used.
"I feel like I have a new talent point in a game." He realized as he held the sphere and chuckled to himself.
At least he could do whatever tree he wanted. Though he considering that the frost attack hadn't been that successful, he probably should see if he could upgrade that. He'd have to head back to the base to do that though.
"I don't suppose you could make a hearthstone could you?" He asked the empty air.
There was a chime and something dropped onto his head. A white stone with a swirl on it bounced into the air and then landed on the ground with a thump. It lit up from the outside inside once before going dark.
"So you are listening! Hey bastard, give me answers!"
He flinched as another stone dropped onto his head. Growling, the wolf-man then yelped as a veritable waterfall of rocks started to fall down. Very quickly he was buried underneath the stones. It wasn't painful, just mildly irritating. Though knowing something was laughing at him made it far worse.
On the plus side things are going decently. I've gotten participation up to around ninety percent through bribes, cajoling, and in a few cases actually talking a bit. Those last talks were awkward since I had to be sorta all mysterious and everything. Gotta keep up the mystique! The last few I'm going to offer a way out and then just write them off.
Part of why I'm so busy is me trying to automate a lot of this. I might not be making intelligence to do work for me, but when you can make a thousand commands and what if statements in a second it's functionally the same. For the most part I'm trying to make a system that I can throw people into and have them do things. These guys are basically my alpha testers! Yay them, they should be so proud! I'll give them participation trophies.
Speaking of automating things, I've been trying to make the maze generated based off what each person does. I did have the same maze for each person, but that's boring, and actually a bit counter to what I'm now encouraging. Basically I want everyone to do their own thing and be rewarded. So the mazes now have to have a way of progressing based off what everyone is doing with the potential to account for sudden changes. This is a tall tall order naturally. Fortunately slight of hand works in my favor here. If they've explored a room it's not going to change. Future rooms can change though.
And I am planning quite a bit for the future! My world's size is expanding nicely. Predicting things, I'll be able to have enough space for a planet soon. Not enough to have a moon though, which means I'm going to have think hard on what I want done in the next phase. My initial thoughts were to create a solar system and just drop them on a planet. I'm not expanding that fast, and it's only going to be slower even if I rapidly increase the number of people I have. There's a big difference between a sun and moon, and a few light seconds of space. Especially since I'm increasing area.
Damn me. I'm going to have to do math and make a graph.
-------
He huffed, and puffed, and then sneezed as the foreign scent hit his nose. The wolf snout had been an interesting idea so far. In fact he'd go so far as to say that the snout was near perfect for what he was doing. It was just a pain figuring out how to use his nose to scent things. He had to learn new scents part by part since this body did things differently and scents didn't quite translate right.
He'd be lying if he said it wasn't fun though. With the enhanced knowledge he'd been able to enhance his first attempt at a body. He was now stronger, faster, and more durable than anything human. He could scent things like a bloodhound, and the few times he'd tested it he'd been able to bite through what amounted to bone. Combined with the energy spheres and he was like a superhero. Or super monster considering his appearance.
Right now he was hunting one of the energy spheres. The room he was in was a large and wide open field, completely with grass, the occasional tree, and a fake sun. There were even a few rabbits and other creatures bouncing around the place. In short it was an idealistic and relaxing area to rest in. He'd already found the exit in the place. He'd just noticed an unusual scent and caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eyes. Now he'd caught it again, and unusual typically meant energy sphere.
A deep sniff had his pointing his nose in a different area as he finally found a direction. His pawed feet dug into the soft earth and his legs sped into a blur as he sprinted. The fields and grass sped by as he spotted his quarry.
A pure white stag looked at him without emotion. Right between it's large horns and hovering in place with little crackles of electricity was a glowing silver sphere the size of a golf ball. An energy sphere, and his target. The construct's horns crackled with electricity and shot towards him as he charged.
Caught off guard, he couldn't do more than take the attack head on. The shock made his entire body spasm and twitch. He dropped to the ground and whimpered in pain as he tried to move properly. He could hear the stag bounding away, and he grunted as he pulled himself onto his feet painfully.
"Ok Bambi, you're dead." He growled loudly to himself and began to dash again.
This time when he was close to the stag he was ready for the electricity. The second it started to build up he inhaled and activated the energy sphere he'd installed on his body. The power flared in his throat, hot and crackling, and then he yelled.
