Nomic II

[Jalathas]

"Of course it is. And the name Snake)Ling is, of course, the height of intelleigence and creativity, as is a large block with a face." He smiled gently. "But I digress. Perhaps it is time to get on with what we came here for. The creation of a virtual world."

[Coral]

"Yes, the name Snake)Ling is the height of intelligence, creativity and a large block with a face is the height of expression. Biotch."

[Aikanaro]

Noela ignored 'Snake)Ling', and pondered ordering her implant to block him out. But then, that would make for a rather disjointed conversation. Instead she looked over at Knoll.
"Yes, do lets. Shall we have a method to this ... or just throw things in as we go?"

[Coral]

Coral typed in a couple dozen commands and....

A World War II artillery appeared infront of Snake)Ling.

"=D"

[Fargo Squire]

Andrew lurched forward on the seat as the bus made another sudden stop. Seven kids got off before the door closed, and the bus took off again. They were older than he was, as were most of the children. He'd been put into school early, at the age of five, and after his first full minute of Kindergarten he knew he should have started much earlier. He'd been there for weeks now, but his mother refused to see reason, and insisted that until he graduated to the next grade, he was in just the one he should be. The others were talking loudly, and though he never joined in, today he barely noticed. Today he was going to execute the plan he'd been working on for weeks. He focused on the next step, and was ready when the bus came to yet another halt.

He made his way out the slim exit, walked quickly up the sidewalk to his front door and knocked. It opened and his mother looked out at him through the screen door.

"Back already? Did school let out early?" she asked.

"Yes Mom. I told you, it was a half-day," he said.

"Oh. Well, come on in," she said," I was just making a sandwich, do you want me to make you one?"

"No. Can we go to the store?" he asked.

"The store? What for?" she asked.

"I want to buy a computer," he said, and showed her his accumulated funds, which he had stashed in his bookbag. And both of them knew that had he the money, he would soon have a computer. Andrew always got done what he set his mind to do.

*****

Andrew sat before his new computer feeling excited. His plan was about to be enacted. He'd spent his "silent reading" time the past few weeks reading up on computer code, after he heard some of the older kids talking about "Virtunet". It sounded brilliant, and that was when Andrew decided he would play.

Now he booted up the machine and opened the browser. He found the site and read for a moment, then found what he was looking for. "$30/month, first month FREE!", just as he'd expected. No problem.

Andrew brought up the command prompt and went to work "examining" the Virtunet systems. One hour later he was logged in as Azzam, and had his avatar made. On-screen he was a tall, darkly dressed, ninja, and he liked it. Then he ran a search for the most recently created Virtual "Nets", as they called the worlds in which people interacted. He entered the first one that appeared.

"Why do you people have to have stupid fantasy names like that? Its so stoopid," said a strange rectangle.

"Of course it is. But, perhaps it is time to get on with what we came here for. The creation of a virtual world."

"Yes, do lets. Shall we have a method to this ... or just throw things in as we go?"

(If you'll notice, I left out the name "badinage" and the artillery, both of which I found to be superfluous and not at all in the spirit of the game.)

[kiltedcrusader]

"Create a Virtual World... it sounds like something out of a comic book." Joseph said smiling and sitting back in his chair, finding it suprising that a creation of his mind would be so comfy. After a moment's thought, he decided to play along with the flow of room and try to help in creating this virtual world. After all, he didn't get some geeky looking doctor sticking a chip in his head to sit around in a chair. "Alright." he said standing. "Does it work the same way we made the chairs?"

[Jalathas]

"I would assume so," Knoll replied, "although I'd assume it would take a bit more concentration for anything large, like buildings." He thought for a moment, then said, "Perhaps we should start with that. Houses or somesuch, perhaps a shop or two, make it as realistic as possible."

[Coral]

"No, that would be very, very depressingly normal. This is, afterall THE net. This is where I go to get away from reality. I dont care if we have to live in medieval castle surrounded by concentric rainbows and dragons, just not... normal."

[Aikanaro]

"Definately not normal," Noela said. "I mean, sure, some normal might be fine - but wouldn't that be a bit dull? We've got life for that! Let's make something ... strange." she grinned, and sent them all a vague image of a twisted growing spiral city overlaid with other possible ideas - cities of flashing lights, inside a huge animal, a quaint village loomed over by a tower.

"Well, something like that, anyway," she said and grinned. "Maybe we could start small, though. Making that much in one hit would be a bit much."

[Coral]

"Yeah. Thats what I said. OH SHI-" The supervirus hit Coral's archaic computer. Coral's avatar turned very, very bright white and then faded out of existence.

[kiltedcrusader]

"There's no point planning it out - let's just go for it and see what happens and if it all goes wrong we can restart." he looked at the two left in the room. Wait - there were three now. What could only be described as a ninja was standing a little way away from the group. Had he just appeared out of nowhere? Is that how he had come? "Hello." He said to the ninja, "You're just in time, we were about to start. Although what we're starting is beyond me." His last sentence was a whisper to himself.

"Let's try something..." Joseph, closed his eyes and concentrated. The grass beneath their feet started to turn black, as though a great fire had just swept across it. The grass began to bend, linking with other blades and sealing together to form a black expanse as far as the eye could see. Joseph opened his eyes to see if it was working and was astonished to see it was. Grinning now he closed his eyes again and continued. The ground became as hard as rock, and began to look like it - like one huge, black rock, covered with tiny bumps and cracks. Joseph continued to work and the rock became reflective. Joseph, felt he was pushing himself here - but he was enjoying it and continued. Around them, a circle began to appear and inside a large design that looked like some sort of Celtic symbol, or a pointed Nordic rune. From the circle three lines, around a foot in width, shot away into the distance, joining to a similar circle, with a different rune. Inside the lines, small runes began to be crafted, forming another line within the line.

Joseph opened his eyes and let out a breath. "I've never done anything like that before." he said smiling, looking at his creation. "It's not bad. A little more exciting than grass for a base I hope."

[Jalathas]

"Perhaps I misspoke. By houses and shops, I was thinking medieval town, then go from there." As he watched Joseph work, he said, "Although it appears that we've already gone a bit past that..." He began to focus, and slowly a tower bgan to rise from the ground a short distance away. At first, it seemed more like a framework of energy than anything else, but it was quickly covered by what looked like thin green paper. The covering began to thicken until the entire structure looked like a huge jade spike coming out of the ground. A large crack appears at the base, then slowly spreads to reveal a doorway. "Well, that turned out slightly different than I anticipated, but I like it."

[kiltedcrusader]

"So do I." said Joseph looking at the structure, astonished. "I understand now why so many geeky folk are in this for so much of their time."

[Fargo Squire]

"I'm Azzam, by the way. And now it's my turn," said Azzam. He did not seem to move at all, but the wide circle of runes became a perfectly round plateau, the tower in the center, and down the sides of the slope sprung lush, new grass. The sun suddenly seemed cheerier, and a lively stream literally made it's way across the hill-covered landscape in the distance.

"And maybe...," mumbled Azzam.

Trees shot up, forming a large forest just across the stream, and birds began making trips from the trees to the tip of the tower where they waged mock battles for possession of it's perch.

"Anyone want to go explore the forest?" asked Azzam.

[Aikanaro]

"Much less gloomy," Noela said. "But first let me have my turn."
She reached inside a pocket (which she had created just then for this very purpose) and took out a seed which didn't quite fit in the palm of her hand. With her hands she dug a shallow hole in the ground and placed the seed inside, then covered it over.
"I'll program a heap of randomness into that as we walk - something ... interesting at least should come out of it."