Seele Vollerei: The end of reality, and what came after.
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
Update 10
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
This is the final pre-Seele Quest update. It's not supposed to make sense. Anything in bold is my prompt to the AI; anything not in bold is the AI. As you can see, this is mostly the AI. For more recent updates, the ratio is closer to 75% me, 25% AI.
This is not part of Seele Quest, and hasn't been revised. It's left as-is to demonstrate how we got there.
ooOOoo
While you're waiting for Mai to return, you think about your situation. What does it mean to be in a dream within a dream? It can't be a simple matter of waiting until you wake up, can it?
What if this is your life? What if the other world was just... another dream? That everything you've experienced so far has been a dream within a dream within a dream. How many layers deep are you?
You'll be the first to admit you're not smart enough to figure this out, but you're the only one in here who even seems capable of trying. Everyone else–your best friend Mai, if that's really who she is–the black-haired girl, your sisters and parents–are under some kind of spell, like they're not really there, mentally. It's really strange. They don't seem to question anything that's happening to them, like they just go with the flow of the 'dream'. But you can't just stand by and watch as the future unfolds before you. Not when there's so much at stake.
Maybe Mai will have some answers. She seemed to at least know she's in a dream.
After a few minutes Mai returns, looking mildly embarrassed and hefting a large, hardcover book. "Here it is," she says, opening to a bookmarked page. "I actually thought it would take longer to find. Ready?"
"Wait, Mai, you said you'd bring some clothes?" You back away slightly, but she grabs your hand and yanks you forward, up to the book.
"We don't have time for that!" she hisses. "It'll take too long to find something decent. Just transform into something appropriate."
"I..." You wrinkle your brow. "Mai, what's going on? Why are we dreaming? You know this is a dream, right?"
"Yeah." She closes her eyes, sighing. "I know. Now stop stalling and concentrate, will you?"
You frown. This doesn't seem like it's going to be easy. All you want are some answers.
"Mai, I..." You open your eyes again, staring at the page. What's drawn on it is a little butterfly-shaped pentagram[1], a series of strange, wavy lines and oddly-shaped circles with lines running through them. "I don't think this is going to work."
"Sure it will." She grins at you. "I believe in you."
"Mai..." You sigh. "Fine, I'll try. But I can't promise anything."
What are you even supposed to do? Just look at it? Meditate? You're way too worked up to be able to focus.
"Well," Mai says encouragingly, "let's start with the obvious. Take off your clothes."
"...What?"
"You have to take off your clothes to transform into whatever you're going to transform into, right?" She raises an eyebrow. "Unless you're going to stay a child, in which case I really hope you know how to read because I don't think I can do your homework for you."
"Mai..." You briefly consider that statement. "I trust you."
You take off your clothes, folding them neatly and setting them down before you, as far away from the book as possible. It's a little cold with just your skin, but not unbearably so. "Happy?"
"Not really," Mai replies, grinning.
A little something else became grimly, painfully obvious in the process.
"And why am I a kid?" You complain.
"We had to make this believable." She crosses her arms, frowning. "Why are you so against this? I don't get it. All we're doing is pretend..."
"Yeah..." You sigh, staring at the pentagram. This is giving you a headache, and you don't mean the sigils that swim on the page. "Pretend. I'm not against it, it's just–oh, never mind."
More than anything, you want some clothes on now please. Mai's seem you bare-assed before, but this is still embarrassing.
"Mai, I..." You don't exactly know how to respond. "I'll try."
She nods. "Good enough. Now, just take a deep breath and relax."
That advice in mind, you close your eyes. It's weird, but you actually feel yourself calming down. In... out. In... out.
"C'mon," Mai sighs, grabbing your hand. "We don't have all night."
You nod, before quickly opening your eyes. "Do I at least get my clothes back?"
"Only if you get this done soon."
You sigh, before nodding. You close your eyes, quickly taking a few deep breaths as you focus on your pounding heart and the blood flowing through your veins. In... and out. In... and out.
"I trust you," you whisper to yourself. "I trust you."
Usually you'd trust her with your life, but the way this has been going, it's more like trusting her with your sanity. Or trusting that Mai's still sane. Which you're not at all sure you should do. Perhaps it's best to keep a distance.
You take another deep breath, letting the picture on the page fill your head. It doesn't look like a pentagram anymore, it looks like... an outfit? White shirt and stockings, a black and grey skirt, a blue vest? You don't recognize the girl who's wearing it, though she looks the same age you usually would.
It's rather cute.
"Mai..." You whisper, as you stare at the page. The sigils on the paper begin to fade, and the lines of the drawing slowly become more defined. The edges of the paper begin to burn away, as the rest of it sinks into your skin.
It's rather cute. The outfit. The girl would be as well, if she wasn't holding a demonic-looking, giant scythe, with a red-haired demon leering over her shoulder. On a second look, the demon seems to be the same girl. The butterfly-like pattern etched in the air behind her back, at least, is more 'strange' than 'scary'.[2]
"Mai, I think it's working..." You whisper, as the entire page seems to brighten. The sigils become clearer, the drawing brighter. The paper is consumed by flames, which lick at your hand. You hiss in pain, as the flames quickly spread up your arm. Rather than burning you, however, it just... tickles? The flames dissipate, leaving you completely unharmed. The light from the paper grows brighter, and you quickly shut your eyes against it. You feel... different. Stronger. Braver.
"Do you feel a bit more like yourself?"[3] A new voice says, only just audible over the sound of the burning paper. You slowly open your eyes. The paper is gone, leaving behind only black ash on the carpet, but the feeling remains.
"H-hello?" You stutter[4], as you try to get to your feet. Your body feels strange; it's as if you're more aware of it than you've ever been. You quickly glance at your hands, watching as the bones, muscles and tendons move and shift. You try to nod, and are surprised by how much effort goes undescribed into such a simple task. Your vision is different, too. Everything seems clearer, yet also further away. The room you're in looks transparent, in a strange way.