What escaped his mouth wasn't sound though. Instead a blast of air washed across the pristine field and frost followed in it's wake. The stag flinched as it's entire body was coated with a layer of hoarfrost. After a moment it recovered and shot the electricity attack at him again.
He was too close by this point for it to stop him though. The bolt of lightning hit his side and caused him to lose his balance, but he was able to impact into the stag's body. It tumbled to the ground and he lunged forward in a bite. His teeth sank into the stag's body and ripped through a leg. The false flesh tore under his teeth and he was treated to the unpleasant sensation of having a mouthful of clay.
The damage was enough to cause the stag to fall as it tried to leap. A living creature would probably have tried to recover or screamed in pain from the loss of a leg. The stag just defaulted to trying to shock him again.
"I am so glad you're not alive."
He muttered those words to himself as he bent over to pull off the creature's head. It was really really hard to destroy something made of the strange false flesh, but it wasn't particularly disgusting either. Sort of like breaking a really stretchy clay figurine with some parts that were harder than others. You could customize it, but he hadn't seen any of it active aside from the rewards.
A few shocks later the construct was disabled and he had an energy sphere in his hand. His third. One had increased his physical capabilities. The second had given him the hoarfrost attack he'd used.
"I feel like I have a new talent point in a game." He realized as he held the sphere and chuckled to himself.
At least he could do whatever tree he wanted. Though he considering that the frost attack hadn't been that successful, he probably should see if he could upgrade that. He'd have to head back to the base to do that though.
"I don't suppose you could make a hearthstone could you?" He asked the empty air.
There was a chime and something dropped onto his head. A white stone with a swirl on it bounced into the air and then landed on the ground with a thump. It lit up from the outside inside once before going dark.
"So you are listening! Hey bastard, give me answers!"
He flinched as another stone dropped onto his head. Growling, the wolf-man then yelped as a veritable waterfall of rocks started to fall down. Very quickly he was buried underneath the stones. It wasn't painful, just mildly irritating. Though knowing something was laughing at him made it far worse.
Ch 4
My personal favorite is the guy who's turning himself into a dragon. Not a person with dragon features. Not someone with wings. Full dragon with fire breathing and more. I actually had to add a few mass upgrades to give him the ability to do that. I had enough for a good sized man, not the truck sized thing he's trying to become. I'm probably going to limit it at some point, but so far he's enjoying himself and that's fine with me.
My second favorite is the guy who's going full on wizard. As in pointy hat, long beard, and more. Considering he's not yet twenty, this is very amusing. I'll fully admit that he's doing the archetype proud though. He's really pushing the limits on what I've been doing with the energy spheres, and more than once I've had to adjust things on the fly to make something he wanted. It's helped me iron out a lot of things.
I got a guy who's focusing on a lot of pets, and calls them his pocket monsters. A guy who's playing as a girl with the most ridiculous boobs ever. A wolf man, and more than a few other furry people. All told I have a lot of variety, and that's with just one thousand people. It's going to get interesting once I expand.
I'm going to give a special commendation to the guy that likes to grow things and wanted to just make a garden. It took a lot of work on both our ends, but I'm going to fully appreciate the way he pushed my notions with that. So many ideas there, with exploding raspberries, because why not?
I also have boring people too. I'm letting them be boring. It gives me more time to work. I need planet ideas.
Oh, OHHH, I finally figured out how I can effect the other world now! I can just grab stuff, adjust it like you would if you didn't have godly powers, and push it out. I feel rather silly that I didn't think up that earlier. I mean I was doing it already, I just didn't think to use it for possible rewards or something like that.
Well I don't plan on doing it anytime soon, but it's something to keep in mind for later.
----
Today was the day he was going to get to the end. He'd optimized his body. He'd made a mental map of the rooms and various pitfalls and obstacles. Most importantly he'd been very careful not to indicate that this was what he was doing beforehand. He'd had a sneaking suspicion that the maze was being adjusted to make it harder on him, so he was going to be very careful.
Throwing himself over the edge of the maze few times had been instructive. And terrifying. He'd been able to get a sense of size. It was a rather large cube, and he'd made a mental map of the rooms he had found. The end was directly below him, at the bottom of the cube. He'd even gotten a confirmation based on the unlocked items he'd taken to calling achievements. You couldn't get to the end by flying to the bottom by the way.
