//------------------------------// // Birth // Story: Afterlife Prime // by Dreamshadow //------------------------------// Hello! First off I would like to say that this is a fairly experimental fic, which to be honest I am not entirely sure even qualifies as fanfiction; though as it is fiction written by a fan, with ponies in it I figured it was worth posting in the hopes that it wouldn't be removed for its lack of being in Equestria. (This experiment should be telling as to whether or not I should post the adventures of the Pathfinder Pony Party I am currently DMing as well; though that does take place in Equestria, or at least Pre-Equestria.) If it turns out that it ISN'T supposed to be here, could you please advise me as to where I should post it. This is my first attempt at writing something here, and unlike most of the things I write I am making an honest commitment to some day finishing it. I hope someponies find it to be enjoyable and original. Please feel free to criticize as you will. ~Dreamshadow ============================================================================================ I closed my eyes, excited to begin. I can’t believe I got invited! Most of my friends had given up; saying you either had to be rich or talented to get in; but I figured if tens of thousands of people were playing every night it couldn’t be that hard. Besides, I would never be able to live with the idea of failing at something like this. It had taken some effort, but it would certainly be worth it. As my ordinary consciousness faded and my body went to sleep a felt an unfamiliar buzzing. Suddenly I found myself standing in a perfectly circular blue room. Actually I had a second thought, looking down I saw that I was doing nothing that could properly be described as standing, rather I was floating, and I seemed to have no body. This was certainly new, I appeared to be a perfectly round white ball. Nobody had told me about THIS part of the game. There were four doors leading out. Two were nondescript, one red, and the other blue. One was a large iron door that seemed to scream “KEEP OUT”. The last was the one I had heard of: The grand gothic arch behind which the world of Afterlife Prime lay. Between me and it was a blue table. It had a strange machine with a lever on it. The table lit up. “Welcome to Afterlife Prime! What form of avatar will you be taking. Keep in mind that you are free to create a new avatar at a later time.” A friendly sounding feminine voice said. The table glowed in rhythm with the voice as it spoke. This was exciting, I heard most people went with what they knew and were humanoids of some sort, going for small changes like a tail and cat ears, or elven features, or robotic limbs. That sounded boring to me, in a game where you could be anything, why bother with something so close to what you already were. I considered all of the options I had gone over in my head: I had considered being a Dragon, but I would likely end up being slow and having a hard time moving as one. A bat would certainly be maneuverable, but unless I made myself unnaturally huge I would have a hard time manipulating objects. Pegasus? Oh yeah, flying: check; nerd appeal: check; maneuverable: check. Yeah I’m a brony, sue me. “Pegasus, Equestrian; Green with a yellow and purple mane” I said. “Equestrian Pegasus recognized; A popular option today. What gender will you be? Genderless pegasi are available.” No thanks! I thought. So pegasi are popular eh? I guess I’m far from the only Brony playing this game. Trying out a female body was a little tempting, but I wanted this to be my MAIN avatar for the game, not just some experiment. “Male” I said. “Visualize the model, The Afterlife program will assist in generating a body matching your desires.” This was the part in which some people were booted, even after being invited. People who could not visualize a body for themselves well enough for the game to create simply couldn’t play. At first the game tried to put people in preconstructed, template bodies; but every last one of them suffered from rejection syndrome. In the game they had had limited muscular control, inconsistent movements, and worst of all dangerous feedback. Out of the game things were even worse. It had been a disaster that had almost ended the game entirely. People in the real world began to suffer from temporary paralysis, chronic pain, and even mental instability. Thousands worldwide ended up needing medical care in a space of only two days for rejection syndrome. Governments worldwide had tried to illegalize Afterlife, and the company had suffered extreme economic losses. But an idea this good, and this developed, wouldn’t die so easily. Now people needed to go through screening to get in. And they did. I had been training for the past two months. Beforehand I had already been good at visualization. I closed my vision; like closing my eyes, but as a shapeless blob I didn’t have those; and imagined the pegasus I wanted to be in vivid detail. I wanted to be lithe, tall, and have a large wingspan. More so than most of the ponies on the show. I would be green and have a messy mane, kinda