Caverns of Socrates

Caverns of Socrates: A Plot Twist

By Madison Nef

Nyla and I have always been geeks, to some extent- into dorky sci-fi books, magic, fantasy and the like. So when a virtual reality convention was announced just an hour away from where we lived, we decided that we HAD to go. Most of it would be cosplayers, advertising for upcoming books and movies and a couple of sneak previews, but the main attraction was an AI simulation that boasted to be so realistic that once inside, you’d forget about the outside world. While Nyla seemed afraid of it, I wanted to try it out- to see if it actually worked. According to the advertising, you just described your character to the AI and then, once in the simulation, that’s who you would be.

The day of the convention rolled around, and we left early so we could be the first ones in. When we arrived, the place was already alive with people; mainly geeks like us, trying to get into the virtual reality sim. There was a bit of a line, so we walked around checking out some of the different booths that were set up before returning. By then, the line had cleared and there seemed to be less people around the machine, so we stepped up to try it. We both knew what our characters were going to be: Nyla was going to be Shadow, her character from Skyrim; a grandmaster magician specializing in conjuration. I was going to be Rosika (also my character from Skyrim), a master thief and assassin for the Black Hand.

Nyla was still a bit scared of the simulator, worrying that she could get trapped inside it. I punched her in the arm jokingly and said “Relax, once we’re in I’ll know who I really am and I’ll tell you. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.  It’ll be just like us hanging out… only we’ll look different and have awesome weapons and stuff.” “Okay… if you say so…” Nyla hesitantly replied. We stepped up to the machine. The man running it pointed to the small chamber hooked into it and said “Go in there. Input your character. And have fun.” He didn’t care enough to tell us much about the machine, but I, being stupid, didn’t ask questions. I walked right into the chamber along with Nyla.

Once we were both inside the chamber, we sat down at the small little screen (there were only two) and pulled on the helmet as the sign near the screen instructed us to. Once our helmets were on, we were shown a selection screen where we had to essentially design our characters and input their stats: but it was an actual person… not just an animation. When we got done, we both turned to each other, nodded, and pressed the green button to start the simulation.

I blinked and opened my eyes. The sun was shining bright above me, and the sky was a bright blue. White clouds lazily rolled through the blue, casting shade on my every now and again. I was lying in a hay pile. A bow and a quiver full of arrows lay beside me, and I was wearing leather armor and had two tiny daggers strapped to my thigh. I sat up. My first thought was “Where the hell am I?!” but then I remembered: I was in a simulation! None of this was real. I had about an hour (a day inside the simulation, an hour outside) to explore and have a good time. My hair had changed from its usual short red cut to long and dark brown, flowing in waves down my back.

I got up and looked around. I was up on a hill of some sort- I could see mountains off in the distance, along with a town nested in a valley a few miles off. I looked around the hill; there was another haypile to the side and on it, a woman with long black hair bound in tight curls was sleeping. She had on blood red robes, and a scepter made of silver was tucked into the gold belt that held the robe around her waist.

“Nyla!” I said, shaking the woman. I recognized the character she often played with, and grabbed her shoulders to wake her. She woke up, looking around groggily with her dark brown eyes. “Nyla? What? I’m not Nyla. My name is Shadow, you idiot… we’ve only been best friends and partners on quests for 6 years. Rosika… what are you talking about?” my friend said. I was taken aback. “Nyla, this is no time for tricks. I want to hang out and explore this with you, WITHOUT you being stuck in character the whole time. Now come on!” I grabbed her hand and pulled her up out of the haypile. “I’m not Nyla!” yelled Shadow, pulling her hand away from me. “What’s gotten into you, Ros?” she asked; a confused tone in her voice. I decided that since my friend was going to be annoying, I’d just go along with it.

“I say that we head for the town. I’d like to know a bit more about where we are and what we’ll be doing,” I said. “Rosika, we already know what we have to do… and we’re in Itheria, remember? We traveled here from Skyrim on a quest to help Queen Tillapy. Her crown was stolen by a group of warriors named the Black Foxes… and the High King Ulfric needed us to get it back for her.” I stood with my jaw hanging open a little bit. What the heck was “Itheria”?! Why was I there?! And WHY was my friend acting so… different? Was it possible that the simulation had actually… changed her into Shadow?

Within an hour, we had reached the small town. It was the town of Fairhail, and it had an in and an armory. That was it… no store, no farm to get food at, nothing. No guards walked around and only a few houses littered the roadway that made up the town. It was already lunchtime, and we both were hungry. “I can probably steal something from one of these houses,” I whispered to Shadow. Even the inn offered no food, so eventually I broke into one of the houses as planned. I found a bit of bread, some carrots and a jug of water. We ate and drank and then asked the innkeeper if he had ever heard of the Black Foxes.

The innkeeper had- he in fact said that they had passed through the town just a few days before, heading towards the city of Renash. “If you leave now, you should be able to catch them in a day’s time- as long as you don’t stop to rest.” “I think that’s manageable,” Shadow said to me. “Maybe…” my voice trailed off. We left the inn and began following the southbound road, just like the innkeeper had instructed us to.

As night crept up on us, we began worrying about getting attacked. After all, we were two women, only 20 and 23 years of age… very vulnerable, especially with the amount of bandits that often lived along these roads. Not that we couldn’t handle things if anyone DID attack us… after all, we were both experienced killers, in our own right. As fate would have it, we were JUST talking about a bandit group we had fought through back in Skyrim when trouble began… 3 bandits, 2 female and one male, ALL THREE larger than us, grabbed me from behind.

It took just seconds for Shadow to pull out her staff and knock them away from me. As soon as I was free, I grabbed my daggers from their sheaths. I made short work of the two females, slitting one’s throat as she carelessly swung at me with a spiked club, and stabbing the second repetitively in the back with my daggers when she spun to attack Shadow. Shadow, on the other hand, had conjured a dire wolf and it was attacking the male bandit. As large as he was, the dire wolf alone could not kill him… but neither could one of my daggers.

Using teamwork, I stabbed him in the back of the neck with one dagger and stuck the other one into his chest… after that, the wolf finished the job and soon, all was quiet on the roadside again. Night had fallen, and I had lost all track of time. We rummaged through the two females’ belongings, finding nothing of interest… the payoff came when we searched the male bandit’s knapsack. Because inside… was something we had thought we wouldn’t be able to grasp. A golden crown, shimmering despite the dark, adorned with rubies, diamonds and emeralds alike was sitting inside amongst some stale bread and coins.

We pulled it out, and sure enough… the name “Tillapy” was carved in a fancy scroll on the inner band of the crown. Shadow and I looked up at each other, a look of excitement on our face- were these the Black Foxes?! Had we completed our mission!?! We took the crown, full of happiness… but as we did… our eyes faded black, and suddenly, we were back in the chamber at the virtual reality convention… as if nothing had happened.

...To Be Continued