According to the Norse mythology of Earth, Yggdrasil was an immense tree that was the focal-point of Norse cosmology; it was the world tree, and around the tree existed the nine worlds. However, in truth, Yggdrasil was the Computer Main-Frame of the Goddess Relief Agency, a Celestial Group designated to bring happiness to the people of Earth, especially those with great virtue but terrible misfortune. In most scenarios—yes we mean most, so shut up about Keiichi Morisato already—a goddess appears before one that the system has deemed worthy and grants him or her one wish. The wish must then be approved by the Yggdrasil system, after which a contract would be created between the human and the goddess and stored on the Yggdrasil system as a file. The wish contract file would then further protected by a pass-code known to the co-signing goddess.
However... there are those who would use Yggdrasil for purposes not necessarily intended... and before you go on about the horrors of what horrors could be committed, one should know the security around the main-frame was top-notch, so an evil influence through it was a very rare freak occurrence if anything.
Now, as for a bored workers with too much downtime? Such ‘misuses’ were sadly not so uncommon...
Walking back into the Main Office of Yggrdrasil with a fresh pot of coffee, Goddess First Class, Secondary Category, Unlimited License paused as she heard the noises of... Gun Fire? Explosions? Screams of terror... and what sounded like fifteen year old boys speaking some language that was familiar... maybe ‘Noob’?
Turning her head to the one screen currently on and what looked like a FPS running, Peorth scowled as she stared at the back of the Goddess Second Class, Management, Limited License. “UUUURRRD!!!”
Urd jumped in her seat and quickly turned her chair swivel chair to face the other goddess. “By Father, Peorth! What!?”
“What is...” the Rose Goddess started, only to trail off as a realization occurred due to what monitor was on. “Wait a second! What is THAT thing and are you playing it on Yggdrasil!?” the goddess demanded to know, pointing to the offending screen.
A sweat-drop trailing down the side of her head, the mocha-skinned Norn asked, “Uh, it’s a game... what’s it look like?”
Glaring daggers at the other goddess, Peorth demanded to know, “What game?” While it didn’t look like any of the woman’s H-Games, the fact she was using Yggdrasil to play it was very vexing.
“...Crysis 3?” Urd answered, more as a question than an answer.
The more serious goddess slowly raised an eyebrow. “And you’re playing it on the main-frame for the goddess wish-system because...?”
Sighing, the Norn of the Past realized she was going to have to come clean. “Simple. I tried it on Keiichi’s computer and it blew up big time.” She meant that quite literally too. She hoped he didn’t notice that lump of smoldering burn plastic where his PC tower used to be.
Peorth’s glare didn’t let up any. “How does that justify playing it here?”
Urd stared at the Goddess of Roses and Categorization as if she’d grown a second head. “Don’t you know anything about the Crysis series?”
“I don’t play games,” Peorth firmly answered, takes a long swig of coffee directly from the pot. A shiver going up her spine as she got her caffeine fix, the Goddess First demanded, “Now explain!”
“This series is notorious for graphics and gameplay excellence!!” Urd proclaimed, simply aghast that Peorth was this clueless! “Most computers trying to run it on super-high settings go boom! Even Skuld had to do a master mac-custom job on her set up to play it!”
Staring at the Norn, the Goddess questioned, “And why aren’t you playing this on HER system?”
“Because she’s using it, DUH!” The daughter of the Almighty and Hild shouted. She then became a bit sheepish as the other goddess’ glare intensified. Trying to justify herself, she quickly mumbled in one breath, “SoIsortacameherebecauseIvolunteeredashift...”
Hearing the sound of an explosion, Urd turned back to the screen. Her eyes widened and she practically felt her heart crash inside her chest. “NOOOOOO!” she wailed in horror. “Damn it! Skuld got me!! Freaking rocket from up high!” She took a deep breath and shouted, “You little bitch!”
“URD! FOCUS!” Peorth snapped. “And don't call children ‘bitch’! That is so wrong on many levels!”
And then from the speakers came from the mouth of babes, “HA! SUCK IT, URD!”
