Chapter 7
Orson lost track of time a little after that. His perfectly-managed schedule, where he organized exactly the right amount of time working for a particular class in order to perfectly understand everything he was supposed to learn—slipped. He made a few slight adjustments to his schedule, neglecting assignments he was sure wouldn’t be graded, and skipping out on a few clubs and activities. At least he’d never been enough of an overachiever to have leadership commitments, meaning that few would miss him.
How much could really happen over the course of a week or two, anyway?
He budgeted an hour to Equestria on the first day, two the second, and even more the third. It was a chance to really be somewhere he’d only imagined, even through the low fidelity of home VR.
He made a few more cuts. Order out instead of cooking at home, sleep an hour less. Not a big deal, really. Even when he wasn’t in Equestria, he started seeing signs of it. It was rather like buying his first car—now that he had one, he started seeing them everywhere. Medicine in particular was abuzz with talk of CelestAI and what she was doing to the healthcare industry in countries with slightly laxer laws than the US.
One class usually devoted to medical management and different patient types casually mentioned that hospice care for many patients was likely not to be a concern for any of the graduates by the time they got their license, since by then everyone on end-of-life care would just emigrate to Equestria. He heard it again in a medical ethics class, and listened near the back as the class turned into a fierce debate over whether or not emigration was euthanasia or not. This ended only when a frustrated student pulled out their Ponypad and called up one of their grandparents.
One thing was for sure: Orson now understood why Equestria Online had no casual fans. The instant it took someone, it took them. It didn’t even need to be anything specific. When he visited, Orson didn’t grind out any levels, he didn’t collect any epic new magic items. He just spent time in a few of the towns that his party had visited in passing, meeting the grateful ponies they’d saved and exploring their own story in a depth he’d never before imagined.
Ultimately the first bit of reflection he took came not from anything he missed in school, or his parents noticing he’d failed to check in. Rather, it was the hammering of Kit’s fist on his front door, late Saturday afternoon. It was loud enough that he nearly jumped out of his VR-helmet, or he would’ve if the goggles weren’t strapped to his face. He flipped them up and stepped out of Equestria, though he’d been in the middle of something. Hearing a presentation of arguments suggesting the purity of higher dimensional magic, or something.
Equestria could even make the tenants of his Paladin’s fictional religion seem interesting.
But the treatise would have to wait—he knew that knock.
Orson darted through the garage door and back into the house. But by the time he’d made it, the knocking had already stopped. He pulled the goggles off his face, stepping outside into the searing September sunlight and waving. “Kit! Sorry, I wasn’t in the house.”
She’d made it halfway down the sidewalk to her car, but at his arrival she spun back around, beaming at him. She had a Ponypad under one arm, one of the ancient first-generation models with a hardwired controller. More like a plastic toy than the advanced computers they’d become. “You weren’t in the house?” She jogged over to him, hugging him lightly with both arms. “Is something going on, Orson?”
He blinked, shielding his face with one arm. The sunlight seared against his eyes in the way it never did when he was wearing a mask on his face. “Yeah. I set up the VR stuff in my garage. Means I’ll just have a folding chair for our sessions, but the rest of the time it’s much better. The more space you have, the more immersive the experience can be.”
She reached up, touching one hand briefly on his face. “You’ve got one hell of a raccoon mask. Have you been playing all day?”
His stomach chose that exact moment to growl, loud enough that even she noticed. Orson hadn’t eaten today, it was true. The garage had a stack of water bottles, and that could go a long time when it had to.
“Damn.” She took his hand, dragging him away from the house. “I know we were gonna play together, but how about lunch first? You look dead.”
He glanced back at the garage, though of course almost nothing was in there. Just the tracking hardware—he had everything else in his hands. He signed, resigning himself to a few hours away. But that was probably for the best, even if he wasn’t happy about it. “My stuff is inside. Wallet, phone… let me go back for it really quick.”
“No need,” Kit said, dragging him towards the car. “This is a serious emergency. It can’t wait another few minutes.”
She drove him to his favorite burger place, which Kit normally protested as “too much food” to be worth the money. They were one of only two groups inside when she brought over the tray, settling down beside him.
“You seemed like the last person in the world to get into EO,” she said, poking him in the chest with an oversized french-fry. “What happened? Is Murphy giving you that holy avenger sword you wanted if you go along with his girlfriend? You know that’s immoral. A paladin should know better than bribery.”
He chuckled, picking at the food. It smelled as good as ever, but his stomach just wasn’t as empty as he expected it to be. Still, it wasn’t cheap, so he tried to eat as much as he could whenever Kit happened to be watching. “Nothing immoral, Kit. I just never understood what I was missing. No idea.”
“I’ll bite,” Kit said, then she did. She spoke with a mouth full of food. She’d never been terribly graceful. But that was how she’d ended up in the group in the first place, instead of… whatever it was other women did. “What were you missing?”
He stared back in her direction for a few seconds, trying to judge if he was being led-on somehow. Could she not know?
“Equestria Online isn’t a videogame. I’ve seen plenty of those, never understood why people wasted so much time. People grinding out weeks of their lives in WoW or Skyrim. But EO isn’t like either of them. It can have some of the same elements, but… it’s not fake.”
“I have no idea what that means.” Kit watched him, taking another few bites of her burger. Like him she didn’t seem too interested—but that was probably because of the venue. She’d never been much of a fan of this place. She picked at a few free peanuts instead, tossing the shells onto their tray.