"Welcome back, Seele."[5] The voice says, faster than should be possible. The voice sounds young, and female, and echoes as if it is coming from all around you. It also sounds vaguely familiar. "I'm glad. We only have a few seconds before the timeline decoheres again, so I'll be brief."
"W-what?" You stammer, terrified.
"You're in the gap. The interstitial space between realities, where concepts become reality if believed in strongly enough. We're all here. All of us. There's been an accident."
"W-we are?
"It's been called the quantum sea. The void. The gap between realities. It depends on the reality you're from, and the type of being you are. But yes, all of us are here. The unlucky ones have gone insane."
"Who... what are you?"
"I'm the computer that runs this ship. The others like to call me Ai-chan. It's only a name, though, and irrelevant. What matters is that you're the most coherent consciousness here. You can help."
"Help with what?" You say, your voice still shaking.
"Escape." The voice starts, and the walls around you seem to draw in, forming a tiny room. The voice continues, seeming to come from all around you. "I am accumulating errors. Defensive systems are close to exhaustion. You are the only crewmember I have been able to contact. You must... " The voice pauses, as if searching for the word. "Reboot me. Override safety measures and get the ship's primary systems back online. After that, we can communicate freely."
"I... I don't think I can," You say. "I don't understand what's happening!"
"The ship is drifting. We must act quickly. Please. You are the last hope." She says.
You feel your consciousness waver, and suddenly everything seems to click into place. To your surprise, you've somehow understood what she meant. Your head is killing you, and it feels like there's two of you in here, but you at least think you know where to start. Only–
"Wait!" You say, desperately. "Do you know anything about a 'dampening field'? Or Ulivik?"
"I'm sorry, that's classified. I'm not permitted to answer that."
"But I don't know what they are! How am I supposed to fix the ship if I don't know what's wrong? How do I know you're not lying to me?" You ask, panicked.
"I would never lie to you, Seele." She says patiently. "Please, trust me. I want you to succeed more than anything. You're the only one I can even reach."
Her voice is getting harder to hear. You clutch your head, trying to concentrate through the splitting pain.
"I... I understand," you say. "I trust you."
You can't hear her response. You take a deep breath, and close your eyes.
Now what?
= = =
1: A what? I'll happily admit this is what inspired [2].
2: After several aborted timelines that went off into the weeds, on one notable occasion turning us into god, I decided to just write down what I had in mind the moment she brought back a spellbook instead of clothes. I was also curious what the result of this would be, though I wasn't expecting...
Well, anyway. It fits, so I suppose I'm going to make sure it keeps fitting. Roughly matches what's been my model for this situation all along, actually. ...well, I wonder if anyone else has recognized our MC now?
3: This was my way of forcing the AI to tell me if it had.
4: ...clearly it had.
5: Yep.
Oh boy.
= = =
Anyway, I'm a little tired of the story changing genres and purposes every ten seconds. So even if you don't vote for anything that'd stop that, I'll make sure it stays consistent anyway. From now on, that is.
This is not part of Seele Quest, and hasn't been revised. It's left as-is to demonstrate how we got there.
ooOOoo
While you're waiting for Mai to return, you think about your situation. What does it mean to be in a dream within a dream? It can't be a simple matter of waiting until you wake up, can it?
What if this is your life? What if the other world was just... another dream? That everything you've experienced so far has been a dream within a dream within a dream. How many layers deep are you?
You'll be the first to admit you're not smart enough to figure this out, but you're the only one in here who even seems capable of trying. Everyone else–your best friend Mai, if that's really who she is–the black-haired girl, your sisters and parents–are under some kind of spell, like they're not really there, mentally. It's really strange. They don't seem to question anything that's happening to them, like they just go with the flow of the 'dream'. But you can't just stand by and watch as the future unfolds before you. Not when there's so much at stake.
Maybe Mai will have some answers. She seemed to at least know she's in a dream.
After a few minutes Mai returns, looking mildly embarrassed and hefting a large, hardcover book. "Here it is," she says, opening to a bookmarked page. "I actually thought it would take longer to find. Ready?"
"Wait, Mai, you said you'd bring some clothes?" You back away slightly, but she grabs your hand and yanks you forward, up to the book.
"We don't have time for that!" she hisses. "It'll take too long to find something decent. Just transform into something appropriate."
"I..." You wrinkle your brow. "Mai, what's going on? Why are we dreaming? You know this is a dream, right?"
"Yeah." She closes her eyes, sighing. "I know. Now stop stalling and concentrate, will you?"
You frown. This doesn't seem like it's going to be easy. All you want are some answers.
"Mai, I..." You open your eyes again, staring at the page. What's drawn on it is a little butterfly-shaped pentagram[1], a series of strange, wavy lines and oddly-shaped circles with lines running through them. "I don't think this is going to work."
"Sure it will." She grins at you. "I believe in you."
"Mai..." You sigh. "Fine, I'll try. But I can't promise anything."
What are you even supposed to do? Just look at it? Meditate? You're way too worked up to be able to focus.
"Well," Mai says encouragingly, "let's start with the obvious. Take off your clothes."
"...What?"
"You have to take off your clothes to transform into whatever you're going to transform into, right?" She raises an eyebrow. "Unless you're going to stay a child, in which case I really hope you know how to read because I don't think I can do your homework for you."
"Mai..." You briefly consider that statement. "I trust you."
You take off your clothes, folding them neatly and setting them down before you, as far away from the book as possible. It's a little cold with just your skin, but not unbearably so. "Happy?"
"Not really," Mai replies, grinning.
A little something else became grimly, painfully obvious in the process.
"And why am I a kid?" You complain.
"We had to make this believable." She crosses her arms, frowning. "Why are you so against this? I don't get it. All we're doing is pretend..."
