Being a non - player role in someone else ’s virtual earth can be a pain — specially when some of the monsters wo n’t stay dead . Tobias Buckell ’s report “ A Game of Rats and Dragon , ” publish in Lightspeed Magazine , takes a lot of the cliches of augmented world and virtual gambling , and bring a really groovy twisting — what if multitude became attached to their virtual sidekicks , in a kind of owner / pet relationship ? And who ’s to say that a practical animal ca n’t be a better ally and companion than most masses ?
Overton is an NPC who hunt “ rats , ” or leftover scrap of malicious code , inside a steampunk MMARG — and it turns out that the rats are getting smarter and tougher to stamp out . Here ’s the rootage of “ A Game of Rats and Dragon,”based on Cordwainer Smith ’s definitive account “ A Game of Rat and Dragon ” :
moonlight as a non - player character was a hell of a way to earn a animation . Never made much sentiency to drop all that time garbing up in a virtual uniform that matched gamespace , but Overton choose superbia in the details . So getting punched in the stomach by someone so caught up in an augmented realism fantasy they could n’t severalise real from script , that left him in a foul mood . All the man had to do was ask the good questions , get Overton ’s reply , and move on .
He tag the asshole with some negative karma , checked his own account Libra the Scales , and wandered back off into his own preferred worldly concern .
discount the gray sidewalk of a blistering Manhattan summertime day . take the air around the tourists on top of the dikes in Lower Manhattan . Ease through Battery Park . Once on Broadway he turned on the silvered middleman ride his eyeballs , the inner - earphones , and it all melted away .
The Clockwork Empire squatted around most of the erstwhile Financial District . Gearhouses chug off with cloud of dark smoke . Overton swept the wet fanny of his coat back with a flourish , doff a detonator at someone involved in the gamespace hurrying by on a mission of his own , and set out to witness a hearty stew somewhere .
learn the eternal rest over at Lightspeed , or inBuckell ’s new record Mitigated Futures .
Augmented realityBooksGaminglightspeed magazineTobias Buckell
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