Now was the time to put his plan into action. The wolf-man inhaled a few times to get his breath going and then began to sprint as fast as possible down the first set of stairs. Midway through the sprint his arms started to drop and he let himself shift into a four legged lope that was even faster. It wasn't something he could do in his normal body, but he'd optimized this one to do it. It made the arms look a bit different, but he could move so much better this way.
The first obstacle was just a room with a few deep holes. Nothing fancy or even particularly daunting. It had still taken him literal days to get through because there was no easy was to make a bridge. Now he just leaped over it and went through one door.
He had to bounce off the wall there, all four limbs twisting and with him as he used the surface to keep momentum, and even speed up. His breath came in slow and steady, and he could feel the burn of the energy cores in his body. Each one of them made him stronger and faster. All placed to the best of his ability to make him a monster capable of going fast enough to become a blur in midair. He wasn't breaking the sound barrier, but he was certainly beating a few cars.
This speed was put to good use as he ran down a twisted maze like series of tunnels. Left turn, right turn, down stairs, through a tunnel that needed him to be on all fours. Here the light flickered and scent was the best way to travel.
Next was a personal favorite. A idealistic field that stretched out quite a ways. He'd spent more than a few days here practicing how to move. It was fun and always pleasant. He wasn't going to linger this time though. He continued to sprint and picked up even more speed.
The next room was the 'painful room.' It was one of the rooms where he'd found out that he'd been given a re-spawn system. Inside was a massive lizard with teeth. A boss battle if you will. The thing re-spawned if it was killed, and was a real monster to take down. Armored, spiny, and strong. It had no real special abilities, but it didn't typically need him. There were other, easier paths around the thing, but this monster was the quickest way to the end.
He barreled into it at full speed. The kinetic force was such that the thing was actually knocked back a moment. His body creaked alarmingly, but held. Up close and personal he couldn't miss with his next move.
He barked loudly. Cold erupted from his mouth and hoarfrost covered the entire side of the monster and part of his body too. Before the creature could recover from his one two strike, he slammed a clawed hand into the thing's side. The hand cracked the frosted skin and dug deep, past cracked and fake ribs to to the thing's core. The core broke under his assault and the creature died like that.
He let himself rest a few seconds after he pulled his hand out. That had been a personal record, and he had a bit of a thrill to that. It wasn't enough though.
The next few obstacles were more of the same really. Twisted tunnels, fields, environmental obstacles. One place had a lot of birds that would try to attack him. He could avoid them fairly easily by just running past them fortunately.
Normally at this point he'd head off into one of the side tunnels to explore more. Perhaps see if he could locate more rewards. Instead he abruptly veered off into a side room and ran through it, ignoring everything inside. He did this again and again until he spotted stairs out of the corner of his eye.
That was the last floor, and he immediately moved down them.
The next room was fire. A lot of fire, and possibly magma. The room was stifling in his heat. Normally he would have tried something. Perhaps his frost attack.
Instead he ran and ignored the pain of the fire and the burning sensation. It wasn't how the obstacle was meant to be solved, but he'd learned to ignore the pain in this world. None of it was permanent.
He emerged from the fire room into a clean and white room with a single big red button in the center of it. For a moment he just stared. Then with a grumble of irritation he limped to the big red button. One leg was mostly gone, and he could barely think through the pain. It didn't matter though.
He pushed the button.
My second favorite is the guy who's going full on wizard. As in pointy hat, long beard, and more. Considering he's not yet twenty, this is very amusing. I'll fully admit that he's doing the archetype proud though. He's really pushing the limits on what I've been doing with the energy spheres, and more than once I've had to adjust things on the fly to make something he wanted. It's helped me iron out a lot of things.
I got a guy who's focusing on a lot of pets, and calls them his pocket monsters. A guy who's playing as a girl with the most ridiculous boobs ever. A wolf man, and more than a few other furry people. All told I have a lot of variety, and that's with just one thousand people. It's going to get interesting once I expand.
I'm going to give a special commendation to the guy that likes to grow things and wanted to just make a garden. It took a lot of work on both our ends, but I'm going to fully appreciate the way he pushed my notions with that. So many ideas there, with exploding raspberries, because why not?
I also have boring people too. I'm letting them be boring. It gives me more time to work. I need planet ideas.