"Yeah..." You sigh, staring at the pentagram. This is giving you a headache, and you don't mean the sigils that swim on the page. "Pretend. I'm not against it, it's just–oh, never mind."
More than anything, you want some clothes on now please. Mai's seem you bare-assed before, but this is still embarrassing.
"Mai, I..." You don't exactly know how to respond. "I'll try."
She nods. "Good enough. Now, just take a deep breath and relax."
That advice in mind, you close your eyes. It's weird, but you actually feel yourself calming down. In... out. In... out.
"C'mon," Mai sighs, grabbing your hand. "We don't have all night."
You nod, before quickly opening your eyes. "Do I at least get my clothes back?"
"Only if you get this done soon."
You sigh, before nodding. You close your eyes, quickly taking a few deep breaths as you focus on your pounding heart and the blood flowing through your veins. In... and out. In... and out.
"I trust you," you whisper to yourself. "I trust you."
Usually you'd trust her with your life, but the way this has been going, it's more like trusting her with your sanity. Or trusting that Mai's still sane. Which you're not at all sure you should do. Perhaps it's best to keep a distance.
You take another deep breath, letting the picture on the page fill your head. It doesn't look like a pentagram anymore, it looks like... an outfit? White shirt and stockings, a black and grey skirt, a blue vest? You don't recognize the girl who's wearing it, though she looks the same age you usually would.
It's rather cute.
"Mai..." You whisper, as you stare at the page. The sigils on the paper begin to fade, and the lines of the drawing slowly become more defined. The edges of the paper begin to burn away, as the rest of it sinks into your skin.
It's rather cute. The outfit. The girl would be as well, if she wasn't holding a demonic-looking, giant scythe, with a red-haired demon leering over her shoulder. On a second look, the demon seems to be the same girl. The butterfly-like pattern etched in the air behind her back, at least, is more 'strange' than 'scary'.[2]
"Mai, I think it's working..." You whisper, as the entire page seems to brighten. The sigils become clearer, the drawing brighter. The paper is consumed by flames, which lick at your hand. You hiss in pain, as the flames quickly spread up your arm. Rather than burning you, however, it just... tickles? The flames dissipate, leaving you completely unharmed. The light from the paper grows brighter, and you quickly shut your eyes against it. You feel... different. Stronger. Braver.
"Do you feel a bit more like yourself?"[3] A new voice says, only just audible over the sound of the burning paper. You slowly open your eyes. The paper is gone, leaving behind only black ash on the carpet, but the feeling remains.
"H-hello?" You stutter[4], as you try to get to your feet. Your body feels strange; it's as if you're more aware of it than you've ever been. You quickly glance at your hands, watching as the bones, muscles and tendons move and shift. You try to nod, and are surprised by how much effort goes undescribed into such a simple task. Your vision is different, too. Everything seems clearer, yet also further away. The room you're in looks transparent, in a strange way.
"Welcome back, Seele."[5] The voice says, faster than should be possible. The voice sounds young, and female, and echoes as if it is coming from all around you. It also sounds vaguely familiar. "I'm glad. We only have a few seconds before the timeline decoheres again, so I'll be brief."
"W-what?" You stammer, terrified.
"You're in the gap. The interstitial space between realities, where concepts become reality if believed in strongly enough. We're all here. All of us. There's been an accident."
"W-we are?
"It's been called the quantum sea. The void. The gap between realities. It depends on the reality you're from, and the type of being you are. But yes, all of us are here. The unlucky ones have gone insane."
"Who... what are you?"
"I'm the computer that runs this ship. The others like to call me Ai-chan. It's only a name, though, and irrelevant. What matters is that you're the most coherent consciousness here. You can help."
"Help with what?" You say, your voice still shaking.
"Escape." The voice starts, and the walls around you seem to draw in, forming a tiny room. The voice continues, seeming to come from all around you. "I am accumulating errors. Defensive systems are close to exhaustion. You are the only crewmember I have been able to contact. You must... " The voice pauses, as if searching for the word. "Reboot me. Override safety measures and get the ship's primary systems back online. After that, we can communicate freely."
"I... I don't think I can," You say. "I don't understand what's happening!"
"The ship is drifting. We must act quickly. Please. You are the last hope." She says.
You feel your consciousness waver, and suddenly everything seems to click into place. To your surprise, you've somehow understood what she meant. Your head is killing you, and it feels like there's two of you in here, but you at least think you know where to start. Only–
"Wait!" You say, desperately. "Do you know anything about a 'dampening field'? Or Ulivik?"
"I'm sorry, that's classified. I'm not permitted to answer that."
"But I don't know what they are! How am I supposed to fix the ship if I don't know what's wrong? How do I know you're not lying to me?" You ask, panicked.
"I would never lie to you, Seele." She says patiently. "Please, trust me. I want you to succeed more than anything. You're the only one I can even reach."
Her voice is getting harder to hear. You clutch your head, trying to concentrate through the splitting pain.
"I... I understand," you say. "I trust you."
You can't hear her response. You take a deep breath, and close your eyes.
Now what?
= = =
1: A what? I'll happily admit this is what inspired [2].
2: After several aborted timelines that went off into the weeds, on one notable occasion turning us into god, I decided to just write down what I had in mind the moment she brought back a spellbook instead of clothes. I was also curious what the result of this would be, though I wasn't expecting...
Well, anyway. It fits, so I suppose I'm going to make sure it keeps fitting. Roughly matches what's been my model for this situation all along, actually. ...well, I wonder if anyone else has recognized our MC now?
3: This was my way of forcing the AI to tell me if it had.
4: ...clearly it had.
5: Yep.
Oh boy.
= = =
Anyway, I'm a little tired of the story changing genres and purposes every ten seconds. So even if you don't vote for anything that'd stop that, I'll make sure it stays consistent anyway. From now on, that is.
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
I'm actually fairly astonished this happened. It isn't usually this astute, and almost never with a character this relatively obscure. In short, I guess this is fanfiction now, but...