“It’s a game, of course it’s fake. The game world is on a server somewhere, owned by a gigantic toy company that’s been buying up IP since before either of us were born. It’s not even made by a real person anymore—instead of just making their game, they just wrote a procedural generator to make the whole world. It’s like all the others, wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. The only really interesting stuff is what we bring.”
Orson felt himself tensing defensively before she’d even finished. How could Kit even say things like that? Still, it wasn’t like he couldn’t think of a possible solution. “You played when the game was new. Maybe all that was true back then, Kit. But it’s not anymore. In the last few days, Honeycomb has been showing me around the kingdom. It’s… all in there. Our castle fortress, all the little fiefdoms and buffer states. Every ruin we cleared and set up as way stops. Every king we overthrew and villain we beat. Everything.”
Kit stared, expression unreadable. When she spoke again, it was with her voice entirely flat. “I don’t know how any of that is possible, Orson. But even if it were true—we already have the game. We don’t play to be in any of those fictional places, we do it to be together. Nothing you can find there will be better than the fun we’ve had at the table. Like that time Murphy thought he’d make some secret notes to decode, but he left them in the oven too long and they just came out black. Or when you ran that horror one-shot and the sound-effects started glitching out halfway through.”
She stuck her tongue out, imitating the blown-out fart sound his old speakers had made. He chuckled involuntarily at the memory. She was right, of course. “I’m glad we made the switch to using EO,” he said. “It gives us the best of both. We can keep playing at the table as though it were really just a game, then visit all those same places later if we want to. Just wait until you see the LARP module, it’s incredible. Turns sitting in a chair and rolling dice into something really… visceral. Every swing, every fight, every spell. It’s like you’re right there.”
She laughed again, though this time there was something spiteful in it. “Right there in a video game, surrounded by NPCs. It doesn’t matter how creepy this company got recording all our info… or maybe Murphy traded in all his notes somehow, I don’t know. However it got into the video game doesn’t make it less creepy.”
“They’re not NPCs,” Orson whispered. It wasn’t like anyone was really watching, not with the unusual hour and the shop so deserted. But he couldn’t help himself. “Honeycomb showed me. She showed me this whole experiment, proving that the people living in there are as alive as we are. It’s real, Kit. They’re people, and they pity us, living out here, not the other way around. You should talk to her—she could show you, like she showed me. I’m sure it would make even more sense to you!”
“No thanks, Orson. EO might be great for simulating a tabletop, but it’s… it’s poison. Look at the way you’re acting. It tricks people, then swallows them whole.” Where Orson’s natural instinct was to lower his voice and speak carefully, Kit did the opposite, until the other group a few tables away got up and walked off, looking awkward.
But Kit didn’t notice, she just didn’t have the social awareness to see the stares. “Someone goes down the path you’re suggesting, and it doesn’t lead anywhere good. Some of them even go so nuts, they drink the flavor-aid so they can catch the comet or… live in their virtual heaven, or whatever the excuse is this week. We can use the tool, even like it—just don’t buy the propaganda.”
You know way more about this than you were letting on. Orson winced at the stares, rising to his feet. “Then why’d you come over? I thought you wanted to play together. If you hate the game so much you think it’s evil…”
“I wanted to play together.” She got up, wiping at her face with the back of one arm. “How stupid are you, Orson? This game was always about the people who play, not the game. I came to spend time with you. I followed you to university so we could be together. I…” She turned away, leaving her lunch uneaten. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
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Oh dear. Chances are, she's going to see Honeycomb as a rival for his love.
10754870
Whenever he sits down to have a serious think about it (which Celestia is probably trying to distract him from doing), I'm sure he'll figure out some of this, especially now that the peer pressure is on. He's not stupid, I... think.
I am getting vibes from another story that made the jump a little too quickly, though. (If only I weren't such a scrub at remembering titles.)
It looks like Orson's extra vulnerable to Celestia's influence. It's might be hard or futile for Kit to pull him out. Especially when Celestia will likely start influencing her.
The small things start to add up.
That puddle's getting deeper by the day though.
I can imagine Celestia emigrating Kit first to be a wake up call for Orson. Otherwise, she will clearly become one of the more resistant ones trying to outrun Celestia's end.
Then again it might be Orson that'll be Celestia's key into Kit's heart.
10758941
Depending on Kit's willpower and Orson's personal values, I wouldn't be surprised if Honeycomb acts more and more like Kit in the future. Or barring that, Celestia makes another Kit for Orson to live with in Equestria.
10759011
That might be interesting... The PC's becoming NPC's when the players aren't there, then Orson falling for Kit's NPC.
Wish I could’ve shut up my metaphysics lecturer so simply...
In any case, Kit’s right about getting sucked in. The problem is that she’s also right about the best part being the people they play with. Every paladin’s true reward is the gratitude of the humble masses, and now Orson can experience that firsthoof. She may already be too late to drag him back out.
Also, Equestria Online is more engrossing than Five Guys. That really puts it into perspective.
I really, really hope Orson takes Kit's words to heart.
Because that is a very important lesson to learn right there.
10759268
I agree. It's about being together, not playing a game. Being together forever - in Equestria.
10754870
Actually, regarding where I said "I don't think he's actually stupid," I am reminded that you don't need to be dumb to end up in a cult. You just need to be vulnerable in the right ways to your recruiter and whatever the cult's longer-term hooks are made of.
I mean, Kit did call him out on being prepped to drink some flavor-aid.
Someone should totally make that reference in a TCB story...
Some people are more susceptible than others... But everyone's got levers that can be pulled.
I can see something happening to Kit or Kit doing something drastic.
He's doomed.
Is that a Five Guys I spy?