Eyes going wide, Peorth was aghast. “...Was that Skuld’s voice?”
Nodding her head in affirmative, the Norn of the Past was about to speak but was cut off from saying anything else as her younger sister shouted over the speakers, “HA! BLEW YOU UP GOOD, DIDN’T I, YOU STUPID BITCH? BLEW YOU LIKE YOU DO DAD’S DICK, ISN’T THAT RIGHT YOU COCK-SUCKING WHORE!?”
Her jaw dropping, Peorth released her pot of coffee, the large glass container shattering as it hit the floor, sending the steaming brown liquid spreading upon impact. The Goddess First Class, Unlimited was beyond words with that...
Realizing that this was likely to come down on her head, the Norn of the Past tried to tell the Norn of the Future, “Uh Skuld?”
“What’s wrong, Urd?” came a haughty voice. “Are you too speechless from the awesome pwning I handed your sorry ass?”
“No... it’s just Peorth heard your stream of obscenities,” Urd replied, smiling a little at her fellow goddess’ shocked cry. “Say a few more syllables, Skuld! I guess she still thinks your potty mouth is cherry.”
Finally, after a long moment of silence, the younger goddess asked, “...Peorth heard me?”
A devious smiled came across the mocha-skinned half-goddess/half-demoness’ face. “Yep! Oh, and Skuld... look to your right.” Urd watched with glee as she used her in-game character to drive an APC right into Skuld’s character with an audible ‘splat’.
“NO! YOU BITCH! MY KILL-STREAK!”
“Well that’s your own fault!” the most devious of the Norns crowed with delight. “You shouldn’t have stood out in the open! Even with armor mode on, you can’t survive a head-on-collision, Jailbait!” Urd laughed triumphantly as her sister shrieked over the speakers. She knew how much Skuld hated that nickname and LOVED to dig it into her whenever she could!
Watching on Urd’s screen how her Armored Personal Carrier turned the soldier Skuld was playing into a very realistic representation of Road Kill, Peorth was finally able to find her voice. “...Nuts... you’re all nuts...”
“Chock fulla nuts, like that heavenly coffee...” Urd admitted. “Which is currently all over the floor.”
Looking down, all the Goddess could wail was, “MY FOLGERS!!!”
“Yep! You made the mess, so you clean it! As for me, I got a kill-score to restore!” Urd stated happily as she continued to play. Her eyes widened as she realized what was going on. “Uh-oh! Abandon car!” She shouted as on-screen, her character bail out of the APC as it started to smoke. “I see you, maximum strength punch!” She laughed as her nano-soldier struck her opponent so hard he went flying. “It's good to be the—NO! Oh nononononooooo! Skuld! You little cunt! How dare you cloak and stealth kill me!?”
“Payback’s a bitch, sis!” was Skuld's reply. “A mother-fucking bitch even!”
Peorth twitched. Just what was it with goddesses nowadays? Had they no sense of work ethic? Had they no shame!?
Shaking her head in disgust as the obscenities continued to fly back and forth between the two sisters, Peorth decided maybe it would be better if she just cleaned up the coffee and got to work. Still, I better check on the Yggdrasil system and see how it’s doing...
So, with that thought in mind, the black-haired goddess took a seat at one of the consoles and tried to boot it up... and frowned as it took a solid minute for it to come up. “Odd... usually it’s two seconds or less... I mean, this is all reality, not Windows Vista...”
When her screen came up in full, Peorth stared at all the frozen progress bars for Wish Statuses. Some were at ten percent and not one was higher than fifty percent. “What the heck is going on?” Bringing up her ‘My Yggdrasil’ Icon, the Rose Goddess saw that the computer of the Universe itself... WAS ONLY RUNNING ON FOURTEEN-PERCENT PROCESSING POWER!!!
“Where the hell is the rest of it!?” she shouted as she tried to find the source... due to the slow speeds she was forced to work with, it took her fourteen minutes to find that bandwidth and processor power were being redirected from the system proper to a file program listed under, “Crysis_03”.
“...UUUURRRRRRD!!!”
Dropping her game controller, Urd’s eyes widened. “Oh crap... Skuld! The jig is up!”
