View source for 12.06.2019 Hello World

[[Category:Logs]]
[[Category:Arcadia]]
[[Category:Saskia]]
{{Infobox Log
|name      = Hello World
|summary   = An introduction to Virtual Space.
|players   = [[Saskia]], [[Arcadia]]
|location  = Digital Web.
|spheres   = [[Mage]]
|themesong = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOn156pgC50 userspace]
}}

Cady looks at the grandiose castle before her, and feels a great sense of accomplishment.
She saved the village from the Evil Wizard and has finally arrived to claim her reward. The gates to 
the castle swing open, and she proudly makes her way through the courtyard to the throne room. She's 
just about to set her foot on the red carpet when there's a beeping sound. Cady stops dead in her 
track, rolls her eyes and exits the simulation. In the real world, she stretches and throws a glance 
towards the clock on her monitor. A sigh as she closes down a few windows and tabs which litter the 
various displays, and then she heads upstairs.

She glances at the interface on her forearm as the doorbell rings, and moves a piece of hair
away from her face before approaching the door. She opens it, and looks behind the woman standing on 
her doorstep before she meets her eyes. "Hey."

It took a while for Saskia to actually reach the door of the place, she passed the block a
few times on her motorbike to scope the place out. The gentle roar of her powerful engine more than 
announcing her presence for anyone listening out for the arrival of this idiot. Today, thankfully, 
she's absent that combat attire from before- no longer does she look like literal rambo. She dresses 
more conservative, in a sense, that double-breasted long coat with the singed 'GRAIL KNIGHTS' band t-
shirt underneath. Eventually, she does stop at the sidewalk, kicks out the kickstand and secures the 
monstrous bike outside. She flicks a glance up and down the street, no tails. A sigh pushes past her 
lips, and she approaches the door- pausing a hairs breadth away from knocking. Another sigh, she 
licks her palm and wipes it over her fiery hair to flatten it down a bit for apperance sake.

THEN she knocks, her coat opening up a little bit at the side, of course she's still wearing
her sword- inside the coat this time, the hilt sticking out just a bit. The door opens mid-knock, 
"Uh-" She blurts out, snatching back her hand to collect at the small of her back. "Whats... 
cracking." Her head tilts, and her other hand makes a faint gesture. Who knows where she learned 
that word from.

Cady's wearing a black tank top and a pair of gray sweatpants, apparently unfazed by the
cold. The rather direct light from the front porch reveals circuitry running just underneath her 
skin like some kind second nervous system. She raises an eyebrow at Saskia's choice of words and 
slowly looks the woman over. A shrug. "The usual. Had chinese, saved the world, had some more 
chinese. You know, the works." She looks behind her towards the fridge. "Oh, uh, feel free to come 
in whenever. You can just throw your jacket on the couch if you want." With that she turns around 
and heads towards the fridge.

"You want anything? I have, uh, Red Bull and IPAs. There's probably food somewhere too." She
grabs a bottle of beer for herself and whatever Saskia might want before leaving the kitchen. 
Plopping herself down on the couch, she puts her beer down and makes a few precise gestures with her 
fingers over her forearm and the projector flickers on. It's displaying a fairly convincing image of 
a fireplace, complete with sound effects and even the slightest sensation of warmth. "I can change 
it if you want, this is just the default." She grabs the bottle again and takes a sip. "Anyway. 
What's up?"

Saskia stands in the doorway for a few moments yet, a little awkward in her guarded stance.
It's almost like she's waiting for an invitation, in the vamparic tradition, or maybe she's just 
hesitant at entering another Mages abode- who knows what crazy magic is flying around. "Saving the 
world is... well, that is an achievement." She claims in a half-confused compliment, "My feats are 
more, how you say, localised." An amused puff leaves her nose, and she does actually come inside 
rather than standing on the porch like a big idiot. She steps through, her eyes zipping from corner 
to corner, wall to wall, the works. A big ol' security sweep- before they land on the strange 
circuitry on her skin. "...I'd ask what that all is under there, but I dare say I won't understand 
what you're talking about." She claims, and pushes the door closed with a heel. She shrugs out of 
her long coat, and folds it over her arm. She's wearing a thick combat belt, complete with sword 
sheath which houses that hefty looking bastard sword. Along with a myriad of other weapons and 
magical tools. She glances about, looking for a coat rack or something- but on prompting she tosses 
her coat on the sofa.

