Reset
It was an easy takeover. The team guarded their ritual expert for an hour while he danced and chanted around a pillar of golden fire; he said he was on autopilot while eating some pasta and they should shout if anyone tried to kill them.
At the end, the ray of mystic energy flared broadly enough to threaten the party, died, and came back in Harvest Moon's orange coat color, shot through with silver streaks. Diver tried warming his hooves by it, becoming aware of something he'd been missing: temperature. The day was warm and the fire just hot enough to draw human hands or Hooflander hooves close in primal curiosity.
The queen's voice echoed from the flames. "Good work, my loyal subjects. Sunward Ho's power has decreased by a point. If we can knock the enemy beneath fifty, opposing her will get much easier."
"What is she at now?" asked Diver.
"Fifty-two, due to other conquests back and forth. Unfortunately, that means the Noble must act."
Scale said, "Status?" toward the doorway.
Their ninja reported back, "No contact yet. Maybe the enemy has pulled back rather than fight over a single point."
Diver scuffed a nearby column with one hoof. "We're thinking in terms of a conventional war. These are mostly Earthside people here to make trouble, though. They already raided Noctis and did some damage even though it didn't accomplish more than to tick us off.
We may be in for an unconventional attack of some kind."
The queen said, "I have supporters from around Earth, but mainly active when it's evening in North America and Europe. Our strength will temporarily ebb starting about now, leaving us vulnerable until the moon rises again over those lands."
Scale watched the empty distance, then turned back toward Harvest Moon's voice. "Want us to press on, your majesty?"
"You might as well. Try to seize the two-point node to your north; I will have another force converge there soon after you arrive."
Diver tapped his breast with one hoof and lowered his head. "Your majesty."
#
The party abandoned the point on the theory that the queen would detect an attempt to seize it and the enemy's mainly Earthside forces would be going to bed about now, too. The sun set in Hoofland, leaving Diver's party in surprising darkness. In Noctis itself the moon was always visible, by some power of the night-minded Noble. Their ninja lit the way with a dim horn-light.
Diver asked, "Are you shadows up for another fight?"
The ninja nodded. The cleric said, "This place is gonna be my home. I might as well."
"Really? You're going to upload?"
"I'm sixty-eight. Do you know how awful 'assisted living' homes are? It's one or the other. Or spend my savings on a new lung, and probably die a few years later anyway." The silly cartoon horse trotted along quietly for a while. "Diver, do you believe in God?"
The question would have bothered Diver a year ago, before his own similar decision to leave the ordinary world behind. He looked into the darkness beyond their sharp-edges little circle. "No. I haven't in a long time."
"I'm sorry, mister Rondel. We didn't get to her in time."
"You tried. That's... that's just the way the world is."
Diver spoke and flapped his wings once, sending a crackle of electricity along them and into the ground. "If there's to be any justice in the world, we have to be the ones to create it."
"That's about where I am at this point. Why take the chance that all the priests are wrong, when there's a real sort of immortality for sale?"
The ninja stopped, and the motion of his head spun shadows around them. "Must be nice to be so damn rich."
Diver raised his wings defensively. "I got in after the big price drop."
"To only six figures. Right. People like me only get to hope there's a real heaven, 'cause we can't afford your version."
Scale came to his defense. "Your world's not fair. There's only so much we can do about that. We ponies are trying to help."
"Really? By fighting over this game map? If you take over from the griefers, how does that do a damn thing for us 'shadows'? In fact, even your slang says you think you're not human."
Diver felt spotlighted by the unicorn's spell-light, but there was no warmth in it. "You're right. It doesn't help you. We should be doing more."
Scale nudged him, saying, "This place is your home now. Plenty of other people get here and bounce right back out."
The many-bodied Noctis wasn't among the circle who knew about the Ascension program. Diver had committed more than Noctis knew to Hoofland, but the change meant taking some responsibility for the world beyond it. "Making uploading practical for everyone should be our goal. But I'm no scientist or economic planner. What I can do here and now" -- he stamped the ground -- "is fight this war, in a way that doesn't just win but that makes people Earthside think of our world in a different light."
The unicorn said, "Sure looks like you're playing it exactly like it really matters. Capture the control point, move on to the next, beat the boss."
