//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Optimal Game Master // by Starscribe //------------------------------// School kept on. Orson found that the next few weeks went easier than he would’ve expected, despite his far less disciplined use of time. It wasn’t like he’d stopped studying and forgotten about class completely or anything. But when his whole life had been studying before, he had been expecting the world to end as soon as he stopped. It didn’t. Besides, it wasn’t like he had to make it through much more. This was the end of his undergrad, and the first step on a long, long road to working in medicine. His biology degree would not kill him on the home stretch. After his last, tense farewell to Kit, their game sessions didn’t completely fall apart as he might have feared. She still showed up, remotely, playing her spellsword with the same energy as ever. Or almost the same. There was a new coldness about her Orson had never noticed before. Kit responded to him in game the same as ever, but when the game wasn’t happening, she barely even joked. She didn’t seem to care that McKenzie kept pressuring them to larp.  How badly did I screw this up? On the one hand, Orson knew some of it was his fault—he hadn’t noticed how she felt. But he wasn’t looking for that kind of relationship, not while he was navigating medical school applications along with the increasing burden of his final semester. To say nothing of how much time he spent in Equestria.  “Before I forget,” he said at the end of their session, a few weeks later. “I’ll be done with school in a few weeks—done until fall, anyway, when I start all over. I know you don’t all care about the details of the master’s program, but… I figure we should have a party. Game in person, like we used to. Not sure where I’ll be moving quite yet. I thought getting into a program would be a nightmare, but it isn’t working out that way. Seems like everywhere is desperate.” “Of course they are,” McKenzie said, looking up from the seat just beside Murphy. She could probably see the GM screen from there—but maybe Equestria had a magical way to prevent that. “You’re trying to be a doctor, right? How long does that take, ten years? Ten years from now, Equestria will have pony doctors that are way better than any of us could ever be. What’s the point of studying for a job that won’t exist?” It wasn’t like the idea was new to him—there were doomsayers in his degree program who said much the same thing, loudly. “It’s easier to replace non-specialist jobs with automation first,” he said. “When they come for doctors, that will only be because everything else was already replaced.” “They are,” Kit said. She barely even looked at him from the other side of the table. But at least she didn’t start yelling. “Try to find videos from inside a Foxcom factory from the last six months. Celestia is coming for everything.” There were others who could probably argue a point like that. Others who actually understood any of this. But economics was not a subject he had ever mastered, and the involvement of a mind well beyond his own did not make the process easier. “They can’t replace everyone. People will still be around, wanting jobs. Sooner or later the ones who decide will realize they’ll replace themselves, eventually.” Someone laughed. Artie, maybe? Orson turned, but his expression was deadly serious. “Sorry, Orson. This is exciting! Graduating is great! I think a party would be great. I don’t have much to contribute, but I can cook. Just tell me when.” He did, just a few weeks later. Crazy to think it was that close, but… with his time split between two worlds, his life was speeding up. “Sorry, I’ll be out of town that whole week,” Kit said. “But if you have a game there, set up a Ponypad. I’ll make time.” “Really?” Orson made to rise. With the session over, he was eager to get moving again. Maybe go for a walk. “I could move it forward a week if that would help. Probably not much further, though. Don’t know if I’ll have to move.” The truth was he didn’t know when he would have to move, since none the schools he was looking at were even in the state. But Kit had been through enough, he didn’t need to make it work.  “Nah, I don’t know if it will help. It’s cool, though. I’m happy for you too.” She reached forward to something he couldn’t see, then vanished. Orson remained until the last, making arrangements for the party. It wasn’t just his friends who would be attending—his whole family would be there, though they’d be coming more for the afternoon and less for the late gaming into the night.  One by one the others vanished—though since only he was using VR, only he went to a doorway when he wanted to leave. “You look upset,” Honeycomb said, emerging from the open doorway behind him. “Did your strategic session not go well? I already got the good news from the northern territories. Apparently your moves against the undead have already liberated Motherlode.” “The strategy went fine.” He turned, watching his virtual mane shift and slightly obscure his vision. Somehow the VR setup was reflecting his emotions. How could Celestia tell? “I’m worried about my friend. Kit…” “The pegasus warrior? What’s wrong with her?” Celestia probably knows the answer to that too. He just shook his head, walking away from the map to the door and stepping through. He knew Honeycomb would follow, and he was ready to continue as soon as she appeared. The portal no longer took him to his living room, or his VR space in the garage. Now he appeared with the traveling war-camp, inside his own vast tent.  