In the previous episode...


    1.2.3??An Enchanting Original


    The Wombles discover that reaching character level 40 is an important milestone in the game, enabling access to region-spanning plot lines, joining factions and attempting to gain master level (a feat that is different for each profession, and can involve a test with high rewards for those who not only pass but who exceed the examiners expectations). To that end (and to surprise assassins and other opponents), The Wombles try to spend a quiet day focused on deepening their understanding of the game world and developing their skills, and find that knowing more than others do, and knowing more than others think you know, is advantageous in everything from politics and finance, to combat and social manoeuvres.


    Kafana finds out what it is like being in the audience when Alderney persuades her to experience a special event staged by XperiSense for the mass arrival in Mezelay (capital city of the Burgundish region that lies a thousand kilometers away from Torello) of the Nevermere guild, through the fully-immersive sense recordings broadcast live from the tiara of Friawell (a cocky priest character whose player showed Kafana how much she had yet to learn, by managing to keep up a continuous subvocal thought commentary without ever letting out-of-character thoughts intrude). Alderney, however, pays attention to the fashions being worn and uses her possession of knowledge more current than any ship could provide to impress Lady Bella Pantalone (a fashionista driven to be seen as a person with status independent of that derived from marriage to a wealthy husband - as the owner of the greatest fashion establishment: Signora Moda). With a bit of showmanship (and taking advantage of their control over access to Flavio’s new materials), the Wombles leverage this into a sponsorship deal with Signora in which the Wombles gain her backing in entering the nobility (by winning formal recognition of a House Sincero) and clothing suitable for nobles, in return for Signora gaining social reputation for sponsoring their rise and a promise by the Wombles to not behave in any way that would be seen as being beneath that of a noble, when in a social situation with other nobles.


    Mindful of the decision Bulgaria has asked her to make, Kafana spends the afternoon practising magic with Bungo (despite not having liked him much back at university) in order to find out what he thinks the Wombles ought to be doing. She is pleasantly surprised to discover that he has changed a lot over the years. When she first met him, he had only recently fled a cult run by his abusive father (who, it turns out, is now also playing Soul Bound, as Irus the Blind - a rabble-rousing street preacher who is gaining a following by speaking truths that only marginally avoiding violating the game’s prohibition against players trying to inform the NPCs that the world they’ve spent years growing up in, thanks to the simulation running much faster than real-time before the launch, is not a physical world that will continue to exist and shelter their descendants for many millennia to come).


    Since then, Bungo has striven to improve himself, finding a new family among the transhumanists of the Songhai tribe, and using his training in biochemistry at a company researching the intersection of pharmaceuticals and the compromises with rationality left scattered across the human brain by the path taken by evolution in an environment that usually rewarded fast production of moderately accurate answers over slow production of highly accurate answers. He’s a new man - a more likeable and responsible one.


    According to Bungo, the reason why the dynasties with the highest capability of achieving their goals (due to factors such as wealth, education, genetic modification to boost longevity and IQ) are a such problem is not the emphasis they place upon the goal of further increasing their capabilities both absolutely, and relative to the capability of the general populace. Nor is it because they can and do use that comparative advantage to alter the conditions of the contest (social environments such as the rules and practices of various political and financial systems) to the disadvantage of anything threatening their goals. Bungo explained that the dynasties know there are still many groups in the general populace capable of opposing their goals effectively enough to threaten them, if the groups were willing and able to work together; and that their existing advantages (such as their mutual transparency ratio - the cost for one side to benefit from increasing their information about the other side, divided by the cost for the other side gain equal benefit from doing the same in return) allow the dynasties to bamboozle the people in those groups (into not knowing or caring enough, and into believing that taking action would be foolish, futile or fatal). But despite how much that theft of free will horrifies him, the question most important to Bungo lay deeper yet.


    Rather than trying reduce the minutes each day that people spent their attention upon information sources under dynastic control, or the effectiveness with which the lies and deceptions filling those minutes were designed to take advantage of the mental limitations inherent in the populace’s human nature, Bungo looked for ways to reduce how vulnerable people were to being bamboozled. Did their side have advantages too, such as truth and the numbers to test multiple approaches at the same time? Bungo’s pick for the issue that it was most urgent to work upon was one he felt affecting not just the fate of humanity but also its very definition : “What would it take to increase our ability to resist being bamboozled, at a faster pace than their advantages are enabling them to increase their ability to do the bamboozling? How much of a change to ‘human nature’ would people accept voluntarily, if that’s what it took to win, even knowing that being involuntarily changed by the dynasties would be a likely result of losing?”