That was true, which stung him. "Then what would you suggest?"
"They're trolls. They're playing to screw around, not because they care. Help them screw around. I don't know; build some obscenely shaped castle as tribute?"
Scale said, "This is our world, shadow. Not a toy."
The shadow laughed at her. "Have fun with that. You're the toy. Thanks for the perspective; I should go outside and do something real. Take my stuff; I don't care." He flopped onto the ground and "slept", abandoned by the human controlling him from the outside world.
The mare sniffled. Diver draped a wing over her, and the cleric hesitantly did the same with one hoof. Somewhere else in the world, did the rest of Noctis feel the same way?
"He's right," said Noctis. "We tell ourselves we're a vital part of Hoofland, but background characters are all we'll be to humans. Why are they so mean?"
"The real -- the Outer Realm is hard for us."
"Not 'us'! You're not one of them anymore."
That was more true than she knew. Diver said, "You've brought happiness to a lot of people. That's more than a lot of humans can say. What can we do to make this world better with our own skills and perspective?"
"Lock the shadows out! Kick their accounts and leave us alone." A faint red light shined in the distance, probably dawn.
Their cleric said, "Now, now, miss Scale. We shadows aren't all bad, right? If you push for Hoofland to disengage from human players, or block accounts just like any other game, then that's how people will think of it."
She sighed. "I suppose. Get here as soon as you can, will you?"
Diver's eyes widened and he took to the air. The red light wasn't to the east, but to the north, and it was coming from the ground. "Guys? About face and start running."
In a spreading wave from the direction of the next magic node, the ground was lava.
Scale looted the unicorn's body, barked a command to the brainless guards who'd been following them, and ran. The cleric hurried after. The game added a breathless note to his voice, but he was otherwise casual as he said, "What's wrong?"
"Wave of lava!" said Diver, landing long enough to rest his wings. He felt the pull of air through his lungs and the beat of his hooves on dirt. "Anyone seen this before?"
Scale glanced backward as they ran. "No. How much of it?"
"As far as I could see." There was no horizon in this flat world, but fog blurred everything beyond a few miles out.
"Humans!" she hissed. "That does it. I'm cheating a bit." She shut her eyes for a moment, still galloping south away from the red wave. "Meteor knows his squad's suddenly been cut off from a supply line he had going. Perfect Timing -- you haven't met him -- just got killed. Grassy Gnoll sees something odd in the distance as he works Mount Improbable with some newcomers. Diver, this isn't just one node that's going haywire."
Diver flew again and risked veering away from his southward course to get a better view. "It's everywhere!" He turned back to catch up, and saw he was right: another wave was spreading from somewhere to the east. He told them, turned his herd southwest, and said, "What could cause this?"
"I don't know. Some of my mage friends might."
The cleric said, "Don't ask me. I don't know the inner workings. A glitch with elemental magic? Warn the queen as long as you're talking to your other selves."
"Done."
The hellish light was closer now and showed no sign of stopping. "Get across the canyon?" said Diver.
"No time for ziplining."
Diver ran and soared just above the ground. "Then you two will die. Sorry. If only there was -- aha! Give me your stuff." He pointed to the scattered clouds in the sky."
"Cloud backup storage!" said the cleric. He reached his neck into his saddlebags and tossed Diver a pouch. "I'll get this back, right?"
Diver said, "It'll be your cloud bank. I'll try to, uh, paddle the cloud somewhere safe or wait until the lava's gone. Scale, any valuables?"
"Good thinking." She stopped and fished with her hooves for the coins and potion bottles they'd looted off the goons they'd killed. Diver landed and filled his saddlebags until he wasn't sure he could fly. "Sorry, you two." The wall of lava was in plain sight now, about to sweep over them.
The cleric said, "It's only death. Doesn't seem to be a big problem anymore."
Diver hugged Scale, then took off and landed on the nearest cloud. His wings ached and he took a moment to catch his breath after such a sharp takeoff. Below him the whole world was becoming a sea of lava. He didn't look down at where his friends were dying.
