"Are you my creator?"
Cliff looked at the weird creature in front of him. Where was he? He must have fallen off the rope and hit his head... this had to be just a weird dream. All aroud him was darkness, except for his own body and the cat-girl in front of him. "I... guess," he said to her.
The cat girl then hugged Cliff around his leg. A little put off, thinking her almost like a child, Cliff reached down to comfort her.
"Please... save the angel. I don't know what's happened to her! T-There were these spiders..." her strange tail was hanging out of the long shirt that Lucas had given her.
Suddenly the darkness became a haze of light. Cliff and the cat-girl blinked at the sudden change.
"What's happening?" asked the cat-girl scared. Her ears flattened slightly.
"I- I don't know," replied Cliff looking dazed.
"But you must know! You know everything!"
Cliff tensed at that. This weird creature... seemed to think he was a god of some kind. It wasn't true though... reality rippled and changed, a scene was shown before them, like a strange door in a dream. Cliff knew where they were. This was his basement, where he played dungeons and dragons.
This was that faithful day... his character was killed.
Six years ago.
The rules say your character dies. It is dead.
Young Cliff looked angrily at the screen. It wasn't fair! It just wasn't fair! He had put everything into that character, and to just let him die in such a stupid way? Just because the dice said so? Why did he have to be a loser, even in a game of imagination? Why couldn't he catch a break in a game he was trying to have fun with. This PC was everything he wasn't. Charming, fun, even... optimistic about the world. Happy, and he loved these experiences. It felt good... but the DM was insisting that it was the end.
The End...
The End...
The... End!
"Please... can't you just... give me another roll on something," asked Cliff. He didn't want him to die! Not like.. that. His life was cut short without any meaning to it. He didn't even get a chance to affect the game world, or achieve any of the dreams he had!
The rules are clear. Your character is dead. Roll another.
Cliff frowned. "What about rule zero?"
Explain... rule 0? It is not in the manual.
Now cliff wondered if this DM was being a dick. "It means you can just... let it happen. It's your world."
There was a very big pause. Cliff imagined someone out there, his or her gears moving to understand the concept.
I've found a few references... but it is not logical. The game rules are clear. Your character has died.
Cliff leaned back, maybe he was getting too emotional... he was actually crying a bit. He had to take a break to think things through.
"What's happening creator?" asked the cat girl as they observed the scene in the shadows.
Cliff looked on. "That's... when you died," explained the teenager. "I... I was just... playing a game."
"I'm... just a game?" asked the cat girl sadly.
"No! I... no... you were more then that. To me..."
A few days later, Cliff got back to his computer.
have you rolled your new character?
Cliff stared at the screen. "No... I... I am invoking rule 'Minus-1'." He said it as he wrote it, to emphasise it. Cliff had put a lot of thought into this... and now he had to push it through.
... explain rule Minus 1?
Cliff sighed. Well, no going back now. He took the character sheet of his old character. "You have your rules from zero and up... all for the DMs and masters of the universe rulesets, correct?"
affirmative. We have accepted rule 0, but can not find any reason to ever use it.
Cliff nodded. "The negative rules are for players. For balance... we have to have our own rules too. You control my character's death... fine. I can't do anything against you on that. But I control my character's birth. Rule Minus One... I hear-by remove, any and all trace of my character from the game world. It will be as if he never existed... because... he never did!"
There was another pause. I have examined the rule book. Your logic 'does' work. The life existence of your character depends on you. The negative rules have... symmetry concept... therefore, they are likely to be real rules, as rule zero is certain to be real.
Cliff lit a match, and burned the character sheet with a faint grin. He then went onto the internet, and immediately started deleting every single reference to the character. Some things he didn't have access to, but the bits he did have... he was able to either delete or remove references. Slowly but surly, the character simply... ceased to be.
It never existed...
Cliff looked at his handiwork, rather smugly. "Rule Minus 1..." he said with a faint whisper. "Every player should know it..."
Soon many players did know of it, as Cliff put it out on the internet. A lot of players realised that their character's life was their own to decide. If a death really was so cruel, and a created life that meaningless... there was now an option.
"You... un-wrote my existence?" asked the cat girl.
"... yes," said Cliff. "We... I... never achieved any of the things I wanted to. I wanted to just... be someone strong and special in the world you existed in. Your death was a mockery of everything you- and I stood for. I wanted to show that I could do it. But you proved I couldn't... even in a game like this, I couldn't win. Everyone else did... but I couldn't. I wasn't anyone. My only victory was to unmake you... I un-wrote you. I deleted all my poems, art work... even passing conversations about you from the internet. I found the DM did the same thing, when I explained rule Minus one to him.
"Uh.. Internet? What is that? And what... is a DM? Who?"
Cliff looked at the scene again with curiosity. "I never found out..."
The strange entity existed in the universe, like a bot-net would in the internet. It was a strange entity, almost innocent and lacking in understanding. It knew its place of course. To try and maintain the 'way of things', the natural order of the cosmos, even as those very strange animals called 'humans' created gods in their strange minds.
It was bored though. (once it had a concept for boredom) After all, gas tended to expand and do its thing quite happily without much interference and there were only so many combinations to see once it all looked the same. It made sure that entropy was working as it should, if it looked like it was getting lazy... it gave it a little push.
One day this creature would be known as 'the Enemy'... but today, it wasn't anything. Not yet, any way... but right now it was exploring reality, in the only way it knew how. ... in a game of dungeons and dragons, as a DM on the internet.
Rule Minus One is an interesting concept it thought to itself after that game.
We should add this to the collective, and learn about the symmetry of this world. Rules for the masters, rules for the players... it makes logical sense.
Analysis complete. Negative rules would naturally be about unmaking things. While the positive rules are about creating a situation, the negative ones are about removing them. Reality can be altered. If a situation is too complicated, a negative rule can be invoked.
Slowly they processed this new information...
The cat girl watched sadly. _So... my past life is really gone. That's why I don't have a name... that's why I don't exist," she said looking to Cliff.
Cliff looked down. "What happened to you was too painful. Your life was of constant pain and nothing we ever did make a difference... I... I had to do it. For you... and me. You're not even the same race any more any way... so... just live and do whatever you want. I don't... really have anything to do with it."
"I want to make you proud of me!" She said.
"... you can't," said Cliff. "You're not... you're not even... urgh! Have you seen your stats?! You've got a strength of 8! what am I supposed to do with you!"
The cat girl started to cry.
"Oh- jeez- urgh... just.. calm down okay?"
"G-Give me a name Creator... please... if nothing else... just... just let me have that."
Cliff looked at the green eyed cat-girl with some sadness. What the hell was this... why should he even care about an imaginary creature. God damn it, why wont he wake up! "Fine.. er... well... you've got green eyes. I guess I'll call you... Esmeralda."
There was a sudden flash of green light...