“Oh crap!” came the cry of the younger goddess over the speakers. “She found the program I rigged so we could use Yggdrasil’s superior system for the game and our online matches, didn’t she?”
Sighing, all the Norn could reply was “Yep.”
“...I’m gone!” and just like that, the screen then read a caption bar, [Player MechaGoddess42 has left the game] at the bottom of the screen.
The eldest of the Norn’s left eye twitched as her youngest sibling abandoned her. “Oh, you back-stabbing cockbite...” Urd muttered. She didn’t get long to curse out the girl because—as she expected she would—she suddenly felt an aura of vengeance and hate behind her. Without turning around, Urd replied, “I know you’re generating that aura of killing intent with fiery red colors and it’s also likely your hair is flying up... but Peorth, can we just get this over with?”
“DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING!?” the Norse Goddess of Roses and Nature roared with the vengeance of a goddess—particularly a Greek—crossed and burned. “YOUR GAME COULD’VE DESTROYED ALL REALITY!”
Beads of sweat pouring down the sides of her head, the Norn of the Past finally turmed about and held her hands up in a warding motion. “Oh, c-c’mon, Peorth...” she stuttered, inwardly cursing herself for not keeping her cool. “It’s just a little harmless gaming. What could it do to Yggdra—”
*WHOOP*!
“CYNTAX ERROR 404!”
*WHOOP*!
“CYNTAX ERROR 404!”
*WHOOP*!
“CYNTAX ERROR 404!”
*WHOOP*!
“CYNTAX ERROR 404!”
*WHOOP*!
“...Uh... is that bad?” Urd asked helplessly.
Twitching as red emergency lights began flashing and the sirens started going off, Peorth glared hatefully at the other goddess as she replied in an icy tone, “Yes. Yes it is.” She pushed Urd off the swivel-recliner and sat down at the console the Goddess Second Class has been using for her gaming and went through a few protocols and schematics. In a few minutes, the lights went back to normal and the emergency sirens stopped.
Impressed that Peorth had stopped everything so quickly, Urd asked, “What did you do?”
“You mean besides shut off your game?” the woman snorted. “I told Yggdrasil to uninstall it, freeing up the processing power.” She turned the chair to face the Norn, once more glaring at Urd. “Even with these graphic and processing requirements... how could a single human-designed game use all that power!?”
Urd knew lying wouldn’t help her—in fact, it would likely piss the Goddess First Class off more—so she went for the truth. “Skuld came up with a program to allow us to run the game from Yggdrasil, allowing maximum settings for single player, co-op and multiplayer. That way, she could play from her set up, I’d play here, and no system crashes, no frame-rate loss....” she sighed blissfully. “I used to curse Skuld for getting me into video games but wow... it’s as sweet as sweet could be!”
“Yay, wow, happy for you...” Peorth deadpanned sarcastically while rubbing the right side of her face. “In any case... now we need to see just what protocols got jammed up...” she mumbled as she began typing. “So how long did you play?”
Taking a moment to mentally count, Urd finally replied, “I did single player, even with Skuld and two more co-op buddies... I’d say it was a fifteen-hour deal—that includes breaks. Then we hit the multiplayer and been rocking since... so about twenty-four hours now?”
The First Class Goddess just stared at the Second Class Pain in the Ass Goddess for a solid two minutes. “......You let Yggdrasil run at barely half capacity for twenty-four hours!?”
“No I didn’t!” Urd said seriously. As Peorth started to relax it was a sheepish Norn that admitted, “It was barely working at a quarter of its usual speed.” As a fiery aura sprang forth from around Peorth once more, Urd feebly tried, “Uh... it made the game really sweet?”
Glowing like a paper lantern at a festival, Peorth’s eye right eye twitched uncontrollably. How irresponsible!! Using such a powerful piece of computing divine magical technology just so a game could be played at maximum setting to spread locations, enhance the graphics, prevent frame-rate drop and smooth as silk internet connection and speed...