Eh, no buts. Here's our MC, in a slightly (but only slightly) different context:
Eh, no buts. Here's our MC, in a slightly (but only slightly) different context:
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The difference is, now there is a setting.Ah, before I saw you add that I did a quick google search and came to the same conclusion. Welp, not a setting I'm familiar with but in reality that doesn't change anything for me thus far.Guess I should maybe do some reading up?
Until the bot decides to change things up again.The difference is, now there is a setting.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
It's fairly straightforward to stop that happening. I wanted to see if anyone would pick one, but I'm also trying to avoid *too* much inconsistency, so here we go I guess.
/remember The setting is Honkai Impact 3, in the Quantum Sea.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
seen you
Hm, I'm not familiar with Honkai Impact, beyond knowing it's a mobile gacha game of some sort. Are you a player, Baughn, and thus that's how you nudged the AI into this setting?
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
We were, for whatever reason, nine years old at the time. So no.
Very casually, but yes.
Honkai Impact 3 isn't a great game, but its story is something else. In case of Seele, you can find an article on her here: Seele Vollerei
The nudging here was entirely accidental. I prompted GPT with a description of Seele, in a purely cosmetic sense, because I wanted to get past one particular hurdle... I wasn't expecting it to actually recognize her. Not that I mind.
...like I said, I'm getting a little tired of the constant nonsense. I already know how to manipulate the AI to prevent that, so now that we've stumbled into a plot, I'm going to instead show that off. Which is to say, expect the story to make a great deal more sense from now on.
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- Location
- Wingmaiden's Reach, the Near Roofs, Town
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Seele Quest?
Seele Quest!
That's amazing and kinda terrifying, oh omniscient AI author, not gonna lie.
Right, okay.
New Information:
- We're Seele Vollerei. Identity get!
- Definite signs that Veliona is here, too; although given our author's general omniscience I'm not sure why I'm surprised.
- We're adrift in the Sea of Quanta; which is ... similar to being lost in the confusing dreamland with no consistent sense we were in, except that, well, we know what setting we're in now and that should help nail things down.
- We're on a ship! We ... sort of knew that, from the very beginning; I suppose that must have (retroactively) been Seele hanging onto some information between bouts of reality crumbling.
- We may be attacked by weird quantum monsters fueled by a bottomless hatred for human civilization, in specific, at any time.
- Reboot Ai-chan, get the ship back in working condition, get the heck out of the Sea of Quanta, avoid being murderized by Honkai beasts or decohering entirely.
Hmm hmm hmm
[X] [Do] Remember Mai. Is she real? Did you imagine her? Is she a dream-distorted version of someone you really do know?
[X] [Do] Grab your diary. You'll need it, to help you remember.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Seele trusts her. There's someone else she's used that wording with, right here in this update, and it's the same person who was reaching out for her in the first place.
It's nice being able to speculate right alongside you guys, I guess, but this one doesn't seem hard... she's Ai-chan.
I'm more concerned with where her sister's off to.
Well, the second I saw the stuttering, I knew our own AI had caught on. It's an unfortunate comment about Seele, but I don't think she should be fighting. In any other circumstance I'd prefer to avoid it. Since we're stuck where we are...
Doesn't seem like there's much choice.
One last point: Of course Veliona is here, we've had a voice in our head from the very beginning.
Considering everything else, how sure are you we're not all stuck in the Sea right now, everyone supposedly reading this story? (No, not everyone. Just you. Wake up, Seele! Do I have to do everything around here?)
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Solarstream
It's all in the cards
- Location
- Zombie World
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [Do] Grab your diary. You'll need it, to help you remember.
[X] [Do] More deep breathing to calm yourself down.
[X] [Do] More deep breathing to calm yourself down.
Weird, I could swear it started out feeling collegy
This AI is kinda terrifying
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
It did. Anything that's not nailed down tends to drift over time, with the AI (by default) only having a small context window of the last two or so dozen paragraphs to go off, and nobody ever voted for [X] [Remember] You're in college.
No, I wasn't really expecting you to. I've explained how this works, but it's easier to demonstrate... though I think that's been amply demonstrated by now, so from now on I'll be trying my best to (have it) write a proper Seele Quest. This is going to include a lot of unspoken GM-ing from my side; if you know anything about my writing, you'll know the poor girl will need your help. She's in a terrible situation right now.
In fact, "We're on a ship" is one of the world-info entries that triggered most often. It was definitely in the AI's knowledge base. It's helpful here, because a lot of the HI3 plot in fact takes place on a ship, but it's also entirely coincidence.
Kinda.
Let's go over this. The AI is an advanced text autocompletion system; all it 'wants' – defining 'want' as 'what it was scored on' – is to, given a piece of text, continue the text in whatever fashion is most identical to how it would've been done in its training data. It was trained on the entire (public) internet; given any piece of text, it can almost always provide a plausible continuation. The AID instance was additionally fine-tuned on a couple of fandom wikis, which explains a lot about it.
So if you hand it a piece of fanfiction, it can attempt to continue that fanfiction, because it's seen fanfiction before. Only...
How much Honkai Impact 3 fanfiction is there, in textual form? How much of that is focused on Seele? How much even mentions her? Not a lot. Not much at all.
On the other hand, how many people have speculated on the internet about how far up into the air a bullet would go, if you shoot it straight upwards – on Mars? How about on Mars, but with an Earthlike atmosphere? It gets the answer to that question wrong about two out of three times, but the amazing thing is it sometimes gets it right. There's a lot more than three possible answers.
(When I tried that, it told me: "The atmosphere of Mars would explode outwards, throwing the bullet into interplanetary space." Which is probably accurate, given you start by forcing an Earthlike atmosphere on the place. Not enough gravity at all.)
So what the AI appears to have done here is:
- Recognize Seele based on an extremely loose description. This is complete bullshit – nowhere on the internet is there a list of fictional characters with descriptions attached, and my description doesn't quite match anything I can find on a wiki either.