like how Vinyl Scratch keeps her mane. My cutie mark obviously wouldn’t magically appear to recognize a talent in the game, so I had thought of something cool to put on my flank, something that represented me as well. I put a silver runic D20 sprouting wings. Let gamers behold and beware, I was a real nerd. “Model accepted” the friendly voice said. “Congratulations, and again welcome to Afterlife prime.” As it said this I heard two loud clicks from behind me, and a rumbling in front of me. More importantly I FELT the rumbling through my HOOVES. “What will you name your Avatar?” I was too excited to answer the program. I opened my new purple eyes with excitement, feeling the air moving around the chamber as the stone doors leading into Afterlife slowly grinded open. The game certainly had a sense of drama, but I could not mind less. What would ordinarily be cheesy and slow to me had me excited. Almost as much as my body. I could FEEL my wings, I had a whole new set of limbs and I could feel them all as naturally as if I was born a pegasus. I flared them outwards and just looked at them. OmigoshOmigoshOmigosh I have WINGS and feathers. I looked at where the wings met my coat, the strange transition from feather to fur looking perfectly natural. Then I looked between my legs. Everything was in order. I jumped around gleefully, the strange feeling of the metal floor on my hooves one of the most exciting things I had ever felt. Then I flapped my wings a few times; no takeoff. I frowned, then ran a little and jumped, flapping my wings then. I got off the ground and began to glide, gleefully excited; then immediately attempted to brake to no avail, crashing into the wall. Note to self, flying takes space. That HURT, not as much as one would expect from crashing into a wall, but it hurt nonetheless, the game did give a perception of pain. I knew that, but still had to feel it firsthand. I realized that the voice had asked me for a name, and I should probably reply. “Fractal Cloudfront” I replied. It wasn’t much of a pony name. It didn’t represent any talent of mine; it just sounded cool. I had made a lot of characters in my day, and at first I had always been worried about naming them. A name was, after all, something that would stick with you throughout a game. But as time went on I had learned that worrying about it too much was more likely to land you with a name you didn’t like than if you just went with your gut. “You have 1 class level to assign” The voice informed me, “I personally recommend a class that comes with the possibility of magically assisted hovering.” Holy shit, the introduction program comes with a personality. I laughed a little, “You watching me crash bro?” I asked. “Oh yes” it responded, “I always watch the enthusiastic ones” It’s voice took on a slightly creepy tone as it said that. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you?” I asked. “Oh energetic and curious! Well, I am a program constructed by the grand dreamer himself for the express purpose of being able to communicate in a friendly manner with absolutely anyone and everyone! I am currently holding over 487 conversations with players. But this one just became the most interesting of them.” “You get interested?” I asked. “Oh yes, the master doesn’t tend to make emotionless programs.” I thought about this for a moment. I knew that the only computers that had managed to pass Turing tests had imprints that used to be living people in them. But this was different. I hope! I had a scary vision of a black robed man calling himself the grand master imprinting peoples minds into a giant machine trying to find the perfect greeter for the game, leaving behind streets full of soulless husks. “I believe you should get back to choosing a class for yourself.” The not-computer program stated. I got myself back on task, adding her/it to my list of mysteries to solve. I had thought this through, there were over 40 classes in Afterlife, some had magical powers, others came with unreasonable physical abilities, others came with the ability to create and use unrealistically cool technologies. Some were suited for the combat aspect of the game, others were entirely dedicated to exploration, crafting, racing; or almost any other leisure activity you could imagine. There were even classes that specifically specialized in sex. I wanted something that gave me a balanced experience. Since this was going to be my main character I wouldn’t want to be fragile or limited as far as where it could go or what it could do. But I didn’t require some god of destruction as my avatar either. If it came to combat I would win through skill and cleverness, not powerbuilding. “Monk of the Inner Circle” I stated. “Level applied, please assign your two ability points” A glowing chart appeared in the air before me. I brought my hooves together, intending to crack my knuckles... Oh right, no fingers. I settled for popping my right foreleg to the side. The feeling of my avatar’s shoulder popping was infinitely satisfying. Walking up to the chart I saw an array of abilities related to boosting physical abilities, or restricting physical