Oh, OHHH, I finally figured out how I can effect the other world now! I can just grab stuff, adjust it like you would if you didn't have godly powers, and push it out. I feel rather silly that I didn't think up that earlier. I mean I was doing it already, I just didn't think to use it for possible rewards or something like that.
Well I don't plan on doing it anytime soon, but it's something to keep in mind for later.
----
Today was the day he was going to get to the end. He'd optimized his body. He'd made a mental map of the rooms and various pitfalls and obstacles. Most importantly he'd been very careful not to indicate that this was what he was doing beforehand. He'd had a sneaking suspicion that the maze was being adjusted to make it harder on him, so he was going to be very careful.
Throwing himself over the edge of the maze few times had been instructive. And terrifying. He'd been able to get a sense of size. It was a rather large cube, and he'd made a mental map of the rooms he had found. The end was directly below him, at the bottom of the cube. He'd even gotten a confirmation based on the unlocked items he'd taken to calling achievements. You couldn't get to the end by flying to the bottom by the way.
Now was the time to put his plan into action. The wolf-man inhaled a few times to get his breath going and then began to sprint as fast as possible down the first set of stairs. Midway through the sprint his arms started to drop and he let himself shift into a four legged lope that was even faster. It wasn't something he could do in his normal body, but he'd optimized this one to do it. It made the arms look a bit different, but he could move so much better this way.
The first obstacle was just a room with a few deep holes. Nothing fancy or even particularly daunting. It had still taken him literal days to get through because there was no easy was to make a bridge. Now he just leaped over it and went through one door.
He had to bounce off the wall there, all four limbs twisting and with him as he used the surface to keep momentum, and even speed up. His breath came in slow and steady, and he could feel the burn of the energy cores in his body. Each one of them made him stronger and faster. All placed to the best of his ability to make him a monster capable of going fast enough to become a blur in midair. He wasn't breaking the sound barrier, but he was certainly beating a few cars.
This speed was put to good use as he ran down a twisted maze like series of tunnels. Left turn, right turn, down stairs, through a tunnel that needed him to be on all fours. Here the light flickered and scent was the best way to travel.
Next was a personal favorite. A idealistic field that stretched out quite a ways. He'd spent more than a few days here practicing how to move. It was fun and always pleasant. He wasn't going to linger this time though. He continued to sprint and picked up even more speed.
The next room was the 'painful room.' It was one of the rooms where he'd found out that he'd been given a re-spawn system. Inside was a massive lizard with teeth. A boss battle if you will. The thing re-spawned if it was killed, and was a real monster to take down. Armored, spiny, and strong. It had no real special abilities, but it didn't typically need him. There were other, easier paths around the thing, but this monster was the quickest way to the end.
He barreled into it at full speed. The kinetic force was such that the thing was actually knocked back a moment. His body creaked alarmingly, but held. Up close and personal he couldn't miss with his next move.
He barked loudly. Cold erupted from his mouth and hoarfrost covered the entire side of the monster and part of his body too. Before the creature could recover from his one two strike, he slammed a clawed hand into the thing's side. The hand cracked the frosted skin and dug deep, past cracked and fake ribs to to the thing's core. The core broke under his assault and the creature died like that.
He let himself rest a few seconds after he pulled his hand out. That had been a personal record, and he had a bit of a thrill to that. It wasn't enough though.
The next few obstacles were more of the same really. Twisted tunnels, fields, environmental obstacles. One place had a lot of birds that would try to attack him. He could avoid them fairly easily by just running past them fortunately.
Normally at this point he'd head off into one of the side tunnels to explore more. Perhaps see if he could locate more rewards. Instead he abruptly veered off into a side room and ran through it, ignoring everything inside. He did this again and again until he spotted stairs out of the corner of his eye.
That was the last floor, and he immediately moved down them.
The next room was fire. A lot of fire, and possibly magma. The room was stifling in his heat. Normally he would have tried something. Perhaps his frost attack.
Instead he ran and ignored the pain of the fire and the burning sensation. It wasn't how the obstacle was meant to be solved, but he'd learned to ignore the pain in this world. None of it was permanent.
He emerged from the fire room into a clean and white room with a single big red button in the center of it. For a moment he just stared. Then with a grumble of irritation he limped to the big red button. One leg was mostly gone, and he could barely think through the pain. It didn't matter though.
