Chapter 21: Eternal Dream Online

Rachel was in a lot of pain as she was tearing the cables and wires from her skin as they slid out from under her flesh, causing each wound to start leaking.

Liz was behind her, removing the ones from her back and sides as her right arm was still hanging limply at her side.

Then Liz replied after looking at Rachel’s body, speaking worriedly, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? You look pretty bad.”

“It’s fine. I can easily heal this with magic, although it will be painful,” Rachel said as she held out her hand, twisted green magic appearing in it as Liz’s eyes looked at it curiously.

“So this is magic,” Liz murmured as she analyzed it, wanting to touch it as the spell grew more powerful in Rachel’s hand.

Rachel then touched the spell to her chest as her body started to be covered in dark veins and the sclera in her eyes turned red. Blood dripped from her eyes as all of her wounds healed and knit together, leaving nothing but new scars and dried blood.

Eldon looked at Rachel while getting the MRE rations they had found ready to eat.

“You should get cleaned up. There’s a bucket over there with a sponge I found. By the time you return, the food should be ready.”

Rachel and Liz headed over and Liz helped Rachel clean off all the dried blood from Rachel’s body as she was cleaned up.

Liz then spoke, “You haven't seemed like yourself lately, and you became reckless. Rushing off like that was dangerous.”

Rachel nodded silently then spoke, “Yes. I was hoping if I let out all my pent-up anger and rage that's been slowly building, So I can relieve myself of some of these urges the cursed armor has been pushing onto me.”

Liz spoke, “What kind of urges?”

“Murder, killing, slaughter — that's what the curse wants. Back home it was easy because I could easily keep it under control with the constant wars and battles I would go through.”

Then she looked down, saddened. “But here I cannot do that. All the people here are struggling to survive and there is no enemy here other than the mechas, so I have been suppressing all the urges with pain, but I'm not sure how much longer it will last before I finally snap.”

Liz looked at Rachel's back as she scrubbed the blood off, saddened by what she has to go through, and then spoke, “Then let's find a way to suppress this curse. From what you said, the curse comes from your armor — it's not one of your natural curses — so maybe I can create a device you can use to suppress your urges. When we arrive at the city I will try and develop something for you, but it's no guarantee because I would have to scavenge parts from the mechas around here since they are the only source of actual advanced technology on this planet.”

“What I would give to meet and talk with the demon lord.”

Rachel looked worried and spoke, “Why would you want to talk with him? Have you seen what he has done to this planet? What could you possibly talk about with a madman?”

Liz looked at her and spoke, “Well, you wouldn’t understand. My race is completely different from other races. We don’t care about outward appearance — all we look for in a partner is a beautiful mind. The smarter they are, the more attractive they are to our race. Our partners must be as smart as us or smarter. It’s something beautiful when you can have a private conversation with someone who can truly understand your mind and the way you think, and have an intelligent conversation with.”

Rachel then spoke while still fighting through the pain of the curse. “So you don’t like talking with me then?”

Liz strongly denied that. “No, I’m talking about a life partner. Speaking casually is fine.”

“But why would you want to talk with someone who is clearly a madman? Just look at what he has done.”

Liz spoke, “Because he must be a genius like me. Just looking at all these mechas he built and being able to develop them using the pitiful resources available on this planet is truly amazing.”

Rachel shrugged. “Ok, if you say so, I guess.”

Then they heard Eldon from the other side of the room. “Food’s done, come get it while it’s hot.”

Liz then helped dry Rachel as they headed back to the main room where their dinner was waiting.

They returned and were handed their MRE packet as they sat down and Liz then spoke up, “Eldon, care to explain to us about those VR helmets? Now you seemed really cautious about them, so there must be a story behind them.”

Eldon looked down at his food as he stirred it with a spoon and talked, “Well, if you're going to be fighting to save our world I guess it is time I told you how all of this started. There aren't many people left who were alive during the beginning and were able to see what happend first hand, so I will tell you everything I know about the downfall of Earth and the rise of the mechas.”

“One day, out of nowhere, a company called LULU popped up and started buying up all of the technology companies. They took the technology and made it even better, continuing to get richer and richer until they were a technology giant in the world, known all over.”

“Then one day LULU unveiled a new product that would change gaming forever: the Deep Dive VR helmet. Along with it came a groundbreaking VRMMORPG that was fully controlled by AI, which gave quests and hosted events all over a vast fantasy world filled with thousands of creatures — dragons, goblins, fairies, orcs, spiders, trolls — you name it, the game had it. What truly made it stand out was that every NPC and every monster were all given their own learning AI. The NPCs would learn from interacting with us players, growing smarter and acting more human-like until we couldn’t tell the difference. As for the monsters, they learned to fight in their monstrous bodies, watching and adapting as they fought with the players, learning from experience and becoming more proficient at combat, able to hold their own against us. And this game was called Eternal Dream Online.”

“What we thought was a great escape from reality into a fantasy world, was in fact what led to the inevitable downfall of human civilization, as the true intentions behind Eternal Dream Online would come to light one day.”