laws. The first kind were called the Soul tree, the second Universe. Each tree further split into five categories.I looked at some of the higher level abilities of the second kind: “Weight mastery” , and “Phasewalk” catching my eye. Having studied the class I quickly settled on two. “Regenerative Burst” A reliable use of my Ki, and “Hover” a passive ability. which recent experience suggested I might need. I turned around “So where do those doors go?” I asked the program. “The blue door exits into natural dreamspace, going through it will put you into a normal REM sleep, it is the recommended exit from the game. The red door will immediately awaken your body. It is a more uncomfortable option, and will sometimes lead to waking with fatigue. The steel door leads to the outside, access to this door is forbidden without a key from the Grand Master Dreamer. Okay, that just got added to my extreme curiousity list. “What about that machine?” The strange device with a lever on it hadn’t moved throughout my character creation. “The machine is a dispenser of complementary chocolate cookies, Enjoy!” I curiously reached a hoof out and pushed down on the lever, sure enough, a blob of chocolate paste came out of a tap and settled into perfect cookie form. I took a bite. It was very, very good. “The Grandmaster Dreamer is kind and fond of chocolate” The voice explained. Okay anyone cool enough to program that in is cool in my books. Even if he also programs his introducer bots to be cultists. I would have to learn more about this ‘Grand Master’ later, right now I had the whole of Afterlife prime to explore. I smiled, walking through the grand stone arch; and into a new world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My new world was bright. And I don’t mean that figuratively. Note to self, get shades. The room I was in was boring, worked stone pillars and a worked stone floor, the kinda room DMs barely bother to describe. The area however was far from inactive enough to be considered boring. There was a crowd of... People might be a generous word, while most of them were more or less humanoid I saw three dragons, something that looked like a Dalek, a towering demon with mouth tentacles and a pincer for a right hand, and a giant three tailed cat. And that was just at first glance. My avatar was not attracting much attention. I heard someone to my side complement an angel on her avatar, then immediately begin flirting with her. Elsewhere a catlike hominoid and a fairy were dueling with rapiers while bystanders placed bets. Holy hell they are fast! My eyes stood no chance whatsoever of tracing their blades, and I had to focus pretty hard to keep track of the cat’s feet. Whenever the fairy tried to fly out of reach, the cat jumped over her to keep her from getting a height advantage. I looked away. I saw a hooded character with a comically large backpack and six robotic arms quickly setting up an item shop. He sold everything from beverages to landmines it seemed. And as comically large as the pack was, I was beginning to suspect that it was even bigger on the inside. I walked over and looked at the beverages he was setting out. “Welcome valued customer, to my humble shop.” He began in an autotuned robotic voice, “I am Shazad the shopkeep, and have all that true adventurers of any cloth need. I sense the spirit of adventure in you.” His glowing yellow orbs gave me what I was sure was supposed to be a meaningful look. “Have you need of magicks to keep you safe, or perhaps drinks to thrill the tongue?” I looked again at the various bottles lined up to the left of his stall. I found to my surprise that I was rather thirsty, and trying out my new sense of taste would be nice. I sniffed the air. It smelled like downtown Vancouver. The smell of various nationalities gathering by a dock to sell varied foodstuffs. I regretfully looked at the various bottles and, I was now noticing rations. Shrugging my wings I said “I don’t really have anything to pay with.” Shazad tilted his head, “I will do business for future favors” he said. I gave him a second look, “That sounds dangerous.” “But one with a true adventurers spirit would like danger” “You won’t make me betray anyone, break any laws, or lose my avatar will you?” “No I can promise that your favor, when I call on it, will be legal, at least by the laws of earth, will not require treachery or dishonesty, and, while it may lead the body you have to death, will not lead it to being banned.” I considered this, “And how much would this favor be worth in merchandise?” He considered this, then took two bottles, a small satchel, a pair of sunglasses, and something greasy wrapped in wax paper and placed them in front of me on the counter. “Mead, Cider, lesser bag of holding, cool shades, that I assure you fit ponies, and what might be thought of as Lembas bread. All bottomless, all of the highest quality.” Bottomless food and drink... this place was getting better and better! “Throw in a waterskin and we have a deal.” As nice as mead is, endlessly drinking it was sure to have some drawbacks, even here. “A deal we have, I look forward to our next meeting” Shazad