He pushed the button.
Ch 5
Oh no. I'm not ready!! I have vague plans, I have ideas! Most of the require more than one person who's victorious! I mean well, I had a plan to sort of dump them into an area together and let them hash things out if I didn't have enough space yet, but that's going to be very obviously lazy when he's the first one by a large margin!
Think. What could I do? Time dilatation could work. I have a few people coming in soon, but none of them are close to getting to the end. The closest one is on the other side of the planet, and he's likely going to take at least a day if I fudge things a bit!
All right then. You know what? Boss battle time! Time to pour on the theatrics. Make this a 'special reward'! I'll do a custom challenge for the first hundred or so. That should hopefully give me a bit more time.
----
The button disappeared as he pressed it. The room did too. For a moment there was nothing but black and silence, and he admittedly panicked. Then there were stars all around him. Wind blew through his fur, and he realized he couldn't feel pain or smell burnt fur.
"Congratulations. You're the first." The voice was like a whisper in his ear and he turned in alarm and a bit of rage.
That was the thing about this entire thing. There had never been anyone talking. The sudden change put him on edge. There could be only one being that would be able to that. He refrained from attacking just barely. Mostly because it would likely be a really really bad idea.
The figure in the cloak seemed amused. "Here's your reward. As the first to complete the maze, and additional challenge." He held up a glowing ball in his hand and tilted it this way and that. "Howl at the moon oh wolf of ice."
With those words the figure threw the sphere into the air. It grew and grew and turned silver. It grew until it became a moon swallowing half the sky. He stared up at it and gulped dryly as he saw the moon begin to crack.
"Who the hell considers this a reward?!" He yelled out as the moon shattered and something massive swept out of it.
Whatever was holding him up released at the same moment and he grunted as he landed on a large rock floating in midair. Instinct had him glancing around the area. Floating rocks in midair. No real ground to speak of, but he did have gravity at least.
Something giggled. It sounded vaguely feminine, but also far too loud and echoed strangely. Then whatever the moon had been moved, and he could see it in its entirety. It was like a cross between a snake and catfish. It had a long flowing body that wound this way and that, and a pair of long whiskers that flowed outwards as it wiggled through the air without regards to physics or even sense. It was also large enough to swallow him and still have room for leftovers. Big blue eyes the size of his head blinked at him, and there was another giggle as the creature's white body went black and faded from sight.
Immediately he was alert. Scent and the faintest whisper of air had him leaping to another rock before he could process the thought. An invisible impact resounded loudly through the battlefield and the rock he had been standing on went flying.
"I don't suppose you can talk?" He called out loudly, and was rewarded with another giggle as the creature reappeared.
It wound through the air like a fish through the sea and he had to tense as he tried to figure out what he could do next. His only indication of a problem was the way his breath began to frost. Snowflakes drifted down around him and he felt ice beginning to build up on his coat.
"Oh sure, take my schtick too." He muttered to himself and jumped to another rock.
They were all beginning to ice over, and he had a pretty good feeling that this wasn't a good thing. He was missing something he knew. The creature had reappeared as a dirty grey and was rapidly becoming white. He didn't think that was good.
So what the heck was he supposed to do? All of the rocks were starting to ice over now. His entire thing was ice! He didn't think barking at thing would do anything. Fortunately it wasn't attacking again, but that could change quickly.
Before he could make a decision the creature's shade turned pure white and its behavior changed again. Where before it had been lazily drifting around the rocks, now it rushed up and began to spin around on itself. That indicated a pretty big problem in his opinion. He was proved right a moment later when the creature turned into a fake moon and began to shine brightly.
The tint was the first thing he noticed. It was a silver white that was bright but not blinding. Almost like moonlight, but not quite. The second thing he noticed was how the frost was beginning to dissolve. It wasn't like it was getting hotter either. For a moment he was confused, until he felt the first inklings of pain.
The light went brighter, and he was fortunately spared the sight of his entire body being dissolved. He felt a brief flash of pain and saw everything bleached out before he woke up back in his starting room. He stared down at his wolf-like hands and gave a grunt. He'd died again. Fortunately it seemed relatively painless.
For a moment he was tempted to call bullshit on the entire sequence of events. He was still very tempted to do so. He was distinctly sure that he'd seen shadows though, and that the rocks had still been there before he died.
