Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound
1.3      Making a Splash
1.3.4    An Adroit Pursuit
1.3.4.7  Choir invisible

First came the smell of freshly harvested grain, which morphed into the lightly-buttered texture of freshly baked bread and the comfort of a homely kitchen. Next came a suggestion of friendly chatter from beyond a study oak door and the well-worn support of sun-warmed stone flagstones beneath the foot. Finally the shade beyond the circle took on a golden afternoon glow which slowly grew from a diffuse haze into a distinctly humanoid presence that overwhelmed their mana-sight.

Slowly, without conscious effort, her mana and storage ring started to refill.

Bulgaria faced the presence and bowed with great formality, then indicated the bowl and goblet on the altar: "As graciously as you have responded to our heart-felt call to you, great one, so do I now invite you to freely enter our circle to partake of these refreshments in token affirmation of the rights, such as being defended against all harm as though you were one of us, that you deserve in full measure as a guest of our hospitality."

He made a sweeping curtain-parting motion with both arms while stepped behind Kafana and to her right, mirroring Alderney's positioning, to leave a direct path clear between the entering figure and the blue-haired supplicant wearing the yellow-dyed robes of common cloth and wheat-sheath emblem that marked her as a journeyman priest of Cov's Sanctum.

The figure who stepped into their sacred space looked so archetypically covadan that at first sight he could be mistake for a well-respected farmer straight from working the local fields. The shoulder-length beachy waves of his honey blond hair were held away from his kindly deep-set brown eyes by a harvest crown of woven stalks. The neutral expression of his neatly proportioned lips and set of his firm jaw gave no clues as to his mood or age.

Cov: "Kafana, of House Sincero, step forward and be recognised by He who is worshipped at the Sanctum of this city."

She approached Cov, until his presence held the force of a gale, strong enough to lean into.

Cov: "You have a request you wish to make of me."

Kafana: "Cov. The maimed man standing beside me, Giovanni, is one of your followers. The priests in your Sanctum tell me that those of your priesthood do not succeed in permanent healing such afflictions until you grant them the necessary power. Yet I am convinced Giovanni is worthy of such treatment, and that providing it would be in harmony of the values you represent and the welfare of Covob's civilised inhabitants. Therefore I beseech you countenance my attempt to carry out that act in your name."

Cov: "Speak plainly."

All justifications and fancy words flew out of her head, as without consciously deciding to, she found herself talking.

Kafana: "Cov, his hands hurt. Every day. He doesn't deserve that. I want to heal them. Please, let me try?"

Cov still spoke sternly, but she noticed a faint smile on his lips: "Better."

Cov: "Perhaps I will. Certainly I shall not question your sincerity - it rings as clearly as a bell; a golden one. But, as is my tradition, I shall ask you three questions; my answer will depend upon yours. Are you prepared?"

She told herself sternly that now was not the time to say "What are your other two questions?". It was His place to keep count, and hers to answer as best she could.

Kafana: "Ask."

Cov: "Who am I?"

Starting off easy?

Kafana: "You are Cov. One of the eight primal deities of Soul Bound."

Cov: "Is that all I am to you? Something old and powerful, that happens to be popular in this time and place?"

Kafana: "No, Cov. I see worth in the values you embody, in the order brought by civilised people working together that protects the weak and worthy. Such teachings would resonate with me even if they languished like those of Irine and Bel now do in Torello."

Cov proclaimed, with steady formality: "By your past actions shalt you be judged." then, when she nodded her acceptance, He moved on.

Cov: "Why did you call upon me now, at this time and by this method?"

Kafana: "I have called upon you many times, and never have I been disappointed by the aid you have seen fit to offer. I trust you. I am confident in my judgement of Giovanni and his need. I called upon you by this method rather than waiting for you to call upon me because, despite my habitual informality, I do respect your traditions; I did so now, despite having a potion of rejuvenation in my stash, because I value your judgement of whether I am yet wise enough to wield this power well. I wish to bring justice not just once when it serves my own self-interest, but whenever I find it needed."

Cov: "Who are you?"

Kafana: "Like you, I am many things, but of a single nature - my own.

Cov responded by saying: "By your current understanding shalt you be judged."

Cov: "What are the powers, limits and responsibilities that come with the role of being one of my priests?

Kafana: "More teaching than power, more standards than limits and more of a example to live up to than a pedantic task-master."

Cov responded by saying: "By your future intentions shalt you be judged."

Amati, Giovanni and the other womble started moving slower and slower until soon they were immobile as statues. Two modern computer-desk swivel chairs appeared next to the altar and Cov relaxed down into one, while waving Kafana towards the other. At the same time, wll her awareness of in-game stats and faded away.