said. I threw the shades on, and put the satchel over my shoulder. I immediately felt cooler. As I walked away from Shazad I saw another customer approach him: this one a Gorilla in a Tuxedo. Looking around , I was still awestruck at the sheer scale of this world. The stone lobby chamber had seven exits. The one nearest to me seemed to exit to a beach of some sort. Across the way I saw an exit that led to some kind of pleasant looking meadow. Skipping past the exit into a volcanic wasteland, and getting a whiff of sulfur I stated towards that gate. I noticed that I was not the only pony near the area, An Azure blue unicorn with a cutie mark of a notepad and a light green mane was in the room, and she was on the verge of tears. What the hay? I thought. Then I saw the human talking down at her. I took to the air and rushed over to hear part of the conversation: “What’s wrong, why else would you be a horse if you didn’t want to be my mount; huh? Unless... you don’t want me to MOUNT you in another way do you pervert?” I didn’t bother announcing myself, instead just tackling the jerk to the ground. He fell over, completely surprised, but quickly recovered and threw me off.- hard. I skidded across the ground, a small group of humans backpedalling to get out of my way. Real helpful guys. They continued walking. I took a look at the guy who had thrown me: Muscular human with sharp shoulder pads jutting out to the sides of a long red and gold cape. Carries a sword that looks like Cloud Strife’s Buster Sword. Stands about 7ft tall, heavily muscled, and has hair like Goku. Fuck the 90's. “Oh look, another one of your horsey friends, maybe he can be a mount for my friend.” He drew his sword. “Or maybe I’ll just kill him.” He gave what I am sure was supposed to be an intimidating scowl. “Yeah or maybe you’ll realize that this is a no PVP zone and buck off to let people have fun with the game before you make a fool of yourself and get banned.” I replied calmly. He began laughing in an exaggerated way, slapping his knee and playing it up “Oh BUCK off, that... that is hilarious, the horse actually uses horse puns and expects me to take it seriously. Well, even if I did fight you here, you started it, but... okay fine I’ll just be BUCKING off then.” See you in the real game, pony.” The Jerk, as he would now forever be known to me as, walked away into the crowd. A couple of people had stopped to watch our argument, but apparently it didn’t hold their attention for long. “Um... thanks.” The mare said, “sorry about that... I’ll get out of your mane now.” “Wait!” I exclaimed, she jumped. “What is your name?” “Azure Lily” she responded, “I’m new to the game and that guy threatened me, I’m not a combat class so I got scared, and he kept calling me a pervert and...” She was beginning to get stressed all over again. “It’s okay, some people are just jerks, This game isn’t any different than the internet in that aspect.” I said. “Besides, I don’t mind, this way I get to meet a cute mare right off of the start of the game and look like a hero!” I pounded my chest as I said this raising into the air in a hover. Hovering was surprisingly easy with the new ability, unlike my first try it seemed it just happen naturally; I was flapping my wings, but I could tell they were doing less than the magic of the ability. Well as a ‘gravity’ ability I should expect as much. Her eyes widened in alarm, “You mean you are level one? And you made enemies with a fifteenth level Spellsword just for me?” I looked at her in confusion. “Fifteenth level?” “Yeah, didn’t you look at his character sheet?” I hadn’t. I knew that you could call up a character sheet with a simple mental command, but I hadn’t thought to do it. I looked at her. Azure Lily First level Pathless Sage, Abilities in short range scanning and dimensional hopping... Wait, she has her abilities public? Non combat for real I guess. “I forgot to look. Not to be rude or anything but... you could have just dimension hopped away from him” “Um, I forgot” we both laughed a little. “So, Fractal, um, you seem nice, so....” She began. “The answer is yes, yes we are going to hang out.” She smiled “~yay” she said in a Fluttershy voice, we both laughed. She began to trot to one of the lobby exits. Through the exit I saw bright green grass, which despite being just ordinary grass looked prettier than real grass ever had to me. And tastier, I tried eating some, it tasted like grass. Half of me was saying what did you expect the other half was saying holy hay, even the grass has flavor programming, Afterlife Prime is intense. My mouth politely swallowed the grass, a stoic expression on my face. Lily was giggling at me. I gave a goofy grin then gestured downwards “Wanna try some?” Lily just continued giggling. We were on a pristine plain of grass and clover. In the distance to my right there were small hills, surrounded with dense temperate forests rose up. To the left were more fields, these ones filled with strawberries, and in the distance I could see a city of prismicolour spires. As well as a lone spire off to the left, this one taller than the city and made of black