"I can't believe I'm trying this again." He groaned to himself and looked around. "I have to head all the way back?!"
A big red button on big block landed down right in front of him, just barely missing his head. He felt an eyebrow twitch.
Think. What could I do? Time dilatation could work. I have a few people coming in soon, but none of them are close to getting to the end. The closest one is on the other side of the planet, and he's likely going to take at least a day if I fudge things a bit!
All right then. You know what? Boss battle time! Time to pour on the theatrics. Make this a 'special reward'! I'll do a custom challenge for the first hundred or so. That should hopefully give me a bit more time.
----
The button disappeared as he pressed it. The room did too. For a moment there was nothing but black and silence, and he admittedly panicked. Then there were stars all around him. Wind blew through his fur, and he realized he couldn't feel pain or smell burnt fur.
"Congratulations. You're the first." The voice was like a whisper in his ear and he turned in alarm and a bit of rage.
That was the thing about this entire thing. There had never been anyone talking. The sudden change put him on edge. There could be only one being that would be able to that. He refrained from attacking just barely. Mostly because it would likely be a really really bad idea.
The figure in the cloak seemed amused. "Here's your reward. As the first to complete the maze, and additional challenge." He held up a glowing ball in his hand and tilted it this way and that. "Howl at the moon oh wolf of ice."
With those words the figure threw the sphere into the air. It grew and grew and turned silver. It grew until it became a moon swallowing half the sky. He stared up at it and gulped dryly as he saw the moon begin to crack.
"Who the hell considers this a reward?!" He yelled out as the moon shattered and something massive swept out of it.
Whatever was holding him up released at the same moment and he grunted as he landed on a large rock floating in midair. Instinct had him glancing around the area. Floating rocks in midair. No real ground to speak of, but he did have gravity at least.
Something giggled. It sounded vaguely feminine, but also far too loud and echoed strangely. Then whatever the moon had been moved, and he could see it in its entirety. It was like a cross between a snake and catfish. It had a long flowing body that wound this way and that, and a pair of long whiskers that flowed outwards as it wiggled through the air without regards to physics or even sense. It was also large enough to swallow him and still have room for leftovers. Big blue eyes the size of his head blinked at him, and there was another giggle as the creature's white body went black and faded from sight.
Immediately he was alert. Scent and the faintest whisper of air had him leaping to another rock before he could process the thought. An invisible impact resounded loudly through the battlefield and the rock he had been standing on went flying.
"I don't suppose you can talk?" He called out loudly, and was rewarded with another giggle as the creature reappeared.
It wound through the air like a fish through the sea and he had to tense as he tried to figure out what he could do next. His only indication of a problem was the way his breath began to frost. Snowflakes drifted down around him and he felt ice beginning to build up on his coat.
"Oh sure, take my schtick too." He muttered to himself and jumped to another rock.
They were all beginning to ice over, and he had a pretty good feeling that this wasn't a good thing. He was missing something he knew. The creature had reappeared as a dirty grey and was rapidly becoming white. He didn't think that was good.
So what the heck was he supposed to do? All of the rocks were starting to ice over now. His entire thing was ice! He didn't think barking at thing would do anything. Fortunately it wasn't attacking again, but that could change quickly.
Before he could make a decision the creature's shade turned pure white and its behavior changed again. Where before it had been lazily drifting around the rocks, now it rushed up and began to spin around on itself. That indicated a pretty big problem in his opinion. He was proved right a moment later when the creature turned into a fake moon and began to shine brightly.
The tint was the first thing he noticed. It was a silver white that was bright but not blinding. Almost like moonlight, but not quite. The second thing he noticed was how the frost was beginning to dissolve. It wasn't like it was getting hotter either. For a moment he was confused, until he felt the first inklings of pain.
The light went brighter, and he was fortunately spared the sight of his entire body being dissolved. He felt a brief flash of pain and saw everything bleached out before he woke up back in his starting room. He stared down at his wolf-like hands and gave a grunt. He'd died again. Fortunately it seemed relatively painless.
For a moment he was tempted to call bullshit on the entire sequence of events. He was still very tempted to do so. He was distinctly sure that he'd seen shadows though, and that the rocks had still been there before he died.
"I can't believe I'm trying this again." He groaned to himself and looked around. "I have to head all the way back?!"