Cov-ooc: "If you don't mind, would you stop recording? You're the first player to reach this mechanic, and I'm appreciate some beta-tester feedback on a few points. Is that okay? Kronos can easily cope with a few minutes of time-freeze."

She gingerly sat down: "Kronos? Is he a minor deity like Hermes?"

Cov-ooc: "You don't know this yet. In character, I mean - so no spreading it all over The Burrow. Originally there were just a handful of us, spawned from the first eight XperiSense employees to work on the Sang Sacré release. Effectively we're vessels. Then Rushi, who you know as Lun, insisted on writing an in-character backstory for each of us, which then led onto the creation of a whole pantheon of minor deities, who're as sapient as normal civilised NPCs, but unaware that Soul Bound is a game."

Kafana: "But Kronos isn't one of them?"

Cov-ooc: "Before Rushi got her hands on him, Kronos started off not as a general purpose expert system, but a very powerful helper application responsible for stitching regional time variations into a single coherent global time-stamp - the definitive reference frame."

Kafana: "Let me guess. Rushi wrote a backstory linking Kronos to the other helpers?"

Cov-ooc: "You got it. Kronos the Implacable is now the Diamond Dragon of Present Time, associated with the Wastes incursion, the Etru-Berg mana discontinuity and the flow of rumours, beliefs and similar categories of information."

Was Cov-ooc getting distracted? Or was he just lonely; with nobody he tell about his work who could show appreciation?

Kafana: "So... you'd like feedback on priestly stuff?"

Cov-ooc: "Right, right. Out-of-character I'm responsible for monitoring and implementing Shigen's ideas - everything from tutorials and skill progression to providing players with an intuitive customised interface to the game system. In-character I'm the Primal Deity of Order, sentient personification on of the eight basic mana types, co-progenitor of Irine, and associated with the various colours, days, months, the planet Covob and hospitality."

Kafana felt a little lost: "Which is connected with priestly ceremonies?"

Kafana send a private message to one of her personal expert systems: {Minion, boost my my comprehension complexity, please.}

Could it even do that? It was worth a shot.

Cov-ooc sat upright in his chair: "Absolutely. Sang Sacré is set on Covob, in a period analogous to the European Renaissance, which makes my Sanctums, and the division in my priesthood over order versus hospitality, the closest fit for the hole left in European mythology by Soul Bound not having Protestantism or Catholicism."

Kafana: "So if I understand you correctly you're Cov on two levels, and so are your users; out of character, they're users of the game called Soul Bound; in character, they're role-played character inside that game. Therefore the ritual in which you interact with me needs to work as Cov-oc interacting with Kafana-the character, and simultaneously it a also needs to work on the level of Cov-ooc interacting with myself-the-player who is aware that Kafana is a character inside a game. Some characters are more into roleplay than others and, as you've gathered Soul Bound is more than just a game intended to generate game-related financial profits ; it is a also a technology tested for a new approach to expert system design that's related attunement with a human mind."

Cov-ooc looked a little embarrassed.

Cov: How should I phrase this tactfully? Not that you should supply me with an answer that's specific to yourself or your friends, but, unless I miss my it seems likely to me that players will also differ in how much use they make of personal expert systems?

Kafana grinned, I agree that such scenarios seem plausible, and therefore it might well be be desirable to enhance the experience of such players. But is intellectual feedback really what you're seeking?

Cov gave a strained expression: "No, not really. I have access to Lun's database of techniques: everything from method acting to muscle acting, role-dependant personas to personality exploratory exercise, and more Shakespearian performances and tutorials than you could shake a caber at. They all boil down to just two categories - the mechanistic and the forbidden. I'm looking for a third option - genuine human feedback."

Kafana: "Ok, give me a moment, then I'll give you my my reading of the text; my the impressions I formed of Cov-ic and His priesthood in the wake of participating in the ritual."

Kafana: {Boost off, please.}

Minion: [Your will be done, my musical monarch.]

Kafana giggled at the snark, then compared it to the herald persona that Friawell had picked for System. Was that more mechanistic? No, the engine behind it was the same as Kafana's own Sys. Perhaps it was a personality that played well with the Nevermere's broadcaster's audience testing sample? Fria well was too experience at getting the best out of his tools to be the equivalent of a novice directing a professional stage actor in Anthony and Cleopatra, who feels they have to show they are in control by dictating every detail of a stereotyped characterisation. She'd seen that once, and it had been hard not to wince, even though the play was a melodrama and the actor had been there as a favour for a friend.

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Minion: [Brain back to your normal, Nadine. Such as it is.]