"Bulls are not red where I'm from, they're sort of brownish- some black." She claims, half
-joking in her Germanic way. A slight twitch at the corners of her lips displays that awful attempt 
at humanoid humor. She nods though, red bull it is. A rather alarmed eyebrow pops upwards as the 
projection flares into life, her lips twitch in displeasure. "I only started watching television 
about a few months ago, excuse me if I stare daggers at that monstrosity." She babbles, looming over 
by the center like a muscled hermetic wall. "I..." A pause, "I came to say I was sorry about 
before," She blurts out more, she's really bad at apologizing. "You did not deserve it, it was both 
rude and unkind of me- and certainly not the standard I strive to uphold. You know? It is not one of 
the tenants of my Order to strike at the innocent..." She rolls out her wrist, and looks to want to 
say some more- but she clamps them closed. "I found you this as a peace offering." She tucks a pinch 
of fingers into her pocket, and pulls out a small Gameboy cartridge. The old one. On the cover is 
printed an impressive looking barbarian surrounded by skeletons. Wizards and Warriors: The Fortress 
of fear. "I did not know what else to get you."

"Yeah, had to kill a dragon and everything. A real hassle, but, what are heroes for, right?"
Cady responds, entirely deadpan. "Oh, this? Basically keeps me from not dying. Plus, it's a fully 
fledged supercomputer, so that's useful too. Can you believe people still carry smartphones?" She 
shakes her head disapprovingly. "Fuckin' Technos. They only want progress as long as it benefits 
them." A look is thrown towards Saskia's sword. "Do you always carry that thing around? Like, is it 
some kind of fashion statement, or what? And don't worry, there's no cameras in here. In fact, the 
whole house is a deadzone. Nothing gets in or out without me knowing about it."

Cady's not sure if the bull thing is a joke or not, and she looks suspiciously at Saskia for
a solid while as she tries to read her. Eventually, she decides it probably is a joke, and offers 
the woman a courtesy laugh. "Just watch out for spontaneous wing emergence." She says as she throws 
the can towards Saskia. "Well-documented side effect." Cady looks offended at having the projection 
called a monstrosity. "Hey, I built that myself, you know. It wasn't easy to get the realspace 
alignments right." She sits back and admires her handiwork as she takes another sip of beer. "Yeah, 
yeah, yeah, skip the Order stuff. I get it. I don't have any beef with you." Then, she licks her 
lips at the mention of a peace offering. Her eyebrows shoot up as she spots the cartridge. "Oh..." 
She says in a tone bordering on sultry. "Look at that. Yoink!" She grabs it and twirls it around her 
fingers. "All is forgiven."

"You know what, I have something that might change your mind on this whole technology thing.
Come on." Cady gets up from the couch, beer bottle in hand and heads off towards the basement. She 
looks over her shoulder to confirm Saskia's behind her before heading down. "Okay, so, you know the 
whole mumbo jumbo about other realms and stuff, yeah? Well, us Adepts hang out in this place called 
the Digital Web. It's a cool place, you'll see." Reaching the cold basement floor, Cady carefully 
tucks the Gameboy cartridge away someplace safe before guiding Saskia to her computer. She inputs a 
few quick keyboard strokes and suddenly the screens go blank. "You know Correspondence? It'll make 
this easier. Put this over your temple." A small circular object is passed to Saskia.

Assuming the meta-conscious transference went well, Saskia and Cady find themselves in a
completely bland, white room. Well, the person next to Saskia is presumably Cady, although she looks 
remarkably different. She's wearing an elaborate techno-coat, the whites of her eyes are black, and 
she has her hair cut short and dyed a rich purple. "Alright." She says, turning to Saskia. "Think of 
something you wanna see."