stone. Hello high level dungeon! We were on a rough trail, ahead I could see a settlement of some kind. And above us only sky. “Gimme a minute Lily, I gotta try these wings out.” I said. She nodded and pulled out a notepad. “Sure, meet me by those woods, I’m going to scan around some, and see what kind of useful or awesome plants and animals are around.” She began to trot off at a leisurely pace. I flew up as quickly as I could to a nearby cloud, dramatically stopping before it to kick at it with a forehoof, and a goofy expression on my face. It poofed around my hoof, splashing me with moisture. I looked to another cloud about 200 feet away. ReadysetGO! I thought before accelerating as fast as I could towards it. My new body didn’t let me down. I felt a wake of air forming around me as I went faster than I would ever be able to in my real body. Faster than any human could go. I was at the cloud faster than I had expected, forget ten seconds flat, that was like- six. I flew straight through the cloud, soaking my coat on my way through as I felt it’s poofy resistance slow me down. I did a barrel roll, then another, and another until I was dizzy and had lost enough altitude to be at tree height. I slowed to a hover dizzily in front of a tree at the edge of the forest, catching my breath. I floated right up to it until I could touch my hooves to it then kicked off as hard as I could, doing a backflip and landing on all four hooves in front of the tree. I feel GOOD. I thought. If I had tried anything approaching that much sprinting on the ground with my human body I would be gasping asthmatically for air. And I’m not bad at the whole flying thing either, I guess it’s enough like swimming. Or maybe the body comes with instincts, but that would be weird. Would it, everything else is programmed to the nines. The implications of such a thing for training were crazy. I took off again, this time angling myself upwards and away from the forest. I was going to see how high I could go. I managed to get well above the cloud cover and was surprised that it was getting cold, really cold. You should stop being surprised at how real this place is. Just accept that this place is utterly real... except spatially. I recalled the lobby, but looking back the way we came all I saw of It was a small gate, past which more fields and forests persisted. There was no Volcanic waste to the right of the gate where a door in the lobby would have led. I drifted above the clouds, the cool thin air refreshing me as I got a look at the surroundings. After a few minutes I decided to get back down to earth. I took a steep thrilling dive. Leveling out I far overshot the edge of the forest, and had to work to make it back to the edge. On my way I saw that the forest was inhabited by goblins. They seemed angry at me, judging by the way they shook spears at my flying form. But I was well out of their range, and moving quickly. I landed between two trees near the edge and began to skip a little on my new hooves. I was enjoying the look of the trees, a strangely intelligent looking squirrel chittered at me. I wonder if he’s a player? Hell, I wonder if the TREES are players. I thought for a moment about trying to make a tree avatar in the future. If I did I think I would be honour bound to make it yellow and pink. But how would I get out of the lobby? It didn’t take me long to find Lily. After all, I had had a fairly quick flying session. She was closely examining a blue flower... A very familiar looking blue flower. “LILY WAIT!” I yelled as she picked it up with her telekinesis. She was about to get poison joked! She looked at me, and then at the flower floating in front of her. She smiled and floated it closer to me “Take a sniff Fractal!” She said. I yelled and backed away, “This isn’t funny Lily, I just got my wings, I don’t want them to turn into cabbages!” She telekinetically tossed the blue flower at me as I hurriedly tried to evade. But it was no use “AHHH” I yelled as the evil blue thing touched me. “What is it doing to me?!” I felt an uncomfortable itching in my wings and started rubbing them furiously with my front hooves. She just stood there giggling lightly. Then took the flower and put it in her mane. “Are you CRAZY!” I asked. “You do know we aren’t in Equestria don’t you?” She asked me. I stopped scratching my wings. “And you do know that one of the abilities I took with my very first level is specifically for scanning to properties of simple items?” I gave her a glare. She shrank a little “oh, I’m sorry, you were really scared there weren’t you?” She asked. GAHHHH. Now I officially feel like a jerk. I let up on the glare and gave her my best friendly smile and a chuckle, “No, I admit, that was funny as hell.” She immediately relaxed. And was hit in the side of the head by a lightning bolt. Her eyes opened up in shock as the singed flower blew out of her mane. Mine opened wide in fear as she dropped to the ground, bleeding. And as I looked to my left I heard a laugh. First Level- Monk of the Inner Circle- abilities learned: Regenerative Burst, Hover Title: Neophyte. Location : Elyrem Wilds Party members: Azure Lily