Slowly but surely I'm cracking open the formerly closed environment of Devworld
and stuffing more stories inside.  Feel free to reply with questions, if you
like!  It's a wonderful place, full of Things and Stuff that still have yet to
be properly defined; Schroedinger's MMO, perhaps.

=======
The Curator's Spotlight: A DiVerse Alpha Chronicle
by Felix

03: Second Chances

====
AUTHOR'S NOTE

"My experience is not universal and I'm no authority on the matter, but if my
words help you come to terms with whatever you're going through, then my time
was well spent.

May you find peace in your Heart and Mind and Metal."

- Luther Irrelevant (Grad.)

==
SECOND CHANCES

Some players come to Devworld by choice.  They get invited, or chosen, and they
Dive - knowing that they can go back to their old life whenever they want - and
that tempers their experience here.

Some don't.  Some of them are like me.

Before I was L.I., conqueror of a thousand battlefields, tactician, strategist,
explorer - before any accolades or legends or anything earned under the deep
violet skies - I was nothing but a sickly child, destined to die on a care-bed
in some nameless hospital, in some nameless city, on some nameless planet.  The
names don't matter; you could replace them with anything.

What matters is that I never had a future to speak of.  And when on one fateful
night I was offered an escape from it, there was no way but forward.  I never
even considered going back to my old life after my first Dive; as far as I was
concerned, there was no 'old' life to go back /to/.  There was only now; only
this.

I don't know what happened to my old body and I don't particularly care.  I
doubt it survived long without my vital essence sustaining it, which it did
mostly out of bitterness toward the world.  What matters now is that I have a
future... and a /present/.  From the very first moment I could do things my old
body never could; things I suspect are unimaginable for those outside Devworld.  
Such are the wonders I've seen.

And anyone who comes here with nothing, as I did so long ago, has the world
opened up for them in just such a way.

I wonder sometimes, in my idle moments, what it seems like on the outside.  
People that were terminally ill, simply... falling silent.  No soul, no Heart
and Mind, since those are here now.  I wonder if people blame 'the game'.  I
wonder if they even know, if they can make the connection.  I've never talked to
anyone who knew the useless me from back then; there was no one there to connect
with, so I never had friends to speak of.

But like everything else about my too-short old life - it doesn't matter at all,
save that it happened and brought me here.  I was given a second chance - not
just at life, but at /existence/ itself.

Devworld doesn't care what you look like, how old or young you are, what's wrong
with your body (or right with it).  All that matters is whether you want to be
here, and to take the second chance you've been given and make something of it.  
There's something special about that.

(In fact, I suspect #####

[[ REDACTED HL_AUTH ]]

##### so that's mostly theoretical.)

The point of all this is: if you are here out of necessity, as a last resort; if
you're untethered, whether you knew it coming in or your link to the outside
world was cut without warning - don't look at it as if you're trapped here.  
There is so much to do, so much to see, to /be/, to /learn/; there are secrets
even I haven't uncovered yet, I'm sure of it.  There's so few boundaries to keep
you from whatever it is you want to do.  (They exist, but they're rare, far more
so than in 'the real world'.)

Second chances are a treasure beyond imagining.  Make the most of yours, because
you were given one when you came here, whether you see it now or not.

==
CURATOR'S NOTES
(Akasha, Head Librarian)

A lovely and stirring piece, really; but even if you're a much-storied legendary
hero, I can't have you spoiling the surprise, now can I?  Not even
unintentionally.

(Logia, associate librarian)

"Heart and Mind and Metal" is the official tagline for the commercial product
version of Devworld.  It also refers to the three components that classically
define a 'sentient being', Intellect, Emotion, and Form.  "Metal" is
occasionally used in quotes to indicate the nebulous nature of reality within
Devworld - but only by players, never in any sales products.

On Saturday, October 16, 2021 at 6:42:07 PM UTC-5, deucexm wrote:
>
> [[ REDACTED HL_AUTH ]]
>
After some negotiation, Akasha has agreed to provide the original material in
this section for your edification, under the condition that - should you find
yourself in Devworld, or meet any Divers in your own realm - you never mention
it to anyone else.

I wouldn't cross her, personally. Librarians are intimidating.

FULL_TEXT
(In fact, I suspect Devworld was intentionally designed to disassociate players
from their old bodies. Supposedly there's a hidden side of the game, if you can
access it through whatever protections are there, in game or in code. I've seen
a handful of strange items and unusable skills that could point in that
direction, but it really depends on how you interpret the text and parameters so
that's mostly theoretical.)

On 10/20/21 3:42 PM, deucexm wrote:
> On Saturday, October 16, 2021 at 6:42:07 PM UTC-5, deucexm wrote:
>>
>> [[ REDACTED HL_AUTH ]]
>>
> After some negotiation, Akasha has agreed to provide the original material in
> this section for your edification, under the condition that - should you find
> yourself in Devworld, or meet any Divers in your own realm - you never mention
> it to anyone else.
>
> I wouldn't cross her, personally. Librarians are intimidating.
>
> FULL_TEXT
> (In fact, I suspect Devworld was intentionally designed to disassociate players
> from their old bodies. Supposedly there's a hidden side of the game, if you can
> access it through whatever protections are there, in game or in code. I've seen
> a handful of strange items and unusable skills that could point in that
> direction, but it really depends on how you interpret the text and parameters so
> that's mostly theoretical.)

I'd seen the rest before, but not this - how *intriguing*. :D Almost like this
game is inherently an engine for transformation, mwahaha n.n

Drew "not that I would know anything about that" Nilium