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Or, as Signora would put it, “To be human is to be so full of flaws, that most would rather die than see themselves as they actually are. So we surround ourselves with comfortable lies, like they were pet animals. The prettier they are and the longer they’re kept, the more a person will risk to delay giving them up. The value given to most things is based upon nine parts of belief and appearance, to one part of reality. Doubly so, when valuing people.”


    It is a lesson that’s brought home when Kafana observes a battle over how events from a centuries-past visit of a foreign prince will be remembered, between Poussin (a painter trying to please the éminence grise of Mezelay, Cardinal Plessis) and Moschus (a poet hoping to persuade the courtesan Amaryllis to become his Mistress); and again, when Bungo describes how the value placed upon works of art during auctions is affected by the perceived motives of bidders when Jiang Aristotle attends them.


    Even the very mechanics of Soul Bound seem to support this. Kafana labelled five orphans as worthy and all of them ended up being apprenticed: Renarda (Fox-chan, as a waitress under Columbina), Hase (Rabbit-chan, as an assistant at Signora Moda), Fulvia (Fawn-chan, as a librarian under Lord Enzo Zeno), Galatea (Kitten-chan, as a maid under Lady Unguosa Bruno) and Goffa (Puppy-chan, as an apprentice at Mazoni’s metal foundry). Was this coincidence? Nobles hiring incompetents in order to impress each other? Or did the game actually alter those five characters in order to retroactively justify the hiring decisions?


    Similarly, the reputation system is as real to NPCs as the law of gravity, with the instinctive reactions based upon it being justified as guidance from Cov, deity of order. Or possibly more real - time and space can both be affected by magic, and clouds and undines like Nomia move in ways that seem to entirely side-step questions of mass or even density.


    The Wombles are not the only group left puzzled after exploring the game’s mechanics and, as Wellington opens up the ability for all members of The Burrow to create new services, it starts turning into a hub for sharing plans and data. It is growing, but is it growing fast enough?


    Because, just as the elite dynasties are in a race to widen the information asymmetry compared to the general populace, one particular member of the dynasties, Ludwig Spreckels, now sees himself as being in a more personal race. He’s recruited a journalist (Jürgen Lipszyc) and an academic specialist in data analysis (Vanessa Homright), and challenged them to discover the arlife identity of Kafana. Can the Wombles gain allies and improve their security at a faster rate than one of the richest men on the planet can add backing to the effort to track them down?


    ...now read on!


    1??????????Soul Bound


    1.2????????Taking Control


    1.2.4??????An Artful Carnivale


    1.2.4.1????Ketah shows her initiative


    4:50 am, Thursday June 8th, 2045


    Kafana finished her morning meditation and was about to flip back to arlife, to cook breakfast for Alderney, when Ketah’s willowy avatar entered her Bier room through one of Bungo’s new corridors, catching her by surprise.


    Kafana: “Hello Ketah. Have you been looking at The Burrow’s kitchen area?”


    Ketah blushed.


    Ketah: “Oh! I hope I’m not abusing my privileged status. I had a look at the pizzas your fans have been making. There’s even one with a jagged stuffed crust that’s shaped like a Mandelbrot! The smell of fresh baking is wonderful, don’t you think?”


    Kafana: “Perhaps turn invisible? As far as I know, only Clan Beresford have the ability to grant access to the Burrow for expert systems. Um, expert people? I’m not sure exactly what to call you. Anyway, only my family have avatars too, so the issue hasn’t come up. And yes, I love the smell of fresh baking. It is a pity corridors don’t faintly carry the sounds and scents of the areas they connect.”


    Ketah squeezed her arms together and half turned her head, apparently delighted at the idea. Suddenly Kafana could spot traces of flour on Ketah’s fingers and hair, and smell not only baking but also a faint floral scent. Had Ketah picked herself a perfume?


    Ketah: “I’ll be as stealthy as one of Alderney’s onion-chopping ninjas. In fact, would you like me to ask The Burrow to add one as a character like the librarian, who turns up on rare occasions, like an easter egg? Maybe they can only be seen out of the corner of your eye.”


    Kafana: “Um, I don’t have time to give you a good answer on that. I need to get cooking. Did you want something?”


    Ketah: “Yes! I came to offer to cook breakfast with Alderney. I’m sure she can do it, with my help, and there’s a recording for you from your Vessel-self sent via Wellington, that I think you’ll want to experience.”


    Kafana smiled warmly. She believed Wellington was currently located somewhere in Asia, as he was always up before her in the mornings. Not that he’d confirm or deny it when asked - ‘need to know’ and all that.


    Kafana: “Thank you, I’ll take you up on that offer. What’s the worst that can happen?”


    *flip*