As Peorth considered such, she nodded her head slowly. Okay, for a gaming geek, the crime would be worth it but they were lucky the universe didn’t implode!! “I swear to Father, Urd...” the Norse goddess growled. “If anything went wrong, I’ll...” she trailed off and frowned deeper.
As an intense look came over the Rose Goddess’ face as she glared at the Yggdrasil console screen, Urd could only ask, “What?”
“...I found out what error set off the alarm,” Peorth replied in all seriousness. “A bunch of parentless and abandoned children made a heartfelt wish that the orphanage they live in wouldn’t be foreclosed.... the system okayed the wish and was in the process of transferring the required funds... UNTIL YOU TURNED ON YOUR GAME!!”
THAT made Urd wince. Orphans? Okay, that was something that could get through to her. “C-can’t you just... you know? You’re a Moderator of the System! Just physically put in the command to send money to the kids!”
“I intend to,” Peorth replied, typing away at the hovering keyboard to get the wish re-submitted. “But that’s just it. The kids do still need that money, having never received it... but the system shows here that said wish WAS processed!”
Realizing now that said wish had been granted but not given, Urd knew this meant some leg-work could be involved. “So? Can’t we just track the money?”
Peorth glared daggers at her. “Yes, of course we can. But if I knew about this, say fifteen hours ago at least, I could have instantly tracked the money! However, it’s been in Midgard long enough that the residual magical energy of the wish that conjured it has started to dilute into the background! Meaning from here on out, tracking it becomes very, very difficult!”
“...Wow...” Urd said with a wince. “That sucks...”
Nodding her head, Peorth agreed, “Yes, that does suck... for you.”
“ME!?” Urd shouted.
Nodding her head once more, Peorth explained to the Norn of the Past, “Well, you lost it! You find it! I don’t have the time to try and look for it! I have to fix any problems you caused the system AND I still need to clean up the mess I made with the coffee because that hellion sister of yours mouth!” She shuddered. “And believe me! I will be telling Belldandy about Skuld’s filthy little pie-hole!”
Her skin paling a little, Urd cried, “HEY! You can’t pin that on me!”
Peorth’s grin became rather devious and evil for a goddess. “Oh? Can’t I?”
“She was into gaming and trashing ‘Noob Speak’ before I got into it!” the eldest of the Norns wailed. It was she whom learned it FROM Skuld!
Smirking, the Norse goddess retorted, “You encouraged it, no doubt.”
Urd twitched. “...Okay, I concede to that, but—”
“Find the money... and I might just leave out to Belldandy that Skuld’s mouth isn’t so ‘cherry’, as you put it,” was the Goddess First Class’ ultimatum. “Otherwise not even one of mom’s Apples of Immortality will save your sorry butt once Belldandy is through with you.”
Whimpering in defeat, Urd pleaded, “Can I at least get some help tracking the trail?”
Nodding her head, the older Goddess replied, “Sure. Go to the main cabinet and open the top drawer. We have a device just for that. Now, chop-chop! Time is of the essence! A lot of money was sent and I do NOT want to think of what could have happened if it fell into the wrong hands!”
“Uh yeah... bad thing,” Urd agreed, although she was still more worried about her own fate than that of some misplaced cash. “So what about conjuring more money for the orphans?”
The woman turned her attention back to the Yggrasil computer screen, typing away. Without even looking back, she explained to the Norn, “That is something that can be done, but it won’t be easy. I’ll have to bypass certain security systems and get permission from the top since duplicating wishes is not usually allowed. So find that money! The heat will be less on all of us.”
Gulping nervously, Urd cautiously inquired, “And suppose the money is already in bad hands?”
The Rose Goddess smirked. “Then I hope you like being under house arrest, your powers severely limited... and I’ll tell Belldandy plenty to make sure her position as your warden is... icy at best.”
Urd straightened up where she stood considerably. “GOTTAGOANDTRACKTHEMONEYSEEYOULATER!!” the Goddess screamed out in one breath as she literally picked up the entire cabinet and rushed off.
“...At least I can see she’ll take her search seriously...” Peorth mumbled to herself as she went back to typing. It looked like she was in for an all-nighter...
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(Posted Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:57)
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