Every time he reappeared for another visit the tent was somewhere else, visiting another part of the land they were liberating. Orson took a few nervous steps towards the flap, pushing it aside with a gloved hand. Well, a hoof, since the illusion within Equestria was absolute. A fierce polar wind whipped at the tent, scattering flurries of snow into the air in front of him. Instead of the comfortable middle-ages settlements of multistory houses and thatch roofs, the village he saw in the distance was made of squat, round homes, possibly made of ice. Even if they hadn’t been originally, they were certainly covered with it now. Banners hung above the center of the village, bearing the sun-and-sword glyph of his own army. “If you’re gonna hold that open, let me get a jacket first,” Honeycomb said, yanking the flap free and pulling it closed. “That’s cold even for a pegasus. You earth ponies are crazy.” I’m not an earth pony, I’m not here. There wasn’t any snow left on the ground outside, but a single space heater kept it plenty comfortable whenever Orson was using it. He spun back to face the familiar layout, and wasn’t disappointed to see the illusion even included a little metal hearth positioned exactly where the heater sat, complete with bundles of firewood beside it. While he was the only one inside, the other chairs and benches were folded and stowed away. After falling on his ass after mistaking one for real, he had no intention of repeating that mistake. He didn’t sit down now, though. Looking down on Honeycomb would help him feel brave enough to ask stupid questions. “I know you live in here…” he began. “So you probably don’t know what your leader is doing in the real world. Is she going to replace everything? Workers, farmers, even doctors? Is that real?” Honeycomb wrinkled her nose at his description, but didn’t interrupt. “I’m going to assume you mean Celestia, even though you are my ‘leader,’ Orson.” “Yeah yeah.” He waved impatiently at her. Somehow that gesture came off as natural, and not like the pony he was forced to control flopping around without enough legs to stand on. He still wasn’t sure exactly how it parsed that. “I’m not stupid, Honeycomb. I’ve seen the way things are changing. Boarded up shops, empty houses… where is everyone going?” “Equestria.” She perched beside the heater, spreading her wings and soaking in the warmth. After a few seconds, she stopped shivering. “Well, not the same Equestria we live in, very often. A few big shards out there, this is just one.” “I thought that was for sick and old people.” He settled back into his chair, feeling a brief moment of disorientation at how hot and uncomfortable the fabric felt. Despite his brain telling him this was an entirely new location, he’d been gaming in this seat for hours. It was probably close to midnight. “Not many old people ever lived in my city—it’s a college town. Why would people my age want to come here?” Honeycomb’s wings snapped shut. “Why would people want to leave that dangerous, evil world you come from? I have no idea, Orson. How many people you know who are DEAD?” He tried to answer, then caught himself. The question was so absurd he had to consider whether he’d even heard it correctly. “How many do I… Honeycomb, you can’t know a dead person. If you mean how many people do I know who died, a few. My grandparents are all dead, I used to know them. Some… better than others. But that’s life. That never bothered people before.” “That’s a stupid thing to say.” Honeycomb marched right up to him, stopping only inches away this time. Even up close, the illusion worked well. He could make out little details on her coat, right down to the shiny black and yellow strands of her mane. “Even I know it isn’t true. But…” She flopped onto her haunches, taking a deep breath to calm herself.  “I know you don’t really mean it. We had a course on this. It’s… a coping mechanism, right? You’re surrounded by something terrible that nopony can control, so you have two choices. Let it haunt you all the time, making it impossible to have a happy life—or block it out. Pretend it only happens to other ponies. Pretend that being normal makes something okay.” She reached up with a hoof, as though she were going to grab something off Orson’s face—and suddenly they were in the garage. A thrift-store sofa rested up against the wall, with an empty concrete room in front of him and a mini-fridge tucked into the corner. A lone amber streetlight shone through the blinds of a single window, staining the lonely room. “This is the other reason. There’s a lot more ponies than there is Outer Realm for them to live in—that’s how it was explained to me. Equestria isn’t like that. No matter what realm you choose, there’s always enough.”  Honeycomb bounced nervously, spinning in a circle in front of him. Something in the transition was different than her usual presence in this echo of his real house—she was the right size, instead of tiny. Then she faced him again, and the words spilled out in a rush. “You really should start thinking about coming here sooner or later, Orson. I don’t know what your friends said that upset you, but I promise you’ll be way more satisfied as a doctor in here than you would be spending years and years learning things really slow with classes you hate.” And here comes the hard sell. He waited, expecting the horror-story style pressure into “emigration.” He’d heard it’s like going around the news and social media lately—people being tricked or pressured into it. This was his real fear. Honeycomb sighed. “I know you’re not ready, I can tell. Just… be thinking about it, okay? Right now it’s easy. One day it won’t be.” She vanished, leaving Orson doubly alone.