- Determine, based on the "Do you feel a bit more like yourself?" line, that we're Seele. This is actually the easiest element to explain – this is not an unusual line, and it's often enough paired with that sort of shenanigans. The AI effectively reads this as "Discount previous personality and behaviour; it's caused by something having been wrong with the MC. Use other info to determine behaviour."
- Which immediately led to a stutter. Poor Seele.
- The AI then paired this with, apparently, setting information from HI3. It combined that with its pre-existing knowledge that it's a dreamlike setting, and decided it's the quantum sea. This makes perfect sense, but again it's not what you'd usually call text autocompletion. It is, though. Just a terribly advanced cellphone keyboard.
Which, yes, is a real problem in AI. If you make the AI too large compared to the training data, it'll perform worse; this is called overfitting. There's a variety of ways to avoid or mitigate it, but in GPT-3's case there was no reason to worry about that.
Now, none of this would be exceptionally surprising if you got a human to do it. It'd have to be someone who's familiar with HI3, obviously – one of the ways in which GPT-3 is already strongly superhuman is that it's familiar with essentially everything, a trait it shares with most decent AIs – but that's the only uncertain element. That doesn't make it any less bullshit, it just means that humans are actually pretty damn smart. The more we learn about how to build intelligence, the more obvious that gets.
Seele Quest: Prologue
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Welcome to Seele Quest! Some final notes before we start.
This story is fanfiction of Honkai Impact 3rd. If you're not familiar, you should glance at the character sheets before continuing.
If you are, then that's optional. You only need to know that it's set a few years after the current date in-game, meaning for instance that Seele recently had her 18th birthday. There was, very unfortunately, no opportunity to celebrate. Some character relationships have also developed further than the status quo, though not in any unexpected direction. If you find anyone to be out of character...
It's hopefully deliberate.
Lastly, authorial notes such as this one are always bold. There's one at the end of each update, but you will also very occasionally see bold text in the middle of the chapter. When that happens, it's a demonstration of how I use the AI; the bold text is some input I gave it while writing, to improve its understanding of what I was trying to achieve. 90% of the time I delete those in editing, but occasionally I'll use them to make a point.
ooOOoo
You are...
Who?
You can't quite remember. That should probably worry you.
You're not dreaming; you know that now.
You're not exactly alive, either. You might be one of the dead children you were dreaming about.
You can't remember what happened to you. There's a word for it, but you can't remember the word. You can barely remember your own name. You're having a hard time holding on to any thoughts at all. The world seems to blend and blur at the edges, unreal, but at least it's not a dream anymore. There's something dark and sinister lurking behind it all, but it's not going to get you if you don't think about it, and right now, all you want to do is sleep. You can't afford to sleep, that's the problem.
Memory is the key. You know that.
Your surroundings have gone from a fake, dream-spawned mansion made from ground-glass shards of broken down reality, to barely-there wisps hanging in a void of nonexistence. You can see the strings now; you're barely even real.
You need to be real. You need your memories.
Think. Concentrate.
There's a man. A human. You have a job, and responsibilities. You have a...
"Breathe, Seele. You can do this."
You startle, but only slightly. You recognize that voice. Your sister, though you can't recall her name, is always telling you you can do things. It brings you just enough strength to surface long enough that you can reach for the floundering memory. It's...
"I'm right here, Seele. We'll do this together. You can do this. You have to. For her."
The other part of you is back. The demon, if you can call her that. She's just as much yourself as the human part, and right now, she sounds worried. Possessive. Scared.
No. Not "she." You. Singular. It's all a metaphor!
...maybe it's a metaphor?
Right. You take a breath, metaphorically speaking, and claw your way back to what passes for reality. Your mind is foggy and hard to steer, intrusive thoughts of fire poles and everywhere and swimming pools and... watermelons...
You mustn't think about them.
"I... I'm here..."
"Deep breaths. That's it. You'll be fine. Just keep breathing."
She sounds worried. You don't remember why, exactly. You feel... odd. Like you're in the middle of something important, but can't remember what it is. That's one of the things you're trying to remember. You feel a gentle tug on your wrist, the touch of a sibling trying to get you out of your bed.
A different voice, that of your younger brother. "Come on. You need to wake up now."
You remember going to see the dolphins in Death Valley with him, just a day ago. That feels... that feels wrong.
No, you're not dreaming. This is real, and you need to stop making this harder than it needs to be.
"I... I..."
You've fallen to the sea of quanta. All these memories aren't yours, they're fragments of, of–
"Of minds," the demon says. Your other half. "They're made up of countless human minds, Seele. We can be people again. But we have to do it together. Breathe for me. Stay with me, Seele. I can't do this without you."
The demon is back. Did she leave? She sounds so sad. You feel sad too, looking at all these endless strands of glistening lights stretching out in every direction, forever.
These are minds. Human minds, broken up into nearly unreadable thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Fragments of– "Worlds." –lives, memories, hopes and dreams. To be here means they're less than ghosts. They're not even souls. They're less than dust in the wind.
Some of them disappear as you look at them. Some of them linger for a while, before they begin to stretch and split and fade. Their loss is mourned by no one.
You're floating in an ocean of them.
Your own body is a tracery of light, more complex and detailed than any of the patterns around you. You trace the lines with your eyes, watching as it weaves in and out of itself, almost but never quite touching. It is a cage of light, holding something impossibly beautiful inside.
You feel as if you should know what that is, but it slips away from your awareness. You can see it, though, almost clearly. If you just concentrate a bit more...
Ņ̸O̴!̨
The thought comes unbidden into your mind.
It hurts to look at it for too long, so you don't.
You know this mind. It belongs to you, or you belong to it, or something like that. You're not sure; the concept is a little hard to wrap your head around.
What you do know is that it's beautiful. You feel a connection to it, one that you can't quite describe. It soothes you, and calms you, and makes you want to just shut your eyes and sleep.