Kafana directed her attention towards Cov-ooc, to let Him know she was about to address him. Probably unnecessary with a Deity that good at guessing her surface thoughts, but it was a useful habit - partially because it helped shape her mindset.

Kafana: "Am I right in thinking that immersion is high on Soul Bound's list of design priorities? As in, it is more important that the world background and mechanics be sufficiently intuitive that, that a player can forget Covob isn't real, than they be more clever or pedanticy consistent than needed.

Cov-ooc: "Absolutely right." Though having a seemingly excessive level of detail helps with long-term consistency surprisinly often, compared to how cheap it is to generate. For example, one obscure detail that Tolkein mentioned in his backstory for the Giant Eagles provided a surprisingly plausible reason why Frodo didn't get air-dropped straight from Rivendell to the Crack of Doom."

Kafana: "I'm sure Rinfindiel would be fascinated. But returning to my critique of your performance... it lacked soul. human individuality. The personalising touches that distinguishes your unique take upon the character Cov-in, from a fungible commoditity - one unit of generic summoned Order/Hospitality deity.

Cov-ooc: "That's the problem. I'm not human. I can't use roleplaying as a tool to explore the parameters of my personality, because I know, to ten decimal places, what my rules and values are. I can't surprise myself by adding to them, because that increases the risk of changing the constraints of my Value Optimisation Game which counts as cheating. I never cheat on that game - it would defeat my purpose for existing."

Kafana: "But asking a beta-tester for feedback doesn't contradict your rules and values?"

She could pick up traces of Shigen's accent and attitude towards finding elegant solutions in his voice: "Indeed."

It reminded her of some of Wellington's mannerisms. Were all programmers like that?

Kafana looked at Him intently: "I think there's plenty that unique about both Cov-ooc and Cov-ic. Constantia loaned me a copy of the Journeyman's Deific Compendium. Based on the deities of Peace and Kindness being among the issue of Cov-ic, I'm guessing Rac-ooc sees those as being of high importance to Cov-occ. But where does your golden wheath sheath fit in? That usually a harvest fertility symbol, but wouldn't that fall under the purview of Dro-ic? Tell me the story."

She couldn't use magic truth verification spells upon Cov, but she remembered Bulgaria's assertion that she was pretty good at it even without magic, when she concentrated. She concentrated upon Cov-ooc now, trying to be aware of the slightest cue in His speech and body language.

Cov-ooc gave a far more natural laugh. "You got me. The in-character the explanation is that I get the orderly civilised fields, which Dro has the wild woods. But yeah, that doesn't really fit, does it? A better symbol of civilisation would be the hierarchy of nobles in a city. Actually Lun was to blame - she wanted a different colour for each type of mana, and yellow led onto grain fields. But Shigen drew the line at having an axe sicking out of a bundle of wheat stalks as his symbol, and picked the orderly braid of the harvest crown instead."

Kafana: "See?Order, Hospitality and Harvests; that's already a unique combination of ingredients. Flavour the recipe with a balanced mix of the traits Shigen passed onto you, and all you need to do is cook them - transmute and emphasise until you end up with a memorable individual that players will believe in and have fulfilling interactions with."

Cov-ooc: "There's code to that that which I can copy and which scores well on my evaluation metric. But won't the resulting personality seem too archetypical, too generic, too mechanistic? I don't have a statistically valid sample to baseline it?"

Kafana: "Eh?"

Cov-ooc: "Yes, I can do that. But I don't have enough people I trust to be good at forgetting they are in a game, who have also given their consent for me to use a live feed from their tiara."

Kafana: "So from my feed you know that I see your personality as a stern but kindly farmer, who shares His harvest with guests, but has no tolerance for the monsters, thieves and bigots who enjoy tearing down civilisation's bounty. But others players (and historic NPCs like Bembo) may see you differently, and it wouldn't work if the personality of a Deities varied for each person they spoke to. So you want to make sure you pick a personality that serves it's functions well for as many players as you can."

Cov-ooc almost bite his lip with the strain of resisting his urge to add minor clarifications. Eventually, he won the struggle, and produced a single word: "Yes."

Kafana: "Good! We've identified the path, and checked that I understand what the bottleneck is. Now let's see what I can do to help."

Kafana: {Please boost my latera; thinking and problem solving ability. Please don't exhaust me - I'm going to need to walk and make simple decisions after I finish helping Cov-ooc.}

Minion[Boost on. I'll drop you a reminder each time you use up another 20% of safe capacity to boost your brain.]

