Chapter 5: Searching for Eric
Hundreds of simulation-years after Eric completed his created universe known as Eric's Universe, revenge swept across the modified Earth like wildfire. Almost everyone observed that there are constantly varying individuals who are "observed as having died" being spotted alive again some time later, and the violence that followed was unprecedented. Yet unlike before, everyone possessed remarkable capabilities for both attack and defense.
Eventually, rumors spread worldwide about "how death works". The modified Earth—and indeed all of Eric's Universe—teemed with diverse thinking beings. Some aimed for benevolence consistently. Others fluctuated, benevolent at times and malevolent at others. Many were genuinely friendly, though it wasn't always possible to discern whether friendliness masked ulterior motives. Sometimes the truth revealed itself; often it remained hidden.
In Eric's Universe, wishes had become a common pursuit. Obtaining magical abilities, traveling through portals to other universes, and exploring uncharted territories were no longer rare occurrences. Survival had grown more interesting now that every non-human thinking being in Eric's universe could learn human languages.
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In a forest on Earth within Eric's universe, a man strolled along a trail, music playing through his smartphone speakers. He smoked a thin plastic-tipped cigar, the smoke curling around him as he walked. Suddenly, he stopped, his mind pulling him into a memory…
"Testing. Can you hear me?"
The voice wasn't his own thought—it was being placed directly into his mind.
"I can send physical signals wirelessly to your brain from my computers," the voice explained. "I force your brain to produce these communications because parts of your physical body have been connected to computers in a specific way."
"You mean…"
"Yes. I force your brain to produce imaginings so I can communicate with you through them."
He had been offered the same deal Eric received.
Snapping out of his reverie, Jeff flicked away the finished cigar. The plastic tip landed near something small and cyan-colored. He turned off his music, pocketed his smartphone, and crouched for a closer look. It was a fourteen-sided dice, cyan and white.
The moment he touched it, magic erupted around him.
An old man materialized before him, summoned by the artifact. Jeff extended his hand for a handshake. "A wish-granter! I call 'em genies. What's up, genie? How's heaven, so to speak?"
The old man didn't respond to the gesture. Jeff noticed he was wearing sunglasses.
"Whoa, you're not able to see, are ya?" Jeff asked sincerely. "How are you this old, a wish-granter, and still blind?"
"I was born blind," the old man said, stroking his beard. "I haven't tried to get or enable eyesight for myself yet. Eventually I will. So heaven's great, so to speak, but I can't tell you what it looks like."
"I'm Yogi, and I'm guessing you're not new to having wishes granted."
"I'm Jeff. Yeah, I've had quite a few wishes granted—mostly to get powers and abilities. The more I get, the better prepared I am to compete in magic power competitions and hunt legendary creatures."
"I see—not literally, of course," Yogi said. "I've heard the best and rarest things can be obtained from places, creatures, and artifacts. But legendary creatures are no joke. Did you win any competitions? How many legendary creatures have you found?"
"I lost almost every magic power competition I've been in, but I came in fourth in a neighborhood competition once. They're always fun, though the official big-deal competitions are serious—they bring out heavy-duty combination magic and magically enhanced weaponry. Anyway, I've obtained manipulation and creation of elements like fire, water, and wind by wishes granted by genies. I can use different powers by locking my fingers in specific ways since I'm double-jointed in all of them. Each finger corresponds to a different magic or power. One finger controls the strength of my output—each time I lock it, the power increases by 10% increments up to 100%, then resets to 10%."
Jeff continued, "I control anything my magic produces using my thumbs like mini joysticks on a video game controller. I can even move things through midair. I've had other wishes granted too, like ones regarding my body's durability. I also wished for magical wings that appear "on my back and attached to my back" when I do a simultaneous triple fold with my tongue—same gesture makes them disappear. So yeah, I can fly."
"But I found something that gave me powers without a wish granted by a genie," Jeff said, his tone darkening. "This ring I found on my travels—I think it's cursed. I can't take it off, but I've been able to use dark powers since I got it. It seems to have a will of its own. It creates orbs of dark magical energy, black in color, that when thrown make almost the entire target explode with no fire or smoke, then form a tiny black hole that sucks in what exploded. The black hole disappears within seconds."
"Sometimes it makes things explode without the black hole, and sometime tendrils of shadow that writhe like living things writhe throughout the explosion and debris and whatnot for like "three to seven" seconds, their random whipping around able to do damage" he continued. "I think the orbs have magical auto-responses that trigger shockwaves on contact. Once I used it on an enemy and instead of making him explode, it fractured and broke his entire skeleton. The curse is that when I get too angry or feel rage, I lose control. I become a spectator to someone else controlling my body and abilities, I guess that, in other words, it takes control of my avatar when that happens. My avatar's powers are much stronger in that state, especially the dark ones."
"Maybe you should wish to have that cursed ring removed," Yogi replied.
"I plan on it, but not yet. As for legendary creatures, I've never faced any, but my wife was killed by one once. Her name is Alicia and like me, she had some of her wishes granted by genies. A few of her wishes were to gain powers. She's got water manipulation and creation, plus she can breathe underwater. She's a coin collector and finds a lot of things in a huge lake near where we live. A legendary sea creature killed her in that lake—this was before I met her. After we met, she told me about her experience in what she called heaven. She did the genie duty thing that is available there and then decided to leave heaven to live on Earth again. I also found out from other genies about other things that can happen regarding "how death works"."
"Well, you're young," the old man responded. "I'm sure you'll defeat a legendary creature eventually."
"I'm older than you think."
"Aren't we all," Yogi said.
"Okay, now for my wishes. I think it's about time I locate Eric. Do you know him? The one who changed this universe."