"Dragons are extremely hard to kill." Saskia answers, unsure of what reality Cady is talking
about. "There was one once, named of Galathumex, it was bound as a familiar to a rather nasty 
Marauder- it took almost eight Flambeau to subdue it, three died." She lets a 'tssk' fall off her 
tongue, and runs her fingers over the cruciform pommel of her bastard sword in a sort of salute to 
the fallen. "Some carry smart-phones, true, others carry bricks." She lugs her absolute chonker of a 
phone out of her pocket, truly from a different era. "Very robust, very reliable. Sometimes I have 
to stand on a hill for zee' reception to connect, but needs must." She sniffs, and pockets it. The 
comment about wings has one of her eyebrows rocking upwards, her head tilting. It takes her a 
moment, "Oh- Hah, that advert. I get that." A pause, "I get jokes." She really didn't. "And the 
sword- you would not go anywhere without your computers, yeah? I won't go anywhere without my sword. 
I am a war mage, I fight for the Order of Hermes- and our enemies are everywhere, if you didn't 
know..." She quiets down in a conspiratorial whisper, "We piss a lot of people off." She flares her 
eyes, and breathes out a sigh.

And then, the little game is swiped out of her hand before she can say watch it you damn
(cyber)punk. She pinches her lips, "You're welcome, Cady. I hope you like it. Again, sorry about the 
whole trying to kill you and send your home into the deep Umbra. Not intentional." A pause, "Well-" 
Her cheeks splash with red, "I guess it was, but for the wrong reason." She budges herself, 
following on Cady's heels as she leads them down into the cyberpunk basement. Her hand gently wraps 
around the hilt of her sheathed sword, a subconscious movement though it'd look obvious. "It's not 
mumbo jumbo, Cady, I've been to the Umbra once or twice, the things th-" She clips herself off, 
"Right, got you." She flicks up a thumbs up awkwardly. "Digital web, what, the Internet? I know the 
Internet. I hate it, lovely pussy pictures though." A pause, she furrows her eyebrows. Anyway, "I 
know Correspondence- the Ars Conjunctionis we Hermetics call it." A pause, "Before I stick anything 
into my brain, give me a moment- I've not lived this long without having a healthy sense of caution. 
Ja?" She breathes out, and steps away. Her fingers arrange before her eyes, linking together to form 
an inverted triangle shape she can peer though. A few Enocihan words are muttered under her breath, 
and she squints her eyes- peering into the magical weave of Prime. Not seeing any lingering death 
wards or anything, she drops it. "Right, right... I'm trusting you here." She states, and snaps that 
thing against her temple.

Matrix time, apparently. "Uhh..." Is the first thing she blurts out in this new virtual
space. Utterly confused, like a fish literally out of water and thrown into some sort of cybernetic 
nightmare. "Gott in himmel." She complains, and snaps out her arms like she's about to fall over. 
She wobbles a bit, but finds her footing quickly enough. As Cady asks her to think about something, 
she blurts out another "Wuuh?" Her arms still outstretched like she might fall over at any moment. 
Suddenly, a wash of colour spirals over the blank space. Her thoughts fall out to fill the space 
before she can reign them in, and suddenly the whole place is overrun with kittens.

"Don't sweat it. Rather you than some techno-dweeb. Thanks for the game." After that, she
gives Saskia a brief 'Are you kidding me?' look as she compares teh Digital Web to the Internet, 
followed by an arched eyebrow. "The internet is like a pale reflection of the Digital Web. 
Everything a sleeper do online has a representation in Virtual Space. Of course, they're entirely 
clueless about it. They litter the Web with their shitty opinions and endless bickering. Think of it 
as digital junk. Some sectors are entirely overrun by it. We don't like dealing with it, so we stick 
to ourselves." Cady explains tiredly as she watches Saskia work her Hermetic magic.