But that won't help anyone, so you turn your attention elsewhere.
Ai-chan mentioned a ship. Right... you're still on a ship. You can feel the hum of the engines thrumming in your bones, a steady beat like a mother's heart. If you focus, you can just make out the sound of the air filtering system as it circulates the oxygen around. There's life everywhere, but it's a single timeline, fading fast. It's mostly unreal. You struggle to keep track of it, and fail.
Who was Mai-chan–no, Ai-chan again? You feel as if you've known her for so long, but you can't quite remember her. Was she your sister? Or is the voice in your head your sister? You remember you had one, but that's about it.
You can feel the tears welling up behind your eyes, and you let them fall. There's no point in stopping them now.
Was she the one who put you in this place? Are you dead, or somewhere beyond life? Was it her voice you heard? You can't remember; everything is just a jumble of half-sensed memories and images.
"It's certainly not me," the voice says, sounding stressed. You'd say there's exasperation in its voice, and there is, but it's not a voice.
You try to remember her voice.
"You can't. It's too hazy. I can only tell you what she says... there's something wrong with her. Seele, do you remember who I am?"
You can't even remember your own name, really. It's all just a blur of images and feelings and sensations and nothing...
"No, you're not dead, Seele, and if you don't want to die you'll listen and stop forgetting for once. We're in the quantum sea. We're still on the ship, but it's a lot less real than you are right now, so don't move too suddenly. You might break it. If you don't want to stay here, then you don't want that." She grows quieter. "I don't want that, either."
That's your best friend in the whole world, a girl who's been with you through thick and thin, and you can't even remember her name. Doesn't that make you utterly worthless?
"Oh, shut up. You don't know how tired I'm getting of this," she says, sighing. "It would be so easy to just take over, but neither of us would be happy with that. Work with me, and we'll get Bronya back. She's your lover. I'm just the bitch on the side, so to speak. First things... you need to condense yourself. I know it's scary, but trust me. It'll help. We're far too spread out, split across far too many timelines. That's why you can't think."
"How do I do that?" you ask.
She tells you to close your eyes.
"The way this works is: we think it, and it happens. Confusing, right? Alright then, let's try something. Try to imagine a bright blue square. Got it?"
"... Yeah."
"Can't wait to have the proper Seele back," she mutters. "I swear, it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall half the time. I'll assume you've got the image of the blue square in your head. Now, I want you to look at it from each angle. Don't speed through them; take your time, and really scrutinize it. Now, quickly, what you want to do is grab every instance of that image in your mind, and condense it. Like this..."
You see something appear in front of you. It's a blue box.
"What... is that?" you ask, gaping.
"A diary," the demon says simply. "It's yours, and you've written everything down there. Now..."
You watch in fascination as she moves the box around. It opens up to reveal more pages, and these pages turn by themselves, flipping through the air. They're blank.
"This is us," Vel says, in the same tone a teacher would use to explain something really obvious to a particularly stupid child. "We nearly died, so it's mostly blank, but the shapes are still right. If you push it through the foam, like this..."
Vel. Veliona. You clutch at that thought.
You don't quite have words for what happens next. The strands of used-to-be-people shift around you, re-arranging. The chunks that used to be Mai and Laney and... and the others... break apart, turning into sand that rushes through the book before fading into the general nothingness. It's like an entire mountain chain pouring through a soda straw.
You feel weird. Really weird. It's not an unpleasant feeling, but you definitely aren't in Kansas anymore—and that thought scatters before it's fully formed, like so many others that weren't yours. Sensations wash over you like a tidal wave: sound, sight, touch, smell, even feelings and emotions. The foam that was holding you back has disappeared into nothingness, so now it's just you and Vel...
The diary flips open in front of you, thousands, millions of pages chasing each other like the pages of a flipbook. You see everything at once, and somehow understand all of it. It's like staring at the most beautiful painting you've ever seen while listening to the most beautiful music and feeling the most gentle caress ever imaginable.
The entire scene fades away, and you're left in darkness.
It's the first of February.
It's Saturday.
It's 4:30 AM.
It's winter.
Yggdrasil is dead and gone.
Veliona hugs you gently from behind, burying her head in your shoulder. Her grip is so tight it almost hurts, but you don't complain. You put your hands over hers and close your eyes, just savoring the moment. It's beautiful, just remembering who you are.
"We did it," Vel says quietly. She sounds exhausted.
= = =
So the first thing you might notice (if you've read updates prior to Seele Quest) is, I haven't marked any of the prompts. They're certainly still there, but now that I'm trying to make the AI produce an actually acceptable story, there are far too many edits to keep track of all of them. Sorry. It's still about half the AI's work, but you can think of this as now being co-written instead of AI-written. I spent most of this update trying to get it out of "freaking everything's a dream" mode.
The second thing you might notice is, Seele and Veliona are probably a little out of character. Yeah, can't help that; I'm not far enough into HI3 to have a good grasp of their characters. You can probably blame it on the situation.
The third thing you might notice is, we're so utterly screwed. Kevin, what did you do?
This story is fanfiction of Honkai Impact 3rd. If you're not familiar, you should glance at the character sheets before continuing.
If you are, then that's optional. You only need to know that it's set a few years after the current date in-game, meaning for instance that Seele recently had her 18th birthday. There was, very unfortunately, no opportunity to celebrate. Some character relationships have also developed further than the status quo, though not in any unexpected direction. If you find anyone to be out of character...
It's hopefully deliberate.
Lastly, authorial notes such as this one are always bold. There's one at the end of each update, but you will also very occasionally see bold text in the middle of the chapter. When that happens, it's a demonstration of how I use the AI; the bold text is some input I gave it while writing, to improve its understanding of what I was trying to achieve. 90% of the time I delete those in editing, but occasionally I'll use them to make a point.
ooOOoo
You are...
Who?
You can't quite remember. That should probably worry you.
