Dream from 2022-07-25

Dream from 2022-07-25

So yesterday I came across this little shiny trinket. An unknown woman in the street showed it to me. It was golden/metallic and tubular shaped, and a size that fit into the palm of my hand (~ 2cm diameter, 8cm long). There were 5 little coloured symbols visible through holes in the sides. It was a quirky necklace of some kind, unexpectedly heavy, but I felt drawn to it.

She offered it to me for free, and I gladly accepted. At home I examined it some more, and a strange feeling came over me, like deja-vu. I felt like I had seen this necklace before somewhere. I set it aside, and carried on with my day, but my mind wouldn't settle.

Every so often I would pick it up and feel it again, and the deja-vu seemed to get stronger each time, as well as other little thoughts that broke through the mental fog. I felt sure that the necklace had once belonged to me. And I somehow instinctively knew how to manipulate the trinket to change what symbols were visible through the holes.

By night time I was quite restless, as through the night the memories resurfaced. A slow trickle a first, but by the morning I remembered everything.

It had always been mine. It was my Key.

And that woman who gave it back to me, I knew who she was now. That was Malika. We are both immortals, and our keys are how we create worlds.

I returned to the spot where we met, and she was sat smugly waiting, because she knew what she was doing all along.

---

The thing is, if I ever become separated from my key, we will come back together at some point. It is soulbound to me, and this return mechanism is woven into the fabric of reality. Malika personally provided the return mechanism in this instance, but it would have happened regardless, one way or another.

But keys also affect our memories, such that you can remember the past worlds you've lived in, even in your new body. You'll be able to remember the characters you have played before, and all the knowledge and wisdom you've accumulated throughout your existence.

But if you're apart from your key, you will easily forget. You would forget who you really are, and all of your past experiences. It doesn't happen instantly, but it will all gradually slip from your memory over the course of a few days. This means you'll slip much deeper into the roleplay, as you'll fully believe you are the character you're roleplaying. Some enjoy deliberately losing their key, to experience total immersion. They get to fully live the lives of their characters for a time, at least until they become reunited with their key, and remember. That was something I had done, and I had been totally oblivious for decades.

We call it 'roleplay', but that is not quite right. The world you'll inhabit and your physical body, are built for you with procedural generation, although it is not a simulation, and it is not 'VR'. There is nothing virual about it. The world you create is a real place, with real living beings. The people who are created are real people, alive, flesh and blood, and as conscious as you are. The only differences are that you are immortal, while they are not. And you have a key soulbound to you, and they do not.

You will experience the world as one of them. You will live life as they do. You will get to witness and appreciate both the beauty and horror of their mortality. You will feel pleasure, pain, love and suffering as one of them, and your body will be as limited and as fragile as theirs.

If you ever want to leave one reality behind, and spin a new one, you will need your key upon you.

You must set each of the rings on your key to choose what kind of reality you want to generate, then grip your hand around it with your thumb against the gem at the end, and push it firmly inward.

After a few seconds held like that, it will trigger, and the world will disintegrate around you, and a new reality will be procedurally generated, according to how you set the rings. The process is called 'spinning' - You 'spin' a new reality by literally spinning the rings on your key.

But be warned: You can't ever go back. Even if the rings are set the same way, it will not be the same world that is generated anew, nor the same people who populate it. Everything which happened in that old world will be gone. Anyone you ever knew or loved there will be no more. You will destroy the old world completely by generating the new one. The only record that it and it's inhabitants ever existed, will be your memories.

Bearing a key is thus a great responsibility, as you become the sole custodian of each reality you create. If you care enough for the world or it's people, you may choose not to spin. You may choose not to destroy their world. But there is no other way for you to leave a world behind, should you ever want to.

---

So I keenly press Malika for answers, "How are you here? How did you enter this world?"

Malika explains that it is a hack that she found to gate-crash into another immortal's reality. And using the same hack, she claims that she can piggyback another's spin, such that we could travel together into a newly generated world.

Malika wants me to join her on some kind of "Thelma and Louise" adventure, demanding that I "leave this dreary place behind already", but I am just not willing to go with her.

Malika has a restless spirit, and abuses her key like a pensioner abusing a free bus pass. She is a bit too comfortable creating and destroying worlds on daily (or hourly) basis to please her mercurial whims. She gets bored easily, and doesn't feel a meaningful connection with any mortal realm she visits. It is merely something to entertain her for a few hours, like a video game, and then it's time to move on.

In contrast, I have a conscience of sorts, and I care about this world and it's inhabitants, and I do feel a connection to it. I explain this to her.

---

Malika makes a proposition - suggesting that I can borrow her key for a bit, and experience other worlds like she does, and how she will be custodian of my world while I'm gone.

"It'll work", she reassures me, "because my key has to come back to me."

"So it'll come back here, and you with it."

She carefully removes her necklace with her key dangling at the base of it, and sits spinning the rings for a minute, configuring and priming the procedural generator to the experience she wants me to have. She then forces it into my hand, and folds my fingers around it.

"Now go", she says.

Now Malika may be wreckless with her own worlds, but I trust her to be left alone with mine.

She manipulates my thumb onto the gem and tempts me to push it inward. I have no idea where she is sending me...