Cady smiles as the kittens are willed into existence. "Not bad." Her voice is clear and
unburdened here, without a hint of exhaustion. She picks a calico kitten up, holding it briefly in 
front of her face before she lets go. The small feline stays afloat, waddling along in the air to 
move about. "You can think bigger, though." With that, the room around them shifts into an expansive 
tropical forest. Cady takes a few steps away from Saskia before extending her arms in a vague 
gesture to everything around them. "This is the Digital Web. It can be anything you want. This is a 
private sector, a couple thousand terrabytes of storage. Should be able to handle most things you 
throw at it." A large ornate armchair constructs itself underneath Cady as she sits down. She 
reaches for the floating kitty to pull it down into her lap. "You ever seen the Matrix? It's kinda 
like that. Some people get really into it, pretend to be animals and shit. Watch out for that." She 
strokes the cat in her laps a few times. "Anyway! What do you wanna see! The world's your oyster, or 
whatever." With that, she puts a lollipop into her mouth and watches Saskia contently from her seat.

Saskia still looks entirely out of her depth in every sense of the word, like a Hermetic in
a digital expanse. No dusty bookshelves in sight. Madness.

She nods vaguely as Cady explains about the digital web and the differences with the
Internet, it all blows straight over her head. "And this was all... created by Mages, yes? All 
artificial- it didn't exist before the Internet, before computers." She questions, her eyes spinning 
around, her mouth agape as she drinks it all in. The kittens distract her, and weave between her 
legs. "I always liked cats." She admits, "Fierce, independent." She bends down to scoop one up, 
giving it a good scratch under the chin. It purrs contently. "And cute as a button." She sets it 
back down gently.

As the room shifts and melds into the tropical expanse, again, she almost loses her footing.
"Woohoo-" She blurts, her arms windmill on the spot to keep her balance, her feet setting apart in a 
balanced stance. She remains upright for now. She looks like she's about to throw up, her already 
pale complexion grows a few shades more gravely. "Ziss' is just insane, Cady! It's like a bloody 
pocket dimension, but cheating because it's not out in the Umbra-" She throws out a hand towards the 
border. She blows out her cheeks in exasperation. And it's her turn to mold the area, she pinches 
her eyes closed and thinks. It's chaotic, her thoughts all jumble together- a flash of an image 
washes though. An adorable little house, a garden, a family standing before it. And what's that? A 
little Saskia with some loving parents- BOOM, that inner desire being thrown away before it slips 
out anymore. It all washes away and she calls out. "A training simulation! You could have endless 
training scenarios, with all the tactical options.

The area transforms into a battleground, several armoured foes are charging them from across
the way. Saskia finds herself with her bastard sword in hand, "Watch this!" She calls out, throwing 
her blade up into a high guard as she adopts a sword stance. She waits until they're a few feet out, 
then darts forwards like a lightning bolt. She slips under one of their guards, lashing her sword in 
an upwards arc to cleave them in two. The other is quickly dispatched as she whirls on the spot, 
using the momentum of her blade to slash it cleanly across their neck- head tumbles off, a bunch of 
ones and zeros spilling out in exchange of blood.

"No, it's been around. Alan Turing, you know the guy who cracked the engima code? He
discovered it." A digital window opens, showing a man hunched over complex-looking machinery. "The 
NWO weren't huge fans of that, and after blackmailing him wasn't enough they went ahead and killed 
him." The image in the window animates, and shows three men in black standing over the corpse of a 
man. "Thing is, Turing was hooked up to the Digital Web as it happened, so some people still think 
he's out here somewhere." The window closes. "Virtual Space is how information is transferred. All 
information exists in the Correspondence Point, and before it reaches the Hypersphere it passes 
through the Digital Web." Cady explains, hopeful some of it will stick. Information wants to be 
free, after all.