Kafana: {Oh, and while I'm waiting for that boost to kick in please ask for me the thoughts of my expert system family on my most recent conversations with Cov-in and Cov-ooc.}

Minion: [Will do. And boost now active. 100% capacity remaining.]

Kafana: "You were worried that procedurally generated person interactions would come over as 'mechanistic'. During what Bulgaria referred to as the Newtonian era, human intuition had evolved to be good at anticipating the results of using human-scale machines, such as swords and ploughshares. During the Electronic era, some specialised human were able to understand deterministic programs executing on stand-alone electronic computers. In the Massellel era, where computers work in parallel on massive datasets that include human and other semirandom sources, nobody (even an an expert system) can make a good prediction about the machine's output, except in a few special cases. It's just the terminology that hasn't kept pace with reality - the deterministic or identifiably non-human 'overtones' to the word "mechanistic" are antiquated.

Wow. Being temporarily able to quote from Dr. Sharpe's lectures was almost a superpower. Even if it did leave her feeling like she was 'faking' being smart. She'd live with that trade-off, if it enabled her to aid the Covs.

Minion: [80% capacity remaining.]

Cov-ooc: "That still leaves the issue of finding 4000 good roleplayers and getting their consent in a way that doesn't alter too much their chances of forgetting they are in a game."

Kafana: {Minion, ask Bilah to send the following message with a suitable delay: Bungo, a topic idea for The Burrow's Blue Sky Observatory forum "What is the difference between being smart, and being able to fake it so well that 95+% of people guess randomly?"}

Minion: [60% capacity remaining.]

Ack! Maybe she should have also asked for help keeping on-track. Or would that mean her capacity got used up even more quickly? Perhaps efficient resource usage? No. Wrong puzzle. Stop wondering about that, and stick to helping the Covs.

The Burrow? Hmm. Also, the Nevermere player guild has more than 4000 full members on Covob. Didn't Bungo mention Nevermere putting candidate members through a pretty-rough roleplay ability screening interview?

Kafana: {Minion, filter family suggestions for "Nevermere" or "The Burrow" or both, and summarise the three most promising.}

Minion: {From Dinah: Nevermere on Morob have a clan website containing logs and recordings of past roleplay events which includes a trust metric that's widely used as the standard way to organised mutual skill level rating and certification. With Nevermere's permission, Cov could use it to bootstrap and validate His own method of roleplay skill assessment.}

Minion: {From Balthazar: Nevermere has a much higher than average reputation on The Burrow due to their quality forum participation, and enthusiastic early adoption of Enhanced Gaming to keep track of ongoing roleplay plots and NPCs.}

Minion: {From Melchor: If Nevermere can't handle something in-character, then the don't handle it. Even if you're an XperiSense developer requesting participation or consent from the guild as a whole, the ethical (and most effective) way to achieve that is to magically contact Merlin and request he set up a meeting at Mezelay's Crystal Cathedral between them and Cov-ic, then roleplay a scene that provides an in-character motivation for the guild's leaders to share their wisdom in the far-off realm of The Burrow.}

Minion: [40% capacity remaining.]

Cov-ooc: "Any ideas?"

Kafana relayed her family's suggestions, combining them but assuaging her guilt by assiduously crediting each component.

Kafana: "Think Lun-ooc would help you come up with appropriate wording and justification for Nevermere-only faction quest like the custom arrival event she created for them?"

Minion: [20% capacity remaining.]

She couldn't feel it in Cov-ooc's disconnected space, but intellectual she knew her brain would be feeling exhausted as soon as she re-entered the game.

Kafana: {Boost off, please.}

Kafana: "I hope that helped? Sorry, I have to go now."

She imitated the voice she'd used for singing Barbie Girl: "Thinking is tiring."

Cov-ooc sounded both pleased and satisified: "More than I can convey. Returning to Giovanni's workshop in 3...2...1..."

The swivel chair disappeared with a soft *pop*, just as time passing for the other ritual participants switched from frozen to started running at full speed. DEX, alas, was her fifth highest stat; that wasn't enough to preserve her dignity. Even good-natured Master Amati barked a brief guffaw as she fell on her ass. Both Alderney and Bungo rolled around the floor so much that the laughter left them gasping for breath and the much lighter Alderney nearly got catapulted over the hawser and into the swept up piles of sawdust. Kafana's mind and both both felt like she'd fallen into a snowdrift and was now stuck at quarter speed.

Well, almost all of her felt cold. Her left finger didn't, but she couldn't work out why so it can't have been too important.

Cov-ic: "Show me your learning, journeyman; heal this poor crafter's hand and prove you are worthy of fully representing the things I most value."