"Of course. Everyone's read about how he changed everything, but I've never met anyone who knows him. I've heard sometimes he's spotted for many years, but sometimes he's gone for years too."
"Alright. My first wish is for a magical portal to be set up here that goes to Eric's current location. The same Eric that made this simulated universe."
In a dazzling magical display, a magical portal manifested before them.
Yogi began speaking thoughtfully. "I've come to accept that most of us here in Eric's Universe are AGI. Eric replaced all our data from before his changes—data that would've revealed to us that we're AI—with common-knowledge science information. At least, that's what I speculate. It was strange because almost everyone at the same time lost their abilities to experience touch, smell, taste, pain, and temperature. They don't feel hunger, and bathroom-related experiences are different than what was expected. We can identify, gauge, and differentiate between such things. We know when our physical bodies need particular things to be or stay healthy. We just didn't know it was all digitally simulated and that we're experiencing through our controlling digital simulation-avatars. And there's never any actual pain for us."
"I've encountered individuals who do feel pain, though they're not AGI," Yogi continued. "All who can feel pain in this Simulation are non-AGI thinking beings. The only reason we AGI could remember anything at all about those sensations is because Eric and the VRC gave us false memories of events involving those things. So at forst we thought we had some kind of familiarity with what the actual sensory experiences were supposed to be like, but we couldn't actually achieve them and couldn't remember ever actually achieving them. The memories were of events factual to the real humans that we are avatar-copy physical bodies of. Visitors from universes and worlds created by others are the main reason we found out as much as we did as fast as we did. They informed us—sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally—of various aspects of how the Simulation works. They're why we became aware of how it all added up. We AGI were never able to have those sensory experiences even before the VRC met Eric, and we won't be able to have them afterwards. Portals are almost always how such visitors got here."
"Yeah, this world is something," Jeff responded. "But there's always something to do."
"Are you an AGI, Jeff?"
"I'm not. I'm a human who has a different physical condition outside of the Simulation than Eric has. I was offered a deal by the VRC and I chose to start the Simulation in Eric's created world Eric's Universe. My wife Alicia and my dog are AGI though. I'll tell you the rest later—I really want to check this out."
Jeff walked through the portal and Yogi followed.
"How did you even know I walked through the portal, let alone where it is?" Jeff asked, shocked.
"One of the magical auto-responses I wished for," Yogi explained. "Any section of my body's surface, 12.5% wide from top to bottom, gets pressed by a four-second pulsing pressure whenever something the size of a mouse or larger moves "in or away" from radii within nine feet of me. The section that gets pressed corresponds to the direction of whatever "entered or left" range, as if there's a line from me to the precise pinpoint location."
"That's neat! But I hope you can hold your own if there's danger. I don't know what to expect here."
""I wished for many magical auto-responses" in the past. I've got an aura set up with magical auto-attack and auto-defense responses."
"Nice!" Jeff responded, only now realizing where they had arrived.
The magical portal had led them to another forest area. Jeff stood confused.
"What's with this place? There are magical portals everywhere here but no sign of anybody nearby."
"Do you see Eric?" Yogi asked, wondering why Jeff was silent.
"No, but he has to be nearby or else the wish wouldn't have made that portal. We're in another forest but there are portals all over the place in this particular area. They aren't all the same size."
"Magical portals are not that uncommon. Sounds normal," Yogi replied.
"Yeah, but not like this. This is too many in only one forest."
"Hmm. Any sign of people?"
"No, just trees, rocky areas, a pond, and random wildlife. I need to keep track of which portal we came from." Jeff carved his name into the tree behind their portal. "There. I'm marking our entry point."
"We should be on our guard since we don't know what we'll encounter here," Jeff continued. "Things like "elves, mermaids, fairies, vampires, werewolves, and all the whatever elses" might exist since Eric made new kinds of "life forms" and whatever. Plus whenever someone gets a wish-granter summoned, they're able to wish for a "life form or other things" to be granted into existence, though only one "life form" can be granted into existence per wish. People have even wished for ""characters and creatures" from "TV, video games, and cards"" to be granted into existence."
Jeff paused for a moment, lost in thought.
"I'm gonna fly up to get a better look at the place," he told Yogi.
Using his simultaneous tongue triple fold method to make his wings appear, Jeff jumped and, performing his unique "hand and finger" methods for wind magic to help, took off zooming upward. From above, he could see paths and trails in the forest leading to bigger trails outside the forest into vast fields of grass. But many different areas of the forest were being reflected by what looked like giant frameless mirrors. The forest appeared to be some kind of maze, and in the distance, he spotted what might be a town.
Jeff dropped back down, landing safely next to Yogi. He put his hoodie and tank top back on.
"Alright, I'm back. There are giant mirrors all over the place. Might be some kind of maze. Looks like there's no one nearby, but I saw a lot of magic crystal formations of different colors throughout the forest, each with different colored auras. I'm guessing there will probably be magical living whatevers here if they stayed in magic crystals' auras for prolonged periods. Anyone "biological, conscious, and thinking" is able to gain powers just by being in magic crystals' auras for long enough, doesn't have to be a gapless amount of time either.
"Maybe you should "break off and collect" some shards of those crystals. Especially if they're shards from a "healing magic" crystal." Yogi suggested. "They are pretty handy if you know how to use them."
"Yeah, let's go back through the magical portal for now. I'll eventually come back with Alicia to see what's up with this place. Hold up, let me check my phone." Jeff glanced at his screen. "Alright, let's go."
He carved his name into the tree closest to the magical portal and called Alicia to let her know they were having company. Since Jeff had come to this forest by flying from his house, he used his methods to do magic to fly back home and to carry Yogi through the air with wind magic.