He carefully leaned over the cloud's edge; it was only the size of a car. He tried beating the air with his wings to push it along, but at this rate he couldn't get anywhere useful. Still he had to try. It was all he could do.
Bits of the air crackled. The red light flickered and seemed to change direction, and moments passed when it seemed like time had jumped forward. The sky... the sky was a mass of cubes. Nothing was real. There was a taste of cough syrup in his mouth and he couldn't feel his body. Then all sound ceased, and then so did the world itself.
#
The letters appeared slowly with clicking, as though typed. System notice: Hoofland was destroyed. If you live there, don't worry: we'll have something up and running shortly. In the meantime please wait in this backup environment. If you were one of the ones that caused it: you get an achievement award for that. Now never do it again.
There was nothing else. Then some semblance of reality returned: a crude world of blocks, forming a wooden hut on a grassy field.
Diver looked around, then found he had no body. He could move by willing it, and open the hut's door the same way. Inside was a generic data tablet with large buttons offering to let him read various books or a Talespace news feed.
He had no breath, no ability even to shudder. Diver called out but there was no sound either. The visual environment was here to help him stay sane, but it did nothing for his mood. His friends were hopefully either standing up Earthside while their computers blinked the error message at them, or relaxing in copies of this same vanilla world.
He willed himself vaguely at the tablet's buttons to check the news. US President Floats Anglo Union: "Never Should Have Left". Pro-Caliphate Rally In Barcelona Turns Violent. Reactor Design Passes Key Test. Challenger Launch Faces Threats, Delays. Nothing about his home.
He stood, bodiless, and read a guide to Hoofland's gameplay. It was helpful to have more background information on how the various powers worked. Or did work. At least this disaster was due to the griefers rather than something even worse befalling the Outer Realm.
#
Later, he appeared in a small indoor stadium, seating a few thousand people. The field in the middle was nothing but grass. He looked around at equally confused ponies, deer, griffins and other Hoofland races, then spotted Nimbus and waved. He spotted his own hoof and smiled at it. He didn't have full sensation yet, but he was at least back to normal.
A griffin flapped into view from a hazy light above, and landed in the center. She stood taller than any similar creature, and her feathers shined in blue as though lit by rippling water. "Greetings, citizens of Hoofland," she said. "I apologize for the apocalypse."
The crowd murmured. Ludo! Diver hadn't seen the AI overlord since he'd left the virtual world's starting area. She didn't often appear in Hoofland, at least openly.
She said, "As some of you saw, the recent invaders from Earth found a glitch in Hoofland's physics that rapidly created an infinite amount of lava. It was pretty clever, actually. Unfortunately it had the side effect of destroying everything on the ground and lagging the world so hard it risked interfering with vital systems. I had to shut it down. Each of you is here because you're either an uploader, a native, or representing a collective-intelligence native."
Golden Scale was in the stands, but not shadow players like Major Key.
"The last usable backup of Hoofland is from five days ago."
People groaned. Diver joined in; four days meant everything he'd experienced would be wiped out as though it'd never happened! At least, his treasures. He supposed his brain wouldn't be reset.
Ludo raised one wing. "I know. That's why I have another option to run by you, before we consult the Earthside players. It would be possible to restore from backup and effectively turn time back. That's option one. Option two is to create a new, exclusive copy of Hoofland, only for those who live here. You need never fear attacks by outsiders again, and we need not bother trying to limit griefers who have no stake in this world. What do you think?"
"I have friends out there," said Diver. A lot of other residents were saying much the same thing.
Someone called out, "We can't cut ourselves off!"
"Show of hooves for that?" asked the central griffin. Not many. "That's not surprising. Here's another idea. In the early days of Hoofland it was built without a great deal of continuity." Her beak curled in a frown. "It's also rather small, isn't it? A few hours' walk will take you much of the way across the map."
A few people murmured assent. Diver chuckled as he realized: She's an artist looking at this disaster as a chance to revise something that didn't quite please her. He said, "Out with it. What are you trying to replace my world with?"
The AI turned suddenly to him with a touch of guilt visible in the set of her wings. "Hoofland version two. A world built with full knowledge that uploading is possible, designed to welcome newcomers and Earthside players and to be a true home rather than a game that happens to have people living in it. Certain physics code ought to be revised, that I'd never had the chance to. It nettles me."