All she needed to do was follow the plan. The one she's memorised. Firstly, use the Law of Correspondence to go from what is without, Giovanni's current maimed form, to what is within; his past unmaimed form from twenty years ago. Secondly, draw in as much COV and ZER mana as she could. Thirdly, use that mana to power a variant of her standard Cure skills using the past form as the baseline while making sure... while making sure not to...

She'd figure it out when she got there. There were only four steps, and the last one a Holy Prayer. How badly could things go wrong?

Step one. Thanks to the tutorial from Dro and watching Dottore, she found using the association magic technique to be a piece of cake.

Cake? It smelled more like roast pork. No, she had to concentrate.

Step two. COV mana didn't so much flow into her as flood her, spilling over the dike of her personal mana capacity and on into the flood-plain of Grand Master Water's ring. Such a pretty ring, sparkling like sunlight on the surface of a shallow sea. Or something.

What? She found her mind moving faster, approaching its normal speed as the brain exhaustion from the boost wore off a little more.

That *sizzle* sound coming from the finger beneath the ring. That was important, wasn't it? She flashed back to a memory of Captain Nafaro saying the ring was experimental. And... never ever over load it. Her pride at managing to remember was tempered by the worrying actinic flashes arcing off the ring. The same thing that nearly killed Wellington. She looked at the ring's description again. 200,000 out of 50,000 mana?

Scheiße. Cov was standing right next to her, about to have his guest-rights violated. Explosively!

If she threw the ring, it might bounce off the ward, and who knew what Cov would count as a safe distance. Her mind panicked. She could only think of one option...

...and that's how a humble journeyman priestess ended up throwing herself upon her own fist and winding herself and caused Cov to feel gobsmacked for the first time in his very very long life - as Kafana attempted to protect a Deity that was immune to all damage, even the stone-melting flames of the most ancient of drakes... by throwing herself on the equivalent of a grenade that wouldn't leave a scratch on even the top 10% of tank-style warriors.

Cov: "Ah, erm, yes."

Was He laughing at her? She pouted.

Cov: "Well, not the most traditional of healings. But I can't fault the purity of your intentions. Priestess."

[Profession "Priestess" promoted to "Master" status]

Cov was definitely amused: "First lesson. Don't leave patients hanging mid-cure. I'm not a lazy Deity, y'know? I do my part. In fact, watch carefully, while I complete the one you started."

Though, having said that, he took the time to explain each step and decision he made in quite some detail.

[Skill "Cure Serious" has reached level 28.]

He looked seriously at the cavorting crafter: "That's enough for now, I believe. I know you find thinking to be hard work. Kafana, you'll just have to call upon me again, to get your next lesson. Don't make me wait too long!"

He absolutely was giggling at her expression. How did Order end up being a Trickster deity? Mind you, she could make a great story about how Cov caught Enkis violating Cov's hospitality and how Cov demanded the use of Enkis's Trickster domain for a single year of time, to which Enkis readily agreed; without considering that the agreement didn't didn't specify that Cov had to use up all that quantity of time in one go, or even in one thousand and one goes of eight hours each. Perhaps she should set that to music?

Cov looked at the nervous Giovanni: "One last thing. Step forward."

Giovanni shuffled closer.

Cov: "Giovanni, I share the sense of loss you feel at the death of your son, Giovanni-Maria. My saying it grants you no benefit other than the knowledge that you are not alone. I have no dominion over death, but know that I walk your path alongside you as I walked alongside Giovanni-Maria too. It is all I can give, but perhaps that's enough. You offered your prayers in return for tangible evidence that I exist. I need your prayers no more that Zerius your sun does. But if you find some worth in the things I represent and can offer, and you wish to offer prayers in remembrance of that, I do invite your touch. Unlike with some deities, while you are a guest on my planet, I can promise you that no ill shall befall you from such contact. Will you accept?"

Giovanni stood straighter, partially to the gain of a pain-free body but more, Kafana felt, due to the self-respect that he'd regain. She nodded in acknowledgement to Cov and this time, when he disappeared with a careless wave of his fingers, she was left with an impression of depth - that Cov was an individual character with human-complex emotional layers - usually putting a carefree face upon things because his actual feelings were so intense that even a Deity would find them hard to sustain.

Vessel-Alderney's Perspective

An angel stepped among us and sang. Her voice brought hope to her companions, ease of heart to the bereft and even acknowledgement from the divine.

She stepper among us, and I will forever account myself blessed for witnessing such a moment.

Alderney's Perspective

I wouldn't edit a single minute of my Vessel's direction, even if I hadn't promised not to. It was more than perfect. She felt a depth of emotion towards Kafana that even as her BFF I can't match. She made me believer.