"Just give it some time, you'll be fine." She smiles. "We're not. See, realspace is what's
located on the very surface of the Hypersphere." A wireframe of a sphere appears in front of Cady. 
"The Umbra lies outside the Hypersphere." Clouds form outside the sphere, circling it to represent 
the Umbra. "And the Digital Web? Inside of it." The sphere is blown open, revealing a vast network 
of connected lines, with a glowing point right in the center of it. "Aaaand, that's the 
Correspondence Point. Right there in the center of the Hypersphere." The sphere vanishes with a 
blip, and Cady turns to look at Saskia as she shapes the space. Delighted that she's starting to 
work her creative muscles, her chair disperses into data once more as she stands up.

"Might as well try it..." Cady says as she watches Saskia charge in. A katana glowing with
purple energy materializes in her hand. In one quick motion, she's suddenly behind one of the 
armored men. Everything's quiet for a long moment. And then, his torso slowly slides off his lower 
body, sending him to the ground in two separate pieces. Cady's still for a while in an attempt to 
remain stoic, but it doesn't last for too long. She bursts out laughing as the sword deconstructs 
into raw data. She locates Saskia, and shouts to her across the battlefield. "I think I get the 
sword thing now!"

One of the armoured figures charges Cady from behind, their armoured sabatons smacking
against the virtual ground. It sends ripples of visual artifacts spiraling out from each footstep. 
Saskia turns, hoists her sword up over her shoulder and launches it like a javelin at the attacker. 
It streaks past them, whistling like a firework before it punches through the figures chest and 
sticks out the other side with a loud CRONCH. "Bullseye!" She calls out, and jogs over towards it, 
lands her foot against their chest-plate and yanks it out victorious. "VICTORY!" She yells out, her 
voice booming through the virtual space. She swings it across her forearm, wiping out the ones and 
zeros before lashing it back into the sheath on her belt. Now, she truly glazes over as Cady 
explains the finer points of the Digital web. Like trying to teach a dog calculus, frustrating and 
pointless both. Her mouth opens a little bit, as her brain spills out (Metaphorically). "I know of 
Alan Turing, yes, I knew he was an Adept... but that's about it." A pause, "You're telling me the 
Digital web is simply another plane of existence? Another realm, separate from the Umbra?" She blows 
out her cheeks, "Such possibilities... I wonder if there are sub-realms to this place, other 
dimensions within the dimension." She moves her hands to her head, and makes an explosion motion. 
"Information wants to be free." She echoes.

She peers at the wireframe, head cocking to one side as she tries to absorb the information.
It's hard for her, she's not got a head full of RAM's and Megabiggles. Then some more fighting! She 
watches Cady expertly dispatch another one, and claps her palms together. "You fight well for 
someone so tiny, Cady." A winsome smile cracks against her pale lips, "Well done! And I think this 
is enough for today... I feel like I'm going to throw up."

"Pretty much, yeah! And, maybe. You'd have better luck asking a Nexplorer." A beat. "Anyway,
this is the Adept dream. Think of what we do with the Digital Web as a prototype for Reality 2.0. 
One day, everyone will be able to exercise their free will as far as they please, with no 
constraints. Until then, we still have this place." Narrowly sidestepping an assault from another 
one of the armed guards, she figures she might as well go all in before they wrap up. A suit of 
purple chrome power armor renders around her, and she raises a hand towards one of the men. It 
expands into a huge fuck-off laser cannon, which Cady promptly uses to burn the poor guy to kingdom 
come. The armor dissipates, and Cady winks at the giant scorhmark before she waves a hand to pause 
the simulation. "Gotcha." She snaps her fingers.

Cady's consciousness is redownloaded into her physical body, and she lets out a quiet groan as
she gets readjusted. "Still need to throw up?" She asks Saskia as she comes to, voice now back to 
it's usual raspy, tired tone. Supporting herself against the wall, she makes her way over to the bed 
in the corner of the room to lie down. "Anyway, that's our deal." She croaks. "The door's unlocked 
if you wanna run away, or whatever. Thanks for the game."