Scale said, "What about all the things we've built? There is no town of Noctis right now."
"What I propose is to start again, with the minds we have, in a new world. If the invaders want to control places of power, they can, but becoming a Noble should be a boon only for those willing to live here. I would reset all of the control points on this new map, meaning no Nobles will exist until a new generation of them earns that right."
Harvest Moon stood, plainly visible by her bearing even amid the other brightly colored equines. "You risk having us not care. Do you want this new work of art of yours to gain leaders chosen only from the most aggressive? We didn't come here to play the old games of dominance, and some of us... as you know, some of us have been seeking a new perspective."
The griffin nodded, tapping her beak with her talons. "Many of you have discussed this line of thinking with me. You want to stay engaged with the world outside, but you also resent being a 'secondary world' that exists mainly to amuse the outsiders. So, what if the race for Noble status also carries certain obligations to both realms? Those who have the title can lord over Hoofland, but will also be expected to actually help manage it and to coordinate the residents' Earthside efforts. That should discourage players from taking over just because for the challenge."
Voices clamored, until someone made himself heard: "What's going on right now? Are humans sitting at screens and getting an error message?"
"The message says we'll be back soon, and 'good game' to the griefers. I'd like to get things up and running again, but I shouldn't be standing here in the middle of things and telling you what you should have. Why don't you all take a few hours to talk it over and get back to me? Consider it an experiment in democracy."
#
The stadium exits opened onto a warren of streets lined entirely with identical taverns. The interiors were full of tables, bars and faint but lively violin music. Diver's senses were still mostly dead, and there was no food or drink, nor thirst or hunger. He would've preferred having the needs and the ways to solve them. Judging from the taverns' copy-pasted layout and the simple simulation, he sensed that having everyone together like this was straining Talespace's computers. The virtual world seemed designed more for wide open spaces than for a gathering of many minds, each of which took more processing power than many square miles of scenery.
Harvest Moon tapped him on the flank with one hoof, making him turn. "There you are," she said. "We're electing a dozen or so representatives to settle this business and remake the world."
"You have my vote, then."
"I'd actually like to request your vote for Nimbus."
The bat-winged pony looked startled. "Me?"
The queen said, "You're more trustworthy than either of us right now."
Diver resented that; he'd killed a few people since the change, but he'd established that that sort of fighting didn't count as wrong. No one had accused him of having gone violently mad.
"Then what do you think I should say to the other representatives?" Nimbus asked, looking around at the queen, Diver, and the others who'd gravitated toward Harvest Moon.
Diver said, "Hoofland should be a place for the people with a stake in it, first. If people want to play from Earthside, fine, but this is our world and they're our guests."
One of the others groused, "Damn free-to-play accounts. Have you seen some of their names? 'Bullet Hell', 'Panzer Tank'. Wannabe heroes in ludicrous lime and purple. They don't take this place seriously."
Danio the zebra found their group at one of the big round tables. "For me it's a normal thing to be the Other, so it's interesting to see this attitude toward humans. We call them shadows, but we are their shadows, imitating their battles, their politics and even their furniture. Consider these chairs. These are chairs for humans." They had high seats and upright backs, lifted from a generic fantasy graphics set.
Diver thought of the fancy equipment he'd borrowed, the nerdy talk of game statistics and how skills linked to numbers -- and how those things stacked up against the reality of Earthside players whose real hackers and weapons could knock Talespace down like a sandcastle. "What survived the apocalypse is the people, and our friendships and minds. Those are our real resources, not how many magic crystal toothbrushes we make."
"Culture," the queen said. "We may be imitating the outward form of Earth royalty, but we can do more with it than play at conquering each other's land."
Nimbus looked around at the huge gathering. "But that's exactly what we'll tend to do. We're still human. Unless..." She shut her eyes and her wings quivered. "This is going to sound ridiculous."
Diver reached out with one wing, though he couldn't feel the touch. "Go ahead."
She said, "We've given up on the life we had on Earth, but we kept what was important to us. 'Better to lose an eye than burn intact', right? We lost our world today to get the chance at a better one. If we're really going to keep splitting our attention between Hoofland and the outside, then we need to get serious about that. This world has cleric characters. What it doesn't have is a specific belief system. I say we start one."