A big red button on big block landed down right in front of him, just barely missing his head. He felt an eyebrow twitch.
Ch 6
Ok, you can't see it, but I'm cracking my non-existent knuckles right now. I don't have the space for a proper sized planet yet, but I'm getting there. It's time to really get planning on it. This means simulations, testing, and defining what sort of rules I need to do. I can technically do anything so long as I stay within my space requirements.
Practically unless I want to spend centuries doing custom physics rules I'm going to be doing a lot of copy pasting. It saves me a lot of work if I just be lazy and crib off another reality. If anything it will help people coming into my world.
So standard gravity rules. Standard thermodynamic rules. I'm not going to make something spectacular like make all the molecules look like cheese. I am going to allow for rule breaking of course. I can break all the rules I want to. That's where the energy spheres I've already introduced will be in. They can basically 'break' one rule of reality. Multiple ones can break multiple rules. You can get really complex and entertaining reactions this way. It will also let people get creative and give me good ideas too!
Now onto the complex parts. What sort of world should I make? I mean I can just make a very generic round stone block and call it a day. I'll drop the people on it and let them go to town. It's a bit boring, but I'm sure they'll liven it up quickly. All that free land and god-like powers to play around in. I don't think I want to do that though. Not only is it boring, but it strikes me as un-creative. Anyone can imagine that. Plus I want dinosaurs. And fun animals. And interesting environmental effects.
I can do all that with a planet easily actually. Add a half dozen seas and more than a few islands and I can get all that done. We can call that option two. It's fun and relatively easy to do.
I keep coming back to option three though. I want to do a layered, obviously artificial planet. Partially because it'd be awesome. Partially because of my whole space issue.
See I'll have enough space for a planet soon. That's a given. Getting enough for a proper orbital moon shouldn't take that much longer once I expand how many people I let access the place. Getting enough for a proper sun will take a good few years. No sun means I'd have to do exotic things to make a sustainable planet. The easiest exotic means I can think of is just have what amounts to a sky-box. I can finagle things such that it will look perfectly normal from the land, but if anyone tries to go into orbit things will become pretty obvious if I use that method. It offends my inner sensibilities to do something obviously fake.
Now that I'm thinking on it, I'm going to go with obviously artificial planet. I'm just going to go with only a few layers though to keep the physics from getting that wonky. It's still going to be tight, but what's the point of being a god if I can't show off.
Layer one, the top layer is going to be the sky-box. Or sky-sphere really. It's going to show off fake day and night skies. I'll have a few pre-programmed events and make it relatively impenetrable aside from a central pillar that can be gotten into, eventually. The 'goal' for people will be to get into the pillar and be able to escape the world. I won't actually put the key into the world until I have enough room for more planets though.
Layer two will be the normal layer. Aside from being more land than normal, it will be quite simple. Tall hills, large mountains, and so on. I'll stick my fun creatures here. I'll consider this the easy layer.
Layer three will be the underground layer. If you get into some deep valleys and such you'll be able to get under here. I'll put a few artificial lights here and there, and it will be the hard layer. With a bit of management I think I can make it a challenge.
Layer four will be the sea layer. This is mostly there because we need water, and it will make physics easier on me. There won't be anything abnormal underneath it, and the pressure here will make it rather inhospitable. Layer three is where I plan on having most of the more exotic and dangerous things. This layer will be mostly cushioning for the core of the planet and will be really just there so I don't have seas all over the place. If I get the physics right the water will erupt into layer three and layer two as either steam or just hot water pressure.
All put together this should be a fairly exotic and fantasy like world to explore. I'll scatter a few lifeforms around it and set it to run a few centuries before I let people go down on it. Evolution and random chance should give far more exotic things than anything I could think of. Plus it will surprise me some! I think I'll like the surprises.
Now I need to simulate all of this and be sure it doesn't collapse right off the bat when I make it. Fortunately I can make things ignore physics, otherwise this would be pretty much impossible to make. I'm going to try to keep my physics defying things to the minimum though. It's no fun to just hand-wave everything out.
...
And done! One hundred years of testing and plotting later and I've simulated my first planet! It only took a few days in real time too. I've got something like two hundred people who've finished the maze and almost have enough space to start. I'm going to do a quick check to be sure that everything's good, and then give everyone in the waiting area a cinema scene to play up me being all god-like and mysterious. I had a few alarms going just in case something went out of bonds, but it never hurts to double check.
