“Of course. Stop being such a wuss.”
“I’m not a wuss. It’s just- you have to admit not being able to move while-”
“Could you-”
“What?! Oh, right.”
“Thanks. Now let’s get set this up…”
“…and this is safe, right?”
“I said stop moving.”
A pause.
“Yes, it’s safe.”
“It’s really…”
“…disconcerting. The whole thing, I mean.”
“Listen to yourself…”
“… ’disconcerting’. Who talks like that?”
“Everyone talks like that, Chris, especially when there’s a cable the size of a forearm sticking out of your spine.”
“Stop moving! Please! This is hard enough as it is.”
“I thought you said it was safe!”
“It would be if you stopped moving!”
A pause.
“…please. This is hard enough already.”
“Alright.”
The buzzing whirring of a myriad fans. The hum of technology all around me. The rustle of cloth as Chris worked next to me, adjusting tech that I would never understand, even though I was the one who had made it happen. Then again, I had made the entire world “happen”, and I still didn’t understand half of it.
“How do you feel?” Chris asked.
“Fine, I think,” I replied, “but there’s something wrong with my eyes. It’s like I’m seeing everything, but can’t remember what I am seeing while I’m seeing it?”
“Oh shit…” Chris cursed.
Before I could say anything, there was a crackling sound. My body went stiff and something told me I should have felt pain, but I didn’t.
Until that point, I hadn’t even realized I hadn’t been feeling anything, but at the same time as I heard the distinctive sound of Chris slamming the ENTER key, I felt something moving through my body like ink dropped into water, like the aftermath of an electric shock that I hadn’t noticed.
Chris bent over me again, holding my head to shine a pen light into my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut at the bright light, but It took me a second to realize I was “seeing” again. That was SO weird. Almost like I had been able to see the entire time, just not processing it. Even more confusing; as that ink-water feeling spread through my fingertips and toes, I found myself remembering sights that I couldn’t remember seeing over the past few minutes.
“This entire experience is seriously fucked up, Chris.”
“Sorry,” Chris said, “The cable became unstuck.” As usual, they looked so very worried. As usual, they immediately went on the offense.
“See, this is exactly why I told you not to move.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “It’s not like you are getting your consciousness uploaded into the cloud.”
Chris glared at me. “I told you a million times this is not the cloud, it’s-“ They cut off and glared at me when they saw my grin. “Oh fuck you.”
“You wish,” I said, stopping myself from reaching up and cupping their cheek. No moving, no brain damage. Simple, right?
“No,” Chris said, typing with one hand and touching my shoulder with the other, as though they had read my mind. Who knew, maybe my thoughts were being spelled out on the screen in front of them. I thought up a cute message, but got no response. No mind reading then, just the familiarity of years spent together, fighting side by side. That thought warmed me to the core, making me forget the cold metal sticking from my back.
Chris brought their attention back to our conversation. “No, Sam. I wish I could lay in this chair instead of you.” Of course, they couldn’t. No one could, but me. “You really shouldn’t be taking this risk.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You know the price of-“
“The price of progress” They cut me off, sing-songing the phrase they’d heard me say so many times. There was a pause, until they continued, quietly. “Still, I wish I could.”
“Just die in a plane crash, then,” I said, grinning at them until I broke down their resistance and their beautiful smile cracked through their frown. “Get lucky. Gain mysterious holy powers and your very own planet as a bonus! Wield the might of ~maaaagiiiic~” I wiggled my eyebrows at them, which finally got them to laugh.
“No thank you, I’m afraid of flying,” they said, still chuckling.
“Too risky? You know, risk is just the price of-“
This time, they cut me off with another frown. I didn’t make another joke. This was their way of telling me just how much I was asking of them, and I didn’t want to pull on that string too much. Despite my joking, I knew how serious our undertaking was. How dangerous. How necessary. As if on cue, the concrete walls around us shook with the reverb of missile-defense guns firing into the sky beyond the bunker.
“Alright, let’s do it,” I said, pushing my thoughts aside and reaching for the power of my Wish inside me. I touched it as easily as Chris had touched me. Just a simple mental motion, and I felt its ancient reverberation deep inside my heart, like a bell that had been ringing since the separation of light and darkness.
“Actually, give me a second,” Chris said. This time, it was their turn to smile first. It was like a summer night; warm, quiet, and a little lonely.
“What are you doing?” I asked, holding the trembling sound of the Wish in my mind.
“Keeping you company,” they said, and their smile turned a little. If their smile had been quiet and lonely before, now it was coming home after a long journey. Happy, yes, but also exhausted. Aching, even. “I added a Charismatic, Helpful Robot Individual to your personality matrix, so you wouldn’t be alone up there in the cloud, winning wars and solving all our problems.”
I would’ve rolled my eyes, would have told them it wasn’t ‘the cloud’, joked around, told them their acronym sucked, but after seeing them smile like that, all of those options would have made me cry, so I just returned their smile and mouthed a silent ‘thanks.’ They grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Their touch, slender and soft, felt like lying in your own bed after weeks away. Seeing their eyes, I knew they felt the same.
I would have gladly given my Wish away for any of my friends, but if Chris asked me to, I would have wished my life away.
“Alright,” I said after I felt like their warmth had saturated my heart enough to almost make it burst. “Let’s just test if this works, shut it off, write down our observations, then grab some dinner, what do you say?”
“Okay,” Chris said, reaching for their displaced pad. “Just do your thing, and then close your eyes for a second. Two, tops. If everything goes well, by the time you open them again, this war will be over, and we can get sushi.”
I chuckled, reached for the Wish, and carefully tapped into it. The sound of a bell reverberated in the room, stirring fans into overdrive, like a flock of birds startled by a child storming into their midst to play. The lights brightened, and the steel I laid on molded itself to accommodate my frame. It almost felt like the countless servers that had watched us from their racks took a deep breath in perfect unison. There was anticipation pulsing in bright LEDs, and spring-loaded tension in the hum of capacitors.
I closed my eyes. The machines held their breath.
Hey and welcome :)
If you made it this far: thank you for reading! The next two chapters will be like this one, meaning a bit confusing. That's by design, and while I now know how to stick that landing way better, I didn't 2 years ago when I wrote this intro ;)
But! We're getting into a more traditional storytelling mode right after and I have been told my storytelling improves significantly at that point. However, please be advised Torchbearer does not turn into a "proper" litRPG until around Log 3.10. I'm happy with how my system turned out, though, and I hope you'll be along for the ride :)
So stick around if you like slow-burn, large-payoff stories with a bunch of emotions, a city on fire, and a desperate struggle to cross it before the world collapses...
Old note below:
So this is where we start. Since this is just a passion project of mine and I have absolutely no intention of ever making money off of this, I won't promise a schedule. I'll write as I feel like it, perhaps posting a chapter once a week, perhaps once a month. They might be quick-fire, 500 words each, or 2000 word battleships. Anything might happen. The last thing I want to do is get stressed about something I do for fun :D
[ Edit: I lied. Writing is fun. I post roughly three times a week now :D ]
That being said, please let me know your thoughts or general comments. I also appreciate all the logical and spelling mistakes you can spot! :)
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