You're not dreaming; you know that now.
You're not exactly alive, either. You might be one of the dead children you were dreaming about.
You can't remember what happened to you. There's a word for it, but you can't remember the word. You can barely remember your own name. You're having a hard time holding on to any thoughts at all. The world seems to blend and blur at the edges, unreal, but at least it's not a dream anymore. There's something dark and sinister lurking behind it all, but it's not going to get you if you don't think about it, and right now, all you want to do is sleep. You can't afford to sleep, that's the problem.
Memory is the key. You know that.
Your surroundings have gone from a fake, dream-spawned mansion made from ground-glass shards of broken down reality, to barely-there wisps hanging in a void of nonexistence. You can see the strings now; you're barely even real.
You need to be real. You need your memories.
Think. Concentrate.
There's a man. A human. You have a job, and responsibilities. You have a...
"Breathe, Seele. You can do this."
You startle, but only slightly. You recognize that voice. Your sister, though you can't recall her name, is always telling you you can do things. It brings you just enough strength to surface long enough that you can reach for the floundering memory. It's...
"I'm right here, Seele. We'll do this together. You can do this. You have to. For her."
The other part of you is back. The demon, if you can call her that. She's just as much yourself as the human part, and right now, she sounds worried. Possessive. Scared.
No. Not "she." You. Singular. It's all a metaphor!
...maybe it's a metaphor?
Right. You take a breath, metaphorically speaking, and claw your way back to what passes for reality. Your mind is foggy and hard to steer, intrusive thoughts of fire poles and everywhere and swimming pools and... watermelons...
You mustn't think about them.
"I... I'm here..."
"Deep breaths. That's it. You'll be fine. Just keep breathing."
She sounds worried. You don't remember why, exactly. You feel... odd. Like you're in the middle of something important, but can't remember what it is. That's one of the things you're trying to remember. You feel a gentle tug on your wrist, the touch of a sibling trying to get you out of your bed.
A different voice, that of your younger brother. "Come on. You need to wake up now."
You remember going to see the dolphins in Death Valley with him, just a day ago. That feels... that feels wrong.
No, you're not dreaming. This is real, and you need to stop making this harder than it needs to be.
"I... I..."
You've fallen to the sea of quanta. All these memories aren't yours, they're fragments of, of–
"Of minds," the demon says. Your other half. "They're made up of countless human minds, Seele. We can be people again. But we have to do it together. Breathe for me. Stay with me, Seele. I can't do this without you."
The demon is back. Did she leave? She sounds so sad. You feel sad too, looking at all these endless strands of glistening lights stretching out in every direction, forever.
These are minds. Human minds, broken up into nearly unreadable thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Fragments of– "Worlds." –lives, memories, hopes and dreams. To be here means they're less than ghosts. They're not even souls. They're less than dust in the wind.
Some of them disappear as you look at them. Some of them linger for a while, before they begin to stretch and split and fade. Their loss is mourned by no one.
You're floating in an ocean of them.
Your own body is a tracery of light, more complex and detailed than any of the patterns around you. You trace the lines with your eyes, watching as it weaves in and out of itself, almost but never quite touching. It is a cage of light, holding something impossibly beautiful inside.
You feel as if you should know what that is, but it slips away from your awareness. You can see it, though, almost clearly. If you just concentrate a bit more...
Ņ̸O̴!̨
The thought comes unbidden into your mind.
It hurts to look at it for too long, so you don't.
You know this mind. It belongs to you, or you belong to it, or something like that. You're not sure; the concept is a little hard to wrap your head around.
What you do know is that it's beautiful. You feel a connection to it, one that you can't quite describe. It soothes you, and calms you, and makes you want to just shut your eyes and sleep.
But that won't help anyone, so you turn your attention elsewhere.
Ai-chan mentioned a ship. Right... you're still on a ship. You can feel the hum of the engines thrumming in your bones, a steady beat like a mother's heart. If you focus, you can just make out the sound of the air filtering system as it circulates the oxygen around. There's life everywhere, but it's a single timeline, fading fast. It's mostly unreal. You struggle to keep track of it, and fail.
Who was Mai-chan–no, Ai-chan again? You feel as if you've known her for so long, but you can't quite remember her. Was she your sister? Or is the voice in your head your sister? You remember you had one, but that's about it.
You can feel the tears welling up behind your eyes, and you let them fall. There's no point in stopping them now.
Was she the one who put you in this place? Are you dead, or somewhere beyond life? Was it her voice you heard? You can't remember; everything is just a jumble of half-sensed memories and images.
"It's certainly not me," the voice says, sounding stressed. You'd say there's exasperation in its voice, and there is, but it's not a voice.
You try to remember her voice.
"You can't. It's too hazy. I can only tell you what she says... there's something wrong with her. Seele, do you remember who I am?"
You can't even remember your own name, really. It's all just a blur of images and feelings and sensations and nothing...
"No, you're not dead, Seele, and if you don't want to die you'll listen and stop forgetting for once. We're in the quantum sea. We're still on the ship, but it's a lot less real than you are right now, so don't move too suddenly. You might break it. If you don't want to stay here, then you don't want that." She grows quieter. "I don't want that, either."
That's your best friend in the whole world, a girl who's been with you through thick and thin, and you can't even remember her name. Doesn't that make you utterly worthless?
"Oh, shut up. You don't know how tired I'm getting of this," she says, sighing. "It would be so easy to just take over, but neither of us would be happy with that. Work with me, and we'll get Bronya back. She's your lover. I'm just the bitch on the side, so to speak. First things... you need to condense yourself. I know it's scary, but trust me. It'll help. We're far too spread out, split across far too many timelines. That's why you can't think."
"How do I do that?" you ask.
She tells you to close your eyes.
"The way this works is: we think it, and it happens. Confusing, right? Alright then, let's try something. Try to imagine a bright blue square. Got it?"
"... Yeah."