...Why is dog boy still stuck fighting that boss? It wasn't supposed to be THAT hard.
Practically unless I want to spend centuries doing custom physics rules I'm going to be doing a lot of copy pasting. It saves me a lot of work if I just be lazy and crib off another reality. If anything it will help people coming into my world.
So standard gravity rules. Standard thermodynamic rules. I'm not going to make something spectacular like make all the molecules look like cheese. I am going to allow for rule breaking of course. I can break all the rules I want to. That's where the energy spheres I've already introduced will be in. They can basically 'break' one rule of reality. Multiple ones can break multiple rules. You can get really complex and entertaining reactions this way. It will also let people get creative and give me good ideas too!
Now onto the complex parts. What sort of world should I make? I mean I can just make a very generic round stone block and call it a day. I'll drop the people on it and let them go to town. It's a bit boring, but I'm sure they'll liven it up quickly. All that free land and god-like powers to play around in. I don't think I want to do that though. Not only is it boring, but it strikes me as un-creative. Anyone can imagine that. Plus I want dinosaurs. And fun animals. And interesting environmental effects.
I can do all that with a planet easily actually. Add a half dozen seas and more than a few islands and I can get all that done. We can call that option two. It's fun and relatively easy to do.
I keep coming back to option three though. I want to do a layered, obviously artificial planet. Partially because it'd be awesome. Partially because of my whole space issue.
See I'll have enough space for a planet soon. That's a given. Getting enough for a proper orbital moon shouldn't take that much longer once I expand how many people I let access the place. Getting enough for a proper sun will take a good few years. No sun means I'd have to do exotic things to make a sustainable planet. The easiest exotic means I can think of is just have what amounts to a sky-box. I can finagle things such that it will look perfectly normal from the land, but if anyone tries to go into orbit things will become pretty obvious if I use that method. It offends my inner sensibilities to do something obviously fake.
Now that I'm thinking on it, I'm going to go with obviously artificial planet. I'm just going to go with only a few layers though to keep the physics from getting that wonky. It's still going to be tight, but what's the point of being a god if I can't show off.
Layer one, the top layer is going to be the sky-box. Or sky-sphere really. It's going to show off fake day and night skies. I'll have a few pre-programmed events and make it relatively impenetrable aside from a central pillar that can be gotten into, eventually. The 'goal' for people will be to get into the pillar and be able to escape the world. I won't actually put the key into the world until I have enough room for more planets though.
Layer two will be the normal layer. Aside from being more land than normal, it will be quite simple. Tall hills, large mountains, and so on. I'll stick my fun creatures here. I'll consider this the easy layer.
Layer three will be the underground layer. If you get into some deep valleys and such you'll be able to get under here. I'll put a few artificial lights here and there, and it will be the hard layer. With a bit of management I think I can make it a challenge.
Layer four will be the sea layer. This is mostly there because we need water, and it will make physics easier on me. There won't be anything abnormal underneath it, and the pressure here will make it rather inhospitable. Layer three is where I plan on having most of the more exotic and dangerous things. This layer will be mostly cushioning for the core of the planet and will be really just there so I don't have seas all over the place. If I get the physics right the water will erupt into layer three and layer two as either steam or just hot water pressure.
All put together this should be a fairly exotic and fantasy like world to explore. I'll scatter a few lifeforms around it and set it to run a few centuries before I let people go down on it. Evolution and random chance should give far more exotic things than anything I could think of. Plus it will surprise me some! I think I'll like the surprises.
Now I need to simulate all of this and be sure it doesn't collapse right off the bat when I make it. Fortunately I can make things ignore physics, otherwise this would be pretty much impossible to make. I'm going to try to keep my physics defying things to the minimum though. It's no fun to just hand-wave everything out.
...
And done! One hundred years of testing and plotting later and I've simulated my first planet! It only took a few days in real time too. I've got something like two hundred people who've finished the maze and almost have enough space to start. I'm going to do a quick check to be sure that everything's good, and then give everyone in the waiting area a cinema scene to play up me being all god-like and mysterious. I had a few alarms going just in case something went out of bonds, but it never hurts to double check.
...Why is dog boy still stuck fighting that boss? It wasn't supposed to be THAT hard.