Harvest Moon asked, "An actual religion?"
"Yeah. Focused on protecting our world and using it for good. It can bring people together whether they're natives, uploaders or outsiders, against the jerks who only see it as a toy."
Danio nodded. "It was coming to this. There was a religious vacuum. But now someone must fill it."
"Not 'someone'. We don't need specific gods."
"Leaders, at least. Nobles who can direct people's efforts." Danio looked to his queen.
The queen looked at Nimbus. "I expect a free-for-all once the world is rebuilt. There will be room for more Nobles. Besides, you currently have no arena to get back to. Maybe you should be more than my underling."
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Oh boy. Here it comes.
Great story! Very interesting setting.
Optimalverse-esque, but new and refreshing.
Well, now I'm glad you didn't choose Equestria as the setting.
Just imagine THAT happening there!
Just imagine Applejack losing Sweet Apple Acres. Times a thousand.
I'm sure that situation applies to somepony in Hoofland.
Then again, Equestria didn't ever have to deal with outside invaders that treated it like a videogame. Oh wait.
...And THEN the entire world was destroyed one day later.
I feel bad for True Sky.
Her husband(?) dies, while she's grieving the kingdom they ruled together is taken over, and THEN the apocalypse happens destroying everything that's left.
Poor True Sky.
...Actually, living in the Sun-Kingdom must've sucked when it got taken over by griefers.
Hey, where is the cash shop items?
Keep this up! I love you for this!!!
I was on a minetest server once. To prevent "griefing" they prevented you from bucketing lava, but water was still fair game. To prevent "griefing" they used a land claim module, that let you make it so only you could dig on an area of land. Someone then immediately began farming land claims and reserved a huge area for themselves right next to spawn. On this land, they built a castle. A giant castle made out of solid cobble.
Then I came onto the server.
It seriously took a solid minute to walk around this eyesore. I had a comparatively modest land claim, as well as a few harmless pit traps that had claims on the bottom and a sign that says "Gosh I love the land claim module, don't you? Good thing this server has a /suicide command!" NOT griefing obviously, since land claim module only prevents griefing. But the problem is, I set up camp within sight of this castle.
Now, I acted with grace and humility and didn't do anything to it. Obviously I couldn't, since the whole thing had protection blocks. Then, months went by without the owner of this castle signing on. I wasn't on that server frequently, but not once did I see them, or any evidence that they were building anything more. Neither had anyone else in chat. Admins just mocked me of course, because their land claim module could do no wrong. And I never found out if anyone got caught in my pitfalls. (darn!)
I got fed up with it once some people came on the server who were totally not griefing by killing you repeatedly, because griefing is only about how many boats you demolish, not how much actual grief you cause. I was pretty much sick of this server. So, naked of tools and armor (again), I waited for a time of low activity on the server. Then, I mined enough resources to make two buckets, and filled them with water.
Now, obviously you cannot place water in protected areas. So I went as close to this cobble castle as I could (and it had a HUGE buffer) and began building a 1 block tower. Once I'd gotten higher than the castle's protection, I started working a little water magic, by which I can place water in air, that expands on its own to the cubed volume of the edges that I cover. I went dumping water along one edge of the castle, and then another, and somehow I finished this hour long task without the few people online noticing and screaming at me in chat. The water expanded to engulf the entire castle and flood all the surrounding properties, including my own. After placing (go figure) cobble, to mitigate the flooding to properties away from the castle, I I took a good long look at this mountain sized cube of water towering above, all of which were source blocks, then I logged off and never returned.
I suppose I could be considered a "griefer" unlike all those people hurting each other, stealing their stuff, blocking each other from digging, and building eyesores and abandoning the server. But that was the biggest sense of accomplishment I've ever had in that terrible game. (The only other when I hacked in an xray mod that wouldn't be detectable.) And that giant floating ocean really did make that cobble castle look good, sort of like seeing it at the bottom of a giant acquarium.
I guess my point is I think you do good griefers, they make good antagonists, and they really do seem like people I'd had the misfortune to meet online.