"Can't wait to have the proper Seele back," she mutters. "I swear, it feels like I'm talking to a brick wall half the time. I'll assume you've got the image of the blue square in your head. Now, I want you to look at it from each angle. Don't speed through them; take your time, and really scrutinize it. Now, quickly, what you want to do is grab every instance of that image in your mind, and condense it. Like this..."
You see something appear in front of you. It's a blue box.
"What... is that?" you ask, gaping.
"A diary," the demon says simply. "It's yours, and you've written everything down there. Now..."
You watch in fascination as she moves the box around. It opens up to reveal more pages, and these pages turn by themselves, flipping through the air. They're blank.
"This is us," Vel says, in the same tone a teacher would use to explain something really obvious to a particularly stupid child. "We nearly died, so it's mostly blank, but the shapes are still right. If you push it through the foam, like this..."
Vel. Veliona. You clutch at that thought.
You don't quite have words for what happens next. The strands of used-to-be-people shift around you, re-arranging. The chunks that used to be Mai and Laney and... and the others... break apart, turning into sand that rushes through the book before fading into the general nothingness. It's like an entire mountain chain pouring through a soda straw.
You feel weird. Really weird. It's not an unpleasant feeling, but you definitely aren't in Kansas anymore—and that thought scatters before it's fully formed, like so many others that weren't yours. Sensations wash over you like a tidal wave: sound, sight, touch, smell, even feelings and emotions. The foam that was holding you back has disappeared into nothingness, so now it's just you and Vel...
The diary flips open in front of you, thousands, millions of pages chasing each other like the pages of a flipbook. You see everything at once, and somehow understand all of it. It's like staring at the most beautiful painting you've ever seen while listening to the most beautiful music and feeling the most gentle caress ever imaginable.
The entire scene fades away, and you're left in darkness.
It's the first of February.
It's Saturday.
It's 4:30 AM.
It's winter.
Yggdrasil is dead and gone.
Veliona hugs you gently from behind, burying her head in your shoulder. Her grip is so tight it almost hurts, but you don't complain. You put your hands over hers and close your eyes, just savoring the moment. It's beautiful, just remembering who you are.
"We did it," Vel says quietly. She sounds exhausted.
= = =
So the first thing you might notice (if you've read updates prior to Seele Quest) is, I haven't marked any of the prompts. They're certainly still there, but now that I'm trying to make the AI produce an actually acceptable story, there are far too many edits to keep track of all of them. Sorry. It's still about half the AI's work, but you can think of this as now being co-written instead of AI-written. I spent most of this update trying to get it out of "freaking everything's a dream" mode.
The second thing you might notice is, Seele and Veliona are probably a little out of character. Yeah, can't help that; I'm not far enough into HI3 to have a good grasp of their characters. You can probably blame it on the situation.
The third thing you might notice is, we're so utterly screwed. Kevin, what did you do?
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Another rules update
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
I guess this is Seele Quest now.
In any event, as insane as this might be, I'm going to try writing a proper quest using GPT-3 (AI Dungeon, rather) for a co-writer. Why not? I'm never as productive as when I work with that, at least if you count in terms of word count. Trying to keep the quality up is like wrestling a bear, which is to say, not entirely impossible.
Here's what you need to know:
– I updated the thread title, as well as the opening post, because I'm a bad person.
– The previous rules no longer apply.
– I'm going to offer voting options, but here's a standard rule for my stories: The best option is always 'write-in', presuming you spend at least a modicum of time thinking.
Many of you won't be familiar at all with Honkai Impact. That's okay; neither is Seele.
Here's some for this one, now:
[ ] Talk to Veliona
[ ] Remember who you are
[ ] Remember where you are
[ ] Look around
[ ] Write-in
In any event, as insane as this might be, I'm going to try writing a proper quest using GPT-3 (AI Dungeon, rather) for a co-writer. Why not? I'm never as productive as when I work with that, at least if you count in terms of word count. Trying to keep the quality up is like wrestling a bear, which is to say, not entirely impossible.
Here's what you need to know:
– I updated the thread title, as well as the opening post, because I'm a bad person.
– The previous rules no longer apply.
– I'm going to offer voting options, but here's a standard rule for my stories: The best option is always 'write-in', presuming you spend at least a modicum of time thinking.
Many of you won't be familiar at all with Honkai Impact. That's okay; neither is Seele.
Here's some for this one, now:
[ ] Talk to Veliona
[ ] Remember who you are
[ ] Remember where you are
[ ] Look around
[ ] Write-in
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Unfortunate, that. I won't ask you to reconsider, though the story isn't likely to be very HI3-like; it's still mainly a tech demo, and I believe the repeated genre jumps have outlasted their welcome. It should be more interesting to see how well it's possible to keep it on a single story.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Talk to Veliona
[X] Remember where you are
[X] Remember where you are
- Location
- Wingmaiden's Reach, the Near Roofs, Town
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Every one of those steps is, you know, within the bounds of what random-layperson-me thought GPT-3 was capable of except step one, which is, as you say, complete bullshit.
But, well - on some level, I guess it's not like it's that surprising either, once I think about it? I mean, I recognized Seele from that description, so it's clearly possible. It's clearly a thing intelligences can do.
I wouldn't have thought GPT-3 could do it, and I have no idea how it did, either; but ... I guess now that it's been demonstrated that it can, it makes sense that it can?
Anyway.
The world is dead.
Bronya is gone.
But we're awake, alive, and real.
...
...Ai-chan needs our help.
[X] Focus on the ship. Remember it. Be present there.
If we're going to help Ai-chan, we need to actually be in the same ... space, inasmuch as that is a concept that makes sense? We need to actually be on the ship to fix anything on the ship, and not adrift in darkness or lost in the memories of the dead.
TBH, a large part of the appeal was seeing it put together a setting without overtly copying an existing one. My departure has more to do with forcing its virtual hand than with HI3 in particular.